Stowe Boyd: Political Scientists Aren't: Their Forecasts Are Worse Than Random

Paul Higgins: We are continually having the conversation with people about how forecasting does not work in any complex and/or fast moving environment. I commonly use Tetlock’s work as the resource to back that up. The main question is how do we respond in the real world where we have to make decisions despite the failure of forecasting. The first step is to get people to realise the reality - and that is harder than you might think. I like to say if TV is the opium of the masses then forecasting is the opium of the corporate planner. The second step is to do strategy differently - to feel and experiment your way forward. Again this is difficult because people hate the inherent lack of control and the lack of being the one who “knows the answers” irrespective of the fact that planning using forecasting only gives the illusion of control.

stoweboyd:

There is a stubborn logical fallacy at work in the world of political forecasting, and that is a belief in the inherent determinism of the universe. As Karl Popper wrote in The Open Universe, scientific determinism is

the doctrine that the structure of the world is such that any event can be…

(Source: The New York Times)