[OPE] Nicholas D. Kristof on "the experts"

NYT op-ed journalist Nick Kristof has a great column in the NYT on the
pitfalls of "experts" and pundits:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/26/opinion/26Kristof.html?em

He concludes: "Professor Tetlock [
http://money.cnn.com/2009/02/17/pf/experts_Tetlock.moneymag/index.htm ]
suggests that various foundations might try to create a "trans-ideological
Consumer Reports for punditry," monitoring and evaluating the records of
various experts and pundits as a public service. I agree: Hold us
accountable!"

But in fact, if we are interested in science, we can do far better than
that: we can analyze whose forecasts and analyses were better than others,
and what is the most likely cause. In other words, we could view the history
of prediction and analysis as a laboratory and sort out the wheat from the
chaff. As Hegel said, "Theory is grey". Unfortunately this kind of thing
rarely happens because people are only interested in the newest and the
latest and everything has to be instant.

Jurriaan

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Received on Sat Mar 28 05:25:32 2009