Episode 66: Superforecasting

Whether it’s the 1903 New York Times article that claimed a flying machine was ten million years away, or the record executive who (allegedly) told the Beatles in the early 1960s that guitar bands were on the way out, predictions are hard.

In this episode of The Studies Show, Tom and Stuart discuss the psychologist Philip Tetlock’s research on superforecasters, the people who make the most accurate predictions of all. Even if you can’t become a superforecaster yourself, it turns out there’s a lot we can learn from them about how to form beliefs—and how to be right more often.

The Studies Show is brought to you by Works in Progress magazine, where this week Tom has written a review of the new book, Doctored, about fraud in Alzheimer’s research. Read that and many other short pieces on the Works in Progress Substack at worksinprogress.news.

Show notes

* A book chapter on the “Expert Political Judgement” study from Philip Tetlock

* Research on how people interpret terms like “a serious possibility” and “likely”

* Research that argues against the idea that teaming up makes superforecasters better

* Study on the correlates of being a good superforecaster (i.e. having a low Brier score)

* A paper on “small steps to accuracy”: how people who update their beliefs more often are better forecasters

* Philip Tetlock and Dan Gardner’s book Superforecasting

* Julia Galef’s book The Scout Mindset

* Tom’s book, Everything is Predictable

* Tom’s review of Mervyn King’s book, Radical Uncertainty

Credits

The Studies Show is produced by Julian Mayers at Yada Yada Productions.