Great article, Dan. In my business career, I have seen numerous instances where executives don't have the intellectual horsepower to deal with measures of uncertainty. Unfortunate for them and their decisions.
After the Iraq War, checking up on pundit prediction accuracy seems like checking whether the Indy 500 should have had speeding tickets.
Weighing in for-or-against the Iraq War was the most-consequential thing journalists could do in a generation, since about a million people eventually died of the second-order effects on stability.
The New York Times, famously, apologized, not for merely calling it wrong, but for actively helping Cheney spread disinformation to sell the war. The Washington Post, where Fred Hiatt approved 27 op-eds in favour of war, and two against, infamously did not apologize. They instead did an editorial-board op-ed at their angry readers, explaining how they thought that the danger of not-acting was the greater danger. (In 2007, they admitted to not being skeptical enough), though they were STILL saying "the decision was right, the execution was wrong":
I guess the worst predictions for this year, were the military pundits confidently predicting that Putin would not really invade - a day or so before he did. But NOTHING comes remotely close to the mistake of saying that Saddam, who hated Islamists, captured, tortured and killed them, was really about to conspire with the deadly enemies that volunteered to push him out of Kuwait in '91, to actually give them a Bomb. That was dead-crazy nuts, there was an entire movie ("Shock and Awe") about how Knight-Ridder journalists got it right, and the big dailies ignored them.
Sorry, it might be necessary, 20 years of journalistic history later, to remind readers that the casus belli was the *prediction* that troops would find a nuclear weapons program, to prevent a "smoking gun in the shape of a mushroom cloud", since nobody was about to send kids off to prevent Saddam from ever using the old VX nerve-gas shells he conspicuously didn't use in 1991.
The "mobile weapons labs" that Colin Powell disgraced himself promoting, the presentation the Wall St. Journal gave the one-word headline "IRREFUTABLE" to, were merely proof that even more WMDs were in development, including nukes that Scott Ritter couldn't find because of Saddam's opposition.
The "WMDs in general" search was a 2003 invention, when the lack of a nuclear program was obvious. The "humanitarian" reason for war, was a 2004 invention, when not even gas shells could be found.
But if you read the papers for 2002, it was all about predicting they'd find a nuclear reactor making bombs. And the Post believed THAT decision was "right" five years later.
Apologies if off-topic, because you mostly mean "economic predictions"; it's just the guys who called it so wrong didn't just not-look-back at their failure, they defended it all. They got promoted, failing upwards. Everybody kept their job.
So, if you can get a million-dead-bodies prediction that wrong, and fail upwards, why would any of them give a crap about calling the inflation number wrong one year?
That was my source of outrage, I guess. Tiptoeing off.
Really ought to mention Nate Silver! He's the leader in providing predictions as well as later reviews of his predictions. But the basic point here is excellent and well said. Thanks.
Yeah, that's fair. I suppose I don't see Silver in the same category because he really doesn't provide forecasts of the sort most pundits do but instead sticks mostly to poll aggregation, etc. But yes, he's definitely numerical and does keep score!
Great article, Dan. In my business career, I have seen numerous instances where executives don't have the intellectual horsepower to deal with measures of uncertainty. Unfortunate for them and their decisions.
After the Iraq War, checking up on pundit prediction accuracy seems like checking whether the Indy 500 should have had speeding tickets.
Weighing in for-or-against the Iraq War was the most-consequential thing journalists could do in a generation, since about a million people eventually died of the second-order effects on stability.
The New York Times, famously, apologized, not for merely calling it wrong, but for actively helping Cheney spread disinformation to sell the war. The Washington Post, where Fred Hiatt approved 27 op-eds in favour of war, and two against, infamously did not apologize. They instead did an editorial-board op-ed at their angry readers, explaining how they thought that the danger of not-acting was the greater danger. (In 2007, they admitted to not being skeptical enough), though they were STILL saying "the decision was right, the execution was wrong":
https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/17/AR2007031700950.html
I guess the worst predictions for this year, were the military pundits confidently predicting that Putin would not really invade - a day or so before he did. But NOTHING comes remotely close to the mistake of saying that Saddam, who hated Islamists, captured, tortured and killed them, was really about to conspire with the deadly enemies that volunteered to push him out of Kuwait in '91, to actually give them a Bomb. That was dead-crazy nuts, there was an entire movie ("Shock and Awe") about how Knight-Ridder journalists got it right, and the big dailies ignored them.
Nothing else compares.
Sorry, it might be necessary, 20 years of journalistic history later, to remind readers that the casus belli was the *prediction* that troops would find a nuclear weapons program, to prevent a "smoking gun in the shape of a mushroom cloud", since nobody was about to send kids off to prevent Saddam from ever using the old VX nerve-gas shells he conspicuously didn't use in 1991.
The "mobile weapons labs" that Colin Powell disgraced himself promoting, the presentation the Wall St. Journal gave the one-word headline "IRREFUTABLE" to, were merely proof that even more WMDs were in development, including nukes that Scott Ritter couldn't find because of Saddam's opposition.
The "WMDs in general" search was a 2003 invention, when the lack of a nuclear program was obvious. The "humanitarian" reason for war, was a 2004 invention, when not even gas shells could be found.
But if you read the papers for 2002, it was all about predicting they'd find a nuclear reactor making bombs. And the Post believed THAT decision was "right" five years later.
Apologies if off-topic, because you mostly mean "economic predictions"; it's just the guys who called it so wrong didn't just not-look-back at their failure, they defended it all. They got promoted, failing upwards. Everybody kept their job.
So, if you can get a million-dead-bodies prediction that wrong, and fail upwards, why would any of them give a crap about calling the inflation number wrong one year?
That was my source of outrage, I guess. Tiptoeing off.
No, thank you for underscoring the fundamental point: This stuff matters. In spades.
A bunch of high-status people got an important prediction wrong and didn't suffer for it. SO FUCK PREDICTION!!!
Brother, I wish you could follow me around and provide tight summaries of all my long-winded rants. Thanks.
Really ought to mention Nate Silver! He's the leader in providing predictions as well as later reviews of his predictions. But the basic point here is excellent and well said. Thanks.
Yeah, that's fair. I suppose I don't see Silver in the same category because he really doesn't provide forecasts of the sort most pundits do but instead sticks mostly to poll aggregation, etc. But yes, he's definitely numerical and does keep score!
Keynes said something about providing forecasts not because he knew, but because he was asked. There is still a market for them.
The political future of the free world is too important to allow accuracy to gauge success
/s
I am looking at predictive medicine ………