Philip E. Tetlock Quotes
The experts, for all their superior knowledge, rarely do better than chance in predicting future events.
Despite this reality, most politicians, if they have the resources and high enough position, surround themselves with experts to advise them and then listen to them to take positions in campaigns or advise them on policy making if they are in office.
Philip E. Tetlock, Psychologist & Management Expert, Expert Political Judgment: How Good Is It? How Can We Know?
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
He is absolutely right, but unfortunately made this statement several years after he served as the Fed Chairman. He never made a statement like this when he and his colleagues made their policies based on their economic forecasting. Central bankers have generally felt that one of their jobs was to give the people confidence in the nation’s banking system and economy and the admission that much policy making was based on “coin toss” forecasting.
He does not claim that a prediction may not coincidentally turn out to be accurate—just that the predictor has no certainty whatsoever and at best was guessing and at worse manipulating.
Philip E. Tetlock (born 1954) is a Canadian-American political science writer, and is currently the Annenberg University Professor at the University of Pennsylvania, where he is cross-appointed at the Wharton School and the School of Arts and Sciences. He was elected a Member of the American Philosophical Society in 2019.
