Mobs, Messiahs, and Markets

Empire of Experts

The problem is that modern society forces human beings to interact in groups far larger than their brains can handle effectively. In the public spectacles of modern governments and armies, people are asked to decide on issues that affect the lives of tens and hundreds of thousands of people. They have to understand budgets that juggle with dollar figures of millions, billions, and even trillions. They grope in the bilge for something to hang onto and finding nothing that they remotely understand, they turn—like the social creatures they are—to others for guidance. In the old days, they would have consulted the headman of the tribe or an elder, the witch doctor, or a wise woman. Lacking these today, people do their best. They thumb through Thomas Friedman's columns. If they are investors, they scan the ratings given by the analysts. They even listen to Jim Cramer.

How do they know whether what experts know is any more useful ultimately than what they know? They don't. And, in many cases, it isn't.

In his book, Expert Political Judgment—How Good Is It? How Can We Know?, political psychologist Philip Tetlock reports on his 20‐year study of some 287 political experts whom he asked a range of questions: Would there be a nonviolent end to apartheid in South Africa? Would the United States go to war in the Persian Gulf? Would Canada disintegrate? At the end of the study, he had collected 82,361 forecasts. Tetlock then wanted to find out how his subjects had made their ...