- Image by angel_malachite via Flickr
The Forecast is Wrong.
Humans are lousy at predicting the future. There seems to be something in the way our minds are wired that resists that truth because no matter how many times we make bad forecasts, we insist on going right back and making another. We continue to believe that predicting the future is possible and that with enough effort, the right data and algorithms we will get it right yet. We continue to predict economic conditions, political elections, the weather and almost anything else. And we continue to get it wrong. But we don’t accept this continuing failure as evidence that we should stop forecasting.
We Don’t Learn!
In spite of dismal failure to forecast the future (with occasional gusts of good guesses), we persist in making forecasts and they are wrong. We refine the data (or cheat if we are the United Nations), tweak the assumptions and improve the mathematics and go right back at it. When, inexplicably despite our statistical mumbo-jumbo and applied mathematics we are wrong, we study the process. We search for better data. We change our assumptions until we can make it give us the right answer (what really happened). And after we bludgeon the model to give us the right answer, we convince ourselves that we can use it to make another prediction. We still get it wrong.
We Want to Believe
Why is is that we still listen to these charlatans? Why do we continue to pay for the services of these ineffective Tarot card readers and use their advice to make important decisions about our lives in spite of their miserable track record? Why do we believe in their mathematical precision and statistical accuracy? I don’t know? You tell me.
I love this article Ralph. Makes me think of 2012. Or better yet when I was a kid all I heard about was that in 1982 the world would end. Ha… Wow truth be told I was scared it really would. Wonder what youngsters who know no better think today about 2010 or some other predictions that are just that predictions..
I will say one thing, they have gotten better at predicting the weather but thats about it huh?
.-= Lee´s last blog ..Keep it Simple Don’t throw the Baby out with the Bath Water =-.
Lee,
And of course there is always ‘Global Warming’. Thanks for stopping by.
I enjoyed reading your article. I agree, humans are bad at predicting the future. And I would like to add that we always make the same mistakes again.
And you’ve hit it on the spot: “We change our assumptions until we can make it give us the right answer (what really happened).” We always try to find rules within everything. The climate, global warming, how the world behaves but we always get it wrong. I guess getting it wrong is good because it means that we learn but still. Afterwards we create a new assumption that explains what has happened, but this assumption is still wrong in the end.
.-= Julius Kuhn-Regnier´s last blog ..The 3 Unwritten Rules of Blogging =-.