Future Babble: Why Expert Predictions Fail-- and why We Believe Them Anyway

ISBN-10: 0771035195
ISBN-13: 9780771035197
Category: Psychology
Pages: 305
Language: English
Published: 2010
Publisher: McClelland & Stewart
Author: Dan Gardner

Description

For fans of Blink, Tipping Point, Freakonomics and Gardner's own bestselling Risk.

After World War I, experts pronounced that another war of that scale was impossible. In the 1970s, the blockbuster book The Population Bomb predicted famines and catastrophe by the Millenium. Just before last year's global collapse, most pundits were predicting stable, modest growth for the industrialized world. Every day, experts in the media opine on the latest trend or crisis. When they're wrong, as they most often are, we tend to forget because we have already moved on to the next crisis. Intellectually, we know they're wrong, but we listen to them anyway. Why on earth do we continue to do this?

It's because we crave certainty, because the unknown is unsettling. In other words, it's comforting. But it's also counterproductive.

Since the 1970s, American psychologist Phillip Tetlock has studied thousands of expert predictions and has incontrovertibly shown that experts are about as accurate as "dart-throwing monkeys." He has also shown that their accuracy drops as their exposure and fame increases. This is because the media require one easily digestible soundbite, and many experts are so in love with their one big theory that they can always interpret events to fit.

In Future Babble, best-selling author Dan Gardner tackles this subject with his trademark clarity and wit. He examines the latest science and psychology to show how our brains are hard-wired for answers and certainty, and how that plays into the fallacy of expert predictions. He also shows us how we can train our brains to be more accepting of uncertainty, and how that will help us navigate more successfully the complicated world we inhabit.

Brilliant, funny, and accessible, Gardner is one of our rising non-fiction stars.

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Other editions

Future Babble: Why Expert Predictions Fail - and Why We...
- 2010-10-12
- 320 pages
- Paperback
- McClelland & Stewart
Future Babble: Why Pundits Are Hedgehogs and Foxes Know Best
- 2011-03-17
- 320 pages
- Ebook
- Penguin

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