The Limits of Wisdom

Nicholas Kristoff starts off his column today with a question, "Ever wonder how financial experts could lead the world over the economic cliff?" His answer is that experts don't really know what they are talking about. He cites the research of Philip Tetlock. Tetlock finds that experts' forecasts on a variety of topics is only slightly better than random forecasts.

The expert on experts is Philip Tetlock, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley. His 2005 book, “Expert Political Judgment,” is based on two decades of tracking some 82,000 predictions by 284 experts. The experts’ forecasts were tracked both on the subjects of their specialties and on subjects that they knew little about.

The result? The predictions of experts were, on average, only a tiny bit better than random guesses — the equivalent of a chimpanzee throwing darts at a board.

“It made virtually no difference whether participants had doctorates, whether they were economists, political scientists, journalists or historians, whether they had policy experience or access to classified information, or whether they had logged many or few years of experience,” Mr. Tetlock wrote.

The only thing worse than an expert, he writes, is a famous expert. Famous experts, ie Jim Cramer, make worse predictions than the chimpanzee and the dart board.

Meanwhile, the political scientists at the Monkey Room have been loudly complaining about the lack of expertise in political journalism, in response to an article by Matt Bai. Bai wrote that political science experts know less than journalists about the world and political affairs. Maybe Kristoff saw that debate. Or maybe he's smarting over recent criticism of his columns. 

Does my PhD and years of teaching/research give me any edge of understanding politics? How about all you economists and business leaders? Do education professionals know the best way to educate kids? When I taught at a premier teachers college, students were horrified that parents and average citizens could have a hand in crafting education policy. Do you need a PhD to know that your kid learns better one way and not the other? 

Expertise does a much better job at explaining the past than it does in predicting the future. It provides a context for present predicaments, it provides various lens for understanding the present, it is able to provide options for future plans, and it can take certain options off the table based on past experiences. Experts shouldn't be in the business of crystal ball reading.

Any expert worth his salt has to admit his own ignorance. Like Socrates, we should know the limits of human wisdom.

Are we in the midst of a mini-populist revolution here? The masses are crashing the gates of academia and high wage financial CEOs. They are taking apart the media pundits. They taking back bonus money and e-mailing YouTube clips of Jon Stewart. Part of me is highly amused. Part of me is shifting in my seat.