The Population Bomb shared Paul Ehrlich’s predictions about the future. After his doom-laden warnings about mass starvation and the need for population control, by compulsion if necessary, Ehrlich asked, “What if I’m wrong?” What if his Malthusian thinking is a mistake? (See here for Malthus). The author was trying to make the point that it…
Category: Forecasting
Progress Exists And Is A Good Thing
Matt Ridley is an interesting writer. A popular science/ideas writer he gives you his thoughts on a wide variety of subjects. I do admire his willingness to adopt an overarching narrative. To be honest, at times it can seem a bit too much for my tastes. His libertarian-esque views tend to see him damning a…
Bayes’ Theorem And Common Sense
Today we look at Bayes’ theorem and common sense highlighting the role of prior beliefs. How Should We Think About Probabilities? There is a big rift in the way people think about probabilities. (This is in addition to he normal challenges doing the math). Events either happen or they don’t. We can think of probabilities…
How Long Will We Be Unhappy?
A fascinating line of research tackles the problem of affective forecasting. Such forecasting involves questions such as: How Long Will We Be Unhappy? Affective Forecasting This area of research studies our predictions of how we will feel when events happen. We typically aren’t very good at affective forecasting. .. expectations are often important and often wrong. They are important…
Improving Forecasting
Philip Tetlock’s book on expert political judgment was a classic. That said, he clearly thinks that the message taken from that book was too strong. Previously he suggested that experts just aren’t that good at forecasting. He still retains that theme in his new work — but now he is more interested in improving forecasting. Improving Forecasting…
