Abstract
This book is about superforecasters, people who are able to envisage the future in a superb way. The authors conducted a multiyear forecasting study called the Good Judgement Project (GJP), made up of thousands of ordinary people, who all volunteered to forecast global events. This was the largest and most rigorous study of prediction to date. Some of the forecasters were astonishingly good, able to envisage the future with high accuracy. The authors wanted to understand the keys for the superforecasters’ success. They show that forecasting can improve with experience and thinking, that foresight is not a gift but rather a product of a particular way of thinking (pp. 68–72).
Philip Tetlock and Dan Gardner tell the story of the GJP (pp. 87–104), they explain its success and they interviewed high-profile decision-makers to show what good forecasting means. The authors argue that superforecasters are intellectually cautious, humble and nondeterministic (p. 191). They are open-minded, with a dragonfly eye to diverse views (pp. 124–127), pragmatic and cognisant of the value of checking their thinking for cognitive and emotional biases. Superforecasters are relentless, determined to keep at their investigation however long it takes (pp. 154–155), uncomfortable with their tentative conclusions and thus testing them with the aim to get better and to improve. Superforecasters are also reflective and comfortable with numbers (pp. 128–129).
Superforecasting involves gathering evidence from a variety of sources, learning to think probabilistically (pp. 140–152), working in teams (pp. 201–204), keeping score within time frameworks (p. 236) and having the ability and willingness to admit error and change the course of action when this is deemed necessary (pp. 159–166, 192). Tetlock and Gardner think that the most important qualities for superforecasting are (a) intelligence and (b) the degree to which people are committed to belief updating and self-improvement. In their terms, these are perpetual beta people (p. 192).
The book is very engaging. The story is captivating. The lessons are scientific, well measured, practical and thought-provoking. The flow of writing makes a compelling thesis that is important and timely, with direct implications on our lives, whether the reader is a leader who has to face tough decisions, a strategist who is engaged with complicated decision-making processes, a political analyst who is tasked to envisage who will win the next election, or a person who wishes to invest in the stock market. This brilliant book offers something to every reader. You will surely enjoy it. May I predict that this book will now be on your list of must reads?