Looks like someone’s crystal ball didn’t survive the stress test—fitting since most expert predictions don’t either. Tetlock showed us that forecasters are about as reliable as a coin toss, but we still fall for their theatrics. Why? Because “the world might muddle through just fine” doesn’t sell airtime. Meanwhile, Canada keeps calmly not imploding, and the EU somehow limps along with its usual paperwork and wine debates. The moral? If your crystal ball looks cracked, it’s probably just being honest. "Every day, experts bombard us with predictions, but how reliable are they? Until a few years ago, no one bothered to check. Then along came Philip Tetlock. Over a period of ten years, he evaluated 28,361 predictions from 284 self-appointed professionals. The result: In terms of accuracy, the experts fared only marginally better than a random forecast generator. Ironically, the media darlings were among the poorest performers; and of those, the worst were the prophets of doom and disintegration. Examples of their far-fetched forecasts included the collapse of Canada, Nigeria, China, India, Indonesia, South Africa, Belgium, and the EU. None of these countries has imploded." The Art of Thinking Clearly Rolf Dobelli