Ever wonder why those talking heads on TV who seem to know all the answers, about sports or the markets, aren't getting fabulously wealthy investing their own money? Well, so does the CIA!
The CIA recently declassified Rob Johnston's Integrating Methodologists into Teams of Substantive Experts, and it's a fascinating paper about how to integrate information from experts. It's applied to the intelligence gathering, but his results seem pretty general.
Key part:
The CIA recently declassified Rob Johnston's Integrating Methodologists into Teams of Substantive Experts, and it's a fascinating paper about how to integrate information from experts. It's applied to the intelligence gathering, but his results seem pretty general.
Key part:
Intelligence analysis, like other complex tasks, demands considerable expertise. It requires individuals who can recognize patterns in large data sets, solve complex problems, and make predictions about future behavior or events. To perform these tasks successfully, analysts must dedicate a considerable number of years to researching specific topics, processes, and geographic regions. ...
The very method by which one becomes an expert explains why experts are much better at describing, explaining, performing tasks, and problem-solving within their domains than are novices, but, with a few exceptions, are worse at forecasting than actuarial tables based on historical, statistical models.
HedgeFundGuy - am 2005-09-15 03:20
Paul N (anonymous) meinte am 15. Sep, 22:25:
We shouldn't be surprised that statistical models are better than experts, should we? I guess the question is, are novices better at forecasting than experts?If so, is this a self-deception thing? One of the most interesting things I've read recently was a "People's Almanac" from the 1970s that I found dumpster diving, where all these famous scientists predicted the future (eg. what the world would be like in 2000) and not a single one was even remotely right; most were painfully awful.
