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.