Synopses & Reviews
For fans of
Blink,
Tipping Point,
Freakonomics and Gardner's own bestselling
Risk.
After World War I, experts pronounced that another war of that scale was impossible. In the 1970s, the blockbuster book The Population Bomb predicted famines and catastrophe by the Millenium. Just before last year's global collapse, most pundits were predicting stable, modest growth for the industrialized world. Every day, experts in the media opine on the latest trend or crisis. When they're wrong, as they most often are, we tend to forget because we have already moved on to the next crisis. Intellectually, we know they're wrong, but we listen to them anyway. Why on earth do we continue to do this?
It's because we crave certainty, because the unknown is unsettling. In other words, it's comforting. But it's also counterproductive.
Since the 1970s, American psychologist Phillip Tetlock has studied thousands of expert predictions and has incontrovertibly shown that experts are about as accurate as "dart-throwing monkeys." He has also shown that their accuracy drops as their exposure and fame increases. This is because the media require one easily digestible soundbite, and many experts are so in love with their one big theory that they can always interpret events to fit.
In Future Babble, best-selling author Dan Gardner tackles this subject with his trademark clarity and wit. He examines the latest science and psychology to show how our brains are hard-wired for answers and certainty, and how that plays into the fallacy of expert predictions. He also shows us how we can train our brains to be more accepting of uncertainty, and how that will help us navigate more successfully the complicated world we inhabit.
Brilliant, funny, and accessible, Gardner is one of our rising non-fiction stars.
Synopsis
In 2008, as the price of oil surged above $140 a barrel, experts said it would soon hit $200; a few months later it plunged to $30. In 1967, they said the USSR would have one of the fastest-growing economies in the year 2000; in 2000, the USSR did not exist. In 1911, it was pronounced that there would be no more wars in Europe; we all know how that turned out. Face it, experts are about as accurate as dart-throwing monkeys. And yet every day we ask them to predict the future — everything from the weather to the likelihood of a catastrophic terrorist attack.
Future Babble is the first book to examine this phenomenon, showing why our brains yearn for certainty about the future, why we are attracted to those who predict it confidently, and why it’s so easy for us to ignore the trail of outrageously wrong forecasts.
In this fast-paced, example-packed, sometimes darkly hilarious book, journalist Dan Gardner shows how seminal research by UC Berkeley professor Philip Tetlock proved that pundits who are more famous are less accurate — and the average expert is no more accurate than a flipped coin. Gardner also draws on current research in cognitive psychology, political science, and behavioral economics to discover something quite reassuring: The future is always uncertain, but the end is not always near.
About the Author
DAN GARDNER is a prize-winning journalist and author of Risk: Why We Fear the Things We Shouldn't — and Put Ourselves in Greater Danger. He is a senior writer and columnist at the Ottawa Citizen, and a popular public speaker. He holds a law degree and master's in history.
Table of Contents
PREFACE
ONE INTRODUCTION
TWO THE UNPREDICTABLE WORLD
THREE IN THE MINDS OF EXPERTS
FOUR THE EXPERTS AGREE: EXPECT MUCH MORE OF THE SAME
FIVE UNSETTLED BY UNCERTAINTY
SIX EVERYONE LOVES A HEDGEHOG
SEVEN WHEN PROPHETS FAIL
EIGHT THE END
NOTES
BIBLIOGRAPHY
INDEX