Comments georgenattaner has made

  • Fuzzy Recursion

    Dave, thanks for your response.

    The appearance of disagreement can arise when people agree with each other too loudly.  Could this be the current case?  I agree that those with pretension to certitude are difficult to live with.  I agree, too, that the socio-economic consequences are intriguing and even (I fear) alluring.  A closet survivalist is harbored within many of us.

    But is there not also an issue of getting horse and cart arranged in useful order?  Right now the disagreement between sober, creditable, petro-geologists is still significant (compare USGS projections and Deffreyes).  I doubt that we could make useful socio-economic projections (i.e. avoiding mere propaganda) on the basis of this current understanding.  Perhaps we should focus instead on setting aside the annoyingly pretentious  and demand that work be done on duller, vital things.  For example, Simmons makes a sustained effort in "Twilight in the Desert" to make people see that we need better data.  As you know, history has numerous examples where  this class of boring, difficult and actionable advice was regrettably relegated to back burners.

    Alas, I still haven't read "Expert Political Judgment".  After this I will refrain from reposting until I can actually contribute.On What's a prediction worth? posted 3 years, 12 months ago 17 Responses

  • The judgment of judgment

    Does this thread strike anyone as a little odd?  We are talking about a book that no one seems to have read.  It is not clear if most of us are even willing to look over the highlighted review.  In short, this thread (including this post) might be best used as fodder for a wry paragraph or two in Skeptic magazine.

    In all events, thanks to David Roberts for pointing out the review.  It was interesting and I confess to the hope of getting my hands on the actual book soon.

    The review reports that the analysis involved 284 experts in politics and economics (not 800 as asserted elsewhere).  These two fields are notoriously fuzzy.  Moreover, the experts were tracked across 20 years and more than 82,000 (!) predictions.  Thats an average of 290 predictions apiece.  That is a scarely believable number of predictions.  It seems safe to surmise that only a few of these predictions actually fell into the expert's field of study.  If true, then it is no surprise that these predictions were no better than predictions from non-experts.  One is left to wonder how helpful it is to do an analysis of experts in fuzzy-studies making predictions outside the area of their expertise.  I guess I do need to get ahold of that book.

    By the way, my apologies if anyone is offended by my references to the fields of economics as "fuzzy".  I don't intend to smear the value of the research, nor do I seek to blame the individuals doing the research for the "fuzzy" quality.  It is merely that a  geologist can use neighboring outcrops and boreholes to predict what a new borehole will encounter.  I know of no equivalent cirmcumstance for a political scientist or economist.  

    The poster who thought it was caricature to label analysts as hedgehogs or foxes was exactly right.

    So I ask, why link this study to Peak Oil?  Peak Oil, like every other serious topic, has its own suite of idiot-advocates; but I hope that we are not going to let idiots drive the discussion.  Obviously, people with a deep familiarity with the field (such as Deffeyes) should get a critical and open-minded hearing.  We are not such fools that we would dismiss the evidence of experts because they have expertise.
    On What's a prediction worth? posted 3 years, 12 months ago 17 Responses