Predicting the future: Why some people are better than others

I have been reading a fascinating book about why some people are better at predicting the future than others. It is called Superforecasting: The Art and Science of Prediction, by Philip Tetlock and Dan Gardner. Professor Tetlock carried out an experiment asking experts to make measurable predictions about the economy and world events, which found that the average expert was no better than a dart-throwing chimpanzee.

But that doesn't mean that all experts are useless. Some are consistently better than others, and he tries to identify what makes them so.

I'm aware that political commentators make a lot of predictions, but rarely spend any time assessing whether they got it right or why they got it wrong.

I have written about the book a few times recently, and my attempts to become better than a dart-throwing chimp, so I thought I would try to explain what I think political commentators can learn from it.