Excessive confidence in prediction capacity
Name(s):
Overestimation of ability to forecast
Claim
1. Through the use of computers and high-powered mathematics, economists have created a largely fraudulent aura of scientific competence. Practitioners have made large sums by pretending to be able to predict the economic future. Their forecasts have not proved to be accurate to any significant degree. Egotistical forecasters and super salespeople have given the profession a bad name.
2. Trusting climate models is to overestimate ability to predict, because these models do not handle feedbacks and surprises, like the ozone hole over Antarctica. Therefore, we should be more careful about what we are doing and much more observant of how the system works.
Aggravates
Aggravated by
Strategy(ies)
Reference(s)
Type
(F) Fuzzy exceptional problems