incertidumbre crónica

Recomiendo la lectura de este artículo: mas o menos el título sería "sobreponiendose a la aversión a reconocer la propia ignorancia"

Each December, The Economist forecasts the coming year in a special issue called The World in Whatever-The-Next-Year-Is. It’s avidly read around the world. But then, like most forecasts, it’s forgotten.



The editors may regret that short shelf-life some years, but surely not this one. Even now, only halfway through the year, The World in 2011 bears little resemblance to the world in 2011. Of the political turmoil in the Middle East—the revolutionary movements in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Yemen, Bahrain, and Syria—we find no hint in The Economist‘s forecast. Nor do we find a word about the earthquake/tsunami and consequent disasters in Japan or the spillover effects on the viability of nuclear power around the world. Or the killing of Osama bin Laden and the spillover effects for al Qaeda and Pakistani and Afghan politics. So each of the top three global events of the first half of 2011 were as unforeseen by The Economist as the next great asteroid strike.

This is not to mock The Economist, which has an unusually deep bench of well-connected observers and analytical talent. A vast array of other individuals and organizations issued forecasts for 2011 and none, to the best of our knowledge, correctly predicted the top three global events of the first half of the year. None predicted two of the events. Or even one. No doubt, there are sporadic exceptions of which we’re unaware. So many pundits make so many predictions that a few are bound to be bull’s eyes. But it is a fact that almost all the best and brightest—in governments, universities, corporations, and intelligence agencies—were taken by surprise. Repeatedly.


That is all too typical. Despite massive investments of money, effort, and ingenuity, our ability to predict human affairs is impressive only in its mediocrity. With metronomic regularity, what is expected does not come to pass, while what isn’t, does.

sigue acá:

http://www.cato-unbound.org/2011/07/11/dan-gardner-and-philip-tetlock/overcoming-our-aversion-to-acknowledging-our-ignorance/