Expert Political Judgment

Philip E. Tetlock tests how well experts actually predict political events and finds that they are often no better than most other people, and rarely held to account when wrong. He first weighs arguments that the world is too complex for anyone to forecast political developments, then compares expert predictions across fields with those of well-informed laypeople and with simple extrapolations of current trends. Borrowing Isaiah Berlin's contrast between the fox and the hedgehog, he finds that foxes, who know many small things and borrow widely from traditions and improvise, forecast better than hedgehogs, who know one big thing and apply set formulas to messy problems. A later edition adds a preface on newer research in the field.

Marc Andreessen recommended it in a Twitter thread, arguing that pundits ought to publish their prediction track records but do not. Patrick Collison lists it on his bookshelf page.