Name: Superforecasting.
Age: First published in 2015.
Appearance: Hardback, paperback, Kindle or audiobook – your choice.
It’s a book, is it? Yes, by Philip Tetlock and Dan Gardner. The full title is Superforecasting: The Art and Science of Prediction.
What’s it about? It’s about how most experts are rubbish at making predictions, but some people are very good at it, and how you can learn to be more like the latter.
So, how can I? Read the book and find out.
Just tell me. No. You must read it.
Who says? Dominic Cummings. And read it carefully as there will be questions.
Questions? When? At an away day next month. Supplementary reading includes High Output Management by Andrew Grove, a business classic from the author of Only the Paranoid Survive.
How did I miss this assignment? You must have skipped the weekly meeting Cummings held with government advisers.
I did, but only because I’m not a government adviser. This is not the first time he has recommended the book. “Read Philip Tetlock’s Superforecasters, instead of political pundits who don’t know what they’re talking about,” he told reporters in February.
In response to what? To questions about the appointment of Andrew Sabisky, a government adviser and self-proclaimed superforecaster who, it transpired, had previously espoused eugenicist views.
How did such a controversial thinker get into Downing Street in the first place? He answered a call from Cummings for “misfits and weirdos” to apply for jobs at Number 10.
Could someone with finely honed prognostic skills not have predicted all this? I knew you were going to say that.
Returning to February, can you remind me how Cummings was superforecasting the Covid-19 response back then? According to a Sunday Times investigation, he revealed the government’s strategy at a private engagement, which those present paraphrased as “herd immunity, protect the economy and if that means some pensioners die, too bad”.
That panned out well. Cummings denies this. At any rate, by March he was embracing a more proactive response to the coronavirus.
As I recall, he went so far as to get Covid-19 symptoms. True. Then he superforecast that it would be a good idea to drive to Barnard Castle during lockdown in order to test his eyesight.
And I predicted he would get the sack for that. Shows what I know. Read the book, mate.
Do say: “Forecasting is not a talent; it’s a skill that can be cultivated.”
Don’t say: “Don’t worry, Dominic. I read the first 15 pages and then I guessed how it would end.”