Sunday, May 1, 2016

Daniel Little — Predicting, forecasting, and superforecasting


Issues in forecasting social events versus predicting natural events.

Understanding Society
Predicting, forecasting, and superforecasting
Daniel Little | Chancellor of the University of Michigan-Dearborn, Professor of Philosophy at UM-Dearborn and Professor of Sociology at UM-Ann Arbor

2 comments:

Matt Franko said...

"And others, like the stock market, are discontinuous and stochastic, with lots of random events pushing prices up and down."

I dont think this is true... it is commonly believed to be so though... prices are determined...

Hence you get the DSGE type of analysis which never works...

Ryan Harris said...

Fortunately stats provides robust tools to analyze large and complex data with strict constraints on what sort of inference and extrapolation are possible, so that economists don't fall into the traps of abstract orthox-econ faux mathiness with willy nilly predictions, nor the unknowable un-world of philosophy and never have to tread upon the mysteries of the metaphysical. Social sciences and politicians have used statistics more responsibly for years.