Mellers ran several studies and found that, exactly as Kahneman expected, the vast majority of forecasters were scope insensitive. Regular forecasters said there was a 40% chance Assad’s regime would fall over three months and a 41% chance it would fall over six months. But the superforecasters did much better: They put the probability of Assad’s fall at 15% over three months and 24% over six months. That’s not perfect scope sensitivity (a tricky thing to define), but it was good enough to surprise Kahneman. If we bear in mind that no one was asked both the three-and six-month version of the
...more
