“Pedro Ziff called the crash of 2008!” The point is to make them credible so we’ll want to hear their next forecast. But even if we assume these statements are true accounts of what the person forecast—they often are not—they tell us next to nothing about the guest’s accuracy, as viewers would know if they applied a little System 2 thought. Even a dart-throwing chimp will hit the occasional bull’s-eye if he throws enough darts, and anyone can easily “predict” the next stock market crash by incessantly warning that the stock market is about to crash.
