Tetlock and predictions - foxes over hedgehogs

Philip Tetlock is a psychologist who has worked extensively on the problem of expert predictions. He  started his work on measuring the different points of view from experts on the Cold War. What he found was that experts are not very good at predicting. For testing these experts, he took a wide variety of experts and subjected them to specific questions on their predictions about the world order and waited to see what predictions came true.  The conclusion was that the ability of experts to forecast is poor, very poor. They miss the major changes widely. So what is the problem?

Tetlock divided experts into two categories, foxes and hedgehogs. The hedgehogs will be the experts who are very focused on specifics and details while foxes are experts who have a broader view. He found it very interesting that the more specific the expert, a hedgehog, the more likely he will get the prediction wrong. The experts are so focused on the details that they often will miss the changes that come from outside their immediate focus. The foxes who have a broader vision are more likely to see big changes coming. Unfortunately, we place more emphasis on the experts and try and avoid those that are less specifics. The foxes are not the talking heads on CNBC. The foxes will not have the same command of the facts, but they are more likely to be interdisciplinary.

The generalists may still be king, or the hedgehogs need to sometimes stop and take a wider look around the environment.