Lunch with Philip Tetlock

That is in the FT, gated most likely, do subscribe!  In any case, here was to me the most interesting bit:

He [Tetlock] is trying to replace the public debates he describes as “Krugman-Ferguson pie fights” — a reference to the clashes over austerity between the economist and Nobel laureate, Paul Krugman and the economic historian, Niall Ferguson — with adversarial collaboration. “You give each side the opportunity to pose, say, 10 questions it thinks are probative and resolvable, and that it thinks it has a comparative advantage in answering” and then have the two sides give testable answers . . . Here is a very clear psychological prediction: people will come out of that tournament more open-minded than they otherwise would have been. You can take that one to the bank.”

More importantly, Tetlock ordered “…an apple fizz cocktail to go with haddock with a sauce of butter and musses.”

Here was the best single sentence from Tetlock, itself worth the price of an FT subscription:

“There is a price to be paid for feeling good about your beliefs.”

Robert Armstrong did an excellent job with the interview and piece.