The limits of expert judgment: Lessons from social science forecasting during the pandemic

To find out how well social scientists can predict societal change, researchers ran the largest forecasting initiative in the field’s history. Here’s what they found. (Shutterstock)

Imagine being a policymaker at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. You have to decide which actions to recommend, how much risk to tolerate and what sacrifices to ask your citizens to bear.

Who would you turn to for an accurate prediction about how people would react? Many would recommend going to the experts — social scientists. But we are here to tell you this would be bad advice.