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We often turn to experts to help us predict what might happen in the future, but it turns out experts might be no better than the rest of us at predicting trends in social changes. Australian and international researchers challenged social scientists in two "forecasting tournaments" to submit monthly forecasts for a year on a variety of social trends such as political polarisation, racial bias or well-being. They found that social scientists’ forecasts were on average no more accurate than those of simple statistical models or the combined forecasts of a sample from the general public. However, scientists were more accurate if they had scientific expertise in the specific area. The authors say that despite common beliefs that social science experts are better equipped to accurately predict these trends than non-experts, the current findings suggest that social and behavioural scientists have a lot of room for growth.
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