An answer to the critics of blogging

The New Yorker:Everybody's an Expert is an interesting survey of predictions, particularly political.

It is the somewhat gratifying lesson of Philip Tetlock’s new book, “Expert Political Judgment: How Good Is It? How Can We Know?” (Princeton; $35), that people who make prediction their business—people who appear as experts on television, get quoted in newspaper articles, advise governments and businesses, and participate in punditry roundtables—are no better than the rest of us.... The accuracy of an expert’s predictions actually has an inverse relationship to his or her self-confidence, renown, and, beyond a certain point, depth of knowledge.

The author talks about how people can be hedgehogs who concentrate on one idea or foxes who look for varied explanations. Most right-wing and left-wing politicians(and scientists) are hedgehogs. Interesting reading if you have the time and good defense when someone bitches about bloggers and our opinions.