Cafe Scientifique: Anticipating the future: when can you trust your intuition?

Tuesday 15th May 2018 3:00PM – 4:30PM

Anticipating the future: when can you trust your intuition?

Led by Paul Goodwin

Surprises, such as the credit crash of 2007 and the election of Donald Trump, have led to criticism of forecasters. But we need forecasts to help us to make decisions – so should we rely on our own intuitive judgments or computer-based algorithms?   This talk will draw on evidence from forecasting experiments –much of it remarkable – to identify when our judgments about the future are likely to outperform a computer and when they are likely to suffer from damaging systematic biases.

Paul Goodwin is an Emeritus Professor at the University of Bath and author of Forewarned: A Sceptic’s Guide to Prediction (Biteback Publications). He is an Honorary Fellow of the International Institute of Forecasters and a former editor of the International Journal of Forecasting.