Over the years
we have heard many
scary forecasts,
about many things,
from Y2K, to CO2,
to COVID-19.
We must
love hearing
scary predictions
of the future,
especially
worst-case
predictions !
"Experts" compete
for media attention.
Predictions get
lots of attention.
Especially the
forecasters who
"shout the loudest".
A scary prediction
gets lots of attention.
Any prediction
that can be directly,
or indirectly used,
to criticize President
Trump, is favored
by most mainstream
media sources,
The prediction doesn't
even have to come true,
because the media
will never look back
and report that it
did not come true.
More attention
is earned with a
negative prediction.
I've been observing
negative predictions
about climate science
since 1997
( they're actually junk
science, because the
predictions never
come true ) .
The worst prediction
so far, started in 2018:
We were
told the world,
as we know it,
is going to end
in 12 years, merely
from a continuation
of climate change,
according to two
well known climate
'perfessers':
The most famous
high school dropou
in the world, Sweden's
Greta
"thundering"
Thunberg,
and
our very own
Alexandria
Occasionally
Coherent !
Three problems
that make people
too susceptible
to scary, negative
predictions:
(1)
People too often
believe the future
can be predicted.
Consider United States
Recession Predictions:
U.S. economists
know recessions
are very difficult
to predict, so they
never predict one !
Even knowing
that at least
one recession
per decade
is likely, U.S.
economists,
as a group,
have NEVER,
predicted a
U.S. recession !
(2)
People want to
believe specific
predictions that fit
their pre-existing
beliefs, which is
called confirmation
bias.
(3)
The mass media
loves to publish
the most negative
predictions,
often presented
with even scarier
headlines.
They get attention
and page views.
Reporters almost
always fail to ask:
"How do you know that?" .
They almost never
look back at
prior predictions
that were wrong
( nearly all of them ! )
... unless it was
President Trump
who made
the prediction,
and it was wrong !
In 1987,
the Thatcher
UK government sent
a leaflet to 23 million
households in the country,
proclaiming that
‘any man or woman
can get the AIDS virus'.
One third of the leaflets
went to homes with one
or more householders
aged over 60, not likely
to get AIDS, along with
all the women.
In 1988,
the Thatcher
UK government
expressed great
fear about
'a global heat trap
which could lead to
climatic instability’.
32 years later
it is a little warmer,
mainly at high
(cold) latitudes,
mainly in the coldest
six months of the year,
and mainly at night.
That's good news !
The U.S. CIA had
issued new alarms
about Soviet Union
power almost until
the very moment
the Berlin Wall
came down.
Forecasts that
the year 2000 (Y2K)
would upset
the world’s computers,
turned out to be
grossly overstated.
In 2001.
U.S. Intelligence
did not predict more
al-Qaeda attacks
on the World Trade
Center, knowing
they first tried, and
failed, to collapse
a NYC World Trade
Center building in 1993.
In 2003,
New Zealand
prime minister
Helen Clark,
talking about
coronavirus
SARS-1,
said that some
World Health
Organization officials
feared it could be
as deadly as the flu
of 1918, that killed
20 to 50 million people.
In 2004,
a United Nations official
said that bird flu could pose
‘a far worse threat
to humans than SARS-1’.
In the mid-2000s,
Lord Stern’s UK report
on climate change (2006),
and the IPCC’s fourth
assessment (2007),
made CO2 a scary
'boogeyman', that
had to be stopped
to save the planet !
Few economic
forecasters
saw the crash
of 2008 coming,
and many of those
had always been
negative about
the economy, like
a stropped clock.
UK health minister
Andy Burnham
warned in 2009
that Britain could have
‘over 100,000 cases
a day’ of swine flu.
There have been
repeated predictions
of doom, or at least
of very bad news,
on many different
subjects.
The predictions are
consistently wrong.
No matter how
confident the
forecaster was.
at the time !
Even if
he or she
had a PhD !
So why do most people
still take predictions
seriously ?