A Failure, but Not of Prediction
&quot;First, a bunch of generic smart people on Twitter who got things exactly right... &#x27;Bill Gates, Balaji Srinivasan, Paul Graham, Greg Cochran, Robin Hanson, Sarah Constantin, Eliezer Yudkowsky, and Nicholas Christakis....&#x27;&quot;<p>And<p>&quot;...they didn’t beat the experts in epidemiology. Whatever probability of pandemic the experts and prediction markets gave for coronavirus getting really bad, these people didn’t necessarily give a higher probability. They were just better at probabilistic reasoning, so they had different reactions to the same number...&quot;<p>I noticed that. As a math person, things were exceptionally clear at a point, clearer than many uncertain events tbh. Simple exponential growth this, I can understand ... and so could a significant slice of people.<p>But my question is: if epidemiologists aren&#x27;t experts at THIS, wtf are they experts in? Isn&#x27;t this exactly the &quot;classic&quot; circumstance any average epidemiologist should be a able to see in a heartbeat. Apparently not, so what do they train these people in? Question maybe half rhetorical but also serious. What&#x27;s &quot;expert knowledge&quot; in these circumstances.