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How To See The Future (No Crystal Ball Needed)

By Shankar Vedantam,
Parth Shah, Rhaina Cohen, Tara Boyle
Published May 16, 2019 at 4:29 PM CDT
Why are some warnings heard, while others are ignored?
Angela Hsieh
/
NPR
Why are some warnings heard, while others are ignored?

After a disaster happens, we want to know, could something have been done to avoid it? Did anyone see this coming?

Many times, the answer is yes. There was a person — or many people — who spotted a looming crisis and tried to warn those in power. So why didn't the warnings lead to action?

This week on Hidden Brain, we look into the psychology of warnings. Plus, we'll learn why ordinary people can sometimes do a better job of predicting the future than the so-called experts. They're the subject of the book Superforecasting: The Art and Science of Prediction, co-authored by psychologist Phil Tetlock and journalist Dan Gardner.

Additional Resources:

  • Christoph Meyer and Florian Otto,"How to Warn: 'Outside-in Warnings' of Western Governments about Violent Conflict and Mass Atrocities," Media, War & Conflict

  • Andrew Natsios, Sudan, South Sudan, and Darfur

  • Translations of Aeschylus' Agamemnon and Euripides' Trojan Women in The Greek Plays

    • Hidden Brain is hosted by Shankar Vedantam and produced by Jennifer Schmidt, Rhaina Cohen, Parth Shah, Laura Kwerel, and Thomas Lu. Our supervising producer is Tara Boyle. You can also follow us on Twitter @hiddenbrain.

    Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

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    Shankar Vedantam
    Shankar Vedantam is the host and creator of Hidden Brain. The Hidden Brain podcast receives more than three million downloads per week. The Hidden Brain radio show is distributed by NPR and featured on nearly 400 public radio stations around the United States.
    See stories by Shankar Vedantam
    Parth Shah
    Parth Shah is a producer and reporter in the Programming department at NPR. He came to NPR in 2016 as a Kroc Fellow.
    See stories by Parth Shah
    Rhaina Cohen
    Rhaina Cohen is a producer and editor for NPR's Enterprise Storytelling unit, working across Embedded, Invisibilia, and Rough Translation.
    See stories by Rhaina Cohen
    Tara Boyle
    Tara Boyle is the supervising producer of NPR's Hidden Brain. In this role, Boyle oversees the production of both the Hidden Brain radio show and podcast, providing editorial guidance and support to host Shankar Vedantam and the shows' producers. Boyle also coordinates Shankar's Hidden Brain segments on Morning Edition and other NPR shows, and oversees collaborations with partners both internal and external to NPR. Previously, Boyle spent a decade at WAMU, the NPR station in Washington, D.C. She has reported for The Boston Globe, and began her career in public radio at WBUR in Boston.
    See stories by Tara Boyle