The Folly of Prediction - click to listen

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It’s impossible to predict the future, but humans can’t help themselves. From the economy to the presidency to the Super Bowl, educated and intelligent people promise insight and repeatedly fail by wide margins. These mistakes and misses go unpunished, both publicly and in our brain, which has become trained to ignore the record of those who make them. In this hour of Freakonomics Radio, we’ll dream of the day when bad predictors pay – when the accuracy rate of pundits appear next to their faces on TV, when the weatherman who botches the 5-day forecast by 20 degrees has to make his next appearance soaking wet. We’ll also look at the deep roots of divining what tomorrow brings, from the invention of religion to new understandings of how we make decisions about the future.

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Stephen J. DUBNER: What does it mean to be a witch exactly in Romania? Are these people that we know here as psychics or fortunetellers, or are they different somehow?

Vlad MIXICH: I don’t know how is the fortuneteller in the United States. But here generally they are a woman of different ages. They can--they say they can cure some diseases. They can bring back your husband or your wife. Or they can predict your future.

DUBNER: Who is a typical client for a witch?

MIXICH: There are quite a lot of politicians who are going to witches. You know the French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, he went to witches last year. And our president in Romania, and very important politicians from different parties, they are going to witches. Some of them they were obliged to recognize they went to witches. Some of them it’s an off-the-record information. But me being a journalist, I know that information.

DUBNER: Vlad Mixich is a reporter in Bucharest, the capital of Romania. He knows a good bit about the witches there.

MIXICH: Quite a lot of them they are quite rich. They have very big houses with golden rooftops. A lot of the Romanians, they are living in small apartments in blocks. So, just going

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