In my undergrad ecology class, we were assigned a scent-based laboratory experiment which involved all the male and female members of the class wearing the same white t-shirt for 48 hours in order to accrue bodily odors-- heavy workouts, perfume, showering, etc were all prohibited. At the end, everyone in the class sniffed all of the t-shirts and guessed which t shirt had been worn by what sex.
Most people had a 50-50 chance, and a few guessed slightly better than chance. I was far worse than chance, guessing only 10% correctly. In a way, anti-forecasting is a type of forecasting, too. If someone had asked me for my guess and then guessed the opposite, they'd have had superior guessing power. This paradigm falls apart quickly when the chances of events aren't so clear, however.
In my undergrad ecology class, we were assigned a scent-based laboratory experiment which involved all the male and female members of the class wearing the same white t-shirt for 48 hours in order to accrue bodily odors-- heavy workouts, perfume, showering, etc were all prohibited. At the end, everyone in the class sniffed all of the t-shirts and guessed which t shirt had been worn by what sex.
Most people had a 50-50 chance, and a few guessed slightly better than chance. I was far worse than chance, guessing only 10% correctly. In a way, anti-forecasting is a type of forecasting, too. If someone had asked me for my guess and then guessed the opposite, they'd have had superior guessing power. This paradigm falls apart quickly when the chances of events aren't so clear, however.