Can I predict the future?
CrowdScience
BBC
4.8 • 1K Ratings
🗓️ 5 August 2019
⏱️ 37 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Humans have been trying to predict the future since ancient times. The Chinese had the I-Ching while the Greeks preferred to search for answers in animal entrails. These days intelligence agencies around the world mostly rely on expert opinions to forecast events. But there are ordinary people among us that routinely outperform experts when it comes to making accurate predictions about the future. Listener Cicely wants to know whether these non-experts, so-called “super-forecasters”, really exist and if so, how does it work? She has noticed that people in her family – herself included – are surprisingly good at predicting events.
CrowdScience investigates and finds that there is no hocus-pocus involved. On the contrary, scientists have found that super-forecasters tend to have certain personality traits and skills. And there is more good news; researchers believe that these skills can been taught. CrowdScience presenter Graihagh Jackson takes up the challenge and tests her own predicting abilities.
Presented by Graihagh Jackson and produced by Louisa Field
(Photo: A barefoot woman on a beach, showing two lucky dices in her hands. Credit: Getty Images)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | You're about to listen to a BBC podcast and maybe it's when I had a hand in. |
| 0:04.0 | I'm Tammy Walker and I produce podcasts for the BBC. |
| 0:08.0 | My role is to give new and diverse creators a voice with the opportunity to build a career. |
| 0:12.0 | That's the thing I love about podcasts. |
| 0:14.4 | You start with just a good idea, but then you have the space to see where it goes. |
| 0:18.4 | And doing that at the BBC means we can really run with the best stories |
| 0:21.9 | while developing the most unique audio talent. |
| 0:24.8 | So if you like what you hear, why not check out the huge range of podcast we've got on BBC sounds? |
| 0:30.7 | There we go. Perfect. |
| 0:38.7 | I'm Gray Jackson and this is crowd science from the BBC World Service, the show that answers your science questions. Can you hear each other? Um, hello, Sicily. |
| 0:44.0 | Hi. |
| 0:45.0 | We were admiring the spelling of your name and wondering if it was said in a strange way. |
| 0:49.8 | So have I said it correctly? |
| 0:50.8 | You said Sicily, you're right, yeah, just like the island yeah I thought so well you've got a very |
| 0:55.8 | interesting name too it's beautiful thank you it's from the Isle of Man is it's |
| 1:00.7 | Man manks Gaelic so G-R-A-I-G-I-G-I-G-I-Gray is the verb to love in manks, |
| 1:05.0 | so I'm sort of lovable or something gooey like that. |
| 1:08.0 | Oh, that's lovely, see I'm a herb, |
| 1:10.0 | you're a herb. |
| 1:12.0 | I'm a sweet Sicily |
| 1:15.2 | sweet Sicily sweet sissile email us on crowd science at BBC.co |
| 1:20.7 | because something odd keeps happening. |
... |
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