Across a number of threads comments have arisen about the role of forecasting in decision making. Questions that have come up include:

What is a good forecast?
When should research forecasts transition to operational forecasts?
What sorts of decisions require quantitative probabilities?
In what contexts can good decisions result without accurate predictions?

It was questions like these that motivated Rad Byerly, Dan Sarewitz, and I to work on a project in the late 1990s focused on prediction. the results of this work were published in a book by Island Press in 2000, titled “Prediction.”

With this post I’d like to motivate discussion on this subject, and to point to our book’s concluding chapter, which may provide a useful point of departure:

Pielke Jr., R. A., D. Sarewitz and R. Byerly Jr., 2000: Decision Making and the Future of Nature: Understanding and Using Predictions. Chapter 18 in Sarewitz, D., R. A. Pielke Jr., and R. Byerly Jr., (eds.), Prediction: Science Decision Making and the Future of Nature. Island press: Washington, DC. (PDF)

See in particular Table 18.1 on p. 383 which summarizes the criteria we developed in the form of questions which might be used to “question predictions.”

Comments welcomed on any of the questions raised above, and others as appropriate as well.