Quotes About Meehl

When predictability is poor—which it is in most of the studies reviewed by Meehl and his followers—inconsistency is destructive of any predictive validity.

In contrast, Meehl and other proponents of algorithms have argued strongly that it is unethical to rely on intuitive judgments for important decisions if an algorithm is available that will make fewer mistakes.

I never met Meehl, but he was one of my heroes from the time I read his Clinical vs. Statistical Prediction: A Theoretical Analysis and a Review of the Evidence.

The most important development in the field since Meehl's original work is Robyn Dawes's famous article "The Robust Beauty of Improper Linear Models in Decision Making.

Meehl and other proponents of algorithms have argued strongly that it is unethical to rely on intuitive judgments for important decisions if an algorithm is available that will make fewer mistakes.

Meehl discovered that clinicians and other professionals are distressingly weak in what they often see as their unique strength: the ability to integrate information.

Meehl's book, called Clinical versus Statistical Prediction, had shown that psychoanalysts who tried to predict what would become of their neurotic patients fared poorly compared to simple algorithms.