for my advanced methodology of science class we were assigned to read an article about statistical prediction rules and it rocked my world. Unfortunately the article itself is not freely available online, but here is a summary of the idea and the results.

Quote:

1. A SPR that takes into account a patient’s marital status, length of psychotic distress, and a rating of the patient’s insight into his or her condition predicted the success of electroshock therapy more reliably than a hospital’s medical and psychological staff members (Wittman 1941). 2. A model that used past criminal and prison records was more reliable than expert criminologists in predicting criminal recidivism (Carroll 1982). 3. On the basis of a Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) profile, clinical psychologists were less reliable than a SPR in diagnosing patients as either neurotic or psychotic. When psychologists were given the SPR’s results before they made their predictions, they were still less accurate than the SPR (Goldberg 1968). 4. A number of SPRs predict academic performance (measured by graduation rates and GPA at graduation) better than admissions officers. This is true even when the admissions officers are allowed to use considerably more evidence than the models (DeVaul et al. 1957), and it has been shown to be true at selective colleges, medical schools (DeVaul et al. 1957), law schools (Dawes, Swets and Monohan 2000, 18) and graduate school in psychology (Dawes 1971). 5. SPRs predict loan and credit risk better than bank officers. SPRs are now standardly used by banks when they make loans and by credit card companies when they approve and set credit limits for new customers (Stillwell et. al. 1983). 6. SPRs predict newborns at risk for Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) much better than human experts (Lowry 1975; Carpenter et. al. 1977; Golding et. al. 1985). 7. Predicting the quality of the vintage for a red Bordeaux wine decades in advance is done more reliably by a SPR than by expert wine tasters, who swirl, smell and taste the young wine (Ashenfelter, Ashmore and Lalonde 1995).

what I found the most fascinating prediction rule was the one that super-successfully predicted the degree of happiness couples say they experience. The rule basically is subtract the number of fights the couple has (say, per month) from the number of times they make love (say, per month). When the number is positive the couples will report that they're happy with their relationship (I think that was the criterion, when the number is positive, but it could also be some other minimum value).
human experts that try to make the same prediction and are allowed to use all the other factors they can think of (role and level of communication, personality types, etc. etc.) greatly underperform compared to that simple statistical prediction rule.

BUMP

and this has most of the article in question online.

read it, truly, it's an eye-opener