Question

Ram, an economist, and Ramesh, an astrologer, had a debate. Ram said, "Astrology does not work. It just cannot predict." "It can predict better than your subject," rebutted Ramesh.
The evidence that best resolves the above debate will be:

• A. Conduct a survey among scientists asking which one of the two should be considered a science.
• B. Compare the past performance of astrologers and economists in terms of the number of predictions which have come true.
• C. Conduct a survey among economists asking their opinion regarding the ability of economic theory to predict economic phenomena.
• D. Conduct an experiment where both astrologers and economists would be asked to predict the future. Compare the percentage of predictions that come true.

Hint:

To compare predictive accuracy fairly between two groups, always compare a rate or percentage, not a raw count.

Answer 1

The Correct Option is D

The dispute between Ram and Ramesh is purely about which field predicts the future more accurately. To settle a dispute about predictive accuracy, we need a fair, direct test of accuracy, not opinions about status or subject prestige.

1. Option A: Asking scientists which subject "counts" as a science tells us about reputation and classification, not about who actually predicts better. It does not answer the real question in the debate.
2. Option B: Comparing the raw number of correct predictions is misleading if one group simply makes many more predictions than the other. A group making 1000 guesses could rack up more correct calls than a group making 10 careful ones, without being more accurate.
3. Option C: Asking economists to judge their own field's predictive power is a biased opinion survey, not objective evidence, and does not involve astrologers at all.
4. Option D (officially option E): Running the same experiment for both groups and comparing the percentage (proportion) of correct predictions removes the bias of unequal sample sizes and directly measures accuracy, exactly what the debate is about.

Comparing percentages, not raw counts, is the fair test, so this option gives the strongest, most direct evidence to settle the debate.

Let's summarize:

• The debate is about accuracy, so we need a controlled comparison of hit rates.
• Percentage of correct predictions is fair regardless of how many predictions each side makes.
• Surveys of opinion (A, C) and raw prediction counts (B) do not measure real accuracy fairly.

So the answer is the percentage-comparison experiment.