This article is about the concept in paranormal criticism. For the scientific technique, see Retrodiction.
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Postdiction involves explanation after the fact.[1]
In skepticism, it is considered an effect of hindsight bias that explains claimed predictions of significant events such as plane crashes and natural disasters. In religious contexts, theologians frequently refer to postdiction using the Latin term vaticinium ex eventu (foretelling after the event). Through this term, skeptics postulate that many biblical prophecies (and similar prophecies in other religions) appearing to have come true may have been written after the events supposedly predicted, or that the text or interpretation may have been modified after the event to fit the facts as they occurred.
Skeptics of premonition use these terms in response to claims made by psychics, astrologers and other paranormalists to have predicted an event, when the original prediction was vague, catch-all, or otherwise non-obvious.
Most predictions from such figures as Nostradamus and James Van Praagh express the future with such seemingly deliberate vagueness and ambiguity as to make interpretation nearly impossible before the event, rendering them useless as predictive tools. After the event has occurred, however, the psychics or their supporters shoehorn details into the prediction by using selective thinking—emphasizing the "hits", ignoring the "misses"—in order to lend credence to the prophecy and to give the impression of an accurate "prediction". Inaccurate predictions are omitted.
Supporters of a prediction sometimes contend that the problem lies not with the wording of the prediction, but with the interpretation[citation needed]—an argument sometimes used by supporters of religious texts. This argument may lead to the question: "What is the point of a prediction that cannot be interpreted correctly before the event?" However, the argument is not that the prediction could not have been interpreted correctly prior to the event, but simply that it was not in the case in question, thus the question is working from a false premise. Of course, any "prediction" that is so vague as to not be correctly interpreted before the event it allegedly "predicted" is functionally equivalent to no prediction at all.
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Dennis, Simon; Kintsch, Walter (2007). "Evaluating theories". In Sternberg, Robert J.; Roediger III, Henry L.; Halpern, Diane F. (eds.). Critical Thinking in Psychology. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press. p. 151. ISBN 978-0-521-60834-3. Retrieved 2016-06-23. [...] explanation after the fact—postdiction [...]
Postdiction involves explanation after the fact. In skepticism, it is considered an effect of hindsight bias that explains claimed predictions of significant...
is the act of making a prediction about the past. It is also known as postdiction (but this should not be confused with the use of the term in criticisms...
prophesied in the Blessing of Moses, though textual scholars view this as a postdiction, dating the poem to well after the tribe had been established in the...
indefinite and unknowable future; explain the past; the retrodiction, postdiction and hindcasting of the (otherwise) indefinite and unknowable past; facilitate...
Biblical scholars regard the curse, and Dinah herself, as an aetiological postdiction to explain the fates of the tribe of Simeon and the Levites, with one...
PMID 9744110. Eagleman, D. M. (17 March 2000). "Motion Integration and Postdiction in Visual Awareness" (PDF). Science. 287 (5460): 2036–2038. Bibcode:2000Sci...
derived. Biblical scholar Arthur Peake saw the tribes originating as postdiction, as eponymous metaphor giving an aetiology of the connectedness of the...
Joseph, from whom it took its name. Some critics, however, view this as a postdiction, an eponymous metaphor providing an aetiology of the connectedness of...
Statistical analysis phenomenon Overfitting – Flaw in mathematical modelling Postdiction – Explanations given after the fact Ramsey theory – Branch of mathematical...
cursing them to become scattered; critics regard this as an aetiological postdiction to explain how a tribe could be so scattered, the simpler solution being...
it took its name; however, some Biblical scholars view this also as postdiction, an eponymous metaphor providing an aetiology of the connectedness of...
whom it took its name. Some Biblical scholars, however, view this as postdiction, an eponymous metaphor providing an aetiology of the connectedness of...
to prophesy this allocation, although textual scholars view this as a postdiction.[page needed] From after the conquest of the land by Joshua until the...
Vaticinium ex eventu is a form of hindsight bias. The concept is similar to postdiction. The Babylonian "Marduk Prophecy", a text describing the travels of the...
it took its name. However, some Biblical scholars view this also as a postdiction, an eponymous metaphor providing an aetiology of the connectedness of...
inevitable, a process sometimes known as "retroactive clairvoyance" (postdiction). No Nostradamus quatrain is known to have been interpreted as predicting...
the fact to match the circumstances of a past event (an act termed "postdiction"). Bill Whitcomb in The Magician's Companion observes, One point to remember...
the occurrence of past victimization (which would accurately represent postdiction). When the criterion measure is collected at the same time as the measure...
pseudoscience and is sometimes called the Jeane Dixon effect (see also Postdiction). It holds that the more predictions a psychic makes, the better the...
whom it took its name; however some critical scholars view this also as postdiction, an eponymous metaphor providing an aetiology of the connectedness of...
often strained or totally absent and could be viewed as shoehorning or postdiction. The list has most commonly been divided between mottos 74 and 75, based...
PMID 17389923. Goldreich, Daniel; Tong, Jonathan (10 May 2013). "Prediction, Postdiction, and Perceptual Length Contraction: A Bayesian Low-Speed Prior Captures...
seen. Upal labeled a counterintuitive concept as postdictable if the postdiction process is successful making sense of the concept i.e., the reader is...
New Covenant Predictions and claims for the Second Coming of Christ Postdiction Post Tribulation Prophets of Christianity Rapture Second Coming Two witnesses...
crossmodal influences on the rabbit illusion. Perceptual prediction and postdiction are emergent properties of the Bayesian model. A freeware computer program...
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