J. Scott Armstrong

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J. Scott Armstrong
Born March 26, 1937 (1937-03-26) (age 71)
Residence U.S.
Nationality American
Fields Marketing
Institutions The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania
Alma mater MIT
Carnegie Mellon
Lehigh University

J. Scott Armstrong (born March 26, 1937), Ph.D., is Professor of Marketing at the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, where he has been since 1968. Armstrong is involved with forecasting methods, survey research, educational methods, social responsibility, personnel selection, and scientific peer review. His visiting appointments have included positions at the University of Otago [1] and Manchester Business School.

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[edit] Education

As indicated on his homepage, Armstrong received his B.A. in applied science (1959) and his B.S. in industrial engineering (1960) from Lehigh University. In 1965, he received his M.S. in industrial administration from Carnegie-Mellon University. He received his Ph.D. in management from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1968.

[edit] Forecasting

In 2003, Armstrong gave a BBC Radio interview, discussing his investigations of forecasting as it applies to the "War on Terror". According to Armstrong, "experts" on a subject are no better at making predictions on "[f]or example, will the war in Iraq reduce terrorism in the future, or will it increase it?", than unaided college students. Armstrong and associate Kesten Green's research into what they term "simulated interaction" (i.e. role-playing) and "structured analogies" allowed them to make better forecasts.[2]

  • Armstrong has made contributions to rule-based forecasting, conflict simulated interaction, structured analogies, decomposition by causal forces, auditing procedures for forecasting, and relative absolute error (See #Links to Full-Text Papers).
  • Armstrong examined the methods used by the IPCC to make "projections." He claims that the IPCC and climate scientists have completely ignored the scientific literature on forecasting principles found in the academic journals Armstrong co-founded. [1] [2] Armstrong wrote:
We also examined the 535 references in Chapter 9. Of these, 17 had titles that suggested the article might be concerned at least in part with forecasting methods. When we inspected the 17 articles, we found that none of them referred to the scientific literature on forecasting methods.
It is difficult to understand how scientific forecasting could be conducted without reference to the research literature on how to make forecasts. One would expect to see empirical justification for the forecasting methods that were used. We concluded that climate forecasts are informed by the modelers’ experience and by their models—but that they are unaided by the application of forecasting principles. (page 1015) [3]
  • Armstrong also extended a $20,000 Global Warming Challenge to Al Gore in June 2007, in the style of the Simon-Ehrlich wager. As of October 2007, Gore has ignored the challenge. Armstrongs blog, theclimatebet.com has chronicled the challenge. Climate scientist James Annan has described the challenge as "the most obvious and trivial trick" [4].

[edit] Books

[edit] Academic Websites

  • AdvertisingPrinciples.com – provides useful knowledge about persuasion through advertising as a set of evidence-based principles. The principles draw upon typical practice, expert opinion, factual evidence, and empirical studies.
For this site, Armstrong received the MERLOT Award for Exemplary Online Learning Resources as "Best Internet Site in Business Education" for 2004.

[edit] Video presentations

[edit] In the news

[edit] Papers

[edit] Forecasting

[edit] Marketing

[edit] Education

[edit] Scientific Methods

[edit] Strategic Planning

[edit] References

  1. ^ University of Otago Visiting Scholar Programme
  2. ^ http://mktg-sun.wharton.upenn.edu/ideas/pdf/Armstrong/Mass%20Media/BBC%202003.pdf