Editing Postdiction (section)

{{Short description|Explanations given after the fact}}
{{about|the concept in paranormal criticism|the scientific technique|Retrodiction}}
{{Refimprove|date=April 2007}}

'''Postdiction''' involves explanation after the fact.<ref name = 'Dennis and Walter'>
{{cite book 
| last1 = Dennis | first1 = Simon | last2 = Kintsch 
| first2 = Walter | editor-last1 = Sternberg | editor-first1 = Robert J.  
| editor-last2 = Roediger III | editor-first2 = Henry L. 
| editor-last3 = Halpern | editor-first3 =  Diane F.  
| chapter = Evaluating theories 
| title = Critical Thinking in Psychology  | publisher = Cambridge University Press  
| date = 2007  | location = New York, NY  | page = 151  
| chapter-url = https://books.google.com/books?id=3mA9NPAgWR0C&q=postdiction&pg=PA151  
| isbn = 978-0-521-60834-3  
| access-date = 2016-06-23
| quote = [...] explanation after the fact—postdiction [...]
}}
</ref>
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 [[Bible prophecy|biblical prophecies]] (and similar [[prophesy|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 [[wikt:premonition|premonition]] use these terms in response to claims made by [[psychic]]s, [[astrology|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 [[shoehorning|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|date=August 2007}}—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.