We treat pessimism as intelligence. The incentives explain it better than the evidence does.
Being wrong about doom costs a forecaster almost nothing. A wrong call on hope can cost a career, which leads careful people to pick the darkest forecast even when the evidence is mixed.
Philip Tetlock scored the predictions of 284 experts over 20 years. The worst had one grand theory and bent new facts to fit it.
https://www.joanwestenberg.com/p/competitive-pessimists-are-the-dumbest
