I Predict 1990

This article in the online edition of The Scientist takes a look at the tendency of scientists to make sometimes loopy predictions. Lots of factors influence this trend, among them securing money for research, political pressure and even prejudgment of results.

The article notes some of the better-known predictive failures, such as the overpopulation fears generated by 19th century predictions from clergyman Thomas Malthus and in the 1960s and 1970s by Paul R. Ehrlich. Ehrlich, building on some of Malthus' ideas, suggested that million-death famines would sweep the world by the mid-1980s and that food rationing would happen even in the United States. Since he is a professor -- specifically an entomologist who focuses on the study of butterflies -- he has a tendency not to admit he's wrong and he now claims that he never made predictions.

The Scientist article notes that scientists often get into the most trouble when they work far outside their field, and I think it might be fair to suggest an entomologist works outside his field when he makes predictions about human population.

I'm old enough to remember the predictions of widespread fuel shortages during the oil embargoes of the 1970s. Science fiction guru Isaac Asimov whipped up a little ditty called "Life Without Fuel" for Time magazine that warned of a worldwide collapse to pre-Industrial Age levels because of a dependence on fossil fuels that ran unchecked until they ran out. Being the sci-fi nut that I am (OK, "geek"), this one's always stuck with me. While Asimov was smart enough to say that his thoughts were based upon a worst-case scenario, he added a snarky little "But that couldn't happen, could it?"

On the one hand, science is about predicting things and then testing the predictions. Certain information suggests a hypothesis, or statement about what would be true if the information is accurate. Experiments are designed to test the hypothesis, and if the prediction bears out, it is considered more or less settled knowledge.

The problem with the kinds of predictions that the Scientist article explores, of course, is that they aren't painted as hypothetical but as factual. And the only "experiment" that will verify them is time, which might also prove the predictions wrong. Except sound-bite media, opportunistic political operatives, a forgetful populace and the ol' PR machine combined to cement the prediction in people's minds as established fact.

I've done a little forecasting here and there, and been wrong just as much as right. So I guess I'll have to fall in line and admit the only thing we can know for certain about the future is that it hasn't happened yet.

(Post title taken from the 1987 Steve Taylor album of that name. Mr. Taylor didn't actually make any predictions in the album.)