In 1980 David Wallechinsky, Amy Wallace and Irving Wallace wrote The Book of Predictions. Looking ahead from the year 1980, The Book of Predictions "set out to probe what might be foreseen of the next 20 years [and beyond]." The book consists of three parts. Part One covers the predictions of "respected experts in a wide range of fields," Part Two covers "the instinctive foresight of psychics and seers" and Part Three discusses "predictions of the past."
Here is a sampling of what one "expert" believed in 1980: The world's foremost odds-maker, Jimmy "the Greek" Snyder, gave odds for the following events: 2-1 that people "will die in the next 10 years as the result of military use of nuclear weapons"; 2-1 that nobody "would die in the next 10 years as a result of a nuclear power plant accident" (for results, see Chernobyl). Snyder offered even odds that Edward Kennedy would be elected president and 2-1 odds that marijuana would be legalized by 1990.
In The Book of Predictions we find the "experts" were mistaken about many things. America's "foremost independent authority on retail gasoline," Dan Lundberg, predicted that all "unnecessary private passenger car pleasure driving will have been curtailed" by 1982. By 1987, he added, the human race would be afflicted by a "bewildering array of degenerating sicknesses and epidemics."
The famous science (and science fiction) writer Isaac Asimov, a professor of biochemistry at Boston University School of Medicine, predicted that oil demand would outstrip supply by 1985; North America would no longer be a reliable exporter of food; by 1995 the world would turn to a "global congress" to tackle the problem of overpopulation and energy scarcity. He predicted orbiting solar power stations by 2000 and lunar mining by 2005.
The infamous LSD-guru, Timothy Leary, predicted that "science will have produced a utopian civilization of aesthetic tolerance" by 1992. America would be governed "not by corrupt politicians, but by electronic democratic consensus. Republican and Democratic parties will be obsolete." Leary also believed that Humans would begin migrating into space around 1995.
The life-styles editor of The Futurist magazine, David Pearce Snyder, predicted that oil would reach $35-$45 per barrel by 1984 and marijuana would be legalized by 1986. Recycling advocate Jerome Goldstein predicted the advent of a "waste not, want not no-flush culture." Amory and Hunter Lovins predicted that Midwest farm areas would turn into desert wasteland by the early 1990s. Anthropologist Roger Williams Wescott wrote of "belt tightening" in most countries due to "a critical shortage of nonrenewable fuels." Wescott also predicted the construction of orbital factories by 1994 and the extinction of "a considerable number of the earth's nonhuman species, especially among whales, whose warmth and intelligence our planet can ill afford to lose."
In 1980, technological and economic experts predicted such things as microcomputer brain implants by 1992; artificial kidney implants by 1994; cancer cured by 2002; double digit inflation through 1999; controlled fusion by 1995; a cure for aging would be developed by 2010; and telepathy used for some types of communication by 2005.
Some of the more mundane predictions by experts proved correct. Computers have become common household items. A top chess player did lose to a computer, and the Soviet Union did come unraveled (if things are what they seem).
Some of the most basic realities of the last 24 years were not foreseen. Few experts anticipated two decades of cheap oil. Few anticipated the prosperity of the 1980s and 1990s. The troubles of the late 1970s led to pessimistic assumptions. It is not only our personal prejudices and assumptions that skew our idea of the future. We also judge the future by the present. If things aren't going well at the moment, our idea of the future turns out to be darker.
Those whose curiosity extends to the paranormal might ask if psychics did better than experts in The Book of Predictions. Here we find a few random hits among hundreds of misses. One psychic, with a huge number of bad predictions, foresaw the Iraq-Iran war (which broke out as the book was going to press). Others foresaw the widespread use of portable telephones and peace talks between Israel and the PLO. Of special interest, the celebrity predictions were almost entirely wrong. All nine predictions about Jacqueline Onassis were incorrect. Nearly every prediction about Fidel Castro, Richard Nixon, Yasir Arafat, Henry Kissinger, Moshe Dayan and Billy Graham were wrong.
Why do people believe in psychics?
In the past a small number of visionaries have predicted the future - by luck, divine inspiration or cleverness. Chapter 12 of The Book of Predictions is about "The 18 Greatest Predictors of All Time." These include Roger Bacon (1214-1294), who foresaw the development of optics, navigation of the Atlantic, horseless chariots, motorized engines, submarines, aircraft and a bomb that could level an entire town. The Book also mentions Robert Nixon (1467-1485), a mentally retarded plowboy who foretold the death of farm animals and kings. The accuracy of his predictions brought him to the court of King Henry VII. The controversial career of Nostradamus (1503-1566) is discussed as well as that of David Goodman Croly (1829-1889) who accurately predicted World War I, India's independence, the Russia-U.S. superpower rivalry, female emancipation, the decline of marriage, large mega-corporations, photocopying, motion pictures, New York skyscrapers, air travel and electrical power.
There were others who made accurate predictions, and the book is hardly exhaustive. The remarkable thing - more remarkable than the few instances of accurate prediction - is the prevalence of predictive error among experts and seers. More significantly, the authors were unable to find someone - anyone - to match the predictive accuracy of legendary visionaries from the past. One would think that today's multiplication of "experts," our abundant reservoir of dreamers, would offer at least one accurate predictor. But no, not one could match the accuracy of Bacon or Croly.
This leaves us with an important lesson. Foreknowledge is extremely rare. A modest, educated guess about some well-known object or person may be accurate enough. But experts are as clueless about the future as the rest of us; and psychics are no better. This is not to deny authentic instances of foreknowledge, or divine inspiration (worthy of future discussion). It is merely an acknowledgement of statistical reality. Compared with all that has been said about the future, accurate predictions are rare indeed. This should make us sit up and take notice. The experts and psychics of 1980 did not know very much about the future. Are the experts and psychics of 2004 any better? What is the best way to approach this question?
Next week I will suggest some answers to these and other questions.
