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The pattern of prediction
302
The Pattern of Prediction
The Pattern
of Prediction
FORECASTING:
FACTS AND
FALLIBILITIES I. F. Clarke This
article
concludes
a series
that
has traced
the pattern
of prediction
from
the primitive forecasts of the eighteenth century to the more modern scientific approaches. The main lines of development in socia! and technological forecasting during the last twenty years are assessed: f:xpectations are high, but the achievements
are still to come.
THE extraordinary growth in the practice of social and technological forecasting during the past 20 years is one of the more important indications of the profound changes that have begun to affect the environment, the populations, and the economic systems of our planet. The forecaster is for the moment the favourite medicine man of 20th century industrial society; he is the pathfinder who discovers-we hope-the answer to the problems of declining industries and growing populations. The future, it seems, is already with us, waiting to be discovered in the new jungle jargon of total system matrix techniques, search analysis, analysis, and profiles, morphological envelope curve extrapolation. The range of the investigations goes from relatively small-scale r and d projects (in the Swedish engineering industry, for instance) to the far-reaching consequences that the Commissariat General au Plan has had for France. Prediction has followed the pattern already established in the sciences. As the research teams and the elaborate laboratories have taken over from the Rutherfords with their string-and-sealing wax, the Wellsian world-watchers
Professor I. F. Clarke Studies UK.
Department,
is Head clnivrrsity
of the English of Strathclyde,
have given ~JkiCe to groups and associations of forecasters. The journals and the conferences proliferate; the institutes continue to multiply. And all this has come about in less than 10 years ; for the post-war chronology starts with books and articles in the 195Os, followed by the first international conferences and the new foundations in the ’60s. There have been three main lines of development. First, starting in the ‘5Os, there was a flood of books that were little more than a continuation of the one-man forecasts of the 1920s. These stated problems and described the most probable contours of the future. Many of them began with the now familiar questions of population and the food supply: Harrison Brown, The challenge of man’s future (New York, 1954) ; Fritz Baade, Brot fiir gang Europa (Hamburg, 1955) ; Vassiliev and Gouschev, Life in the twenty-jirst century (Moscow, 1959). Far more important than these, however, were the reports and the recommendations that began to emerge from the national and the international committees established to advise on matters as different as the restoration of the German economy, industrial applications of atomic energy, and the needs of the developing nations. These committees employed the basic techniques of economic analysis and technological appraisal that led directly to the
FUTURES
September 1971
Figure
1. The
Flying
City:
one of the earliest fantasies that vast balloons that would transport
sprang from the first thousands through
balloon ascents the skies
was the notion
of
Figure 2. The coal-burning car: another source of amused prophecy was the development of the early steam engines. It seemed a short step in 1831-from the steam engine to the steam-car.
Figure looked
3. As the inventions overtook the prophecies, forecasts in the 1920’s ahead to ocean liners and vast airships on the trans-Atlantic routes.
FUTURES
September WH
The Pattern of Prediction
emergence of technological forecasting in the 1960s. For example, the US President’s Materials Policy Commission produced in 1952 a five-volume survey, Resources for Freedom, which examined the prospects of vital commodities, energy sources and major technologies. The analysts and the pattern-recognisers of the world had begun to unite. In 1955 the British Government received from the Lord President of the Council the “Programme of nuclear power”; and in that same year the United Nations organised an international conference in Geneva peaceful uses of atomic on “The energy”. At all times the achievements and the opportunities of modern technology have decided the pace of development; and on many occasions the social consequences of human inventiveness have thrown up problems that must find right answers in the future. In the unparalleled outpouring of programmes and propositions there were certain clearly discernible factors at work. After 1945 governments throughout the world had to decide on the most effective means of restoring national economies. And here political considerations often affected decisions, since the ending of vast colonial empires, when added to the Communist victory in China, changed strategic balances throughout the world. But in all places the most pervasive and powerful influence has been the increasing power of governments to control national and international economies; and that power derives directly from the growth in communications and transportation. During the ’50s the main influence remained with the governmental committees, especially those working on long-term economic and military plans. By the early ‘6Os, however, it had become apparent that the nations do not live by the plan alone; and one of the first signs of a widening in the range of enquiry was the conference organised by CIBA in 1963 on ‘Man and his Future’. The institutes and the founda-
FUTURES
September 1971
tions followed: in Austria Robert Jungk established the Institute fur Zukunftsfragen; in Paris Bertrand de Jouvenel started the Futuribles research association; in the United Kingdom the Social Research Council set up the “Committee on the next Thirty Years”; and the American Academy of Arts and Science has created the “Commission on the Year 2000” in the USA. Out of the new institutes and the world conferences has come a second wave of publications, more specialist and often more practical than the predictions of the immediate post-war period. From the Hudson Institute has come a classic in the new field-Kahn and Wiener, The Tear 2000; from the Institut fur Zukunftsfragen has come a series of forecasts under the general title of Modelle fiir eine neue Welt; and presumably the proceedings of the Science Policy Foundation symposium (London, April 197 1) will soon appear in print. At present technological forecasting looks rather like a political party in its first year of office : expectations are high, but the achievements are still to come. Will they ever come ? In the areas where quantitative techniques can operate successfully, the forecasts will undoubtedly become more and more accurate. But how do the computers begin to assess the impact of ideas on a society? In the last 100 years the physical sciences and the technologies have reached their predicted goals: submarines, flying atomic machines, energy, space rockets all belong to the ancient history of forecasting. And yet the great social objectives are still with us. World peace, universal prosperity, the reign of law, the brotherhood of man-these aspirations make up the unfinished business of the human race. And these aspirations are central to many of the issues that emerge from the forecasting of alternative futures. To plan is to choose; and in order to make the best choice, it is essential that we should know what we want. But are we certain that the human race knows what it wants?
305
The Pattern of Prediction
The Pattern
of Prediction
FORECASTING:
FACTS AND
FALLIBILITIES I. F. Clarke This
article
concludes
a series
that
has traced
the pattern
of prediction
from
the primitive forecasts of the eighteenth century to the more modern scientific approaches. The main lines of development in socia! and technological forecasting during the last twenty years are assessed: f:xpectations are high, but the achievements
are still to come.
THE extraordinary growth in the practice of social and technological forecasting during the past 20 years is one of the more important indications of the profound changes that have begun to affect the environment, the populations, and the economic systems of our planet. The forecaster is for the moment the favourite medicine man of 20th century industrial society; he is the pathfinder who discovers-we hope-the answer to the problems of declining industries and growing populations. The future, it seems, is already with us, waiting to be discovered in the new jungle jargon of total system matrix techniques, search analysis, analysis, and profiles, morphological envelope curve extrapolation. The range of the investigations goes from relatively small-scale r and d projects (in the Swedish engineering industry, for instance) to the far-reaching consequences that the Commissariat General au Plan has had for France. Prediction has followed the pattern already established in the sciences. As the research teams and the elaborate laboratories have taken over from the Rutherfords with their string-and-sealing wax, the Wellsian world-watchers
Professor I. F. Clarke Studies UK.
Department,
is Head clnivrrsity
of the English of Strathclyde,
have given ~JkiCe to groups and associations of forecasters. The journals and the conferences proliferate; the institutes continue to multiply. And all this has come about in less than 10 years ; for the post-war chronology starts with books and articles in the 195Os, followed by the first international conferences and the new foundations in the ’60s. There have been three main lines of development. First, starting in the ‘5Os, there was a flood of books that were little more than a continuation of the one-man forecasts of the 1920s. These stated problems and described the most probable contours of the future. Many of them began with the now familiar questions of population and the food supply: Harrison Brown, The challenge of man’s future (New York, 1954) ; Fritz Baade, Brot fiir gang Europa (Hamburg, 1955) ; Vassiliev and Gouschev, Life in the twenty-jirst century (Moscow, 1959). Far more important than these, however, were the reports and the recommendations that began to emerge from the national and the international committees established to advise on matters as different as the restoration of the German economy, industrial applications of atomic energy, and the needs of the developing nations. These committees employed the basic techniques of economic analysis and technological appraisal that led directly to the
FUTURES
September 1971
Figure
1. The
Flying
City:
one of the earliest fantasies that vast balloons that would transport
sprang from the first thousands through
balloon ascents the skies
was the notion
of
Figure 2. The coal-burning car: another source of amused prophecy was the development of the early steam engines. It seemed a short step in 1831-from the steam engine to the steam-car.
Figure looked
3. As the inventions overtook the prophecies, forecasts in the 1920’s ahead to ocean liners and vast airships on the trans-Atlantic routes.
FUTURES
September WH
The Pattern of Prediction
emergence of technological forecasting in the 1960s. For example, the US President’s Materials Policy Commission produced in 1952 a five-volume survey, Resources for Freedom, which examined the prospects of vital commodities, energy sources and major technologies. The analysts and the pattern-recognisers of the world had begun to unite. In 1955 the British Government received from the Lord President of the Council the “Programme of nuclear power”; and in that same year the United Nations organised an international conference in Geneva peaceful uses of atomic on “The energy”. At all times the achievements and the opportunities of modern technology have decided the pace of development; and on many occasions the social consequences of human inventiveness have thrown up problems that must find right answers in the future. In the unparalleled outpouring of programmes and propositions there were certain clearly discernible factors at work. After 1945 governments throughout the world had to decide on the most effective means of restoring national economies. And here political considerations often affected decisions, since the ending of vast colonial empires, when added to the Communist victory in China, changed strategic balances throughout the world. But in all places the most pervasive and powerful influence has been the increasing power of governments to control national and international economies; and that power derives directly from the growth in communications and transportation. During the ’50s the main influence remained with the governmental committees, especially those working on long-term economic and military plans. By the early ‘6Os, however, it had become apparent that the nations do not live by the plan alone; and one of the first signs of a widening in the range of enquiry was the conference organised by CIBA in 1963 on ‘Man and his Future’. The institutes and the founda-
FUTURES
September 1971
tions followed: in Austria Robert Jungk established the Institute fur Zukunftsfragen; in Paris Bertrand de Jouvenel started the Futuribles research association; in the United Kingdom the Social Research Council set up the “Committee on the next Thirty Years”; and the American Academy of Arts and Science has created the “Commission on the Year 2000” in the USA. Out of the new institutes and the world conferences has come a second wave of publications, more specialist and often more practical than the predictions of the immediate post-war period. From the Hudson Institute has come a classic in the new field-Kahn and Wiener, The Tear 2000; from the Institut fur Zukunftsfragen has come a series of forecasts under the general title of Modelle fiir eine neue Welt; and presumably the proceedings of the Science Policy Foundation symposium (London, April 197 1) will soon appear in print. At present technological forecasting looks rather like a political party in its first year of office : expectations are high, but the achievements are still to come. Will they ever come ? In the areas where quantitative techniques can operate successfully, the forecasts will undoubtedly become more and more accurate. But how do the computers begin to assess the impact of ideas on a society? In the last 100 years the physical sciences and the technologies have reached their predicted goals: submarines, flying atomic machines, energy, space rockets all belong to the ancient history of forecasting. And yet the great social objectives are still with us. World peace, universal prosperity, the reign of law, the brotherhood of man-these aspirations make up the unfinished business of the human race. And these aspirations are central to many of the issues that emerge from the forecasting of alternative futures. To plan is to choose; and in order to make the best choice, it is essential that we should know what we want. But are we certain that the human race knows what it wants?
305