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 fore-
casting 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 popu-
lations. The future, it seems, is already
with us, waiting to be discovered in
the new jungle jargon of total system
analysis, matrix techniques, search
profiles, morphological analysis, and
envelope curve extrapolation. The range
of the investigations goes from rela-
tively small-scale r and d projects (in
the Swedish engineering industry, for
instance) to the far-reaching conse-
quences 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-seal-
ing wax, the Wellsian world-watchers
Professor I. F. Clarke is Head of the English
Studies Department, clnivrrsity of Strathclyde,
UK.
have given ~JkiCe to groups and associa-
tions of forecasters. The journals and
the conferences proliferate; the insti-
tutes 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 mans 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, how-
ever, were the reports and the recom-
mendations 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 tech-
niques of economic analysis and techno-
logical appraisal that led directly to the
FUTURES Sept ember 1971
Figure 1. The Flying City: one of the earliest fantasies that sprang from the first balloon ascents was the notion of
vast balloons that would transport thousands through the skies
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 3. As the inventions overtook the prophecies, forecasts in the 1920s
looked ahead to ocean liners and vast airships on the trans-Atlantic routes.
FUTURES September WH
The Pattern of Prediction 305
emergence of technological forecasting
in the 1960s. For example, the US
Presidents Materials Policy Commis-
sion produced in 1952 a five-volume
survey, Resources for Freedom, which
examined the prospects of vital com-
modities, 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 Pro-
gramme of nuclear power; and in that
same year the United Nations organised
an international conference in Geneva
on The peaceful uses of atomic
energy.
At all times the achievements and
the opportunities of modern technology
have decided the pace of development;
and on many occasions the social con-
sequences of human inventiveness have
thrown up problems that must find
right answers in the future. In the un-
paralleled 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 econo-
mies. And here political considerations
often affected decisions, since the end-
ing 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 in-
fluence 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 com-
mittees, 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-
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 Commis-
sion 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 presum-
ably 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 un-
doubtedly 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 physi-
cal sciences and the technologies have
reached their predicted goals: sub-
marines, flying machines, atomic
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?
FUTURES Sept ember 1971