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[from THE FUTURIST, March-April 2003]
The Next Hundred Years . . . Then and Now by Robert H. Cartmill. Xlibris Corporation. 2002. 245 pages. Paperback. Check price/order now
Assessing Predictions, Yesterday and Today
The Next Hundred Years . . . Then and Now identifies predictions made in 1900, evaluates them to see how good they were, and compares them to predictions made in 2000. Accordingly, "By seeing where our forebears went seriously wrong or were uncannily accurate, we should more ably judge the current forecasts for the next century or at least not fall into grave error," writes author Robert H. Cartmill, adjunct professor of meteorology at the University of New Orleans.
Using a point system, Cartmill grades forecasts made in categories, such as science and technology, biology and medicine, economics and business, and social conditions. Cartmill bases his grades on a formula that takes into account things that influence predictions, such as politics and bias. For example, personal bias and desire may cloud a forecast's validity. The formula enables Cartmill to grade not only past predictions but also those proffered today. The result is a greater understanding of how likely modern predictions are to come true.
Using this method, Cartmill doesn't hold out much hope for those predictions made about space travel, with its prohibitive expenses and the biased interest of forecasters like NASA and the Mars Society. Ray Kurzweil's prediction that by 2099 very few people will have biological bodies "seems to run counter to the human instinct for self-preservation."
On the other hand, Cartmill sees as likely the development of artificial retinas to cure blindness by 2050, biodegradable contraceptive implants effective for up to five years by 2010, commercial fusion power as early as 2026, and a 25-hour workweek by 2010.
The 1900 forecasters Cartmill evaluates are a cross-section of American intellect, including politician William Jennings Bryan, Chicago mayor Hempstead Washburne, feminist Mary E. Lease, poet and artist Joaquin Miller, and the editors of the New Orleans Picayune. Most of the true predictions came from journalist John Elfreth Watkins Jr., the "seer of the century," who successfully forecasted advancements in twentieth-century warfare ("aerial warships and forts on wheels"). He was fairly prescient about transportation (subways, elevated roadways), food preparation and storage (ready-cooked foods, refrigerated preservation), communications (international long-distance telephone), and central air conditioning and heating, among other innovations.
Not all the forecasters were as on-target, including labor reformer James William Sullivan, who predicted one-cent postage; economic analyst Van Buren Denslow, who predicted that men would wear tights; and newspaperman William Elroy Curtis, who thought that North and South America would have no need for trade with Asia or Europe. This section of the book describing the predictions and their accuracy in the twentieth century makes a nice companion to Laura Lee's Bad Predictions, which also takes faulty forecasting as its purview.
Cartmill ends with his own predictions:
Reviewed by Clifton Coles
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