Supermarket tabloids may give forecasting the future a bad name, but the Bethesda, Maryland-based World Future Society takes it quite seriously. In the latest issue of the society's magazine, The Futurist, longtime editor Edward Cornish took a look at 34 predictions made in the first issue, 30 years ago, by notables such as novelist Arthur C. Clarke.
Cornish found that 23 were right and 11 wrong--a 68% accuracy rate. That's not bad, he says, considering the unpredictables--such as budget cuts that have sharply curtailed plans for human space exploration. Indeed, he says, because of the quickening pace of technological change, "it is now more difficult than ever to predict the future."
1967 forecasts for the '80s
RIGHT
A space station with military uses
People working at home on terminals linked to remote databanks
Credit cards that put money out of style
Common use of artificial organs and human organ transplants
Widespread use of ultralight metal substitutes
WRONG
A lunar settlement
Full-color, 3D TVs used worldwide
Primitive forms of life made in the lab
Human planetary landings
Desalinated seawater widely used in agriculture
