Dan Gardner wrote a devastating book on the quality of forecasts, Future Babble: Why expert predictions are next to worthless, and you can do better. Can we make good predictions on the future? Gardner pours on the evidence that the answer is no, not in the least.
Karl Popper states, "The course of human history is strongly influenced by the growth of human knowledge, but it is impossible to predict, by rational or scientific methods, the future growth of scientific knowledge." Our global and economic changes are based on changes in knowledge. Predictions about shortages are often wrong because experts do not account for technical changes. They underestimate the impact of knowledge.
It is an unpredictable world and that is especially for the experts. Experts may be good at describing the past and the present, but they do not have any edge on judging the future. At best, experts will say that we can expect more of the same. They are hard pressed to answer questions about change.
Gardner described the difference between two forms of experts: the foxes and hedgehogs. Hedgehogs know one thing very well while the foxes are generalists. The generalists will often beat the specialists, so look to generalist thinking for predictions.
While the author may leave the ready with a sense of hopelessness, we can control uncertainty through relying on diversification and planning for change. While we cannot make good predictions, we can always assume that the world will change.
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