Science has not yet mastered prophecy. We predict too much for the next year and yet far too little for the next 10.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
Humans are terrible at predicting the future. We really overestimate what we can do in the short term and underestimate what we can do in the long term... If we can glimpse even a couple of years into the future, even that's difficult to do.
You can never properly predict the future as it really turns out. So you are doing something a little different when you write science fiction. You are trying to take a different perspective on now.
Well, with prophecy you got to see what happens.
When a scientist is ahead of his times, it is often through misunderstanding of current, rather than intuition of future truth. In science there is never any error so gross that it won't one day, from some perspective, appear prophetic.
Prediction is very difficult, especially if it's about the future.
Nobody wants a prediction that the future will be more or less like the present, even if that is, statistically speaking, an excellent prediction.
I think science fiction is very bad at prediction.
In order to predict effectively, we need to use science. And the reason that we need to use science is because then we can reproduce what we're doing; it's not just wisdom or guesswork. And if we can predict, then we can engineer the future.
Physics is the only profession in which prophecy is not only accurate but routine.
Prophecy is what we all have to go by now.