The future is now.

In the western world,  the Gregorian calendar tells us that in just a few months, we will be in the 21 st century. Looking at a folder full of  articles about what the mainstream press says about futurism, the future of futurism seems bright.

The main message is that the role of futurism is to help others think about  what lies ahead. However, in the January 1997 article of THE FUTURIST, Edward Cornish, editor, wrote an article analyzing the accuracy of  “forecasts” of  30 years ago. The result? Of those articles that made specific forecasts, the correct  outcome or accuracy was roughly 68%. We looked at another article about futurism in a 1974 U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, our analysis is the accuracy rate at roughly 70%.

By the  way, futurist don’t own future forecasts. Here is the success rate of others:

*psychics- 1%

*science fiction writers- not clear

*sports- depends on the event, but 70% would be incredible for  yearly forecasting “winners” or    participating and winning in athletic competition on average, year after year.

*business- being in a successful venture 70% of the time is very unusual

*academia- successfully predicting behavior is well below the 70% mark.

*stock forecasting- 70% is excellent.

One of the authors was deluged with phone calls from the media on another article in THE FUTURIST. When I spoke about the preliminary results on futurists’ accuracy, the media responded in the affirmative and without exception. Further, portions of the article were reprinted through out the world.

Our only concern is that the “Cornish criteria” evaluating a forecast within the exact year of decade is too strict. We suggest that forecast be given a wider latitude of being accurate within a 20 year period. As an example, “drugs that control or modify personality will be in widespread use by 1987.” That forecast was “right.” We suggest that given the fluidity, fragility, uncertainty of the future, a “correct”  forecast should be in the 1980 to 2000 year range.

At any rate, if the preliminary results are this good and  further research supports even slightly lower “successful” forecasts, our future indeed  would suggest that we do have a future in what we are doing.

Joel Charles Snell

Claire Noble

Professor Snell is a  Research Fellow  for the Arlington Institute and Professor of  Social Science at Kirkwood College. Dr. Noble is a Professor of Political Science also at Kirkwood. This article is  abridged from an upcoming article in  the JOURNAL OF INSTRUCTIONAL PSYCHOLOGY.

In the article, the authors suggest that futurism like history become part of the curriculum.