Futurology

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Futurology is the rigorous attempt to anticipate future developments, relying heavily upon social-science methods. Few futurologists actually try to forecast future conditions, but instead prefer to identify alternative possibilities and to critique naive forecasts that others may have proposed. Critical futurology has deep historical roots. For example, in 1872 Edward Jarvis addressed popular concerns that the United States was experiencing too much immigration through careful demographic analysis that showed the country was in little danger of becoming primarily foreign born.

In the 1960s a futurology craze gripped American intellectuals, many of whom wished to serve as advisors to the Kennedy-Johnson administration’s New Frontier or Great Society and the competition with the Soviet Union cold war. The RAND corporation sponsored studies that combined the views of many experts into unified forecasts concerning a wide range of possible technological and social developments. Among the sequels were two visionary books, The Year 2000 (1967), by Herman Kahn and Anthony J. Wiener, and Towards the Year 2000 edited by Daniel Bell (1967).

In the 2000s conferences such as the annual meetings of the World Future Society offer diverse prospectives. Serious journals, such as Futures and Futures Research Quarterly, carry projections, scenarios, theory-based extrapolations, and expert judgments about the future.

A projection analyzes recent trends mathematically, then runs the trends forward in time to estimate particular variables, such as population, economic activity, or the diffusion of a new technology. In 1971 Jay Forrester used the simple computers of his day to model the interplay of economic and social variables on a global scale through systems dynamics projections. The approach was famously used in the 1972 Club of Rome report, Limits to Growth, predicting that the global economy would soon crash because of resource depletion, but in retrospect the numerous assumptions seem arbitrary, and the crash has not yet occurred. The report remains influential as a cautionary tale but not a prediction.

The point of a scenario is not to predict, but to clarify, presenting a coherent, internally consistent picture of a future possibility so that planners and scholars can think more clearly and creatively. The scenarios in the Kahn-Wiener and Bell books imagined the fall of the Soviet Union and the birth of the World Wide Web. In 2003 British astronomer Royal Sir Martin Rees examined realistic scenarios for many of the ways humankind could become extinct during this century.

A theory sketches the future implied by a particular set of formal ideas. Pitirim Sorokin argued that every great civilization follows a cycle from ideational culture based on a transcendent ideology such as a religion, to sensate culture that is secular, empirical, and destined for collapse, followed by a new ideational phase. While agreeing with Sorokin’s general approach, Rodney Stark and William Bainbridge argued that civilization will not secularize in the long run, because religion responds with constant revival and innovation.

Scientific and technical expertise can identify the possible implications of discoveries. In 2000 the U.S. National Science Foundation considered the implications of nanotechnology for industry, medicine, environmental sustainability, space exploration, national security, and scientific understanding of nature. The finding that the societal impact would operate indirectly, led to an examination of the possible future convergence of nanotechnology with biotechnology, information technology, and new cognitive technologies.

Given that futurologists seldom attempt to predict precise outcomes, one may wonder how futurology differs from science fiction (SF), a genre of literature that often concerns speculations about the future and is sometimes praised for insight about the implications of science and technology. Sociological research suggests that SF has primarily four ideological dimensions: (1) “hard-science” stories favorable to technological innovation; (2) “new-wave” stories critical of technological development, emphasizing aesthetics and social science rather than natural science; (3) fantasy stories in which magic or the supernatural are more important than technology or science; and (4) the time dimension anchored in classical SF such as the century-old works of Jules Verne, H. G. Wells, and Edgar Rice Burroughs. Arguably, the first two of these dimensions might qualify as futurology, if the authors built upon a solid basis of knowledge in the natural or social sciences, using narrative fiction as a way of rendering their scenarios more vivid.

SEE ALSO Technocracy; Technology

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Bainbridge, William Sims. 1986. Dimensions of Science Fiction. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Bell, Daniel, ed. 1967. Towards the Year 2000. Boston: Beacon Press.

Forrester, Jay W. 1971. World Dynamics. Cambridge, MA: Wright-Allen Press.

Helmer, Olaf, Bernice Brown, and Theodore Gordon. 1966. Social Technology. New York: Basic Books.

Jarvis, Edward. 1872. Immigration. Atlantic Monthly 29: 454–468.

Kahn, Herman, and Anthony J. Wiener. 1967. The Year 2000. New York: Macmillan.

Meadows, Donella H., Dennis L. Meadows, Jørgen Randers, and William W. Behrens III. 1972. The Limits to Growth: A Report for the Club of Rome’s Project on the Predicament of Mankind. New York: Universe Books.

Rees, Martin. 2003. Our Final Hour. New York: Basic Books.

Roco, Mihail C., and William Sims Bainbridge, eds. 2001. Societal Implications of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology. Dordrecht, Netherlands: Kluwer.

Roco, Mihail C., and William Sims Bainbridge, eds. 2003. Converging Technologies for Improving Human Performance. Dordrecht, Netherlands: Kluwer.

Sorokin, Pitirim A. 1937. Social and Cultural Dynamics. New York: American Book Company.

Stark, Rodney, and William Sims Bainbridge. 1985. The Future of Religion. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Wagner, Cynthia G., ed. 2005. Foresight, Innovation, and Strategy: Toward a Wiser Future. Bethesda, MD: World Future Society.

William Sims Bainbridge

futurology The attempt to forecast the future by constructing theories of history is as old as philosophy itself. But the systematic practice of futurology–projecting statistical trends in order to construct realistic future scenarios–dates from the 1950s and is a distinctively social scientific enterprise. Early predictions such as those of Herman Kahn and Anthony Wiener in The Year 2000 (1967) tended to be optimistic, and even utopian.

This pattern changed with the Club of Rome's report on The Limits to Growth (1972). Futurology in the 1980s and 1990s has been more pessimistic, and sometimes apocalyptic, focusing on negative trends in population, environment, and social order. However, positive predictions can still be found in books like American Renaissance by Marvin Cetron and Owen Davies (1989).

Most forecasting depends on identifying historical trends and patterns, and projecting them into the future. The simplest forecasts focus on a specific vector of change, like population or technology. These may offer more or less definite answers about the future: world population will definitely grow by one billion in the next decade; technology will definitely become more sophisticated, and so on. Other vectors like economic performance, drug use, crime, religious belief, or social attitudes are far more difficult to predict. Sophisticated modelling systems can take many variables into account, but they offer so many branching pathways of change that their usefulness is limited. Futurology in general is interesting as a speculative exercise, but has little or no scientific basis, and has an almost complete record of predictive failure.

fu·ture / ˈfyoōchər/ • n. 1. (usu. the future) the time or a period of time following the moment of speaking or writing; time regarded as still to come: we plan on getting married in the near future work on the building will be halted for the foreseeable future. ∎  events that will or are likely to happen in the time to come: nobody can predict the future. ∎  used to refer to what will happen to someone or something in the time to come: a blueprint for the future of American fast food. ∎  a prospect of success or happiness: he'd decided that there was no future in the gang I began to believe I might have a future as an artist. ∎  Gram. a tense of verbs expressing events that have not yet happened. 2. (futures) Finance short for futures contract. • adj. at a later time; going or likely to happen or exist: the needs of future generations. ∎  (of a person) planned or destined to hold a specified position: his future wife. ∎  existing after death: expectation of a future life. ∎  Gram. (of a tense) expressing an event yet to happen. PHRASES: for future referencesee reference.DERIVATIVES: fu·ture·less adj. ORIGIN: late Middle English: via Old French from Latin futurus, future participle of esse ‘be’ (from the stem fu-, ultimately from a base meaning ‘grow, become’).

174. Future

See also 124. DIVINATION ; 308. PAST ; 396. TIME .

augury

1 . the art of foretelling the future by means of signs; divination.

2 . an omen or portent from which the future is foretold. —augur, n. —augurial , adj. —augurous. Obsolete, adj.

fatiloquence

foretelling of the future; soothsaying.

futurism

the seeking of life’s meaning and fulfillment in the future, —futurist, n. —futuristic, adj.

futurition

Rare. the state or condition of being about to exist.

futurology

the art or practice of forecasting trends or developments in politics, science, society, etc.

hariolation

the act or art of prognostication or divination; soothsaying.

oracularity

the skill, condition, or an instance of being oracular.

prognostication

1 . the act of forecasting or prophesying.

2 . a forecast or prediction. —prognosticator, n. —prognosticative, adj.

prolepsis

anticipation, as in anticipating or describing a future event. See also 21. ARGUMENTATION . —proleptic, adj.

telegnosis

clairvoyance or other occult or supernatural knowledge.

vaticination

1 . the act of prophesying.

2 . the thing foretold. —vaticinator, n.

FUTURE. A TENSE contrasting with the present and the past. Traditionally, the simple future tense is will or shall followed by the infinitive: will follow. The future continuous or future progressive adds be followed by -ing participle: will be following. The future perfect adds have followed by the -ed participle: will have followed. The future perfect continuous combines the latter two: will have been following. Future time is also expressed by: be going to as in Naomi is going to help Eliot; the present progressive as in I am playing next week; the simple present as in We leave for Paris tomorrow; the use of be to as in She is to be the next president of the company; the use of be about to as in It is about to rain; the modal VERB can as in I can see you on Tuesday morning; the phrase be sure to as in They are sure to help us; such verbs as intend and plan as in I intend to vote for you.

future future history (in science fiction) a narration of imagined future events
future shock a state of distress or disorientation due to rapid social or technological change; coined by the American writer Alvin Toffler (1928– ) in Horizon Summer 1965.

See also look to the future.

future adj. and sb. XIV. — (O)F. futur — L. futūrus, fut. ppl. of esse, f. *fu-; see BE.
Hence futurism belief that biblical prophecies are still to be fulfilled XIX; in art use (XX) — F. — It. So futurity XVII.

future •botcher, gotcha, top-notcher, watcher, wotcha •imposture, posture •firewatcher • birdwatcher •debaucher, scorcher, torture •Boucher, voucher •cloture, encroacher, poacher, reproacher •jointure • moisture •cachucha, future, moocher, smoocher, suture •butcher •kuccha, scutcher, toucher •structure •culture, vulture •conjuncture, juncture, puncture •rupture • sculpture • viniculture •agriculture • sericulture •arboriculture • pisciculture •horticulture • silviculture •subculture • counterculture •aquaculture • acupuncture •substructure • infrastructure •candidature • ligature • judicature •implicature •entablature, tablature •prelature • nomenclature • filature •legislature • musculature •premature • signature • aperture •curvature •lurcher, nurture, percher, searcher