Time Essay: Why Forecasters Flubbed the '70s

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Let us also consider some of the less sanguine projections. The disaffected young would have been rebelliously out front browbeating the Establishment in waves of dissent that would have continued to expand after the 1960s. Widespread religious fervor would have found a channel in a holy crusade against technology. Assassinations would have been frequent. Unrest would have swept through high schools. A grain glut might have triggered an agricultural depression. A breakdown of the cities would have produced chaos beyond anything ever seen before. Some urban areas would have banned the use of gasoline-powered automobiles. Do-it-yourself facelifts would have been on the market.

Admittedly, the end of the 1960s brought forth a few sound intimations about the years that were to follow. The forecasters generally sensed that the world would get by without general war, that the U.S. and Soviet Union would manage greater mutual restraint. A number of observers guessed that American society would move into a hard-to-define period of reflection, a time for "sorting out," as Columnist Joseph Kraft called it. Economists, in any thorough analysis, were not flatly wrong in projecting continued prosperity; there has been that in spite of the discombobulations of recession and soaring prices. But the cumulative forecasts of politicians, sociologists, philosophers, scientists and journalists, including some of those that found their way into this magazine, fell dismally short of even hinting at the actual shape and tone of the society that took form in the '70s. Such was the record that Education Professor Ronald L. Hunt, who designed the nation's first graduate program in futurism at California's San Jose State University, says that the 1980s ought to open the "age of humility" for forecasting.

Why did so many guess so wrong about so much? There are a variety of answers, but disappointingly few illuminating ones from the forecasters. Professional analysts, enamored of their computers and software and printouts, tend to mutter and mumble about technical imperfections in their still young methodology. Many admit that they erred by simply extrapolating from the trends that seemed evident as the '60s decade ended. Translation: they predicted that the present would persist into the future. Says Boris Pushkarev, vice president of New York's Regional Plan Association: "It's easy to continue trend lines. It's hard to predict changes in trends." Translation: it is hard to know what is going to happen. The '70s were especially hard, according to Peter Schwartz, head of S.R.I, (formerly Stanford Research Institute) International Futures Group, because they featured so many "low probability events." Translation: forecasters, just like ordinary people, are finding out that life is full of surprises.

There are bound to be more satisfying and fundamental explanations for the recurring shortcomings of forecasting and prophecy. In fact, there are three distinct reasons, among which the interplay is intimate and intricate.