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Hope Cristol, the author of an article bashing futurism in Wired magazine touted “risk analysis” as the true way to assess future possibilities. She said, “We now have a plethora of niche consultants and a booming field called risk analysis, which uses proven actuarial methods.”
So it’s with great sour-grapes pleasure I report an item from today’s news. Mad cow disease has been discovered in the US, and, according to Reuters, one of the foremost experts on the subject is a fellow named George Gray.
“I thought it was unlikely but it’s not totally surprising,” said Gray, a Harvard professor who spent three years studying the disease and its origins for the Harvard Center for Risk Analysis. (emphasis mine) And: “”It proves only one thing … that somehow it got here.”
Duh…yeah. (sarcasm mine)
There’s the old saying attributed to everyone from Yogi Berra to Aristotole, “It’s hard to predict, especially the future.”
Maybe this whole thing was bogus. I mean, according to the notation in Wired author Hope Cristol was once a “futurist-in-training.” A futurist with a name like that? C’mon!
