Firstly, can we predict anything?
We obviously have limited control of our lives and events surrounding them. The Christmas 2004 tsunami in the Indian Ocean is just one example of how little in control we really are.
Although the tsunami did happen, most of us would agree that the likelihood of such a devastating one happening next week is minimal.
So what are the contributing factors to us being able to predict anything?
As mentioned in the previous page, knowledge and facts play a part. The more information we have to build a picture, the better equipped we are to make a prediction of an event that later occurs. In other words the more likely it is that an event that we have predicted could happen.
In this sense probability also has a role. The more probable an event, the more we may be interested in the prediction. We are less likely to be interested in events that are highly unlikely to occur.
And thirdly, time or the amount of time must be involved. How far ahead is the prediction expected? The shorter the time period, the easier and more accurate the prediction is likely to be – and the more probable the event is. Also, some events that are guaranteed to happen but that we can do nothing about, such as the growing and dying of the sun are events that we can do nothing to prevent, and are so far in the future, that it makes no sense to let them bother us too much.
So the three factors determining a prediction are information, probability and time.
There is a kind of mental sliding scale, and at some point we consider that an event is unlikely enough to happen that you would not be predicting the event, as even if the event did happen, you would have been guessing. You just wouldn’t have enough of the requirements of knowledge and facts for your foretelling of the future to be a prediction. That is according to my own usage of predict, where reasoning, fact, statistics and calculation should form the basis of the prediction. As I mentioned on the previous page, my use of the word requires that it cannot be used for an unlikely event that I just happened, by luck or other unscientific means, to foresee.
This usage is not in line with normal English usage of predict, as all the word really implies is that you have foretold an event – that you have said an event will happen that did actually occur. How you have come to foretell the event is irrelevant. You could have had a vision or a premonition, seen a shooting star, or noticed any other unusual sign, and foretold the event. I reject the use of the word in this context, especially as there are plenty of alternative words that can be used exactly in this context, such as envision, augur, omen, prophesy, and even vaticinate. Why are there several words that describe foretelling the future through spiritual, magical or other supernatural means, and none for predicting by using reason, statistics, and science? Is there a hint of power when we think of predicting, one that is perhaps more prone through a supernatural route?
Of course depending of where we are in time in relation to an event – whether before or after the event, our word (whichever one we use), can be used either to defend and support our power of prescience (if we are after the event, and it did occur), or if as in any case where it has not yet occurred, and when no specific point in time was attached to the event, as a threat or omen that could still occur at any point in the future.
Anyway, enough digressing on definitions, and I am resorting to using predict according to my definition, for want of a better word. Does anyone know a better word to use?
The purpose of this theme is to avoid a future possible event. The longer the time period, the more time you have to take preventative measures, and the more useful the prediction may be.
For example if we are able to detect a huge earthquake in an ocean using seismic detectors, we could use this scientific data to warn people of impending danger. If we detect a massive one, the further the epicentre is from the people we wish to help, the more time will elapse between the initial event (earthquake) and its probable result (a tsunami). Those people living further away would have more time to escape to higher ground than those living nearby.
Increase the time distance so that we are trying the predict the probability of a tsunami happening before the initial earthquake, and the amount of scientific information we now have, the accuracy of the prediction, and likelihood of the prediction becoming fact are all vastly reduced.
So our ability to predict anything is determined by knowledge (and facts) and time. Time and context has a role in a prediction’s usefulness to us.
Since our aim is to avoid certain events or to be prepared for them, can we predict something that is really useful to us? Or am I wasting our time?
Since I have defined its use on a sliding scale, and the whole point of predicting is to avoid or change our behaviour so that we avoid a future possible event, there must be a point where predicting something is useful.
In my opinion the only way I could use the word predict, but discard it as being useful to avoid events, would be if I believed in determinism. That is another whole topic which I may discuss later.
Leaving aside determinism, I think there must be a useful realm for prediction – a point where we can calculate, estimate or deduce that an event is likely to happen, and change our actions and the course of history as a result.
If so, what useful predictions can we make?
Information or fact, probability and time.
It seems to me that the hardest things to predict are events that involve the interplay of human emotions or random events, of which we have limited data or information to support a prediction, such as volcanic eruptions.
However more predictable scenarios seem to involve mathematics and numbers (e.g. area, water sources, populations and demographics).
An example is that we can predict with reasonable accuracy today what the human population of the World will be in say 2050. The United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs population revision in 2012 predicts that while most of the developed World in 2012 will remain with similar populations, “the 49 least developed countries are projected to double in size from around 900 million people in 2013 to 1.8 billion in 2050″. It also predicts that “Europe’s population is projected to decline by 14 per cent” in that period.
A large meteorite colliding with Earth, or a massive volcanic eruption would change this, but the likelihood of any of these happening in the next 50 years is limited. Of course a pandemic, or war is more likely to happen, and either of these would effect the population prediction. Estimates of migrations should also be taken into account.
The last time such a devastating pandemic happened was the Black Death in the 14th Century, 700 years after the previous great plague pandemic in the reign of Roman Emperor Justinian. If that were a pattern, we would be due another today. Our scientific knowledge of bacteria and tools combating a bacterium could be expected to delay a repeat of this, unless the threat is an airborne virus, such as the Spanish flu of 1918, which killed 50-100 million people, a far more threatening force. More importantly there is no reason why pandemics should happen at regular intervals, nor any evidence that is so. It is more probable that the driving force of pandemics is simply population density and pressure, compounding sanitation and stress levels, climate change (a warming climate increases the risk), and improved communication into isolated areas, all of which would make the likelihood of one occurring soon unfortunately high.
World war is perhaps more likely than a pandemic, since we have in the last 100 years already had 2 world wars, and it would seem that the only thing that may prevent a third would be the fear of another. This was first written before the breakdown of Syria and the rise of IS.
From the UN demographic information we can also deduce that the ageing population in Europe may have to retire later, because the states they live in will need money from their taxes to pay for the growing health bill. Other possibilities are that European countries may cease to provide the health services that people there have come to expect, or that they reduce the cost of the health bill, while somehow providing a similar, or at least an acceptable service. So far a way to do this has not been forthcoming in either private (which is a high investment business, requiring huge capital, and so has little incentive to do this), or public health services (which is often constrained by its evolution into a huge employment agency, and by bureaucratic constraints). However who in 1970 would have thought that airline travel within Europe would become so much cheaper? Aircraft have changed a tiny bit in that period. The price of fuel has increased hugely. The biggest change effecting that industry then has been the relaxing of government regulation protecting national cartels.
Returning to the human population prediction for 2050, we can deduce what sub-Saharan Africa for example, may look like then.
Its human population will be more urbanised. The numbers of wildlife, and “wild” areas (areas that today have low enough human populations to sustain large numbers and diversity in wildlife species) will be less. Today we are concerned by the numbers of elephants and rhinos being poached, and we should be. While this is a big threat to the survival of these species, the biggest threat (human population growth) is currently happening, but the effects are seen more slowly. A side effect of this depreciation in wildlife will be that many African countries (for example South Sudan, Uganda, Chad, Mozambique or even Kenya) will not have much wildlife within their borders. This will mean they will not have an option to market the existence of wildlife and “wild” areas as a backbone of their tourist industry. They will be forced to look at alternatives. They may hit a shale seam and find gas or oil, which could turn their economy around for some years, but they definitely will not have a large sustainable wildlife tourism industry.
Of course, one unlikely, possible event, can easily switch any predictions to an impossibility, such as the occurrence of a major war or the outbreak of an epidemic disease. To read more about disease, or maybe nothing about disease, read the next page.