“I don’t make forecasts, especially about the future” the Baseball legend Yogi Berra is reported to have said. But as long as there have been human beings we’ve wanted to know what the future holds. Learn about the different ways that humans have tried to make forecasts - from the interpretation of dreams and oracles, to astrology, to the origins of statistics, scientific weather forecasts, and forecasting financial markets, to the work of futurologists like H G Wells and Alvin Toffler.

DELIVERY MODE

• Face-to-Face

SUGGESTED READING

• Glenn Adamson, A Century of Tomorrows, Bloomsbury, ISBN: 9781639730230
• Bertrand de Jouvenal, The Art of Conjecture, Routledge ISBN: 9781412847483
• Walter A Friedman, The Fortune Tellers, Princeton University Press: ISBN 9780691159119
• S. J. Tester, A History of Western Astrology, Ballantine Books: ISBN 0345358708.

COURSE OUTLINE

• Fortune telling in Babylonia - the origins of astrology
• Interpreting dreams as foretelling the future
• Laplace’s demon and the dream of a completely predictable world
• The emergence of statistics and probability as forecasting tools
• Scientific weather forecasting in the Victorian age
• Predicting the financial markets
• Speculation on the future - H G Wells’ Anticipations and the beginnings of futurology

LEARNING OUTCOMES

By the end of this course, students should be able to:

1. Explain the shifting world views that have changed the way we attempt to foretell the future
2. Explain the concepts underlying techniques as diverse as astrology and financial forecasting
3. Discuss the strengths and weaknesses of the various techniques that have been used to make predictions
4. Understand the limitations around various forecasting techniques
5. Critically assess futurological predictions