“I am profoundly skeptical about our abilities to predict the future in general, and human behavior in particular.”

—  Errol Morris

Source: The Anti-Post-Modern Post-Modernist http://errolmorris.com/content/lecture/theantipost.html

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Errol Morris 14
American filmmaker and writer 1948

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“Human behavior is predictable, but, as in physical science, accurate prediction hinges on the correctness of underlying theoretical assumptions. There is, in fact, no prediction without theory; all managerial decisions and actions rest on assumptions about behavior. If we adopt the posture of the ostrich with respect to our assumptions under the mistaken idea that we are thus “being ‘practical,” or that “management is an art,” our progress with respect to the human side of enterprise will indeed be slow. Only as we examine and test our theoretical assumptions can we hope to make them more adequate, to remove inconsistencies, and thus to improve our ability to predict.”

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Source: The Human Side of Enterprise (1960), p. 11 (2006; 13)

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“The future cannot be predicted, but futures can be invented. It was man's ability to invent which has made human society what it is.”

Dennis Gabor (1900–1979) Nobel Prize-winning physicist and inventor of holography

Source: Inventing the Future (1963), p. 161

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“The illusion that we understand the past fosters overconfidence in our ability to predict the future.”

Daniel Kahneman book Thinking, Fast and Slow

Source: Thinking, Fast and Slow

“Intervening variables are essential to psychological analysis because without them our description of economic behavior would remain incomplete, our understanding of behavior limited, and our predictions of future behavior incorrect.”

George Katona (1901–1981) American psychologist

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“A Vast Machine watched and evaluated them, remembering their past actions and predicting their future behavior.”

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“The tendency to be rational is the consistent and hence predictable element in human behavior.”

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“Even if all the laws of psychology were known, one could make a prediction about the behavior of a man only if in addition to the laws, the special nature of the particular situation were known.”

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Source: 1930s, Principles of topological psychology, 1936, p. 11.

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“It's tough to make predictions, especially about the future”

Yogi Berra (1925–2015) American baseball player, manager, coach

The earliest citations of this proverb, from the mid-twentieth century, refer to it as Danish in origin. See http://quoteinvestigator.com/2013/10/20/no-predict/
Disputed, Misattributed

Niels Bohr photo

“Prediction is very difficult, especially about the future.”

Niels Bohr (1885–1962) Danish physicist

As quoted in Teaching and Learning Elementary Social Studies (1970) by Arthur K. Ellis, p. 431
The above quote is also attributed to various humourists and the Danish poet Piet Hein: "det er svært at spå – især om fremtiden"
It is also attributed to Danish cartoonist Storm P (Robert Storm Petersen).
Disputed
Variant: It's hard to make predictions, especially about the future.

“The problem of complexity is at the heart of mankind’s inability to predict future events with any accuracy. Complexity science has demonstrated that the more factors found within a complex system, the more chances of unpredictable behavior. And without predictability, any meaningful control is nearly impossible. Obviously, this means that you cannot control what you cannot predict. The ability ever to predict long-term events is a pipedream. Mankind has little to do with changing climate; complexity does.”

L. K. Samuels (1951) American writer

"The Real Science Behind Changing Climate", LewRockwell.com, August 1, 2014. https://www.lewrockwell.com/2014/08/lk-samuels/the-real-science-is-suppressed/

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