“It is naïve to think that a [computer] model can predict future events on the Earth. To try to predict the future based on just one variable (CO2) in extraordinarily complex natural systems is folly.”

—  Ian Plimer , book Heaven and Earth

Heaven and Earth (2009)

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Ian Plimer 11
Australian geologist 1946

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“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/

“Complexity scientists concluded that there are just too many factors—both concordant and contrarian—to understand. And with so many potential gaps in information, almost nobody can see the whole picture. Complex systems have severe limits, not only to predictability but also to measurability. Some complexity theorists argue that modelling, while useful for thinking and for studying the complexities of the world, is a particularly poor tool for predicting what will happen.”

L. K. Samuels (1951) American writer

Source: In Defense of Chaos: The Chaology of Politics, Economics and Human Action, (2013), p. 226

“Without precise predictability, control is impotent and almost meaningless. In other words, the lesser the predictability, the harder the entity or system is to control, and vice versa. If our universe actually operated on linear causality, with no surprises, uncertainty, or abrupt changes, all future events would be absolutely predictable in a sort of waveless orderliness.”

L. K. Samuels (1951) American writer

Source: In Defense of Chaos: The Chaology of Politics, Economics and Human Action, (2013), p. 280

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“People don't change their basic nature, they just accumulate more stuff upon which they can apply their stupidity, selfishness, and horniness. From this perspective, the future isn't hard to predict.”

Scott Adams (1957) cartoonist, writer

Source: Books, The Dilbert Future (1997)

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“The best way to predict the future is to invent it.”

Alan Kay (1940) computer scientist

Alan Kay (1971) at a 1971 meeting of PARC http://quoteinvestigator.com/2012/09/27/invent-the-future/
Similar remarks are attributed to Peter Drucker and Dandridge M. Cole.
Cf. Dennis Gabor, Inventing the Future (1963): "The future cannot be predicted, but futures can be invented."
Nigel Calder reviewed Gabor's book and wrote, "we cannot predict the future, but we can invent it..."
1970s

“The best way to predict the future is to create it. ”

Форрест Шакли (1894–1985)

“Your brain is far too complex and mercurial for its behavior to be predicted in any but the broadest outlines or for any but the shortest distances in the future.”

Paul Churchland (1942) Canadian philosopher

Paul M. Churchland (1996) The Engine of Reason, the Seat of the Soul: A Philosophical Journey Into the Brain. MIT Press, 1996. p. 3

“Prediction of the future is possible only in systems that have stable parameters like celestial mechanics. The only reason why prediction is so successful in celestial mechanics is that the evolution of the solar system has ground to a halt in what is essentially a dynamic equilibrium with stable parameters. Evolutionary systems, however, by their very nature have unstable parameters. They are disequilibrium systems and in such systems our power of prediction, though not zero, is very limited because of the unpredictability of the parameters themselves. If, of course, it were possible to predict the change in the parameters, then there would be other parameters which were unchanged, but the search for ultimately stable parameters in evolutionary systems is futile, for they probably do not exist… Social systems have Heisenberg principles all over the place, for we cannot predict the future without changing it.”

Kenneth E. Boulding (1910–1993) British-American economist

Source: 1980s, Evolutionary Economics, 1981, p. 44

Dennis Gabor photo

“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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“Trying to predict the future is like trying to drive down a country road at night with no lights while looking out the back window.”

Peter F. Drucker (1909–2005) American business consultant

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