As we begin to develop an understanding of the furure and what it entails, we must first agree on the premise that "A new civilization is emerging in our lives, and blind men everywhere are trying to suppress it" (Sherden, p.195) Understanding this basic concept leads to the further acknowledgement that some futurist have used the introduction of fear factor in the past to attempt to initiate change. This concept has proven archaic and as managers, we must embrace change. Change is necessary to move the society along. Several Futurist " Alvin Toffler, Mikhail Gorbachev, David Suzuki, Marily Ferguson, Hazel Henderson" are amoung the best known and widely recognized futurist and sometimes attract unneccessary attention. We must seek to understand what makes a Futurist. In Sherden(1998) he states: A Futurist is "a predictor of societal change, the moniker embraces an eclectic goup of sociologists, authors, political figures, novelists, media celebrities, and numerous others who crank out thousands of books, papers, and speeches on future lifestyles, attitudes, work life, family structure, wars, revolutions, and every other imaginable aspect of society" Following in this vein, we assert that the society in which we live in is a complex system that is affected by attitudes, beliefs, and is most dramatically effected by economic changes and political strife. How can a futurist guess what is going to happen with the shere nature of our politcal system. Potential change every four years. Continual adjusting of the GNP, Fluctuations in prime interest. From this aspect, we would be better off playing games of darts in a pitch black room and not having any idea of where the board is located. This concept has become known as the unpredictable complex system and was introduced in the late 1930 by Mr. Karl Popper. Among Mr. Poppers thirteen degrees, his writings are extensive both in conceptual knowledge as well as theoretical applications of forecasting procedures. Among his most widely acclaimed works was: "The Logic of Scientific Discovery", (1935) In recent years his views that once where published fifty years ago have once again come full circle with his publication of "An Argument for Indeterminism" (1982)
Mr. Popper asserts that via analysis of complexity, the theory of "emergence of novelty" theory is one of his most important features. What is the idea a adaptability and how does it affect the methodology of forecsting. The incongruence of these opposing and sometime diametrically opposing ideas leeds us to the age old attitude that " In order to prodict the future, you must understand the past" Under study of his works, Popper avers that "scientific predictions" are impossible in social sciences. This is supported by his assertion that " Since neither proved laws of nature that invariantly determine the future course of some phenomenon nor a detailed knowledge of one's starting point (also called initial conditions) exist with much reliability in social sciences, social prediction cannot be "scientific" in the way that we can predict with great accuracy the path and futre location of heavenly bodies" (Sherden, 1998)
In essence, we cannot accept the probability of science predicting the outcome of the future to any measureable degree of accuracy and we must further disregard that social sciences can predict using basic theoretical physics
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