Francis Wheen
Crystal Balls-Up
Future Babble: Why Expert Predictions Fail and Why We Believe Them Anyway
By Dan Gardner
Virgin Books 306pp £11.99 order from our bookshop
Is there any Schadenfreude more exquisite than seeing a prophet take a pratfall? When George Santayana wrote that those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it, he should have added: those who claim to know the future are condemned to make fools of themselves.
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