Failed predictions

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This is a list of failed predictions. Psychics and would-be prophets often give exact details of what is about to happen and when the day passes, their followers conveniently forgot they ever said anything of the kind, remembering mainly those that happened to come true.

Science fiction is often set in the future, but is very rarely intended to be an actual prediction of events to come; a timeline of fictional future events is listed elsewhere.

The History of Unfulfilled Prophecy by Christians deals specifically with failed predictions by prophets or leaders within the Christian church, though not any contained within the Bible itself.

Many of the following quotes do not truly describe predictions of the future, but description of then present circumstances which may sound either nonsensical or patently untrue given what is now known.

This is an incomplete list, which may never be able to satisfy certain standards for completeness. Revisions and sourced additions are welcome.

Contents

[edit] A History of doomsday prophecies

Many doomsday predictions, including ones predicting the end of the world, the return of a deity, or a cataclysmic event, have been conventionally vague. However, some people have come up with very specific predictions.

[edit] Past

[edit] Failed predictions made by people not claiming to be prophets, referring to history, art, science, etc.

By no means, however, are doomsday prophecies the only predictions that human beings ever make that turn out to be wrong. Many people- most, in fact- make predictions about the future not because they claim to be a prophet or such, but simply because they are basing their predictions on their own thoughts and feelings about history, the arts, science, etc. Scientists and economists, as well as any other professional in any business - not to mention any layperson - can make a failed prediction.

The following is a list of such failed predictions. The list is broken up into three main sections: Technology, Science/Medicine/Health, and Bad Predictions. The Technology and Bad Predictions sections are further divided into categories which fit under those sections.

[edit] Technology

Technology in this case refers to tools, machines, and other tangible devices that are used by humans for certain processes. All quotes in all categories of this section refer to these types of technology.

[edit] Computers

  • "There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home." -- Ken Olson, president, chairman and founder of Digital Equipment Corp. (DEC), maker of big business mainframe computers, arguing against the PC in 1977. (See [1] for historical context.)
  • "I have traveled the length and breadth of this country and talked with the best people, and I can assure you that data processing is a fad that won't last out the year." -- The editor in charge of business books for Prentice Hall, 1957.[citation needed]
  • "640K ought to be enough for anybody." or "No one will need more than 637 kilobytes of memory for a personal computer."
    • Two variants of the same quote, often misattributed to Bill Gates in 1981. Gates has repeatedly denied ever saying this, and he points out that it has never been attributed to him with a proper source. In fact, the memory limitation was due to the hardware architecture of the IBM PC.[1]
  • "But what... is it good for?" -- IBM executive Robert Lloyd, speaking in 1968 about the microprocessor, the heart of today’s computers.[citation needed]

[edit] Radio

  • "The wireless music box has no imaginable commercial value. Who would pay for a message sent to no one in particular?" -- Associates of David Sarnoff responding to the latter's call for investment in the radio in 1921.[citation needed]
  • "Lee DeForest has said in many newspapers and over his signature that it would be possible to transmit the human voice across the Atlantic before many years. Based on these absurd and deliberately misleading statements, the misguided public ... has been persuaded to purchase stock in his company ..." -- a U.S. District Attorney, prosecuting American inventor Lee DeForest for selling stock fraudulently through the mail for his Radio Telephone Company in 1913.[citation needed]

[edit] Space travel

  • "There is practically no chance communications space satellites will be used to provide better telephone, telegraph, television, or radio service inside the United States." -- T. Craven, FCC Commissioner, in 1961 (the first commercial communications satellite went into service in 1965).[citation needed]
  • "To place a man in a multi-stage rocket and project him into the controlling gravitational field of the moon where the passengers can make scientific observations, perhaps land alive, and then return to earth - all that constitutes a wild dream worthy of Jules Verne. I am bold enough to say that such a man-made voyage will never occur regardless of all future advances." -- Lee DeForest, American radio pioneer and inventor of the vacuum tube, in 1926[citation needed]

[edit] Rockets

  • "... too far-fetched to be considered." -- Editor of Scientific American, in a letter to Robert Goddard about Goddard's idea of a rocket-accelerated airplane bomb, 1940 (German V2 missiles came down on London 3 years later).[citation needed]
  • "That Professor Goddard with his 'chair' in Clark College and the countenancing of the Smithsonian Institution does not know the relation of action to reaction, and of the need to have something better than a vacuum against which to react -- to say that would be absurd. Of course, he only seems to lack the knowledge ladled out daily in high schools." -- 1921 New York Times editorial about Robert Goddard's breakthrough work on rockets. The remark was retracted in the July 17, 1969 issue, in a humorous editorial - this was just before the historic moon landing of Neil Armstrong on July 20, 1969, so of course Goddard’s theory of rockets had been proven correct after all.

[edit] Aircraft

  • "Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible." -- Lord Kelvin, British mathematician and physicist, president of the British Royal Society, 1895.[citation needed]
  • "It is apparent to me that the possibilities of the aeroplane, which two or three years ago were thought to hold the solution to the [flying machine] problem, have been exhausted, and that we must turn elsewhere." -- Thomas Edison, American inventor, 1895.[citation needed]
  • "Airplanes are interesting toys but of no military value." -- Marechal Ferdinand Foch, Professor of Strategy, Ecole Superieure de Guerre, 1904.[citation needed]
  • "There will never be a bigger plane built." -- A Boeing engineer, after the first flight of the 247, a twin engine plane that holds ten people.[citation needed]

[edit] Atomic power/nuclear power

  • "The basic questions of design, material and shielding, in combining a nuclear reactor with a home boiler and cooling unit, no longer are problems... The system would heat and cool a home, provide unlimited household hot water, and melt the snow from sidewalks and driveways. All that could be done for six years on a single charge of fissionable material costing about $300." –- Robert Ferry, executive of the U.S. Institute of Boiler and Radiator Manufacturers, 1955.[citation needed]
  • "Nuclear-powered vacuum cleaners will probably be a reality in 10 years." -– Alex Lewyt, president of vacuum cleaner company Lewyt Corp., in the New York Times in 1955.[citation needed]
  • "This is the biggest fool thing we have ever done. The bomb will never go off, and I speak as an expert in explosives." -- Admiral William D. Leahy, Chief of Staff to the Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy during World War II, advising President Truman on the atomic bomb, 1945.[2] Leahy admitted the error five years later in his memoirs.[3]
  • "Atomic energy might be as good as our present-day explosives, but it is unlikely to produce anything very much more dangerous." -- Winston Churchill, British Prime Minister, 1939.[citation needed]
  • "The energy produced by the breaking down of the atom is a very poor kind of thing. Anyone who expects a source of power from the transformation of these atoms is talking moonshine." -- Ernest Rutherford, shortly after splitting the atom for the first time.[citation needed]
  • "There is not the slightest indication that nuclear energy will ever be obtainable. It would mean that the atom would have to be shattered at will." -- Albert Einstein, 1932.[citation needed]

[edit] Film/film technology

  • "Who the hell wants to hear actors talk?" -- H. M. Warner, co-founder of Warner Brothers, 1927.
    • The quote above is partial, the full quote is "Who the hell wants to hear actors talk? The music — that's the big plus about this." Warner Bros. was investing in sound technology though Henry Warner was more excited about the potential of scoring over dialogue. [3]
  • "The cinema is little more than a fad. It’s canned drama. What audiences really want to see is flesh and blood on the stage." -– Charlie Chaplin, actor, producer, director, and studio founder, 1916.[citation needed]

[edit] Automobiles

  • "That the automobile has practically reached the limit of its development is suggested by the fact that during the past year no improvements of a radical nature have been introduced." -- Scientific American, Jan. 2 edition, 1909.[citation needed]
  • "The ordinary "horseless carriage" is at present a luxury for the wealthy; and although its price will probably fall in the future, it will never, of course, come into as common use as the bicycle." -- Literary Digest, 1899.[citation needed]

[edit] Telephone/telegraph

  • "This 'telephone' has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a means of communication. The device is inherently of no value to us." -- A memo at Western Union, 1878 (or 1876).[citation needed]
  • "The Americans have need of the telephone, but we do not. We have plenty of messenger boys." -- Sir William Preece, Chief Engineer, British Post Office, 1878.[citation needed]
  • "A man has been arrested in New York for attempting to extort funds from ignorant and superstitious people by exhibiting a device which he says will convey the human voice any distance over metallic wires so that it will be heard by the listener at the other end. He calls this instrument a telephone. Well-informed people know that it is impossible to transmit the human voice over wires." -- News item in a New York newspaper, 1868.[citation needed]
  • "Transmission of documents via telephone wires is possible in principle, but the apparatus required is so expensive that it will never become a practical proposition." -- Dennis Gabor, British physicist and author of Inventing the Future, 1962. In defence of Gabor, it should be noted that he also wrote: "The best way to predict the future is to invent it."."[citation needed]

[edit] Miscellaneous technology

  • "The world potential market for copying machines is 5000 at most." -- IBM, to the eventual founders of Xerox, saying the photocopier had no market large enough to justify production, 1959.[citation needed]
  • "I must confess that my imagination refuses to see any sort of submarine doing anything but suffocating its crew and floundering at sea." -- HG Wells, British novelist, in 1901.[citation needed]
  • "Caterpillar landships are idiotic and useless. Those officers and men are wasting their time and are not pulling their proper weight in the war." -- Fourth Lord of the British Admiralty, 1915.[citation needed]
  • "If I had thought about it, I wouldn't have done the experiment. The literature was full of examples that said 'you can't do this'." -- Spencer Silver on the work that led to the unique adhesives for 3M "Post-It" Notepads.[citation needed]

[edit] Television

  • "While theoretically and technically television may be feasible, commercially and financially it is an impossibility, a development of which we need waste little time dreaming." -- Lee DeForest, American radio pioneer and inventor of the vacuum tube, 1926.[citation needed]

[edit] Lightbulb

  • "... good enough for our transatlantic friends ... but unworthy of the attention of practical or scientific men." -- British Parliamentary Committee, referring to Edison’s light bulb, 1878.[citation needed]
  • "Such startling announcements as these should be deprecated as being unworthy of science and mischievous to its true progress." -- Sir William Siemens, on Edison's light bulb, 1880.[citation needed]

[edit] Railroads

  • "Dear Mr. President: The canal system of this country is being threatened by a new form of transportation known as 'railroads' ... As you may well know, Mr. President, 'railroad' carriages are pulled at the enormous speed of 15 miles per hour by 'engines' which, in addition to endangering life and limb of passengers, roar and snort their way through the countryside, setting fire to crops, scaring the livestock and frightening women and children. The Almighty certainly never intended that people should travel at such breakneck speed." -- Martin Van Buren, Governor of New York, 1830(?).[citation needed]
  • "Rail travel at high speed is not possible, because passengers, unable to breathe, would die of asphyxia." -- Dr Dionysys Larder (1793-1859), professor of Natural Philosophy and Astronomy, University College London.[citation needed]

[edit] Science/medicine/health

Science in this case refers to any of the diverse scientific fields of study, Medicine refers to the scientific study of the body and how it functions, and Health refers to the study of how to keep the body functioning well.

  • "Louis Pasteur's theory of germs is ridiculous fiction." --Pierre Pachet, British surgeon and Professor of Physiology at Toulouse, 1872.
  • "The abolishment of pain in surgery is a chimera. It is absurd to go on seeking it...knife and pain are two words in surgery that must forever be associated in the consciousness of the patient." -- Dr. Alfred Velpeau, French surgeon, 1839.
  • "The abdomen, the chest, and the brain will forever be shut from the intrusion of the wise and humane surgeon" -- Sir John Eric Ericksen, British surgeon, appointed Surgeon Extraordinary to Queen Victoria, 1873.
  • "I would sooner believe that two Yankee professors lied, than that stones fell from the sky." -- Thomas Jefferson, U.S. President, on hearing reports of meteorites, 1790s(?).
  • "The view that the sun stands motionless at the center of the universe is foolish, philosophically false, utterly heretical, because it is contrary to Holy Scripture. The view that the earth is not the center of the universe and even has a daily rotation is philosophically false, and at least an erroneous belief." -- Holy Office, Roman Catholic Church, ridiculing the scientific analysis that the Earth orbited the Sun in edict of March 5, 1616.
  • "The more important fundamental laws and facts of physical science have all been discovered, and these are now so firmly established that the possibility of their ever being supplanted in consequence of new discoveries is exceedingly remote.... Our future discoveries must be looked for in the sixth place of decimals." -- Albert A. Michelson, German-born American physicist, 1894.
  • "We are probably nearing the limit of all we can know about astronomy." -- Simon Newcomb, Canadian-born American astronomer, 1888.
  • "The death rate will increase until at least 100-200 million people per year will be starving to death during the next ten years." -- Paul Ralph Ehrlich, in an interview with Peter Collier in Mademoiselle, 1970.
  • "It is already too late to avoid mass starvation," -- Denis Hayes, in The Living Wilderness, 1970.
  • An impending Ice age was predicted in the early 1970s.

[edit] Bad predictions

Bad predictions in this case refers to predictions about future events, enterprises, careers, etc. that proved to be wrong later.

[edit] Future historical/social/pop cultural events

  • "Everything that can be invented has been invented." --Charles H. Duell, an official at the US patent office, 1899.
    • This is commonly held to be an urban myth.[4]
  • "I see no good reasons why the views given in this volume should shock the religious sensibilities of anyone." -- Charles Darwin, in the foreword to his book, The Origin of Species, 1869.
  • "By the year 1982 the graduated income tax will have practically abolished major differences in wealth." -- Irwin Edman, professor of philosophy Columbia University, 1932.
  • "If anything remains more or less unchanged, it will be the role of women." -- David Riesman, conservative American social scientist, 1967.
  • "It will be gone by June." -- Variety, passing judgement on rock 'n roll in 1955.
  • "Democracy will be dead by 1950." -- John Langdon-Davies, A Short History of The Future, 1936.
  • "And for the tourist who really wants to get away from it all, safaris in Vietnam" -- Newsweek, predicting popular holidays for the late 1960s.
  • "Hawaii U.S.A. A world of happiness in an ocean of peace". -- The National Geographic Magazine, Vol. LXXX, No. 4, October, 1941. Advertisement sponsored during the initial years of the Second World War by the Hawaii Tourist Bureau, and published just two months before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor (possibly intended to attract tourists to the December season).
  • "Remote shopping, while entirely feasible, will flop - because women like to get out of the house, like to handle merchandise, like to be able to change their minds." -- TIME, 1966, in one sentence writing off e-commerce long before anyone had ever heard of it.
  • "It will be years - not in my time - before a woman will become Prime Minister." -- Margaret Thatcher, the first woman Prime Minister, October 26th, 1969.
  • "You will be home before the leaves have fallen from the trees." -– Kaiser Wilhelm, to the German troops, August 1914.
  • "This is the second time in our history that there has come back from Germany to Downing Street peace with honor. I believe it is peace for our time." -– Neville Chamberlain, British Prime Minister, September 30th, 1938 (after giving up Chechoslovakia to Hitler).
  • "Reagan doesn’t have that presidential look." -– United Artists Executive, rejecting Reagan as lead in 1964 film The Best Man.
  • "Capitalist production begets, with the inexorability of a law of nature, its own negation." – Karl Marx.
  • "Sensible and responsible women do not want to vote." -- Grover Cleveland, U.S. President, 1905.
  • "Man will not fly for 50 years." -- Wilbur Wright, American aviation pioneer, to brother Orville, after a disappointing flying experiment, 1901 (their first successful flight was in 1903).
  • "The Americans are good about making fancy cars and refrigerators, but that doesn’t mean they are any good at making aircraft. They are bluffing. They are excellent at bluffing." -- Hermann Goering, Commander-in-Chief of the Luftwaffe, 1942.
  • "With over fifteen types of foreign cars already on sale here, the Japanese auto industry isn’t likely to carve out a big share of the market for itself." -- Business Week, August 2, 1968.
  • "Ours has been the first [expedition], and doubtless to be the last, to visit this profitless locality." -- Lt. Joseph Ives, after visiting the Grand Canyon in 1861.

[edit] Celebrities/athletes/great artists and their work

  • "I would say that this does not belong to the art which I am in the habit of considering music." -- A Oulibicheff, reviewing Beethoven's Fifth Symphony.
  • "You better get secretarial work or get married." -- Emmeline Snively, director of the Blue Book Book Modelling Agency, advising would-be model Marilyn Monroe in 1944.
  • "If Beethoven's Seventh Symphony is not by some means abridged, it will soon fall into disuse." -- Philip Hale, Boston Music Critic, 1837.
  • "We don't like their sound, and guitar music is on the way out." -- Decca Records, when they rejected The Beatles, 1962.
  • "The singer (Mick Jagger) will have to go; the BBC won’t like him." -– First Rolling Stones manager Eric Easton to his partner after watching them perform.
  • "I'm sorry, Mr Kipling, but you just don't know how to use the English language." -- The San Francisco Examiner, rejecting a submission by Rudyard Kipling in 1889.

[edit] Entrepreneurs and their revolutionary ideas

  • "The concept is interesting and well-formed, but in order to earn better than a C, the idea must be feasible." -- A Yale University management professor in response to a college assignment by Fred Smith proposing a reliable overnight delivery service, in 1966. Smith would later go on to found Federal Express Corp.
  • "Drill for oil? You mean drill into the ground to try and find oil? You're crazy." -- Associates of Edwin L. Drake refusing his suggestion to drill for oil in 1859.
  • "A cookie store is a bad idea. Besides, the market research reports say America likes crispy cookies, not soft and chewy cookies like you make." -- Response to Debbi Fields' idea of starting Mrs. Fields' Cookies.
  • "So we went to Atari and said, 'Hey, we've got this amazing thing, even built with some of your parts, and what do you think about funding us? Or we'll give it to you. We just want to do it. Pay our salary, we'll come work for you.' And they said, 'No.' So then we went to Hewlett-Packard, and they said, 'Hey, we don't need you. You haven't got through college yet.'" -- Steve Jobs, founder of Apple Computer Inc., on his and Steve Wozniak's early attempts to distribute their personal computer.

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ http://www.usnews.com/usnews/biztech/gatesivu.htm
  2. ^ Truman, Harry S. (1955). Memoirs, Volume I: Year of Decisions. Garden City, New York: Doubleday, 11. 
  3. ^ Leahy, William D. (1950). I Was There. New York: Whittlesey. 

[edit] External links

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