Talk:Incorrect predictions

Andrew Hamilton "Computers" Quote

Sorry, but I fail to see how this is an incorrect prediction in any way. He merely predicted that computers would get smaller, which they did, it doesn't make it any less correct that they continued to get a lot smaller than he predicted.

Major cleanup needed

I've just restructured this article along Wikiquote standards, chiefly:

• Separating quotes into sourced, attributed, and misattributed quotes. "Sourced" means having a specific published or recorded source that can be used to verify the quote. Magazines should have dates or at least issue numbers. Quotes from books should include the title (chapters are highly desirable; pages are better but should include edition [w/ ISBN if available], as page numbers vary between editions). Speeches and other spoken quotes should have publications listed from which they are quoted. Audiovisual clips should have a link to a reliable website.
• Converting manually-crafted headings into TOC-compliant wiki headings.

The result demonstrates that we still have considerable work to do on this article:

• The vast majority of quotes aren't properly sourced.
• Many of them seem to have been copied directly from Things People Said - Bad Predictions, which can be construed as a copyright violation. I am not a lawyer, but I know that although one cannot copyright facts (like quotes themselves, perhaps), one can copyright presentation and explanatory text, all of which appear to have been copied in their entirety into this article. We probably don't need much of the explanations; these lines should be replaced or at least amended by including the source information once found.
• There doesn't appear to be any organization of quotes in each section. Common methods include alphabetical by quote or by author surname, or chronological.
• Many elements in the source information that is in the article have no links. I haven't tested the ones that do yet. Also, magazine, book, and film titles should be italicized per Wikiquote style guidelines.

I ask all editors involved in this article to help clean it up to meet Wikiquote standards of accuracy, verifiability, and style. Thank you. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 20:22, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

Remote shopping

"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.

Why is that in there? If I were picking these I would say that one is not necessarily wrong. --59.167.118.38 10:07, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

E-commerce (remote shopping) has not flopped, though, so the statement would indeed appear to be incorrect. -- 63.114.138.2 22:46, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

questions about relevancy

There are a number of quotes on this page which don't really seem to be predictions. for example:

• "The multitude of books is a great evil. There is no limit to this fever for writing; every one must be an author; some out of vanity, to acquire celebrity and raise up a name, others for the sake of mere gain." -- Martin Luther, German Reformation leader, Table Talk, 1530s(?).

unless this means that there is a limit to the "fever for writing"? Certainly you don't believe Martin Luther believed that "every one must be an author" -- clear hyperbole. What exactly do you claim Luther was predicting?

another oddity:

• "Where a calculator on the ENIAC is equipped with 18,000 vacuum tubes and weighs 30 tons, computers in the future may have only 1,000 vacuum tubes and weigh only 1.5 tons." -- Popular Mechanics, March 1949

Well, if the stats for the ENIAC are correct, and my laptop has zero vacuum tubes and weighs 8 pounds, don't you suppose there might have been one in between? First blush internet search turns up the IBM 709 Data Processing System: 2000 tubes and a weight of 2110 lbs. The quote isn't really that far off. Sure, computers got smaller than they predicted, but they were only predicting based on the vacuum tube -- and they were about right...

Yet another one:

• "I see no good reasons why the views given in this volume should shock the religious sensibilities of anyone." -- Charles Darwin

Perhaps the quote should be read again with the emPhasis on the other syLLable? He's stating an opinion "I see no good reasons", had he been prognosticating he would have said something like "There will never be a reason...". I suspect that the reason this quote was placed on this page may be POV. I'd ignore that if it clearly belonged.

fourth:

• "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, 1865(?).

While an amusing quote, there's no prediction here. "The Almighty certainly never..." is the closest thing, and if you can verify that the good governor is correct I'd suggest a CAT scan.

fifth:

• "Sensible and responsible women do not want to vote." -- Grover Cleveland, U.S. President, 1905.

Opinion. Perhaps his definition of a sensible and responsible woman precluded the desire? I'm not saying he's right, just that this isn't a prediction.

sixth:

• "That virus is a pussycat." -– Dr. Peter Duesberg, molecular-biology professor at U.C. Berkeley, on HIV, 1988

Um, this quote is so ambiguous I don't even know where to start. *If* he means that the virus is not very aggressive, then he's very very correct. Hemorragic fever beats it hands down in efficacy, and most variants of the flu spread more easilly. If he means that it is not very dangerous then I'm not sure what he's comparing it to. There are some (very knowlegable) people who question the tie between AIDS (the life threatening syndrome) and HIV (the virus).

Anyway, like I said above these are either opinions which cannot be verified true or false, are hyperbole, or aren't predictions of any kind.

You raise many good points, SpeedBump. I'll address them in three groups:

• I'm not sure why the Luther quote about "every one must be an author" was added, but I'd suggest that the current spate of blogging, personal websites, and other forms of modern communication actually confirm Luther's statement (if not his moral judgment on the practice, which itself isn't a clear "prediction"). I've removed the quote.

• Duesberg's HIV statement lacks the context to make his meaning clear, so I've removed that as well. If someone wants to restore it, I recommend providing a verifiable source. (In fact, that's important for all of these quotes.)

• The remaining quotes seem to have been added to demonstrate failures to sufficiently anticipate future changes in the world; i.e., the ENIAC successor, the "breakneck speed" of the first railroads, women voting. They might be categorized as inadequate anticipation, but that does raise the question of what constitutes an actual prediction, as opposed to now-antiquated world views. (And denial of women's suffrage isn't even antiquated for a dismayingly large portion of the world population, even today.) I'm not sure how we should handle these.

Anyone else care to chime in? ~ Jeff Q (talk) 03:55, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

I agree with many of Speedbump's points. Many of these "incorrect predictions" don't sound like anything of the sort. For example, take Darwin's foreward. Since he brought up the matter of "religious sensibilities", it seems that he thought it would be an issue; otherwise, why would he even mention it? By specifically saying he sees no "good reasons", it seems clear to me that he's implying "If what I'm about to say shocks your religious sensibilities, you're a dork". It's not an incorrect prediction; it's subtle and clever writing. Other oddities: Charlie Chaplin seems to have predicted the rise of reality TV. Spencer Silver's line isn't exactly a prediction. W.C. Heuper isn't predicting anything, but declaring the state of scientific knowledge. Simon Cameron is tired of science and wants to cut museum funding, but he's not predicting anything. Cheers! --EG

Another quote I think is a problem is the one on WMDs in Iraq. This is still an issue of controversy and it is clearly POV to place a quote claiming the existence of WMDs in Iraq in an article titled "Incorrect predictions." I'm removing this quote as long as nobody has any objections. 67.171.43.170 20:04, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

Future addition?

"The fact is that innovation was a little different in the 20th century. It's not easy (now) to come up with greater and different things. If you're looking for the next big thing, stop looking. There's no such thing as the next big thing."[1] (Nicholas Donofrio, IBM's executive vice president of innovation and technology) Just wanted to add this in for addition to the article in the future. -- Zanimum 21:25, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

Do you have a source for that? And when did he say this? ~ Jeff Q (talk) 22:11, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

http://news.com.com/IBM+The+next+big+thing+no+longer+exists/2100-1008_3-6050056.html?tag=nefd.top "Nicholas Donofrio, Big Blue's executive vice president of innovation and technology, made the declaration on Tuesday in an interview with ZDNet Asia. He was in Singapore for the first gathering of the Infocomm International Advisory Panel, organized by the Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore."

Neville Chamberlain

OK, it's kinda minor, but to be fair, he and everyone else *knew* that war with Germany was around the corner, and he was just buying time. Of course, he *did* say that, but he didn't believe it. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 137.165.203.21 (talk • contribs) 03:46, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

Bicycle Vs Automobile usage

""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." Is this prediction actually incorrect? Obviously for the USA, but India, China? I a superficial google didn't give me any hard stats, but a figure of 77% bicycle usage in a Chinese city has stayed in my mind. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 86.4.223.79 (talk • contribs) 18:58, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

Very good point. -- Zanimum 19:47, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

I thought the same thing, I found a graphic that claims there are 1.4 billion bikes in service, and only about 400 million cars. http://www.princeton.edu/~ina/images/infographics/transportation_big.jpg

Herbert Hoover

This hasn't been discussed in awhile, but I just noticed this quote from Hoover on Prohibition: "Our country has deliberately undertaken a great social and economic experiment, noble in motive and far reaching in purpose." That's clearly not intended as a prediction at all, just a statement, but apart from that, what's wrong about it? Prohibition was later repealed, of course, but Hoover didn't claim it was permanent, just "a great social and economic experiment." If one argues about motive and purpose, that still doesn't make it a failed *prediction*, since again nothing about the future is mentioned. I'm taking it out. -- Aleal 06:36, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Maxim attribution

I think the Maxim quote about machine guns was actually from Hiram Maxim, the inventor, not his brother, Hudson. See the Ellis source text here: http://www.archive.org/stream/impressionscomme00elliiala/impressionscomme00elliiala_djvu.txt

Accuracy

• 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.

   o Albert Einstein, 1932.

I'm sure this is incorrect + lacks citations. Can someone confirm? Einstein was a scientist, that wrote several letters to the then US president about the real threat of nuclear energy, hence my reason for incorrect quote 121.218.35.68 13:36, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

Thomas Edison Airplane Quote

Although the following quote is not the 1895 one referred to in the article, it certainly affirms it.

• The weak point of the present aeroplane, around which the Wright brothers will never be able to get, is that the operation of the machine lies wholly in the wonderful brain of its operator... One fractional mislevelment would mean destruction to the machine and operator. The dirigible balloon is a farce and the aeroplane impracticable... Long ago I saw the impracticability of the lighter-than-air machine... The aeroplane is a primitive adoption of the bird-wing theory, and, as we don't posses the divinity to acquire the automatic action of the bird, it is impossible. In commercializing any new invention, we must follow nature.

   o Thomas Edison, 1908; excerpts from speech given Sept. 16, 1908, in Salt Lake City (St. Louis Post Dispatch, Sept. 17, 1908).

Bicycle Quote

"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."

global car sales have never beaten global bicycle sales. Yes cars are now very common, but there are still and have always been over 3 bicycle sold per vehicle sold per year. You can see here: http://www.worldometers.info/bicycles/ Bicycles have always outnumbered cars.