Steven Novella, along with his co-authors, examine the works of past futurists to see what they did right and what they missed, as well as how they arrived at their conclusions. They explore the shortcomings of the past and then make their own predictions about the future. The technology they use is incredible, ranging from artificial intelligence to genetic manipulation. They carefully examine each new scientific discovery, applying their signature skepticism.

We’re excited to present the exciting first chapter from this new book, thanks to Grand Central Publishing.

Chapter One
Futurism: Days of Future Past

Future begins with past.

It’s a fantasy. The future is a wild fantasy, based on our fears, hopes, prejudices, ignorance and imagination. It says more about who we are than the actual outcome. Future predictions are just a reflection of what is happening now. We’re not very good at predicting the future. It’s just too tempting to resist.

But we can try to learn lessons from the tumultuous past of futurism, fix any mistakes that are found, and maybe do better. We can also learn more about our current and past technologies. You can trace the timeline of science and technology, and extrapolate a bit to the future. We have done this all our lives.

We were fascinated by science and technology in our youth. Science fiction and science was also a big part of what we loved. As children, we were not old enough to remember the failures of the future. We believed in the promises made. Back then, we were excited about flying cars, intelligent robot servants and moon settlements. Now, many of these cliches are true.

It didn’t make a difference that we love science fiction. We watched movies and television that showed a future where technology was a hundred years ahead of its time. The Six Million Dollar ManSteve Austin had robotic prosthetic limbs which are not yet achievable fifty years after. In 2001 we were supposed to have sentient computers and space stations. Researchers were working to beam vivid experiences straight into our heads. In Blade Runner the year 2019, flying cars, genetically altered androids and other futuristic technology were present. The technology was what amazed me, no matter how horrible the social and environmental conditions of the future were. As long as flying cars were available, we could figure out the rest.

Growing up during the Apollo era was probably a major influence on our techno-optimism. It was a good time. We could land people on the Moon and use “advanced computers” and it worked well despite some hiccups. My younger self could not imagine that 50 years after the Apollo 17 Mission in 1972 we would still not be back on the Moon, much less have an established settlement. Moonbase Alpha: Where is it?

This disappointment, and the false predictions, has the flipside that many of the greatest technological advancements in the past half-century, those that had the largest impact on our daily lives, did not appear in science fiction or future predictions. While I am writing this I have a (by my standards) supercomputer in my pocket that lets me communicate with anyone in the world instantly via video, audio or text. It also allows me to access my personal music collection, take photos without film and get directions anywhere. The device can search the entire human experience in an interactive format. This device is a great way to pass the time if you get bored. It has a lot of video games and movies that will blow your mind.

Smartphones and World Wide Web, which can be accessed via them, as well as social media, shopping online, apps and many other features are the absolute wonders of technology.

The future is far beyond what I could have imagined thirty or forty years ago. The past depictions of future did not predict anything similar. Even Star Trek a popular techno-optimist future did not predict our digital revolution.

We have indeed made significant technological advances in the past fifty years. But not as we had anticipated. How can people be so poor at predicting future events? We can improve our predictions if we understand the reasons behind it. Maybe the forces shaping the future are just too unpredictable to be predicted accurately beyond a certain level, much like the weather.

We can predict climate changes more accurately than specific weather conditions. For example, it’s much easier to forecast that the speed of travel in the future will increase than specifics about automotive technology. Focusing on big trends rather than tiny details is one way to fix bad futurism. But even there, futureists may get confused.

The movie Minority Report presented an insightful picture of 2054. It will be thirty more years before I can say how accurate the movie was, but there is one thing that stood out: people were still using tiny phones. This movie was produced in 2002 before smartphones were invented. In 2002, cell phones were getting smaller. The writers then extrapolated that trend for another 50 years.

The iPhone, released in 2007, reversed the trend and fundamentally changed the way personal phones were used. The iPhone changed the way we use our phones forever. iPhones were disruptive technologies that changed the industry status quo and our daily lives. We may be settling in on a screen size that is the best balance between portability and use, depending upon personal preferences and situations, or a new disruptive technology could occur.

Many companies are looking to create foldable and expandable cell phones that have a retro feel, similar to the time before iPhones. This technology will it be a success, a niche product, or utterly fail? You would become a millionaire if you were able to predict the evolution of a technology. Scientists and technology leaders have made some of the worst predictions in history, even about technologies in which they had a hand. Thomas Edison said in 1880 that the phonograph had no commercial value. Ken Olsen, who said in 1977 “there’s no reason why anyone would want to have a home computer” was another example. This is the future.

The future includes everything from that moment when you first read this sentence to the heat death of our universe 10100 (some trends will be inevitable). Depending on the time frame you’re trying to project, different factors will apply. Extrapolating existing trends and upcoming technology can be useful for the near future. It’s harder to predict the medium-term future (20 to 100 years), but by focusing on the bigger picture, and allowing yourself wiggle room you can get a hint of what life will be like in one hundred years.

In the far future (more than 100 years), things get really interesting. The technologies that we’re just starting to investigate reach their mature potential. It is easy to guess that certain technologies will be developed, but the real question here is how soon. While we may not know when brain-machine interfaces will be available, it is possible to imagine how they may look. In the far future, we will be able to speculate about completely new technologies which are currently only footnotes in some physics papers about a newly discovered aspect of natural phenomena.

We will explore all these topics in our guide to the future: advances in current technologies, emerging technologies and fantastical technology from future possibilities. Science will guide us as much as we can.

We will always maintain an extremely skeptical attitude because it’s who we are. We are not only science lovers and technophiles but also scientific skeptics. We have studied and promoted critical thinking and science literacy for the past quarter-century. Our award-winning podcast The Skeptics’ Guide to the Universe and first book of the same title are primers on critical thinking and science.

We must always temper our optimism for the future by a sharp critique. Let the mistakes and disappointments in the past influence our thinking about the future. But being cynical is not sufficient. To be sceptical, you must separate the likely from the unlikely using logic and solid evidence.

We can let our excitement get to us at times, but we will always come back to the reality. It is a guide for skeptics to the future.

Ironically, the future begins with the past. We begin our journey by exploring the history of futurism to learn what lessons it has for us.