Is it possible to make scientific forecasts in social sciences? (original) (raw)

A Future Far Away: Forecasting and Society

Synodos, 2019

This is a tentative translation of my experimental essay with the same title in Japanese, published in the online journal Synodos, on the occasion of the publication of our edited book on how a variety of future discourses such as scientific prediction and various forecasting construct our society. The essay discusses a best selling sci-fi book, The Third Millennium(1985) about a thousand year's history from now on, past and future seen in the distinctive styles of imaginary architecture, and the way to go beyond the ongoing colonization of the future at present.

Why the World Needs Futures Studies: A Social and Methodological Challeng

Athens Journal of Mediterranean Studies

This work aims to focus on the absolute need that the world has today of Futures Studies. Thanks to this discipline’s historical and methodological specificities in human sciences’ context, Futures Studies can help humankind to manage the critical issues that are threatening it. The topic will be discussed through an exclusively theoretical approach, also describing the Italian contribution to Futures Studies: e.g., Eleonora Barbieri Masini’s work, or Aurelio Peccei’s, who (as early as the 1960s) was among the first to emphasize (in a complex approach) the risks the Earth would run. Nowadays, the delay in the actions that could have been taken many years ago places the world in front of previously unthinkable scenarios. New migrations caused by climate changes, possible criticalities due to the lack of demographic balance in the world population, our own survival as a living species at risk. In this sense, the new challenges that Futures Studies have to face are both socio-cultural ...

The Story of Futures Studies: An Interdisciplinary Field Rooted in Social Sciences

Social Sciences 12(3), 192., 2023

This article presents the almost century-long history of the development of futures studies in a comprehensive review. Futures studies, rooted in sociology and policy sciences, had become an academic discipline by the 1960s. One of the major global communities representing the discipline, the World Futures Studies Federation (WFSF), celebrates its 50th anniversary in 2023. In the 1970s, the focus was placed on discourses on global problems and preferred futures. Futures studies then developed a global institutional community and become a mature discipline by the 1980s and 1990s. Futurists by then had already mutually shared theoretical perspectives, objectives, ethics, and methods, and had produced empirical results. A wide range of comprehensive publications at that time synthesized the foundations and preceding results of futures studies. From the turn of the millennium, active discourse took place on the forthcoming role of futures studies. By that time, the theoretical, methodological, and practical knowledge foundations of the discipline had also appeared in internationally well-documented curricula. Since around 2010, the discipline has been characterized by the development of practical foresight projects. Based on notable trends and identified research gaps, this article formulates up-to-date expectations and research directions within which futures studies might develop in the future.

On the philosophical foundations of futures research

Knowing tomorrow?: how science deals with the future, 2008

69 On the philosophical foundations of futures research Joseph Voros 1 Introduction This chapter considers the philosophical foundations upon which futures research is undertaken. It does not consider the views that different philoso-phies take of the future–that could easily be the ...