The Prediction Project: The Past and Present of the Future

Presentation Date: Thursday, February 21, 2019. Location: University of Padua, Italy. Abstract: Humans are alone in the animal kingdom as worriers. We are the only ones who expend tremendous amounts of time, energy and resources trying to know and understand our futures before they happen. The Prediction Project is a coordinated investigation of the history of prediction, beginning with Ancient Mesopotamians reading signs in sheep entrails, and ending with modern computer simulations of climate, health, wealth, and the fate of our Universe. The project so far includes Harvard online and on-campus courses, and a book, film, and/or museum exhibit may follow. A primary motivation behind the Prediction Project is to inspire a deeper global conversation about how today, unlike in the past, quantitative simulation allows us to quantify how “certain” we can be about various aspects of the future--including climate change. In this talk, I will highlight two units from Prediction in particular, the “The Path to Newton” and “John Snow and Cholera.” The Path to Newton presents the history of (right and wrong) ideas that laid the groundwork for Isaac Newton’s predictive theory of gravity. On the Path, Galileo Galilei plays a key role, as the first person to analyze telescopic observations of the heavens as a way to understand celestial motion. The John Snow and Cholera unit explains the origins of modern epidemiology, and of data-driven approaches to health. I will conclude with a comparison of “rules” and “theories” used in making explanations and predictions in Science, using Kepler, Newton, Mendel, and Darwin as exemplars. (More information at predictionx.org.)