#predictions

As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron. ↗

— H.L. Mencken

#elite #elitism #elitist #meritocracy #politics

Agency by agency, we frequently have lost a bit of ground, at least to inflation-but had it not been for the efforts we've made to educate people about the importance of science, technology and advanced education, those predictions very well might have come true. ↗

— Charles Vest

#advanced #agency #been #bit #come

I don't think a reporter should give advice or make predictions. ↗

— Peter Jennings

#give #i #make #predictions #reporter

The thing that people associate with expertise, authoritativeness, kind of with a capital 'A,' don't correlate very well with who's actually good at making predictions. ↗

— Nate Silver

#associate #capital #correlate #expertise #good

To the extent that you can find ways where you're making predictions, there's no substitute for testing yourself on real-world situations that you don't know the answer to in advance. ↗

— Nate Silver

#answer #extent #find #know #making

Never make predictions, especially about the future. ↗

— Casey Stengel

#especially #future #make #never #predictions

If the facts are contrary to any predictions, then the hypothesis is wrong no matter how appealing. ↗

— David Douglass

#appealing #contrary #facts #how #hypothesis

We have seen segments of our Government, in their attitudes and action, adopt tactics unworthy of a democracy, and occasionally reminiscent of totalitarian regimes. We have seen a consistent pattern in which programs initiated with limited goals, such as preventing criminal violence or identifying foreign spies, were expanded to what witnesses characterized as "vacuum cleaners", sweeping in information about lawful activities of American citizens. The tendency of intelligence activities to expand beyond their initial scope is a theme which runs through every aspect of our investigative findings. Intelligence collection programs naturally generate ever-increasing demands for new data. And once intelligence has been collected, there are strong pressures to use it against the target. ↗

— Church Committee

#data #national-security #predictions #prescience #secrecy

I knew by the signs it would be a hard winter. The hollies bore a heavy crop of berries and birds stripped them bare. Crows quarreled in reaped fields and owls cried in the mountains, mournful as widows. Fur and moss grew thicker than usual. Cold rains came, driven sideways through the trees by north winds, and snows followed. ↗

— Sarah Micklem

#folklore #nature #predictions #weather #winter

If you learn one thing from having lived through decades of changing views, it is that all predictions are necessarily false. ↗

— M. H. Abrams

#decades #false #having #learn #lived