Talk:Futures studies

message: As one of the original authors of the Futures Studies entry I find the term futurology unacceptable. It is not the term used in either academic or professional contexts. The term futurology is certainly worthy of an entry, but it is not the primary point of entry into the field of futures studies as currently used by people in both the academic and professional futures studies community. Rielm (talk) 12:21, 3 July 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Move to futures studies 

message: Lead section is a bit rambling, and needs to be edited for wordiness.  The Transhumanist (talk) 23:25, 20 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Done - moved most of the paragraphs to relevant sections.  The Transhumanist (talk) 00:12, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Lead section 

message: There seems to be another article on future studies, and should be considered for merging. My recommendation is to merge the two articles back under the title Future studies as it seems to be the current professional standard, and the term leading and defining the articles, though I acknowledge the WP:UNDUEWIGHT argument, above. Thoughts? --Yamara ✉ 17:28, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: [[Foresight (future studies)]] merger

message: I moved the extensive embedded lists to List of futurology topics.
The Transhumanist (talk) 11:58, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Lists moved 

message: In Isaac Asimov's "Foundation" series, his character Hari Seldon develops a system he calls "Psychohistory" through which he is able to predict, with great accuracy, future events.  Psychohistory is described as essentially a fusion of sociology and statistics, whereby Seldon determines the most likely path humanity will follow (and he even manages to set events in motion during his lifetime to help improve the odds of the optimal outcome).
While Asimov himself also engaged in futurology to an extent (virtually all sci-fi writers do), I was wondering if it would be worth adding a mention of Psychohistory to the article.  In a way, it's Asimov as a futurist predicting the rise of an even more advanced form of futurology. EJSawyer (talk) 18:39, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Psychohistory? 

message: Of something like early futurologists or something.</br>ThisMunkey (talk) 12:43, 5 March 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  A good picture 

message: One prominent international "business futurist", Frank Feather, coined the phrase "Thinking Globally, Acting Locally" in 1979.
(This is not the consensus on the "Thinking Globally, Acting Locally" page.  Someone should produce a friends of the earth newsletter or correspondence from 1979 showing where Frank Feather might have received it.
References:
(1976) - http://books.google.com/books?id=QTw5AAAAMAAJ&q=act-locally+%22think+globally%22+date:1900-1978&dq=act-locally+%22think+globally%22+date:1900-1978&lr=&as_brr=0&ei=69wiScf2HIjiNLvRgZwO&pgis=1
(1975) http://books.google.com/books?id=IitcAAAAMAAJ&q=act-locally+%22think+globally%22+date:1900-1978&dq=act-locally+%22think+globally%22+date:1900-1978&lr=&as_brr=0&ei=69wiScf2HIjiNLvRgZwO&pgis=1
)  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Wikip rhyre (talk • contribs) 15:22, 18 November 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Factual errors - watchlist 

message: I want to change the article so that these words are given their proper context. At present they are equated (portrayed as one and the same thing as futurology) but in actual fact they are closely related topics. Foresight (in a manner) requires futurology (of course foresight can be accomplished without futurology but at the optimum level, futurology is its right arm). Art is often entwined with futurology by practitioners. Can anyone give more than a broken link to Wordnet to show futurology, foresight and art to be one and the same thing? ~ R.T.G 15:11, 17 June 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Foresight]], art 

message: Why is the current article named "futurology" instead of "futures studies"? Viriditas (talk) 16:38, 20 July 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Try reading Strategic foresight ~ R.T.G 09:09, 21 July 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: That isn't helpful.  "Futurology" does not appear to be primary term in use anymore, much in the same way that astrobiology replaced or supplanted the terms bioastronomy and exobiology.  This article should be called "Futures studies", not futurology. Viriditas (talk) 12:18, 8 January 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Futures studies is scarcely English, perhaps something created by a non-native speaker. Futurology is widely used and idiomatic. The article's name should be changed to that.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.189.103.145 (talk) 07:14, 17 August 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Futures studies 

message: This is ridiculous, really.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.145.91.229 (talk) 14:06, 9 October 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: This is the talkpage for the article about predicting the future, which is Futurology . The article on the early 20th-century art movement Futurism is, not surprisingly, Futurism.  Skomorokh, barbarian  14:11, 9 October 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Futurism is an early 20th-century art movement, not this. 

message: "11. Sustainability was a given. It almost didn’t need to be mentioned. Sustainable futures, understood as making decisions that do not reduce the options of future generations, that thus include the long term, the impact of policies on nature, gender and the other, appears to be the accepted paradigm. This is so for the corporate futurist and the NGO. Moreover, sustainability, in its green sense, appears to have been reconciled with the technological, spiritual and post-structural ideal of transformation. It is thus not a simplistic ideal of sustainability (i.e., back to nature) but rather a paradigm that is inclusive of technological and cultural change."
This has perhaps the 'chattiest' opening I have ever read in Wikipedia, are these points simply a description and then copying of the actual experts, recognised mind, whatevers findings as VERBOSE as possible, or is this wikipedia and this is simply someone who could have formed some better sentences? BoredextraWorkvidid (talk) 08:15, 20 September 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  I Strongly believe this needs to be cleaned up. 

message: Futurology busting Singularity is in the book list but not the article.  Before I WP:Bold something in on this, is there a reason for its ommission? HkFnsNGA (talk) 07:45, 30 January 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Singularity 

message: I went to edit the article to keep the terminology consistent, and to replace instances of "futures studies" with "future studies", but it seems that the most relevant and recent publications really do call it "futures studies" -- so I propose moving the article to Futures studies. Though I'd like some opinions from people who are actually savvy about the topic. Google gives more results for "future studies" than "futures studies", but to me it seems that's outweighed by what the field is really called today. — Jeraphine Gryphon (talk) 07:15, 16 January 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Hi Jeraphine, yes, this should be futures studies, reflecting that there are multiple possible futures instead of any single future, and that our actions matter to which future we end up in.  I cite the Houston "Futures Studies" program and the Hawaii "Futures Studies" program as additional examples. John b cassel (talk) 14:32, 16 January 2012 (UTC)
replies: text:   The Transhumanist 21:18, 16 January 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  So what is this beast called? 

message: Futurist should redirect to Futures studies. The Futurist article is as follows:
:
Lede                    	"Futurists (not in the sense of futurism) or futurologists are scientists and social scientists whose speciality is to attempt to systematically predict the future", where systematically predict the future wikilinks to Futures studies
Definition              	Wikipedia:Wikipedia is not a dictionary
Futures Studies         	"Main article: Futurology"
Futurists and futurology	this short incoherent section is perhaps intended to justify the separateness of the article. It currently states in toto:
:Not all futurists engage in the practice of futurology as generally defined. Preconventional futurists (see below) would generally not. And while religious futurists, astrologers, occultists, New Age divinists, etc. use methodologies that include study, none of their personal revelation or belief-based work would fall within a consensus definition of futurology as used in academics or by futures studies professionals.
What it amounts to is "some people use futurist to describe people who predict the future via non-scientific means".  That seems to require at most a hatnote Prophecy. The "(see below)" points to nothing.
Notable futurists       	"Main article: List of futurologists"
jnestorius(talk) 23:32, 27 July 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree with the thrust of what you are saying.  However, I think it would be better to copy across any useful info from Futurist into Futures studies and then turn Futurist into a disambiguation page that disambiguates Futures studies from Futurism.  Yaris678 (talk) 12:34, 28 September 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Actually... I think the page Futurist should be a redirect to Futurism (disambiguation).  That page already says "Futurism or futurist may refer to..." Yaris678 (talk) 08:23, 12 October 2012 (UTC)

text: Agree with Yaris, Futurist is not exclusive to Futurology, but has a variety of meanings which could be valid search terms. Generally the argument to merge the content of the article seems to be a sensible one. Sionk (talk) 21:00, 12 October 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Merge 

message: It's pretty clear no one is maintaining this list. Something from it might be worth using as a reference: --Ronz (talk) 17:11, 15 July 2014 (UTC)
thread_title: Moved from article - Further reading

message: I am a student at the University of Houston in the Strategic Foresight program. I am very familiar with both the public and private sector development, use, and publication of foresight material. I added this section to give a broader perspective on where foresight work is being developed and used as well as links to well constructed examples.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by JJS42 (talk • contribs) 22:42, 1 March 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  added section General applicability and use of foresight products 

message: I'm currently studying Foresight and wanted to add specific instances where foresight was being used to direct Education policy. Byoboo (talk) 04:52, 2 March 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Added Education to Applications of foresight and specific fields 

message: Three partially overlapping but not identical lists of the same subject:
*List_of_futurologists
*Outline_of_futures_studies#Futurologists 
*Futures_studies#Futurists%20and%20foresight%20thought%20leaders 
All should be consolidated into the first, and the other 2 just be links. GangofOne (talk) 06:22, 14 April 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Merge , futurologists 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: Howdy, Stephen Layman here. Student of Future Studies at University of Houston. 
I altered the Strategic Foresight page by expanding on the 3 types of strategic foresight: personal, organizational, and social.
1.	Personal – "Personal and professional goal-setting and action planning"[3]  
ADDED BELOW
This branch of foresight is geared toward the public as individuals. The ideas and lessons can be traced to self-help seminars, spiritual awakening, and varieties of holistic and aerobic activities in order to better figure out life goals. Once a person has a handle on their goals, then they are guided through a more rigorous analysis process to find the best possible lifestyle, or future scenario, to fit the completion of their goals.
2.	Organizational – "Carrying out tomorrows' business better"[4] 
ADDED BELOW
Organizational strategic foresight is focused on implementing profitable scenarios to the corporate world. In order to gain an edge in this field many businesses will hire their own futurist. Primarily this is a trend finding position. After locating developed and emerging trends a plan is created to achieve the most profit, satisfy a corporate goal, or solve an issue. The last step is implementing that plan. The difficulty with implementing a corporate plan is that many require a change of structure, or corporate mentality. Another task for the futurist in this case would be to work with management in making the implementation a smooth transition while maintaining an accurate focus for successful scenario achievement.
3.	Social – "Moving toward the next civilisation – the one that lies beyond the current hegemony of techno/industrial/capitalist interests"[5]
ADDED BELOW
The Social side to strategic foresight is the most eclectic. Here the views range widely in their attempts to develop the best cultural future. The variety of interests range from lesser known religious pathways for enlightened futures, to aggressive individualism, and even preparatory focus for the coming apocalypse or interstellar relocation. The opinions in this branch of strategic foresight are influenced through personal experience and translated into easily digestible ideas for the public to understand. The futurists in this discipline act as guides to realizing societal core values, and implementing a new plan for even the most unlikely of future scenarios. 
Please, edit as you see fit!  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Selayman17 (talk • contribs) 00:42, 27 February 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Changes 

message: I made the following changes in this article informed by my studies in the M.S. in Foresight. 
I added, under “Trend analysis and forecasting,” the following based upon my course studies in Foresight and in business forecasting/analytics.  
How Professional Futurists are different than Forecasters 
Professional futurists practicing strategic foresight leverage data forecasts in their toolbox to establish the baseline normative future. This is the future that will happen when historical data is used as an indicator of the future. What Foresight professionals do different is A) When the forecast reaches the end of its predicability add the creative and research elements to craft alternative futures. B) Will account for what the forecast does not account for. After regression analysis we know how much of the forecast is likely due to the identified elements and how much is due to other causes. Foresight professionals take into consider these other causes as well and research alternative futures for and from these changing elements. In short, professional futurists do make or use forecasts and then they go further.
I added, under “Probability and predictability,” the following based upon my study of futeres studies work and predictive decision making in business:
Professional futurists do not make predictions. A prediction is a yes/no judgment on a discrete occurrence. Will X happen or not? Although professional futurists are capable of making extremely well informed predictions through research and revision, they do not make predictions because the systems we face are more complex than single paths, there is always more nuance then yes or no, and the future is never actually predictable. The complexity of the real world, the presence of chaos, and the insertion of complicating factors such as humans make the actual future impossible to predict. Instead, professional futurists consider the swathe of elements in the system and research the major drivers impacting the probable, plausible, and possible futures. 
I edited the opening paragraph to read as follows with its emphasis on methodology and models: 
Futures studies (also called futurology and strategic foresight) is the study and methods of researching possible, probable, and preferable futures and applying techniques to guiding future directions. The creative aspects including scenarios, ideation, and narratives may be informed by the study of change and world-views and myths that underlie them. A debate as to whether this discipline is an art or science has been updated to consider the Master’s of Science degree in Foresight such as through the University of Houston and that professional futurists subject the data and research that goes into futures to scrutiny and tests from the scientific method. Foresight also includes artistic imaginative visioning to think around biases about perspectives of the future. Futures studies informs the research into what the futures may be and how alternative futures may be different. 
I edited the caption of the Moore's Law image to read: 
Unlike Moore’s law, which is an example of market observations and projections of historical R&D investments, strategic foresight takes into account continuous changes and discontinuous factors that would, for instance change the pace of Moore’s law. 
 Let me know your feedback. 
Joe Murphy, student, Master's of Science in Foresight, University of Houston.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Joe Murphy SF (talk • contribs) 05:55, 27 February 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Changes from a futures studies graduate student  

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thread_title:  External links modified (January 2018) 

message: Since a related recent edit was reverted then restored, I started looking at popular pseudoscience resources I have.  The following don't mention pseudoscience in the context of futurology:
* Michael Shermer's Skeptic encyclopedia of pseudoscience, 2002
* Brian Regal's Pseudoscience - A Critical Encyclopedia, 2009
Here are the current sources used to support the claim:
* Oxford Handbook of Science Fiction
::The asbract claims that futurology is a Christian phenomenon (something not mentioned in i.e. SAGE's Encyclopedia of Time 2009 which has an article on Futurology) and is mostly on the science fiction perspective.
* Oxford dictionary of philosophy
::This one does mention "pseudo-science" and is a dictionary, possibly better than the previous source.  It still doesn't claim that most scientists consider futures study pseudoscience.
* William's Encyclopedia of Pseudoscience: From Alien Abductions to Zone Therapy 2013, p. 122
::This too mention pseudoscience and includes: "Many scientists reject futurology being a science".
My impression is that we could keep the last two sources, drop the first one and make corrections (there are URL and grammar issues).  Another aspect is if we should attribute the claim, considering that not all reliable sources treat it as pseudoscience...  Thanks, —PaleoNeonate – 21:04, 3 February 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: I did a cleanup according to the above, input and/or improvements welcome.  —PaleoNeonate – 02:11, 4 February 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: Thank you. I agree. I added the sentence "There is a debate as to whether this discipline is an art or science" (it was there before), since it's importent regardless the question of pseudoscience. In addition, I added that it considered as pseudoscience by scientists (both sources we agreed on are scientific and written by scientists). The references are now appear (as ref name) in both places. Nachi (talk) 09:33, 20 February 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Pseudoscience 

message: Hello Everyone,
Just an FYI that I am reviewing and editing the Applications > Government Agencies section. 
Prior to my edits, this section has been a bit uneven (See Version previous to my edits):
* 1 Paragraph with 243 words
* 36 words to describe Singapore's foresight efforts
* 192 words to describe UAE's foresight efforts. 
** 80% of this section was just talking about UAE!
I would like to balance this by describing Singapore, Finland, and UAE with 100 (max) words each. While giving the the last mention to other governments with less-known foresight-focused units & agencies, e.g. Canada, Malaysia, and others.
I plan to make changes incrementally over the next week. Please let me know your feedback and any suggestions.
Kinda Regards,
Votamli (talk) 11:23, 22 February 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Editing "Government Agencies" Section under Applications 

message: I am a student in the MS, strategic foresight program. I edited the Application:Education to further include information about applications in K-12 classrooms. I thought the original author did a great job including the section as applications in the education sector are important. FinBrannigan25 (talk) 22:44, 25 February 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Modification of Education application section 

message: I added content to the history origin section, including information on Thomas More, and added the early 20th century, with a focus on the world wars which were the impetus for modern future studies as we know it. I also added to emergence, including more significant authors and works, as well as fleshing out some of the already existing information. I also removed an image related to biological evolution that had no context in terms of the wikipedia entry. --RachelAnnYoung (talk) 02:53, 26 February 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Foresight Graduate Student - Made Changes to History 

message: Hi, I'm Madebo Fatunde, a Graduate student in the University of Houston's foresight program and I edited this design section to better  reflect the reality of the mutual borrowing between the design world and the futures world. I might suggest some future lines of updating to add some high-profile higher of futurists to design firms. I also added a bit about futures x design agencies. I'm thinking here of shops like Superflux or IDEO or Design Couture. I'll circle back with some links and literature the future.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Madevious (talk • contribs) 02:02, 11 May 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Update to Design subsection under specific applications 

message: Archive is broken and can't be searched nor accessed; did it ever work? If so, anyone know what changed? Rolf H Nelson (talk) 05:12, 25 March 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Talk archive broken 

message: After looking at the discussion at , I think the lede could be clearer on what is generally considered futurology. Some refs:
Cambridge Dictionary:  Futurology: "The study of social, political, and technical developments in order to understand what may happen in the future"
Webster:  Futurology: "A study that deals with future possibilities based on current trends"
Lexico/Oxford:  Systematic forecasting of the future, especially from present trends in society
Macmillan:  the study of the future, including how people will live, work, and communicate
A BBC article characterizes it as "The tricky art of knowing what will happen next" and "the discipline of mapping out the future" 
Britannica: "the study of current trends in order to forecast future developments" mentions "technological forecasting" in its lede. The article as a whole also implies that much futurism has a "technological forecasting" angle. (Some has instead an "ecological collapse" angle).
I think our lede should make it clear that futurology often connotes technological forecasting. I also think "Part of the discipline thus seeks a systematic and pattern-based understanding of past and present, and to determine the likelihood of future events and trends" is a bit weak; do other parts of the discipline exist, and if so what do these other parts seek? We should also make clear in the lede that futurology connotes "big picture" ideas rather than figuring out short-term interest rates.
Here's a proposal for the first sentence:
Future studies, or futurology, is the systematic and interdisciplinary forecasting of technological advancement and other environmental trends, often for the purpose of predicting how people will live and work in the future.
Rolf H Nelson (talk) 06:12, 25 March 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Clearer definition or lede 

message: I am working to improve this article.  I am not an active edit in Wikipedia.  Are there any active editors here who can help?
RealFuturist (talk) 01:09, 29 December 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: Hi Peter, I’d be happy to help. I’m not as familiar with wiki editing as some of the others here. Anyone else able to help?
DrMel (talk) 01:10, 29 December 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Seeking help to improve this article 

message: The concepts "Realm of the certain" and "Realm of the uncertain" are not defined in the text, nor are they well-defined concepts. For example, does "realm of the certain" mean an ontology with epistemological certainty beyond a threshold value? Clearly not, since if so, as the choice of the threshold is a collective cognitive quantity and hence arbitrary unless agreed upon, there would be not point in such black-&-white categorising.
Science (physics), in its naive interpretation, aims at causal prediction of the future. To name just one aspect, chaos theory and quantum theory do model uncertainty. Certainty and uncertainty aren't two categories in science, but just a number (a feature) of a probability distribution. Everything is certain or uncertain depending on the on-looker's standpoint. In quantum theory, is its prediction's  "certainty" high? Or is it not a function of the number of sigma-values (of purported probability distributions) in fitting experimental results at CERN? That's science's certainty: a collective cognitive agreement.
Is there use in adopting such a subjective stance (psychological: there positing perceptive categories to characterize sciences) in the model-making for the sake critiquing pseudoscience, instead of subsuming everything into a unifying framework as physics does (as mentioned above)? Not i.m.o.. Ngs111 (talk) 14:46, 22 February 2024 (UTC)
thread_title:  Realm of the certain? Realm of the uncertain? –  §"Pseudoscience critique"