Informal Prediction From Hypothesis
Outside the rigorous context of science, prediction is often confused with informed guess or opinion.
A prediction of this kind might be inductively valid if the predictor is a knowledgeable person in the field and is employing sound reasoning and accurate data. Large corporations invest heavily in this kind of activity to help focus attention on possible events, risks and business opportunities, using futurists. Such work brings together all available past and current data, as a basis to develop reasonable expectations about the future.
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Famous quotes containing the words informal, prediction and/or hypothesis:
“We as a nation need to be reeducated about the necessary and sufficient conditions for making human beings human. We need to be reeducated not as parents—but as workers, neighbors, and friends; and as members of the organizations, committees, boards—and, especially, the informal networks that control our social institutions and thereby determine the conditions of life for our families and their children.”
—Urie Bronfenbrenner (b. 1917)
“Recent studies that have investigated maternal satisfaction have found this to be a better prediction of mother-child interaction than work status alone. More important for the overall quality of interaction with their children than simply whether the mother works or not, these studies suggest, is how satisfied the mother is with her role as worker or homemaker. Satisfied women are consistently more warm, involved, playful, stimulating and effective with their children than unsatisfied women.”
—Alison Clarke-Stewart (20th century)
“On pragmatistic principles, if the hypothesis of God works satisfactorily in the widest sense of the word, it is true.”
—William James (1842–1910)