By Leon Neyfakh, Boston Globe
Dubious as it may seem in those contexts, the dream of prediction also attracts a very different breed of prognosticators: one armed not with sheep guts, but with the tools of math and science. Instead of tea leaves or Tarot cards, they wield hard drives filled with data. They conjure up systems, not fantasies. By starting with information about what has already happened — immense quantities of it — and finding inventive ways to interpret it, experts in fields from public health to national security are building increasingly sophisticated predictive models, taking advantage of new technology and new ideas about how the world is organized to push the frontiers of what we can predict.
http://www.bostonglobe.com/ideas/2012/01/01/the-future-prediction/KCxOqDjUgs5EwAk4HSWmsL/story.html
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