In this lecture, the author of Yesterday's Tomorrows looks at the roots and present efflorescence of technological forecasting and offers a few observations on its relevances rather than its excesses. He sees it as part of the rising anticipatory temper of modern society. This temper is reflected in most fields of social policy where forecasts, such as those on numbers in universities, for example, need reinforcement from sophisticated estimates as to the ways in which society might develop. This itself has a technological core and it is with this that the lecture is concerned.
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References
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