Futures Studies as Human and Social Activity
Future thinking has always been part of human history, for humans become human when they think about the future, as John McHale (1969) wrote. Some form of future thinking exists in almost all known societies; it is a universal phenomenon, as Wendell Bell (1997) writes, that ranges from divination, which involves the unveiling of the unknown, to the recent development of futures studies. Divination may be related to decisions taken by whole tribes and nations, just as the aim of scientifically rigorous futures studies is to support decision making.
In this particular context, it is important to trace the development of future thinking and the formalization of futures studies after World War II.
Terminology
As in most disciplines, issues of terminology in futures studies are related as much to the word itself as to the underlying concept expressed by it.
From the 1940s to the 1970s, forecasting was the most important concept of futures studies. In 1967, Eric Jantsch defined forecasting "as a probabilistic statement, on a relatively high level of confidence about the future" (p. 15). In this rigorous definition, the use of the adverb "relatively" indicates the element of uncertainty that is always present in futures studies in general.
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