The future is big business. It always has been. On New Year's Day, a television news program features an economist with a financial projection, followed by a psychic predicting which movie stars will be divorced. Then a smiling face offers the weather forecast backed up with maps, charts, and numbers. Finally the political commentator ventures that the coming year will be a decisive test for the nation in the areas of tax reform and national defense.

We want to know everything we can about the future, especially our own futures. We are anxious about our health, our children, our finances, the fate of the nation, the poor of the world, and our security in life and in death. We would pay dearly for reliable information, tips, and predictions, eager to find solutions and convinced that ignorance can be very expensive. But who knows what will happen? What kinds of knowledge count? And in which areas? People have all kinds of hunches about the future.