Does Science Fiction Have Any Predictive Skill?

[Addled Platypus]

lets not forget the biggest STNG prediction - -

no more greed....yeah, sure

as long as there are humans

[Lord Avalon]

Originally posted by Platypus Rex
lets not forget the biggest STNG prediction - -

no more greed....yeah, sure

as long as there are humans

...or Ferengi.

I hope the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy is not predicitive in that the Earth will be destroyed to make way for a hyperspace bypass.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by General Ludd
In terms of prediction, the only sci-fi novel that comes to my mind (I have read very few) is Farenheit 451 which has done an excellent job of capturing the essence of our culture and where it has brought us today.

[Flubber]

As others have indicated, there is such a wide variety of stuff that shows up in science fiction that it is inevitable that SOME of it happens.

AS for specific things like say a cell phone . . . lets just say that its not shocking that even in the 1960w they could conceive of a wireless telephone-- and given the size of human hands etc its no shock that they might be of a flip variety

Many oterh things that sci-fi presents-- like better computers, just strikes me as inevitable progress. Predicting things like airplanes or submarines ?? That doesn't impress me at all since it is not difficult to conceive of such things

[Lord Avalon]

Actually, for cell phones, you could go to the comic strip Dick Tracy - he had the 2-Way Wrist Radio in Jan 1946 (date per Wiki). Upgraded to 2-Way Wrist TV in 1964.