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> And he would probably have been pretty spot on with his predictions if the fertility rate had not drastically decreased. If I went around saying, "well, I wo
by igravious 9y ago
> And he would probably have been pretty spot on with his predictions if the fertility rate had not drastically decreased.
If I went around saying, "well, I would have been right if that one part of my theory hadn't become invalidated by events on the ground" people would think me impossible to reason with.
- jobigoud 9y agoNot if your theory became a meme that influenced people's behavior. Consider if we were to somehow diffuse the climate change bomb thanks to policies put in place based on current models. Our collective behavior would influence the outcome, but it doesn't invalidate the predictions.
- rsynnott 9y agoIn fairness, it would have been very hard for him to predict the decrease in fertility; it relies on both technological (birth control) and social (womens’ rights, pensions systems, and various others) innovations that would not have been reasonably predictable at the time.