The only thing more prone to error than predicting what will happen in the future is predicting what won't happen in the future. It's hard to measure progress

The only thing more prone to error than predicting what will happen in the future is predicting what won't happen in the future. It's hard to measure progress in something like cancer research, but in general, it hasn't been great. But the same might be said of the invention of flight. Flight had clearly been a goal across a variety of cultures for many years. I suspect that a "cure for cancer" will not come at once, it will be more gradual (owing to the fact that cancer is actually many different diseases). Our knowledge of biology is improving at an exponential rate though, I wouldn't discount that entirely.