"Pete B" wrote in message
...

The weather and even more so, the financial worlds, are littered with
total
failed forecasts based on statistical predictions from the recent past.
What
statistics forecast the Stockmarket crashes just as the markets were,
unbeknown to even experts, peaking back in the late '90's? In the mid
1970's, climate statistics suggested a trend heading back downwards in
global temperature and the media hype was all about new ice ages. That all
looks very silly now doesn't it? I have little faith in statistics as a
future forecasting tool, the climate will do what nature dictates whatever
statistics may indicate about it.


Yes, I must confess that every so often, when someone lectures me on future
trends, I look at the foreword to my AA Atlas of Great Britain (1967) which
talks of the coming ice age

After reading that one adopts a properly detached view :-))

Jim Webster