Scientific Prediction in the 20th Century: Mapping Ideas, Institutions and Practices Across the Cold War Divide

The book questions the established view that in the Cold War era scientific prediction was an expression of a positivist mindset and that scientific predictions were mainly used to enhance top-down control by collecting data, monitoring and influencing people’s behaviour. In contrast, this book shows that the role of scientific prediction is far more diverse than that of a mechanistic, top-down control. The book argues that scientific predictions are human attempts to find an adaptive way to cope with uncertainty, to address the limitation of knowledge and to act collectively through the continuous orchestration of human and non-human actors.