Off the Cuff / My Other Journal

Have they been wrong or what!

I came across this site of bad predictions. Anyone receiving a rude rejection, low grade, or low rating should take heart.
http://www.coolquiz.com/trivia/predictions/

Here are a few bad predictions from that site.


"Brain work will cause [the 'new woman'] to become bald, while increasing masculinity and contempt for beauty will induce the growth of hair on the face. In the future, therefore, woman will be bald and will wear long mustaches and patriarchal beards."
- Berlin University professor Hans Friedenthal, 1914.

"Mendel lacks the requisite clarity of thought to be a scientist."
- professor at the University of Vienna on Gregor Mendel (1822 - 1884), the founder of genetics

"All marriages will be happy [in the 1990s], for the law will put to death any man or woman who assumes conjugal position without the proper physical, mental and financial qualifications.'
- author John Haberton, 1893.

"Drinking in excess is plainly on the decrease. And with every step in this direction the self-respect of the people must grow, pauperism decrease, and an enlightened conception of public duty develop. Whatever else the twentieth century brings about, we may reasonably look for a great revolution in the political status of the world."
- Charles Morris, The Marvelous Record of the Closing Century, 1899.
(Holocaust, two world wars, cold war, several other wars and things...and "let me count the ways"...)

"We hope that Professor [Samuel] Langley will not put his substantial greatness as a scientist in further peril by continuing to waste his time, and the money involved, in further airship experiments. Life is short and he is capable of services to humanity incomparably greater than can be expected to result from trying to fly...For students and investigators of the Langley type there are more useful employments."
- The New York Times, December 10, 1903, exactly one week before the first successful flight at Kitty Hawk.