Predictive failures of science fiction

Heinlein and Clarke both mentioned them. They talked about food and beverage containers with “pre-stressed lids” that would open when you pressed them in the right way.

I seem to recall a National Geographic article which mentioned an abnormally high rate of birth defects in the region around Chernobyl. Maybe not matinee-movie style mutants, but mutations nonetheless.

I was snarking. I also thought it was fairly obvious that I wasn’t serious.

As to the Flynn Effect, you cannot assume it is generated by a rise in IQ. A batch of American IQ tests “proved” immigrants had lower IQs, but said immigrants did far better on later batches. Why? Because the earlier tests had a cultural bias to the questions that was removed in the later tests. This is a graphic illustration of the simplest explanation for the Flynn Effect: we are better at designing tests that accurately measure IQ than we were before.

(PS: The vBulletin software will do quoting for you. Just hit Quote instead of Reply.)

What sort of fax machine did he predict? It was originally invented in 1842. Also, from Alexander Bain and the First Fax :

It was even featured on an episode of The Secret Life of Machines. No one thought the device was of any use since there wasn’t a whole lot of need to get a message right away.