Suppose you could predict which incumbent Presidents or Prime Ministers would win or lose re-election? Suppose you could predict which genres of pop stars would next rule the airwaves and move screens? Suppose you could predict the ups and downs of the economy? Suppose you could identify the peaks in popularity for major sports? Suppose you could predict the next big thing in fashion?

Imagine how much would this ability be worth to companies, governments, cultural leaders and every person affected by such events.  Sounds impossible? John Casti thinks not. Up until now almost all social prediction has been based on the extension of present trends into the future, and up until now almost all social prediction has failed, because trends inevitably change. In Destiny s Design, John Casti explains that such methods will always be wrong because they assume that events cause change. Casti predicts instead that changes in mood cause events.

For example, most people think that a productive economy makes people optimistic and an unproductive one makes people pessimistic, whereas in truth, optimistic people make for a productive economy and pessimistic people make for an unproductive one. Likewise, most people think that peace makes people content and tolerant while wars make people angry, fearful, and patriotic, but in reality, content and tolerant people make peace, whilst angry, fearful and patriotic people make war.

It sounds so simple, yet it is rarely practised. By offering an actual science of surprise , John Casti provides a way of anticipating changes in a huge diversity of social trends, from politics to popular music; finance to fashion; banking to basketball.