Cybersurfing: Alex Proyas "Knowing" the future?

At the MTV Movies Blog, contributor Shawn Adler is perplexed by a quote from director Alex Proyas regarding his upcoming film, KNOWING, which stars Nicolas Cage. The story deals with the unearthing of a 50-year-old time capsule that seems to accurately predict subsequent disasters, including Armageddon. Says Proyas of the premise:

“It’s not supernatural,” Proyas said of the flick’s set-up. “It’s a science-fiction movie. I can’t really say more than that because it’s part of the surprise and fun of seeing the move. But we moved completely away from mythical prophecy foretelling of the future. It’s really grounded in a version of science that we believe holds water.”

Adams ponders the implication thus:

For the life of me, I can’t figure out what the heck that means – how in the world fortune telling could have a scientific basis.

Always eager to spread understanding in the world, let me explain hwo fortune telling can have a scientific basis:
Anyone can predict the future, and we often do. Every time you see something happening and you imagine the probable consequences, you are predicting the future. Going a step further, there are observable patterns and cycles in life; anyone who studies the data carefully enough can use them to make accurate predictions. In fact, if you were to study the facts about – for example – airline crashes (how often they happen, how high are the fatalities) you could probably give far more accurate predictions than so-called psychics. Maybe you couldn’t name the exact day but you could pick a month and some other likely details and come up with an informed guess that would likely come true.

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