Sir

I was surprised to read in Don Ihde's review of David Nye's Technology Matters: Questions to Live With (Nature 442, 984; 2006) that “of the 1,500 published predictions from scientists, inventors and sociologists [historian George Wise] surveyed, only a third were fulfilled”. To be precise, I wonder at the use of the word “only”. Anyone able to predict the outcome of a horse race one out of three times could make a handsome income. It seems an impressive success rate to me.