Methods for Studying the Future: "For all of human history people have tried to develop methods for predicting the future, from reading palms to gazing at the stars. But in recent years, primarily since World War II, scientists, sociologists, operations researchers, and others, many of whom began to call themselves futurists, have developed quantitative and qualitative methods for rationally anticipating the future. What separates futurists from the soothsayers who came before is rationality, an awareness that the future cannot be known with absolute certainty, and the recognition that many different futures are possible, depending on decisions people make in the present. "