Bottom line is that predictions made today cannot take into account the technologies and science of tomorrow.
In 1890, it was perfectly reasonable for well-educated people to state that heavier-than-air flight was impossible. In 1930, it was reasonable for people to say that humans could not survive spaceflight or even survive in an aircraft breaking the sound barrier.
So when people continue to state that things like electric cars and cold-fusion will never work, I tend to dismiss them out of hand.
Well, Edison’s prediction has held for over a century, so he was still pretty accurate. I’m sure practical electric cars will become available in the future, and maybe cold fusion, but all these predictions remind me of those old (50’s-60’s) issues of Popular Science with the storied and artist’s renderings of flying cars, atomic airplanes, passenger submarines, houses on Mars, etc. I have a bunch of those old magazines, and they’re a hoot.
http://www.rinkworks.com/said/predictions.shtml
“I think there is a world market for maybe five computers.” — Thomas Watson, chairman of IBM, 1943.
“Where a calculator on the ENIAC is equipped with 18,000 vacuum tubes and weighs 30 tons, computers in the future may have only 1,000 vacuum tubes and weigh only 1.5 tons.” — Popular Mechanics, 1949
“I have traveled the length and breadth of this country and talked with the best people, and I can assure you that data processing is a fad that won’t last out the year.” — The editor in charge of business books for Prentice Hall, 1957.
“But what...is it good for?” — Engineer at the Advanced Computing Systems Division of IBM, 1968, commenting on the microchip.
“There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home.” — Ken Olson, president, chairman and founder of Digital Equipment Corp., 1977.
“640K ought to be enough for anybody.” — Attributed to Bill Gates, 1981, but believed to be an urban legend.
“This ‘telephone’ has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a means of communication. The device is inherently of no value to us.” — Western Union internal memo, 1876.
“The Americans have need of the telephone, but we do not. We have plenty of messenger boys.” — Sir William Preece, chief engineer of the British Post Office, 1876.
“The wireless music box has no imaginable commercial value. Who would pay for a message sent to nobody in particular?” — David Sarnoff’s associates in response to his urgings for investment in the radio in the 1920s.
“While theoretically and technically television may be feasible, commercially and financially it is an impossibility.” — Lee DeForest, inventor.
When people say that cold fusion won’t work, they are most likely just stating a fact. There’s no theoretical basis for it, nor has it ever been reproduceable. I mean, it’s possible there’s something to it, but there’s no reason to think so at this time. There was never any theoretical reason to think that heavier than air flight was impossible - birds show us every day that it is possible. There were good reasons to think that humans might not be able to survive spaceflight, and to this day some people believe that the Apollo missions never happened, because men couldn’t have survived the cosmic radiation on the journey.