I recall reading some time ago about a scientist who modelled
economies, productivity, growth statistics, inteligence factors,
something along these lines, using some kind of unique tool or model.
Up until the time of the article I read (in the New Yorker maybe? Not
sure about that though) his predictive charts for economies had been
very well proven. I realise all this is a little vague; this is all I
remember. What caught my interest were his predictive charts for the
21st Century: he saw exponential cultural growth for all factors,
cultural, financial, etc. peaking with an asymptote around 2050;
sometime in the middle of the century, all his charts went up off the
scale. What I want to know is: who was he? What were his models? Why
did they peak in 2050? What is his reputation like, and what is he up
to now? Thanks!

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Clarification of Question by timguest-ga on 26 Jul 2004 16:50 PDT

Thanks for the comment. I can't find him on the Art Bell site, and no
luck with 'David Shawn --'. I'm not so interested in the scientific
validity of the claim, more in the way it fits into a book I am
writing, and and also out of curiosity in the particular momentum of a
man willing to make the claim.

You might try the Art Bell website as he has had several guests who
made similar predictions. One was David Shawn ___  I forgot the last
name.
 IMHO = in my humble opinion, 2050 is much too far to extrapolate
reliably. There are many extrpolations made in the 20th century thar
fell far short of reality ie The world would run out of oil, the
flying car would replace the road car. Nuclear electric power would be
too cheap to meter. The dominos would continue to fall to Russian
Communism until at least the end of the 20 th century...  Neil