He gave the world a 1-in-9 chance of avoiding nuclear war by 2000
Didn't hold up
Paulson 1978 — nuclear war by the year 2000
MISS
The call · 1 Jan 2000: Paulson, 1978: 'my own calculations give our planet only a 1 in 9 chance of avoiding a nuclear war by the year 2000' — roughly a 90% chance of nuclear war inside 22 years.
What happened: The year 2000 passed with no nuclear war between states. The date is gone and the call failed.
In 1978 Paulson put the odds of getting through to the year 2000 without a nuclear war at one in nine. The year 2000 came and went without one. Worth noting what he was comparing himself against: he says the most optimistic figure he had heard from anyone else was fifty-fifty. The whole field was wrong in the same direction, and he was further out than the field.
The engine's record — word for word
Paulson 1978, p.146 region of the scan: 'The most optimistic prediction I have heard concerning the possibility of a major nuclear war is 50-50, my own calculations give our planet only a 1 in 9 chance of avoiding a nuclear war by the year 2000. (Our chances could improve if intelligent measures are taken in time).' Scored MISS: the terminal date passed with no interstate nuclear exchange. Note the hedge in his own parenthesis, which he does not use to reopen the forecast anywhere later in the book.
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