Appearing during the middle two hours, mathematician and author David Orrell discussed the science of prediction from ancient history until the present day. In particular, he looked at how chaos theory and complexity limit our ability to predict weather, health and wealth.
At the Delphic oracle in ancient Greece, predictions were read out by a woman known as the Pythia, who acted as a channel for the god Apollo. One reason why the system was so successful was that the predictions were vague enough to never be completely wrong, he explained.
Weather forecasting is not terribly accurate after 2-3 days because it's based on computer models that can only give rough approximations of atmospheric complexities, Orrell said. Health predictions based on genetic tests can also be misleading, he noted.
The last hour featured Open Lines, with a number of callers sharing their predictions.
Ron Paul: Fixing America
First hour guest, Congressman Ron Paul discussed his continued 2008 presidential bid— he remains in the race to offer a solid plan for change. Here are some of the ideas he proposed:
- Eliminate the Federal Reserve (there is no constitutional authority for it).
- Phase gold and silver currency back into the system.
- Get rid of the IRS.
- Greatly reduce America's trillion dollar spending on "maintaining our world empire."