This comprehensive overview of the prediction game takes readers on a journey through the worlds of probability, chance and chaos, and investigates developmental biology, modern warfare, weather and climate prediction, mathematics, economics and games of chance. The author of Paradigms Lost asks a variety of intriguing questions. Does any method exist to foresee stock-market trends? Can warfare be predicted and avoided? Why can't we get a foolproof forecast for the weekend weather on Tuesday? Are such concepts as nuclear winter and the greenhouse effect real threats to humanity? And is mathematics, the queen of sciences, really as infallible as it's cracked up to be?