Beacon and Warning: Sherman Kent, Scientific Hubris, and the CIA's Office of National Estimates (August 2018)

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dc.creatorScoblic, J. Peter
dc.date.accessioned2019-01-15T22:51:43Z
dc.date.available2019-01-15T22:51:43Z
dc.date.issued2018-08
dc.descriptionWould-be forecasters have increasingly extolled the predictive potential of Big Data and artificial intelligence. This essay reviews the career of Sherman Kent, the Yale historian who directed the CIA’s Office of National Estimates from 1952 to 1967, with an eye toward evaluating this enthusiasm. Charged with anticipating threats to U.S. national security, Kent believed, as did much of the postwar academy, that contemporary developments in the social sciences enabled scholars to forecast human behavior with far greater accuracy than before. The predictive record of the Office of National Estimates was, however, decidedly mixed. Kent’s methodological rigor enabled him to professionalize U.S. intelligence analysis, making him a model in today’s “post-truth” climate, but his failures offer a cautionary tale for those who insist that technology will soon reveal the future.en_US
dc.description.departmentLBJ School of Public Affairsen_US
dc.identifierdoi:10.15781/T2J38M448
dc.identifier.citationScoblic, J.P. (2018). Beacon and Warning: Sherman Kent, Scientific Hubris, and the CIA's Office of National Estimates. Texas National Security Review, 1(4). http://doi.org/10.15781/T2J38M448
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/2152/72415
dc.language.isoengen_US
dc.publisherTexas National Security Reviewen_US
dc.relation.ispartofTexas National Security Reviewen_US
dc.relation.ispartofseriesTexas National Security Review;Vol 1, Iss 4
dc.rights.restrictionOpenen_US
dc.subjectTNSR Vol. 1, Iss. 4en_US
dc.subjectU.S. intelligenceen_US
dc.subjectSherman Kenten_US
dc.subjectCIA Office of National Estimatesen_US
dc.subjectforecasting human behavioren_US
dc.titleBeacon and Warning: Sherman Kent, Scientific Hubris, and the CIA's Office of National Estimates (August 2018)en_US
dc.typeJournalen_US

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