Beacon and Warning: Sherman Kent, Scientific Hubris, and the CIA's Office of National Estimates (August 2018)
Access full-text files
Date
2018-08
Authors
Scoblic, J. Peter
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Texas National Security Review
Abstract
Department
Description
Would-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.
LCSH Subject Headings
Citation
Scoblic, 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