While foreseeing before acting is a human attribute that has existed down the ages, it is particularly characteristic of our contemporary society to make use of science and technology to grasp the future. More than others, East Asian societies, replete with such forecasts as "five-year plans" and "technological roadmaps." whether public or private sector, may have a strong tendency to act based on seemingly scientific and objective predictions. Simulation, Prediction, and Society: The Politics of Forecasting, edited by two Japanese STS scholars, Tomiko Yamaguchi and Masato Fukushima, is an ambitious collection of ten treatises addressing the complex and multifaceted interplay of predictions and societies. Framing predicting and forecasting activities as inferring the future with an emphasis on scientific and quantitative evidence, all the chapters are imbued with the following two research questions, reflecting the editors' core expertise: i) what kind of - and whose - expectations are reflected in predictions? and i) how do predictions influence societies and shape the future?
