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Transcript:
Just a warning, this is one of those videos that’s a bit more personal and not really about any new, interesting science or debunking any bad science or anything like that. I’m letting you know now because one of the most useless YouTube comments a person can leave is “I don’t see the point of this video,” so I want to save you some time. There is no point to this video. Just go away.
Anyway. At the start of every year, going back, jeez, like ten years now? I don’t know, time means nothing. Anyway, at the start of every year, I like to make “psychic” predictions for what will happen in the coming months. I started doing it in part as an educational tool to illustrate how phony psychics trick people. For instance, by making a prediction that seems unlikely but is actually surprisingly common, and by making a bunch of genuinely unlikely predictions and then only pointing to the few that manage to pay off, or come close enough to paying off to seem impressive.
But around 2021, things got a bit depressing, so I started asking a few of my scientist friends to give me THEIR predictions, which was fun because I got to focus on scientific discoveries in various fields. Last year I thought to myself, you know what? This is so great that for 2025’s predictions, I’m going to plan ahead. I’m going to send out an email to my friends WAY in advance instead of just texting them the day before I film. And I’m going to include some new friends to mix things up! It’s going to be great.
And then Donald Trump won the election in November, and that was depressing, but still, the reminder was on my calendar and I am unable to ignore a reminder. So I still did it. I sent that email! And then I turned off my computer for the holidays.
When I turned it back on, I saw what I had feared: almost every single friend was far too depressed about what 2025 had in store for them, for their colleagues, and for scientific discovery itself, that they simply could not do it. They couldn’t come up with anything to be hopeful about, and I honestly did not blame them.
And the day I’m filming this is the first day of 2025 that really, truly validated their fears. Trump’s administration has dealt a devastating blow to the pursuit of knowledge in the United States by all but crippling the National Institutes of Health, which is the largest producer of biomedical research in the world, funded more than 150 scientists’ Nobel prize winning research, and is the primary reason millions more vulnerable people didn’t die of COVID.
Trump abruptly canceled grant meetings, which scientists prepare for sometimes years in advance because they determine the entire direction of their careers, froze all hiring, and canceled all travel for the entire organization. Scientists have literally reported being in training sessions that were stopped right in the middle of things. Entire websites have disappeared.
This is a story that is currently happening and I can’t sit here and summarize it for you yet because of the massive amount of damage that’s happening across so many sectors, but I recommend following someone like Drug Monkey on BlueSky if you want to absorb this in real time. But yeah, THIS is exactly why my friends couldn’t bear to join in on a lighthearted video about the future of science. It’s extremely bleak.
But. BUT! One friend DID find the energy to make some predictions. And I was debating about whether or not to make this video with just one psychic scientist, and I was wondering whether I even had the energy myself, but SEVERAL of you actually commented here, on Patreon, and in my messages specifically asking where the psychic prediction video was this year. And that honestly filled me with joy, to know this silly tradition is something you guys like, too. So fuck it! Let’s go.
First, as always, I’ll talk about what the psychics got right last year.
Dr. Phil Plait predicted that the “Artemis II will be delayed until 2025 due to SLS rocket issues,” and that was correct! NASA cited three reasons for pushing back the launch, one of which was related the abort system which would allow for an escape from the SLS, or Space Launch System, which is close enough for me. By the way as always, if you want to learn more about anything I talk about, check out the transcript, linked in the description.
Phil also predicted the Artemis III would be pushed to 2027, which he also got right, though not because of SpaceX as he predicted. Just for the same reasons Artemis II is delayed.
Phil also predicted that Trump’s VP pick would be the Hamburglar, and I said I’d give it to him if the eventual pick ever stole a hamburger. I think we can safely say that one is also a hit for Phil.
Next up, my friend, gastroenterologist Kaveh Hoda, predicted new treatments for conditions like Crohn’s and ulcerative colitis, and I think he got this one, judging by all the news I saw last year about groups like the American Gastroenterological Association establishing new guidelines for the use of these treatments. Because yeah, I’m a well-rounded person so I stay up to date on research dealing with the ol’ poop chute. And from a slightly more serious angle, I have several friends whose lives have been completely upended by Crohn’s and related diseases, and I’m really excited that these treatments seem to be working.
Kaveh also predicted a new infectious disease to come out of Gaza. That was, happily, a miss. And we’ll just leave it at that for now.
Finally, my pal Siouxsie Wiles predicted that Cillian Murphy will win an Oscar for his performance in Oppenheimer, which she NAILED! Though she said that he wouldn’t be able to pick up his award in person due to having developed long COVID after catching COVID at a previous awards ceremony,” which, happily did not happen.
Siouxsie also predicted that a “nasal pan-coronavirus vaccine that prevents transmission of all current and future COVID variants…will pass phase III trials and be rolled out equitably around the world,” which sadly has not happened. However, a promising nasal vaccine for COVID-19 is currently being tested on 10,000 people, and the results are due in 2026.
Siouxsie then predicted that “Deadly outbreaks of [a usually innocuous virus/bacterium/fungi] will sweep the world and be blamed on lockdowns,” which hasn’t happened! Hooray! Good news.
Finally she suspected that “Gwyneth Paltrow will rebrand her jade yoni egg as a treatment for long COVID.” I will not be googling Gwyneth Paltrow’s magical vagina egg at this time. I just won’t. You can’t make me.
Now, for this year: the one scientist who had the energy and the forward-thinking optimism to take a shot at 2025 was my good friend, biologist and famously cranky atheist PZ Myers. If you are in the UK, you may better know him as P Zed.
PZ predicts for 2025, “We’re going to see data science & genomics merging at an accelerated rate — not the stupid chatbot stuff, but tools for rapid analysis of multiple types of molecules (protein, RNA, DNA — the whole omniomics gang) from single cell or small biopsy samples, with all kinds of cross correlations to integrate the interactions that are going on. The big discovery that this will enable — at least what I’d like to see — is a revolution in tissue regeneration. See, AI isn’t all bad. Just the techbro/capitalist kind.”
Spicy take! AI good??? Maybe!
Next, as a noted spider enjoyer, PZ couldn’t help himself but predict that “We’ll discover new species of spiders, maybe?” He also says that he expects “to see more spider evo-devo (evolutionary developmental biology). I’m a little disappointed that so far there has been relatively little on neurodevelopment in spiders, especially compared to all the work done in various insects. The tools to study neuronal pathfinding are right there, all worked out for insects, I want to see something about gene expression and early embryonic organization.”
And I would add that I’d like to see more research on the kinds of webs that spiders spin when they’re on different drugs, which is an actual study that NASA funded in the ‘40s.
Next, PZ predicts that “We’re going to get another pandemic, maybe H5N1, but possibly something totally surprising, and we won’t be prepared for it. Maybe I’ll be one of the victims. If I die of infectious disease in the next year, I want credit for it!”
I can’t imagine a better way for PZ to go out, then by being right. “He died doing what he loved…winning an argument.”
Finally, PZ predicts this: “The Trump administration and yahoos like RFK and Oz will break our major research institutions, destroy confidence in the viability of a science career, and lead to a generational gap (at least) in scientific advancement in this country. Best case outcome: we’ll be replaced by Germany, France, Japan, China, and maybe India.”
Well, I guess we ended up right back where we started. On the positive side, congratulations, PZ, you already got a hit. The Trump administration has already broken on major research institution within two days of taking office. Yay?
I highly recommend you go check out more from PZ by hitting up his own blog plus those of several other awesome writers at freethoughtblogs.com. If you were worried about our most vocal proponents of rationality and reason giving up in the face of a challenging year, then have some hope! PZ is still here, I’m still here, and a lot of others are still here fighting the good fight. We’re gonna make it through 2025 if it kills us.
