Was Nostradamus really able to predict the future?
Dear Cecil: Recently I saw a movie on cable TV called “The Man Who Saw Tomorrow,” about Michael Nostradamus the prognosticator. That film scared the hell out of me. Nostradamus claims that first Halley’s comet will screw up the entire world and then in the 1990s a Middle East/Russian collaboration will wage nuclear war on the West for 27 years, after which the U.S. and Russia will join together again to defeat the Islamic horde. Should I begin to say my prayers? How good was Nostradamus at predicting the future? Did Orson Welles (the film’s narrator) con me once again? — Lisa Leslie, River Forest Dear Lisa: There are two schools of thought on Nostradamus: either (1) he had supernatural powers which enabled him to prophesy the future with uncanny accuracy, or (2) he did for bullshit what Stonehenge did for rocks. I incline to the latter view. Michel de Nostredame (Nostradamus in Latin) was born in southern France in 1503. Intelligent and well-educated, he worked as a traveling physician
