Ray Bradbury once said, “I don’t try to describe the future. I try to prevent it.” Bradbury’s bent for creative destruction through literature gave the world not only a fun read but ideas for what the future should be.

Most detractors of ideas seem less interested in preventing a future than underestimating the capabilities of people. As proof, check out the blog Thought Mechanics offers some of history’s more egregious prognostications. Some favorites:

“I think there is a world market for maybe five computers.”

Thomas Watson, chairman of IBM, 1943

“Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible.”

Lord Kelvin, president, Royal Society, 1895.

“The bomb will never go off. I speak as an expert in explosives.”

Admiral William Leahy, US Atomic Bomb Project.