Whilst I sympathize with that view, ukpaul, there are clearly three distinct types of forecast: Maddenesque ramp jobs; wishy-washy horoscope-type efforts that can mean either everything or nothing, depending on one's wishes; scientific predictions, such as GP's, RJS's and others'...IMO, the first two can be dismissed out-of-hand, as being pure guesswork, but the last cannot. It's not just the 'rightness' that is important; testability, methodology and the explanations of the results make them valid...