What do Nostradamus and Akbar have in common?

Akbar is our strategy professor, not the mughal emperor. Do you know how strategy cases work? We study a case; discuss it in the class while he acts a facilitator and then discloses what actually happened later. Tell you what; what happened later will be exactly what we had predicted. Oh boy, are we budding Nostradamuses!

Just the other day, Spanish reporters quoted a Nostradamus prediction that Spain will win the world cup. Alas, they were kicked out of the tournament (This is my best pun yet!!!!) the same day by zidane and his men. So Spaniards brought a heapful of embarrassment not only for themselves but for the otherwise successful prophet as well.

So what’s the connection? The reason why we get our predictions right and Nostradamus his is because we know the outcome. Nostradamus cannot predict things which haven’t happened already. Ably led by Akbar, we would always zero in on the right alternative although other two looks equally good on case-sheet.

That brings me to the question. How did Nostradamus predict a lot of things that did happen already? I could think of only one answer. He simply wrote too much. And more importantly, he was cryptic. So it’s easier to retroactively re-engineer his prophecies. (Beat that for jargon!)

May be I’m a pessimist. May be this is the best way of teaching. Or, perhaps we should discuss a case whose outcome is not known presently and see what happens after a few months. Would that be more interesting?