[nazgulnarsil]

reminiscent of The Decline of the West. Such theories should be taken with the grain of salt that they are mostly descriptive, not prescriptive. At the very best they produce qualitative predictions which aren't of much use.

[sedev]

Actually, that's one of the reasons Strauss & Howe are a big deal - they did make some fairly specific predictions, and invited people to hold them accountable for those.

[cdjarrell]

Of course. Descriptive theories still help identify things better than no theories at all, even if they are wrong. Because then you can at least cross one off the list