[hermitcrab]

I was never convinced by cliometrics (including the Asimov version in Foundation). Yes, there are patterns and structural forces, but history is too subject to chaos (in the mathematical sense) for any precise long range predictions.

[db48x]

That's probably true (although not proven!), but every science fiction story is allowed to ask the reader to suspend disbelief when it breaks one law of physics. (At least according to Campbell.) Since the story has no FTL travel or communications it can use that forbearance somewhere else.