The next stage in the mutation of prediction is parameter accommodation. Here, predictive claims are supported not by anticipatory insight but by the capacity of a theory to adjust its parameters to fit data — past, present, or newly observed. Flexibility itself becomes a sign of predictive power.
Parameter accommodation is a standard and often necessary part of theory construction. Yet when it is invoked as a measure of predictive success, the meaning of prediction drifts further from its classical sense. Prediction is no longer about foreseeing events; it becomes about survival under adjustment. A theory is successful if it can absorb anomalies, tune itself to new data, and emerge internally consistent.
The rhetorical effect is subtle but powerful. The ability to accommodate parameters is presented as evidence that the theory is robust and reliable. Yet the commitment to anticipate events in time is weakened, replaced by a formal skill: adaptability. The theory predicts because it can fit, not because it anticipates.
This stage consolidates the previous mutations. Retrodiction looked backward and presented itself as predictive; internal consistency looked inward. Parameter accommodation looks at flexibility — the capacity to survive the world rather than anticipate it. The temporal and experiential stakes are increasingly optional.
By understanding parameter accommodation in this way, we can see how predictive claims function as a badge of legitimacy. They signal that the theory works — in the formal sense — without requiring that it engage with events in the classical manner. The authority of the theory is maintained, even as genuine prediction recedes.
The next part will consider the rare cases of genuine event anticipation, contrasting them with the dominant mutations, and revealing the diagnostic significance of this contrast.
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