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Oracles, Omens and Answers is a revealing gaze at prediction's past

A fascinating exhibition at Oxford’s Bodleian Library explores archaic ways of telling the future. It is tiny, but explores big questions about how we learned to think rationally

8 January 2025

Installation images - Oracles, Omens and Answers — An exhibit at the Oracles, Omens and Answers show
Ian Wallman

ST Lee Gallery, Oxford, UK
Until 27 April 2025

There can be few happier disciplines than the history of science: the study of how people did the best with what they had and, generation by generation, accreted better and better models of the way the world works. We used to call this “progress”, and it beats me why we can’t carry on using the word and just accept that its processes are way more curious, complicated and contradictory than we supposed.

Oracles, Omens and Answers…

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