The Future Poll
If you had to predict, which of the following do you think are likely to occur in the 21st century?
-- Scientists will find a cure for AIDS 75%
-- Scientists will find a cure for cancer 80%
-- Scientists will find a cure for the common cold 39%
-- The average American will live to be 100 57%
-- A woman will be President of the U.S. 76%
-- A black will be President of the U.S. 76%
-- Automobiles will no longer run on gasoline 75%
-- Computers will be as smart as humans and have personalities like humans 44%
-- Humans will make regular trips to other planets 43%
-- Beings who live on other planets will come in contact with us 32%
-- There will be one world government ruling the entire planet 22%
-- There will be one worldwide religion 11%
Compared with the 20th century, do you think the 21st century will have more:
-- Wars 32%
-- Environmental disasters 59%
-- Poverty 61%
-- Disease 53%
-- Hope for the future 62%
Which country will be the greatest threat to the U.S.'s dominant position in world affairs in the 21st century?
Japan 22%
Russia 14%
China 13%
Iraq 7%
Germany 7%
Will the Second Coming of Jesus Christ occur sometime in the next thousand years?
Yes 53%
No 31%
Will religion play a greater role in the lives of people in this country after the year 2000?
Greater 55%
Lesser 37%
Do you think the world will be in better shape at the end of the 21st century than it is today?
Better 41%
Worse 32%
About the same 15%
Which of each pair has had the most impact on the course of history in the past thousand years?
Printing press 47%
Television 51%
Christopher Columbus 65%
Neil Armstrong 33%
Thomas Edison 55%
Albert Einstein 41%
Beethoven 58%
The Beatles 39%
American Revolution 46%
World War II 50%
Electricity 79%
Automobile 17%
Abraham Lincoln 59%
Martin Luther King Jr. 36%
Mikhail Gorbachev 57%
Karl Marx 35%
Gunpowder 41%
Nuclear weapons 56%
CHART: NOT AVAILABLE
CREDIT: From a telephone poll of 800 adult Americans taken for TIME/CNN on July 22-23 by Yankelovich Clancy Shulman. Sampling error is plus or minus 3.5%.
TIME Graphics by Joe Lertola
CAPTION: NO CAPTION