Psychiatry and psychopharmacology are no longer aiming to make a decis
ive breakthrough at the end of the century. Rather than seeking explan
ations, research workers are looking for 'predictions'. Three main typ
es of prediction are emerging: a tautological, a heuristic, and an irr
elevant one. Few predictions found in the recent literature can be mar
ked as 'logical' ones. Nevertheless, predictions play two important ro
les: they generate new hypotheses that can be falsified in properly de
signed scientific experiments; they also may serve to falsify given hy
potheses. The main recent findings on predictions in psychiatry are br
iefly summarised.