Self-fulfilling prophecy

As shown in his book “Social Theory and Social Structure”, Robert Merton coined the expression “self-fulfilling prophecy”:

“a situation where “a false definition in the beginning… evokes a new behavior which makes the original false conception comes true (…) this specious validity of the self-fulfilling prophecy perpetuates a reign of error. For the prophet will cite the actual course of events as proof that he was right from the beginning“

Why do I blog this? preparing a course about innovation and foresight leads me to revisit this notion. The history of sciences and techniques has a great list of such prophecies.