But one way to identify future Stevenses may be to focus less on ideology than on temperament.
Its aim is to accelerate the development of treatments and identify future therapeutic targets, leading to earlier interventions for patients.
For those looking to identify future trends in rugby union the IRB's junior world championship is the place to start.
A trans-Atlantic "early warning system," armed with accurate facts and figures, could be established to identify future supply options.
To help identify future stars, the N.H.L. runs a scouting combine in early June to evaluate 101 players.
That presents the Big Four with a particular problem: how to identify future stars among the mass of raw recruits.
It also calls for deaths and injuries from household fires to be collated on a central database to identify future risks.
The industry minister, Ian Macfarlane, said the government was conducting an economic review of Victoria to identify future manufacturing and industry directions.
"But the BBC needs to identify future tipping points where reassessment of the structure will become necessary, such as full digital switchover in 2012 and 50% of viewing on a non-linear basis.
"They're very helpful for writers and they are encouraging, and can identify future talents, but on the other hand sometimes they're too soon," said the author at the Guardian Hay festival.
"This seems to be based on the idea that the government can take a bunch of data and create a profile that can be used to identify future bad guys," he said.
