When it comes to predicting the future, there has been much talk about the ancient Mayan calendar because is ends in 2012... maybe. For some reason, everyone believes that because this calendar ends that it means the end of the world.
Why? Sure, as far as ancient civilizations go, the Mayans has a pretty good grasp of astronomy. So much so that they developed a calendar based on the stars. That's great, but there were many civilizations that had a decent grasp of astronomy.
The Celts and Egyptians all had knowledge of astronomy and used in their religion. Did the Mayan think about their calendar ending a thousands years after it was developed? No! We consider ourselves advanced, but we sure didn't think about the 2000 bug did we.
The thought that a civilization that could be beaten by a couple Spaniards with some sharp sticks could predict the end of the world hundreds of years into the future just sounds ridiculous. Now there's theories that the Mayan calendar doesn't even end in 2012. If we can't figure out the Mayan calendar using supercomputers and advanced mathematics, do you really think the Mayan's had a great grasp of it?
I don't know about you, but I'm not going to be sweating 2012. If the world ends through some freak astronomical anomaly, then you can say I told you so. If it doesn't end and 2013 come without a hitch, then can we please lay off the end of the world predictions for a while.