One just doesn t know.

In fact, no one really knows.

Somalia s political future is uncertain at best.

It seems most likely, but no one really knows.

There is no telling what it could mean for their descendants.

One can hardly say that every céntimo was well spent.

We cannot be sure about how much further house prices will fall.

We could affirm that a certain tension is still lurking between 'official' and 'citizen' reporting.

Whether monetary union was necessary to accomplish that aim is debatable.

Nobody yet knows what the political consequences of these economic changes will be.

No one can say with any certainty what the causes are.

No one can say for sure that Iran s regime has formally adopted a nuclear weapons program.

Whether such plans materialize remains to be seen.

Whether trade will recover next year is an open question.

Where the new balance will be struck is anybody s guess.

It remains to be seen what impact these political developments will have on the negotiations.

How violent or peaceful this may be remains to be seen.

But how is a generation to judge whether it is leaving behind an adequate productive base?

But what cannot yet be seen is how Palestinians will view Hamas.

No book on innovation that I have read makes the connection between innovation and the theory of knowledge and philosophy of science.

Whether they stand to gain or lose from a renminbi revaluation, however, is hotly contested.

How many Bastilles will ultimately fall in the region, and at what pace, no one can say.

Whether this American intelligence assessment is based on credible information is unknown.

But not all of the eurozone s current members may be there a year from now.

One cannot be certain of such an outcome, of course, but it is now the best that one can realistically hope for.

At the same time, Juvin asserts, because everyone has a body, property has suddenly become democratized.

Financial firms are screaming murder, but it is not obvious that broader and better financial regulation would be a bad thing.

The battle of wills between Sarkozy and the street is still very much open.

Indeed, no one even knows how many civilian casualties there have been in ten years of war.

No one knows precisely the Mexican drug cartels annual profits, but they certainly amount to billions of dollars.

And who is to say that such dreams will never come true? The Jews managed to hang on to theirs for almost 2,000 years.

First, it lacks content it is unclear what any eventual Bretton Woods II discussions will be about.

Who is to say how the Chinese leadership would respond to a future pro democracy uprising that threatened to undermine the regime?

Whether Greece, Spain, and other euro zone members will accept such wrenching adjustments remains to be seen.

One does not know what one will find when working at the cutting edge and attempting to push into unknown territory.

But, given that daily experience places Chinese citizens in an infinitely better position than Western executives to evaluate Chinese officials and their conduct, one would have to conclude that they are almost certainly right.

Three months from now, when Mexico s new president Felipe Calderón takes office, many will consider it a dubious honor.

South Sudan s mineral wealth could also be substantial, though no one knows because exploration has been impossible for so long.

No one can determine how much of America s productivity gains in recent years have resulted from squeezing human capital, because such things are not measured.

Everybody knows that there are immense unrealized losses in financial assets, but no one is sure that they know where those losses are.

That could be interpreted as a prohibition of polygamy, since no man could be sure that he would always treat his wives equally.

TOKYO When an American president s first overseas trip following his re election is to Asia, one can be sure that something big is afoot in the region.

But who can reasonably claim to know what shape the EU will need to take to meet the challenges of the next 50 or 100 years?

Nor is it clear that state capitalism can generate the same degree of innovation and entrepreneurship as the liberal models did in their prime.

Middle ground observers, meanwhile, typically conclude that one cannot settle the debate, because one cannot know what would have happened otherwise.