Los Angeles

Let future generations take note: In 2001 James Dewar landed his dream job.

Dewar’s new assignment is to dream up what the future may hold for mankind and the world 35 to 200 years from now.

Officials of the Rand think tank in Santa Monica announced Monday that Dewar will head its new Frederick S. Pardee Center for Longer Range Global Policy and the Future Human Condition.

The center will be funded by $5 million pledged by Pardee, a Brentwood real estate investor who himself is a former Rand systems analyst. The beauty of Dewar’s assignment is that his bosses will never know if he’s wrong. And if his analyses are accurate, they could help shape the future by allowing coming generations to make policy and lifestyle changes.

“It’s going to be fun,” Dewar, 56, of Pacific Palisades, said--acknowledging that more than a few people are looking at his 200-year performance evaluation with envy.

But there is a seriousness to the effort that usually puts a quick end to images of a pipe-puffing prognosticator sitting in an ivory tower with his feet on his desk.

“If we’d known 35 years ago that enough people were going to hate us this much, is there something we could have done to prevent what happened on Sept. 11?” Dewar asked. “We are improving our ability to see ahead. We’re already using statistical methods and seeing things we never saw before.”

Pardee, 69, said he decided to finance the center to help stimulate thinking further out of the box than most corporate strategic planning and research.

“Thirty-five to 200 years is not way, way, way out,” he said. “I’m trying to create interest in a global outlook to things. Surprisingly, most everyone I talk to is still thinking about community, state and nation. They don’t take into account there are 6 billion of us now and there will likely be 9 billion in 2050.”

Pardee, who worked at Rand from 1957 to 1971, when he turned to apartment real estate investing, said he is funding similar long-range research at Boston University, his alma mater. “A lot of people say, ‘Where do I sign up for a job like that?’ ” he said of Dewar’s position. “But then they ask, ‘How do you go about tackling this problem?’ I’m optimistic about the future.”

So is Dewar, who will work with other Rand staffers and its graduate students. “I think I maintain a goodly level of hope for the future,” he said Monday. “But I’d love to jump 50 years out and see what it’s like.”