I understand "futures thinking" to be thinking in the present about the future. This is exactly what happens when experiments are designed. Do you mean people thinking in the future about the past?
Future thinking is a strategy used to explore possible future and generate innovative solutions to complex problems. Future thinking can be used to predict the design of experiments, anticipate future trend and identify possible challenges.
For instance, if a researcher wants to design an experiment to test the effectiveness of a product, by using future thinking, the researcher can anticipate future trends in the business world and identify possible challenges that may arise during the cause of the experiment.