You Can Relax Concerning the Doomsday Argument

Well, you can relax a little.

The Doomsday Argument has a very dramatic name.  Even it’s sometimes alternate name, the Carter catastrophe (after its first proponent), is dramatically tragic.  However, this tragedy is falsely earned.

The short version is that, statistically speaking, there is a likely end to our species around 1.2 trillion humans born (you and I are about the 100 billionth humans born).  This is of course some distance off into the future, but it is an end nonetheless.

It is easy to see why this would seem like a tragedy to the namers and contemplaters of this argument:  The end of the human species!

There are some pessimistic, even cynical, folks who would cheer this tragic end.  Sad little monkeys.

But fear not intrepid reader, this is not necessarily the tragic end it at first glance appears.

Evolution.  Marvelous machinations.  If the end of homo sapiens falls somewhere in the next 1.1 trillion members, we can also imagine that homo exim will arise during that period.  Nothing lives forever, but so many things do create viable offspring.

If any of this turns out to be true, then the Argument is correct in predicting the end of our species, but it is laughably wrong in its assessment of that outcome.  Let’s just hope we evolve into something more interesting than Morlocks.

JamesIsIn

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