Princeton Astrophysicist's "Doomsday" Math Shows Humans Have Less Than 1,000 Years Left

Movie 'Threads'  which depicts the end of civilization from nuclear war,  starting with a U.S. attack on Iran. Dr.J. Richard Gott whose 'doomsday' math ought to have our collective attention. 


The article,  'The Unsettling Possibilities Of Doomsday Math' (WSJ, Review, July 6-7) by William Poundstone, makes compelling reading though I fear too many may be inclined to dismiss it. Or to put it into the same category as the idea that some fraction of UFOs may actually be advanced craft piloted by extraterrestrials.  

In this case the doomsday math concerns work done by astrophysicist J. Richard Gott III.  As noted by author Poundstone (ibid.):

"Dr. Gott invoked math and population data to predict that the end of the Earth is likely to occur in under a thousand years."

Then elaborating:

"The core of Dr. Gott's reasoning is known to statisticians as 'the German tank problem'.  When the Allies were planning the Normandy landings, they wanted to know roughly how many tanks the Germans could be expected to have on D-Day. One clue was the meticulous consecutive numbering of German tanks and their components.

Army statisticians reasoned that captured tanks and parts could be regarded as randomly drawn from all those that Germany produced.  The serial numbers gave certain evidence of the minimum number (which couldn't be less than the highest serial number captured). All the numbers provided a statistical probability - though not a certainty -  of how many tanks existed - and based on that how many more would be produced by D-Day. 

After the war captured German records revealed that the statisticians' estimates had been almost exactly right."

How does this connect to any doomsday forecasts?  The author goes on:

"To apply this to the future of humanity, the doomsday argument begins by asking us to imagine a list of all past, present and future people, sorted in their order of birth. No one alive knows how long the list is or where their own names fall in it, so we can consider ourselves randomly drawn. That means that statistically there is an equal (50 % chance) that we are in the first half or the last half.

Humans don't come with serial numbers but Dr. Gott reasoned that demographers have already roughly estimated the number of humans so far. They put the total number of people who have ever lived - from the beginnings of Homo sapiens to the present day - at 100 billion. That means that my birth order serial number - like for anyone alive now - is somewhere around 100 billion. 

Since it is equally likely that those of us living today are in the first or second half of all past and future human births - let's say we are in the second half - that would mean there are 100 billion births yet to come.  There is a 50 % chance that is true, which at the current global birthrate (about 131 million a year) translates that we have at most 760 more years of births.  A changing birthrate would modify the estimate but the calculation is that simple."


Poundstone adds that:  "the purely circumstantial nature of Dr. Gott's prediction unsettles many who hear of it".

 And it did perturb one WSJ letter writer, a David E. Weisberg. ( 'Doomsday Math Neither Accurate of Helpful' , July 9) who wrote:

"The conclusion assumes that the list (of humans) is finite because it is meaningless to speak of the first half or second half of an infinite list.  And the assumption the list is finite contradicts the premise that no one alive knows how long the list is."

But Weisberg's error is twofold: first there is no contradiction of the premise given that the relevant assumption was not of any absolute enumeration, but for its relative length in time. I.e. after 780 years, 300 years etc., which length is determined by the birth rate.  The birth rate itself- no matter how low (i.e. 1 % per year) -also dictates the list cannot be infinite.

 Regarding the last, we have a brilliant mathematical computation by  Univ. of Colorado Emeritus physics professor Albert Bartlett-   that such a list would have to be finite. You cannot have an infinite number of humans occupying the planet.

Prof. Barltett's exposure of this nonsense - in another context to do with the exponential function and computing future population -  can be found in this lecture :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kZA9Hnp3aV4

Go to time index 13:04 and continue watching as he computes the global population projections at an estimated rate of 1.3 percent per year.  Within a minute or so we see the graphic appear:


Which Prof. Bartlett specifies as the full stop to further population increase, i.e.  the absolute arrival of  "zero population growth".   (Though he goes on to show that at the same assumed birth rate the mass of humans would equal the mass of the whole planet in 2400 years.)  As he notes:

"It's absolutely clear people could not live at that density on Earth. So zero population growth is going to happen!"

In other words, there exists an absolute limit to human population growth - and hence the "list" of Prof. Gott. It cannot go on indefinitely!  Prof. Bartlett even includes a humorous cartoon to reinforce the point for any simpletons:

Why is this not possible?   Well because each human needs a defined living space to support him over a lifetime, not merely the minimal space his body may occupy. This is owing to the fact humans need resources to live which are extracted from a given land area.  This life support basis is a function of the rate of consumption of resources in this living space, and the birth rate.  The current average – when all humans are factored in – amounts to nearly 2.1 hectares per person .  This reckons in crops, lumber,  water,  meats-cattle etc.,  consumed over a life .  A square meter therefore cannot be a life support space. Only a certified moron would believe so. (Unless we are talking about immobilized humans put into a deep coma or deep freeze and remaining in stasis).

Thus, no high population density scheme that doesn’t factor in acreage impact  can be taken seriously.  Hence, Weisberg's argument concerning an "infinite list" of  potential humans , i.e.

"Unlike German tanks at a particular moment in time, human beings over the entire course of human history - past, present and future - might be conceivably infinite in number."

Is pure poppycock given the list terminates at the maximum density (more likely even well before that) which is certainly well short of an infinite list!   And as Prof. Bartlett shows, anyone spouting similar nonsense also needs his or her head examined.  Or, they need to go back to school to try to learn exponential math!

Yet more evidence that the "Flynn effect" is pure, unadulterated codswallop!

As for Dr. Gott, his use of Bayesian statistics also saw him (earlier) predicting closing dates for 44 Broadway and off-Broadway shows. When he checked back 4 years later, 36 that had closed had done so within the prediction window. As Poundstone observes:

"Like many of those involved in the doomsday debate, he views the discussion as a wake up call."

I'd say the first "wake up" needs to be for people to process exponential growth which is why the link to Dr. Bartlett's lecture is so critically important. I strongly urge all readers to at least watch the time segments indicated - if not the whole 1 hr 14m lecture.

Proving the deity - Or Bayesian Bollocks?

Gil Gaudia (‘God: Lies, Damned Lies and Statistics’, The American Atheist, Sept. 2007) merits kudos for lacerating the specious premise of Stephen Unwin’s pompous book ‘The Probability of God: A Simple Calculation that Proves the Ultimate Truth’ .

The core issue, as Dr. Gaudia observes, is the: “assumed values- or assumptions – created by the person using the theorem to support a preconceived viewpoint.”

In many ways it would be analogous to my bright, seven year old niece offering that a “50% probability exists” for a pipe-smoking, invisible (except to her) elf to be sitting in her basement fireplace ten hours out of twenty-four.

In a more sophisticated sense, it would be analogous to Tulane physicist Frank Tipler asserting that a “50-50” chance exists for his “Omega Point” to really be the “First Person of the Trinity”. (E.g. see his balmy tome: ‘The Physics of Christianity’ in which he purports to “prove” the Trinity, the Virgin Birth, the Resurrection of Jesus. and a host of other unadulterated, supernatural codswallop via quantum physics and general relativity)

The trouble is that all of these lack a reasonably sound ab initio epistemology that would warrant a credible statistical assumption. It is precisely the epistemology (if such exists) that would allow us to take the assumption seriously.

For example, I might make the claim that a 50% probability exists for a monster solar flare capable of frying every electric transformer in the U.S. This sounds way out, but we must recall the monster flare of March, 1989 which fairly brought down the Ottawa power grid and indeed, “fried” coils and wires subject to enormous induction currents of 10^ 6 A and more. Hence, given what we know of the magneto-hydrodynamics of flares, and how magnetic substorms are generated on Earth – there is an epistemology for the assignment of probability.

Moreoever, it is one that can be subject to tests. For example at the University of Alaska-Fairbanks now there are ways of generating numerical models of magnetospheric substorms which can duplicate conditions arising from powerful flares.

Can Unwin do the same for his “God”? Can he even differentiate clearly its nature – say from the Hindu Brahmin, or the Islamic Allah, the Jews’ Yahweh or even Tipler’s “Omega Point”? In other words, WHICH God is it that he's “proving” with Bayesian stats, and HOW does he KNOW? What are the discriminating attributes that uniquely distinguish this entity from any other? If this can’t even be specified, it would be like me claiming a “50 % probability” of a monster flare occurrence exists, without even estimating the likely x-ray class, and optical class. I would be hooted out of any solar physics’ seminar!

One would have thought that proving an entity as momentous as “God” would constitute much more than Bayesian smoke and mirrors a posteriori tricks and statistics.

It's all very well to claim an a posteriori "proof" can be rendered for “God” (via Bayesian statistics) but this won't do in serious discussion until epistemological prerequisites are met. It is interesting that whenever assorted God provers like Unwin invoke their proofs, they never provide a discriminating epistemology – which begins with a basic definition of the entity.. They merely use the G-word as if we already know what the entity is they are “proving” (The lone claimed exception to this which I have seen is physicist Frank Tipler in his book, ‘The Physics of Christianity’ – but in order to arrive at it, Tipler must not only resort to a posteriori assumptions and stats, but also mangle all the normative concepts of quantum mechanics!)

So the question persists: WHICH God is it that is being proven?

Is the entity based on the deist (“create it and leave it be”) model? The pantheist Spinozan (“all is God”) model? The personal but "infinite" Christian model? The Christian Trinity? The Hindu impersonal Brahmin model? Until this is resolved in a uniform, operational sense – skeptics and scientists are justified in taking any uses of the G-word with the proverbial grain of salt.

As I have found on numerous forums, and in dozens of venues wherein I've debated these folks (e.g. Salon, AARP forums, Amazon book reviewes etc.) when you press them for an epistemological basis to their deity the best they can do is a generic “designer God”. In other words, as the Discovery Institute and others would warrant, it is the God of “intelligent design” which will answer to the Christian “God” name.

Once you have them offering an “epistemology” – in this case one that posits a “design” presumes a “God” – you have them by the cojones.

They will insist there must be “design” because the odds of overcoming remote probabilities are otherwise too low. But how does one separate naturally low probabilities from outcomes based on the intervention of a special agent? What criteria allow such separation?For example - we know that any one supposed single fusion of (proton) nuclei in the Sun is expected to occur on average once every 14 billion years.However, no designer is required to explain how the Sun shines (from fusion reactions) rather quantum mechanical tunneling. There exists a finite probability that any given proton will surmount the Coulomb repulsive barrier and fuse with another proton. Yes, this is a rare even, but there are trillions of protons in the Sun so it emerges as not so “rare” as one may first believe.

Another question to challenge the epistemology: Why doesn't the "designer" insinuate itself into the domains of other worlds in the solar system to create ("design") life? Why isn't Mercury inhabited, or Venus? Or Jupiter? IF the designer is also omnipotent it ought to be able to design outside of purely natural (or terrestrial) norms and limits. (Thus an organism on Venus, for example, that can live off sulphuric acid, CO2 in the atmosphere and an atmospheric pressure of 90 atm.)If the designer is not omnipotent, and indeed doesn't exist in the first place - it makes more sense that life will only occur on certain planets within habitable temperature zones and containing the elements (oxygen, nitrogen, water etc.) needed for life. In such cases, it isn't "design" at work but a long, gradual process of chemical evolution that eventually leads to life forms. Thus, the only real emergent reason for a designer in the first place would be that it possesses ubiquitous power to design ANYWHERE! If it can't do that, or is limited by conditions already in place - we simply don't need it, it's redundant.

The final challenge to toss at the God-claimant is predicting what the designer or design agent can do for another planet other than Earth. Provide him with ‘x’ attributes of the unknown planet (also give also the spectral class of the star) and let him specify the nature of the “designed” life that would emerge. If he knows his designer deity as well as he claims, he ought to be able to do this and display flexibility irrespective of the parameters thrown at him.

Failing that, force him to offer tests of falsification. Make him tell you what observation – if anything – will falsify his claim. Ideally, force him to relate this to chromosomal observations for various genomes on Earth.(Say using the cytochrome-c gene in one or more species, to determine their interrelatedness, say of the human to the chimp, or the human to a lowly yeast species).

Tipler, at least, has done that – and interestingly, one finds that most of his proffered “tests” have already been falsified. For example, his claim that there can be no “heat death” of the universe. However, the current acceleration of the cosmos via dark energy shows indeed that all the bodies of the cosmos will indeed one day cool to absolute zero temperature. No humanity, no life, no consciousness. It is but a matter of time.

Unwin, Ken Ham and others get away with their nonsense and specious “proofs” largely because skeptics and Atheists fail to call them on their baloney. Demanding that they provide a real epistemological basis for their lunatic claims, as opposed to Bayesian smoke and mirrors. Alas, we often have such a volume of baloney to rebut, that it is often difficult to prioritize!