Thread: The Carter Catastrophe - A Statistical Doomsday Argument
View Single Post
  #118 (permalink)  
Old 29-November-2007, 05:06 AM
Ken G's Avatar
Ken G Ken G is offline
Order of Kilopi
  
Join Date: Oct 2005
Posts: 12,749
Default
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ilya View Post
Bayesian statistics (i.e. "Carter Catastrophe") only works when applied to finite sets. When applied to potentially infinite sets, such as total number of humans that ever will live, it produces meaningless results. In particular, it produces same result (we are nearing the end of the set) no matter when it is applied -- today, 1000 years ago, or 10,000 years ago.
But the number of humans that will be born is almost certainly a finite set. You're right though, this is all about Bayesian statistics.
Reply With Quote