The Doomsday Argument. “99

percent of all species that ever lived have gone extinct, including every one

of our hominid ancestors. In 1983, British cosmologist Brandon Carter framed

the “Doomsday argument,” a statistical way to judge when we might join them. If

humans were to survive a long time and spread through the galaxy, then the

total number of people who will ever live might number in the trillions. By

pure odds, it’s unlikely that we would be among the very first hundredth of a

percent of all those people. Or turn the argument around: How likely is it that

this generation will be the one unlucky one? Something like one fifth of all

the people who have ever lived are alive today. The odds of being one of the

people to witness doomsday are highest when there is the largest number of

witnesses around— so now is not such an improbable time.” Discover