By definition, all but the last doomsday prediction is false. Yet it does not follow, as many seem to think, that all doomsday predictions must be false; what follow is only that all such predictions but one are false.
-Richard A. Posner, Catastrophe: Risk and Response, p. 13
He is assuming that there will be a doomsday—also known as begging the question (http://www.don-lindsay-archive.org/skeptic/arguments.html#begging). It is also quite possible that no doomsday predictions are true. This is one of my gripes with existential risk theories, all I have read depend on the assumption that eventually there will be an end.
He is assuming that there will be a doomsday—also known as begging the question
No, I don’t think so. He is making a claim about what implications follow from a certain fact. That fact is the definition of “a doomsday prediction”. All that follows from that definition is that all but one will be false. Of course, even that last one (so to speak) might be false, but, even if this is so, it doesn’t follow from the definition.
This is not a case of begging the question. It is just being clear about what implies what.
-Richard A. Posner, Catastrophe: Risk and Response, p. 13
Most “doomsday predictions” do not actually predict the total annihilation of the human race.
It might be postulated that we don’t have records of most correct doomsday predictions because the predictor and anyone listening met with doom.
He is assuming that there will be a doomsday—also known as begging the question (http://www.don-lindsay-archive.org/skeptic/arguments.html#begging). It is also quite possible that no doomsday predictions are true. This is one of my gripes with existential risk theories, all I have read depend on the assumption that eventually there will be an end.
No, I don’t think so. He is making a claim about what implications follow from a certain fact. That fact is the definition of “a doomsday prediction”. All that follows from that definition is that all but one will be false. Of course, even that last one (so to speak) might be false, but, even if this is so, it doesn’t follow from the definition.
This is not a case of begging the question. It is just being clear about what implies what.
Couldn’t all the doomsday predictions be true if they put an accurate percentage probability at the end?