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Astrophysicists weigh up risks of cosmic wipeout
Earthlings can rest easy. The likelihood of a doomsday scenario in which Earth is destroyed in a freak astrophysical catastrophe is remote - about once in a billion years, according to a new calculation.
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Established Member
I don't find their closing comment right however:
“What I conclude from this, as apparently Tegmark and Bostrom do as well, is that human activities, including accelerator science, contribute a tiny amount to the extremely low probability of doomsday catastrophes from any source in our neighborhood.”
With the onset of uncontrolled environmental changes, global warming, arms proliferation, nuclear proliferation, bio-genetics, nano-works etc. I think it is safe that we are at the same time our largest threat. I don't think it can be labelled "Tiny". Then it depends on what you understand by doomsday. While it is improbable we will end up under grey goo scenarios, it cannot be put aside that this could significantly alter the quality of living and create large scale devastation centered upon human intervention.
A nice bright naked eye comet would be about right at the moment... oh well...
The impossible often has a kind of integrity the merely improbable lacks. -Douglas Adams
Vulcan Administrator
But two paragraphs up it says:Originally Posted by mantiss
I don't find their closing comment right however:
“What I conclude from this, as apparently Tegmark and Bostrom do as well, is that human activities, including accelerator science, contribute a tiny amount to the extremely low probability of doomsday catastrophes from any source in our neighborhood.”
With the onset of uncontrolled environmental changes, global warming, arms proliferation, nuclear proliferation, bio-genetics, nano-works etc. I think it is safe that we are at the same time our largest threat. I don't think it can be labelled "Tiny". Then it depends on what you understand by doomsday. While it is improbable we will end up under grey goo scenarios, it cannot be put aside that this could significantly alter the quality of living and create large scale devastation centered upon human intervention.
A nice bright naked eye comet would be about right at the moment... oh well...
But it does not account for self-inflicted disasters, such as nuclear annihilation or extinction via engineered microbes. Those scenarios are still worrying, they say.
So I'm not sure what that closing comment is based on, or what it refers to.
Everything I need to know I learned through Googling.
Established Member
Oops, caught red-handed on cross-reading
The impossible often has a kind of integrity the merely improbable lacks. -Douglas Adams
Order of Kilopi
If there is a one chance in a billion years for Earth to be destroyed, and Earth is about 4 billion years old, then we have been pretty lucky so far.
I think it is more likely, however, that their math is incorrect.
Order of Kilopi
Tegmark and Bostrom working together eh?
Always weird (but good) science when those two are around.
If I read it correctly, they are saying that one inhabited planet is wiped out every billion years by a cosmic catastrophe.
I don't know what the size of the sample is, however. If it were one inhabited planet wiped out per bilion years per galaxy then it would be about right in my opinion;
one inhabited planet per billion years in the whole universe is a bit low.
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The comment about accelerator science is important; as you may know, some people are worried that high energy physics experiments might lead to the creation of a black hole or some other dangerous species. If the chance of a natural occurence of such an event is low, then the chance of a man-made accident is lower still, as much higher levels of energy occur in natural events.
Order of Kilopi
Order of Kilopi
Much to the chagrin of doomsday-mongers, I'd imagine.
Order of Kilopi
Wait a minute folks, this analysis must be totally bogus, and I only read the media sound byte. First of all, they put the probability of destroying ourselves with accelerators at 1 in a trillion per year. How can you give a per year probability that does not depend on how many accelerators you have? Are they saying that if we built 100 accelerators, the chance would go up to 1 in ten billion per year? This is preposterous. It's not a probability issue if an accelerator can blow up the world, it's either true or it isn't. How do you put a probability to it? This reminds me very strongly of the Carter catastrophe argument, and I think that was debunked on the thread of that name, though it was still debated. I'll bet good money that Tegmark and Bostrum over-interpreted what you are axiomatically allowed to do with probabilities at some point in their analysis, my "common sense" indicator is flashing in a big way. Perhaps this is related to their bizarre conclusion that armageddon doesn't count somehow, as if their calculation only applies to ways that unknown physics could kill us, known physics is out of bounds.
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