Archive of UserLand's first discussion group, started October 5, 1998.

Re: Bookmarks and Doomsday

Author:tom.jeffery@hsa.hitachi.com
Posted:8/16/2000; 6:29:25 AM
Topic:scriptingNews outline for 8/13/2000
Msg #:19754 (In response to 19731)
Prev/Next:19753 / 19755

Funny, I just read about this in Stephen Baxter's novel Manifold Time. What are the odds?

The logical flaw seems obvious--The odds of a person being born when he or she is born may be anything, until they are born, and then it's 1:1. The odds against drawing any poker hand are the same as the odds against drawing a royal straight flush in spades; but you draw an unlikely hand each time you play.

By above reasoning, a population curve that grows steeply should be impossible, because at any point, it is unlikely that the individuals would be born then, not in the future when the population is much greater. But somebody's got to be born at the early part of the curve. In our case, it just might be us.

TJ

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