From: Robin Hanson (rhanson@gmu.edu)
Date: Tue Jun 03 2003 - 11:44:16 MDT
Harvey Newstrom wrote:
>Robin Hanson wrote,
> > One of the most interesting thing about the Doomsday Argument is that most
> > people have a strong negative reaction, yet the arguments they
> > offer against it are usually much weaker than they realize.
> > Harvey's is no exception.
>
>Probably. But can you point to a flaw in my argument? You didn't seem to
>specifically point out where my arguments failed.
OK. You said:
>In the case of the Doomsday Argument, which purports to do statistical
>analysis on all populations past and future, we would need to pull random
>samples from all time periods including past and future.
No law says that statistical analyses require random samples.
The DA is more of a Bayesian analysis than a statistical analysis.
The argument that data from the past can never support inferences about
the future would prevent us from ever drawing conclusions about the future.
Robin Hanson rhanson@gmu.edu http://hanson.gmu.edu
Assistant Professor of Economics, George Mason University
MSN 1D3, Carow Hall, Fairfax VA 22030-4444
703-993-2326 FAX: 703-993-2323
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