A Refutation of the Doomsday Argument on JSTOR

Mind

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Mind has long been the leading journal in philosophy. For well over 100 years it has presented the best of cutting edge thought in epistemology, metaphysics, philosophy of language, philosophy of logic, and philosophy of mind.

Coverage: 1876-2013 (Vol. 1, No. 1 - Vol. 122, No. 488)

Moving Wall: 5 years (What is the moving wall?)

The "moving wall" represents the time period between the last issue available in JSTOR and the most recently published issue of a journal. Moving walls are generally represented in years. In rare instances, a publisher has elected to have a "zero" moving wall, so their current issues are available in JSTOR shortly after publication.
Note: In calculating the moving wall, the current year is not counted.
For example, if the current year is 2008 and a journal has a 5 year moving wall, articles from the year 2002 are available.

Terms Related to the Moving Wall: Fixed walls: Journals with no new volumes being added to the archive.; Absorbed: Journals that are combined with another title.; Complete: Journals that are no longer published or that have been combined with another title.

ISSN: 00264423

EISSN: 14602113

Subjects: Philosophy, Humanities

Collections: Arts & Sciences I Collection, JSTOR Essential Collection

Abstract

Carter and Leslie's Doomsday Argument maintains that reflection upon the number of humans born thus far, when that number is viewed as having been uniformly randomly selected from amongst all humans, past, present and future, leads to a dramatic rise in the probability of an early end to the human experiment. We examine the Bayesian structure of the Argument and find that the drama is largely due to its oversimplification.

A Refutation of the Doomsday Argument

Select the topics that are inaccurate.

Abstract