Perhaps we'll get some evidence on the Lasky wager sooner than we thought. ;-) -------- Original Message -------- From: "Ian Pitchford" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: [evolutionary-psychology] Apocalypse Not Just Now To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >From LRB Vol 21, No 13 | cover date 1 July 1999 Apocalypse Not Just Now Mark Greenberg The End of the World: The Science and Ethics of Human Extinction by John Leslie. Routledge, 336 pp., �10.99, 26 March 1998, 0 415 18447 9 John Leslie comes to tell us that the end of the world is closer than we think. His book is no ordinary millennial manifesto, however. Leslie is a sophisticated philosopher of science, and the source of his message is not divine revelation, apocalyptic fantasy or anxiety about the year-2000 computer problem, but 'the Doomsday Argument' - an a priori argument that seeks support in probability theory. In fact, the most interesting questions The End of the World raises are not, despite its subtitle, about our eventual demise. Rather, they concern our susceptibility, when thinking about risk, uncertainty and probability, to a kind of cognitive illusion. The Doomsday Argument is a case-study in 'probabilistic illusion', for it rests on a web of insidious intuitions, hidden assumptions and seductive but imprecise analogies. Read the complete review at: http://www.lrb.co.uk/v21/n13/gree2113.htm ------------------------------------------------------------------------
