The Physics "Specie"

[lkrishta at NSF.GOV]

As scientists, we all know that statistics is fiction in its most
uninteresting form.  As evidence I cite the Copernican Principle's 95%
confidence that we, Homo sapiens, are a "specie", as explained by Robert L.
Park in the "What's New for June 4, 1993", item 3 (see below).

One hopes that the same Copernican 95% likelihood explains
"specie" as a typo rather than a quantum singularity of "species".


Leonard Krishtalka
Division of Environmental Biology

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From: What's New <whatsnew at aps.org> at NOTE Date: 6/4/93 3:58PM
To: againes at nsf12
*To: wn_readers at aps.org at NOTE Subject: What's New for June 4, 1993
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WHAT'S NEW (in my opinion), Friday, 4 June 1993    Washington, DC


3. HURRY!  MAKE USE OF THE "COPERNICAN PRINCIPLE" WHILE IT LASTS. An article
in Nature can be ignored, but when it gets into the Science Times section of
the New York Times, it has to be taken seriously.  Right?  Well, this week
we learn that things have a 95% likelihood of being in the middle 95% of
their lifetime.  You aren't impressed, but stay with me.  A Princeton
astrophysicist points out that this simple fact allows you to derive limits
for the longevity of just about anything--at the 95% confidence level.  It's
all because we are likely to be in a "nonspecial place."  That's the
Copernican principle.  The author applies his powerful statistical concept
to our specie--he's 95% sure we have 0.2 to 8 million years left.  He can
even derive the probability that humans will get around to building a "Dyson
sphere"--it doesn't look good. (If you don't know what a Dyson sphere is,
you aren't ready for this stuff.)  Nature published the paper on 27 May 93,
just 8 days ago; at the 95% confidence level, we predict that this theory
will die between 8pm tonight and 20 April 1994.

Robert L. Park  opa at aps.org       The American Physical Society

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