h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

The Copernican Principle is a cherished scientific law stating that you should never find yourself in a 'special' position in space or time. J. Richard Gott has argued that since this is true, by observing something at a random point in its history, you can say that there is a 95% chance of its being in the middle 95% of its life. This principle can be used to predict the future:

E.g. the human race has been in existence for 200 000 years, so you can work out that it has between 5 100 and 7.8million years left.

Microsoft started in 1975 so its future is to be more than 7 months and less than 975 years.

The European Union has a maximum of 2262 years left, and a minimum of 1.5 years.

Can any other researchers come up with interesting future predictions? All you need to do is pick something like the examples above, work out how long it has been in existence, and then to get the minimum remaining life-time you multiply it by 1/39; to get the maximum, multiply it by 39.

The problem with this principle is that it's based on a false assumption. Although on average the time and space/place you live in should not be special, on occasion it will be - you were born after all and that day is so special you probably celebrate it each year. You can't therefore use this generalisation to make predictions. For one thing it suggests that the older you are the longer you might live, which is sadly untrue.

It does however hold for a lot of general cases and is often a useful way to temper extremist religious or paranoid delusions - on the whole 'you' are not that special so the weird things that happen to you are not personal.

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