BTW, exactly this paper is wrong, as could be seen that from his bet about predicting the age of OLD gods. The doomsday argument is statistical, so it can’t be refuted by nitpicking example with specific age.
The old dogs example illustrates that you can do far better than Gott’s equation with further information, such as “this dog is one of the oldest dogs in the sample”.
If you want to say “our ultimate prior should be Copernican,” that’s fine, but that prior should be adjusted heavily by any available evidence.
It’s a straightforward application of the Copernican principle. Of course, that is not always the best approach.
BTW, exactly this paper is wrong, as could be seen that from his bet about predicting the age of OLD gods. The doomsday argument is statistical, so it can’t be refuted by nitpicking example with specific age.
The old dogs example illustrates that you can do far better than Gott’s equation with further information, such as “this dog is one of the oldest dogs in the sample”.
If you want to say “our ultimate prior should be Copernican,” that’s fine, but that prior should be adjusted heavily by any available evidence.
What you said is true, but it seems to me that Caves didn’t mean it. His bet was intended to demonstrate the general weakness of Copernican logic.