Date Smart Scientists Once Picked for Doomsday Nears

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1:00This is the last show with David Cooper. In 1960, one of the world's top science journals published an article with a pretty scary title. Doomsday, Friday the 13th, November 2026. They had to make it a Friday the 13th, didn't they? How did they make this prediction? And will the world come to an end on that day? Let's discuss it here with history professor at Western University, Alan McCackar and Alan. Welcome to the show. Hi, good to be here. So you looked up this old academic journal article predicting the world was going to end. I guess in a month in change, what did you think when you first started reading it? Well, I mean, I've heard about it over the years and I for some time and I knew it was kind of looming. So I thought it was worth going back to it now. And I mean, it's a it's a funky little article you wouldn't expect it in a super serious science.

2:01So where did the prediction come from? Why November the 13th exactly? Also, why did they have to make it a Friday the 13th? Trying to have at least a little fun with this? Well, you got to understand that the article comes across super serious. It's this American engineering prof, actually, not even a demographer, but him and a couple of the students write this article. His name's Heinz von Forster. And they basically look at 24 calculations of the global population over the last 2000 years and then kind of project that increase of the population into the future. And I mean, the first paragraph of the article is so funny because it basically says on this date, the human population will approach infinity. And so it will approach infinity on November 13th, 2026. I'm no mathematician or engineer, but my understanding is that the population of animals cannot approach infinity. It cannot be infinity or am I just wildly often my thinking there?

3:02No, I think that's probably pretty legitimate. I mean, I think you have to wonder what November 12th looks like on the planet when we're pretty squeezed, but they make the case that on November 13th, we will be squeezed to death. Yeah, it seems pretty impossible, but I think what they were trying to get at was the notion. I mean, they were kind of pushing back against this idea from Thomas Malthus, the famous British demographer, and a lot of Malthusians in the 19th and 20th century. They basically said that human population was going to be kind of hits a wall or hits a ceiling because of things like war or disease, which will always kind of keep it at a certain level that it can't get up above. And their argument in this article is that, no, humans are different than other species because we have the capacity to work together at a global level and actually make sure that some of the things that would hurt other populations that won't hurt us. So we're not so limited as other populations.

4:03And they actually use these to show the past population statistics to show sure enough we've kept increasing faster than everyone thought we were going to increase. Interesting. So there may be some benefit to our world leaders not getting along, but we'll put that aside. Yeah. Okay. So they make the argument that we have the technology, the wherewithal, the cooperation to fight diseases, and therefore our population will just have this runaway effect. There won't be enough food, there won't be enough resources. And somehow, Doomsday will come. Is that the logic there? The logic is that we are so good at preventing Doomsday, the Doomsday will come. Let me put it that way, that we will be so good at doing things like preventing disease. And we will get even better at preventing disease people will live longer. We will get so good at ensuring that everyone has sufficient resources, that those won't slow us down. And therefore we will increase towards infinity.

5:04So in a way they were patting us on the back, they were saying we are so good at being humans that on November 13th, 2026, we will squeeze ourselves to death. Well, news at 11, we're not so good at being human beings, but that's all that aside. Was this argument taken seriously at the time? Well, that was such a strange thing, because obviously this is such a weird article, and weird article in a super serious journal. So there were letters to the editor immediately saying, this is ludicrous, that this could ever happen. Like we cannot approach infinity. What does infinity look like? I mean, the authors even do say that, you know, our great grandchildren will be squeezed to death. And everyone, the letters the editor said, this is ludicrous, but they kept strained, faced about it. They replied and they said, look at the math, the math is right. Here's the math. And two funny things. One is that nobody really seriously argued the math in the 70s and 80s. And in fact, the equation that they use keeps popping up in things like demography journals and ecology journals.

6:08And that's throughout the 70s and 80s. But also that their projections for what the population was going to be like in the 60s and 70s and 80s. Basically keeps being right that they keep being. So everyone knows that this is a ludicrous premise, but they also can't quite figure out where the problem is, where the math is going to go wrong. So in the 70s and the 80s after this article saying, doomsday was going to happen next month, November or Friday the 13th. Yes. The population of the earth kind of matches. That was the 70s and 80s. Are we still on track for the world to end in one short month? No. Good. Well, one could say by 1993, halfway between 1960 and 2026, 1993, their equation starts to falter, starts to fail. And in part because their population because they're saying the population is moving towards infinity for sure. But also because humans have done exactly what the author said that they should do and what they what the author said they should do is that, you know, we have the capacity to cooperate and prevent diseases and to live longer.

7:18We should we need to cooperate and think seriously about reducing the birth rate. That was their conclusion. And humans did do that. I mean, I'm not sure we cooperate on that on a global level, but the global birth rate is now half what it was in 1960. So I don't think we're actually going to reach infinity on November 13th, 2026. So what I'm hearing is if you care about people and our future maybe have less kids don't have 75 kids. Is that kind of the argument here? I think so. I mean, one for sure in the author say we basically have two choices. One is we can all kind of agree to shorten our life spans. Or there can be fewer of us. And they felt that there wouldn't be a lot of interest in people shortening their own life spans. So the idea of kind of trimming how many people there are the birth rate seems to be the way to go. There's something so curious about revisiting documents written by serious scientists and professionals from, you know, decades ago that make predictions about today.

8:19Were there ways in which they were right and ways in which they were just way off? Well, I think that the fact that they were so accurate now, I really want to stress this in the 60s, 70s and 80s that their estimates were better than most other demographers. Other demographers were saying the population going to be this and they kept saying no, it's going to be more than like they didn't keep saying it, but their equation kept saying that it was going to be more than that. And their equation kept being bang on. So in that way they were super serious. But also it's Friday the 13th that they picked as being the day and maybe not quit steadily. It's also the lead author Heinz von Forster. He was also his birthday. Well, I look forward to hopefully having you on the show, Alan, on November the 14th when we're all still alive. I hope Alan, I've enjoyed the chat. Thanks for going over this article with me. Good talking to you Alan McHackerin is a history professor at Western University. Picture this a four sale sign on your front yard, but it's not the house being sold. It's you. Your name, phone number, address, medical records, how much you make.

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10:26Thanks for watching.