"doomsday argument" meaning in English

See doomsday argument in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Proper name

Forms: Doomsday argument [alternative]
Head templates: {{en-proper noun}} doomsday argument
  1. A probabilistic argument that claims to predict the future population of the human species based on an estimation of the number of humans born to date. Related terms: Carter catastrophe
    Sense id: en-doomsday_argument-en-name-HJOOoST4 Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header, Pages with 1 entry, Pages with entries

Alternative forms

{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "Doomsday argument",
      "tags": [
        "alternative"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {},
      "expansion": "doomsday argument",
      "name": "en-proper noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "name",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with 1 entry",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with entries",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "bold_text_offsets": [
            [
              48,
              65
            ]
          ],
          "ref": "2002, John Leslie, The End of the World: The Science and Ethics of Human Extinction, Routledge, →ISBN:",
          "text": "Even if it ran only rather roughly, though, the doomsday argument could have considerable importance. In particular, it might throw severe doubt on the theory that the human race will very probably survive for many thousand years.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A probabilistic argument that claims to predict the future population of the human species based on an estimation of the number of humans born to date."
      ],
      "id": "en-doomsday_argument-en-name-HJOOoST4",
      "related": [
        {
          "word": "Carter catastrophe"
        }
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "doomsday argument"
}
{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "Doomsday argument",
      "tags": [
        "alternative"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {},
      "expansion": "doomsday argument",
      "name": "en-proper noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "name",
  "related": [
    {
      "word": "Carter catastrophe"
    }
  ],
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English lemmas",
        "English multiword terms",
        "English proper nouns",
        "English terms with quotations",
        "English uncountable nouns",
        "Pages with 1 entry",
        "Pages with entries"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "bold_text_offsets": [
            [
              48,
              65
            ]
          ],
          "ref": "2002, John Leslie, The End of the World: The Science and Ethics of Human Extinction, Routledge, →ISBN:",
          "text": "Even if it ran only rather roughly, though, the doomsday argument could have considerable importance. In particular, it might throw severe doubt on the theory that the human race will very probably survive for many thousand years.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A probabilistic argument that claims to predict the future population of the human species based on an estimation of the number of humans born to date."
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "doomsday argument"
}

Download raw JSONL data for doomsday argument meaning in English (1.1kB)


This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2026-01-25 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2026-01-01 using wiktextract (f492ef9 and 9905b1f). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.