My experiment in predicting celebrity deaths ended in failure last week. No one on the list died in the timeframe I predicted, so I have to wonder what went wrong. I think my method of choosing the sample celebrities was flawed in that I used the first 50 celebrities I thought of (25 men and 25 women). A better way would be to take a larger group of celebrities (2000 or so) and use a computer to pick 50 random ones out of that group. That way, any biases I have toward younger or healthier celebrities could be factored out.
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2 responses to “Copernicus Couldn’t Pick the Dead Celebrity”
Hi,
I’m the guy that actually predicted that this experiment would fail when you first posted it, based on the fact that a human life span is too short to accuratley apply the Copernican Principle. Nevertheless, I found it a laudable experiment. If you ever feel like applying the Copernican Principle to something else, I’ve always thought that it would be neat to try to figure out the duration of Rock and Roll (which, as they say, will never die), but have concluded that I am far too lazy for anything like that. I should probably go back to doing what they pay me to do.
Oh, and congratulations on your marriage!
Glad you came back to check it out. In his book, Gott uses the Copernican principle to predict the lifespan of things much shorter than a human lifespan, like the Berlin wall and the space program.