• Question: will the world end in 2012???

    Asked by farrell to Aime, Akshat, Diana, Gemma, Judith on 14 Jun 2011. This question was also asked by georginapage, turner, williams, pigeonandnibbler, elliejayne.
    • Photo: Judith McCann

      Judith McCann answered on 13 Jun 2011:

      Hopefully not, I only finish my PhD in 2013!! I wouldnt worry about it, its a blief that the mayans had that the world would end 13 cycles after creation-and since im pretty sure they guessed at the date of creation, the chances of the world ending in 2012 are the same as any other time.

      …also, we’re good at science, but I fairly sure we couldn’t prevent an apocalpyse!

    • Photo: Akshat Rathi

      Akshat Rathi answered on 13 Jun 2011:

      It is very unlikely.

      Existential risk (the chance of all human beings tiny) is not very high but it is sufficiently high to take steps to reduce it. So although I don’t think the world will end in 2012, we must do all we can to preserve what we have.

    • Photo: Aimé Fournier

      Aimé Fournier answered on 14 Jun 2011:

      Actually according to Wikipedia, even the Mayans didn’t ever believe this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_phenomenon. What interests me is why anyone believes it. Science works best if we are very skeptical, only believing something with a lot of both empirical evidence and compelling explanation. Why do people believe wildly scary or miraculous things?

    • Photo: Gemma Sharp

      Gemma Sharp answered on 14 Jun 2011:

      Let’s hope not, eh?

      I don’t think there’s any reason why it would!

    • Photo: Diana Samuel

      Diana Samuel answered on 14 Jun 2011:

      I hope not – my home town’s hosting the Olympics that year! I think its highly unlikely; belief in statements like that should be backed up by evidence, and to my knowledge it isn’t.

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