The year is 2011. Humankind has shed its superstitious tendencies and lives in an enlightened age of rational thought. Repeated failures by mystics to predict… well, anything… has forever cured the species of falling prey to cultist thought manipulation surrounding prophetic ends to our existence. We live in peace and know that if and when our existence does come to an end, it will have nothing to do with metaphysics.

Or so it should be. In reality, there are perhaps more weird ideas about the universe, how it works and when it will end, today than ever before, despite indisputable scientific evidence to the contrary. Crackpots still like to fixate on exact dates when our species will meet its demise – like 2012 – as if it’s possible to predict random events like disease, epidemics or asteroid strikes.