Ever since Thomas Malthus wrote “An Essay on the Principle of Population” over two centuries ago, anti-human intellectuals have been sounding the alarm that humankind is spiraling towards an inevitable condition of global resource depletion and mass starvation due to the overuse of resources and man’s propensity to multiply in “geometric” proportions. Malthus wrote:
“The power of population is indefinitely greater than the power in the earth to produce subsistence for man. Population, when unchecked, increases in a geometrical ratio. Subsistence increases only in an arithmetical ratio.”
Malthus was dead-wrong, of course. In fact, in chapter two of his essay he projected that by 1900 (one hundred years into the future), the population of England would be 100 million people but the means of subsistence would be “only equal to the support of 35 million”. Obviously, Malthus did not understand that man’s ingenuity and propensity to invent would prevent the mass starvation he had so assuredly predicted.
Even though the evidence of the last two centuries has proven that subsistence and population increase have not become disconnected, the Malthusians of the modern age keep banging the same drum. Consider the following quote from Paul Ehrlich’s “The Population Bomb” (1968):
“If the pessimists are correct, massive famines will occur soon, possibly in the 1970s, certainly by the early 1980s. So far most of the evidence seems to be on the side of the pessimists.” Full story...
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“The power of population is indefinitely greater than the power in the earth to produce subsistence for man. Population, when unchecked, increases in a geometrical ratio. Subsistence increases only in an arithmetical ratio.”
Malthus was dead-wrong, of course. In fact, in chapter two of his essay he projected that by 1900 (one hundred years into the future), the population of England would be 100 million people but the means of subsistence would be “only equal to the support of 35 million”. Obviously, Malthus did not understand that man’s ingenuity and propensity to invent would prevent the mass starvation he had so assuredly predicted.
Even though the evidence of the last two centuries has proven that subsistence and population increase have not become disconnected, the Malthusians of the modern age keep banging the same drum. Consider the following quote from Paul Ehrlich’s “The Population Bomb” (1968):
“If the pessimists are correct, massive famines will occur soon, possibly in the 1970s, certainly by the early 1980s. So far most of the evidence seems to be on the side of the pessimists.” Full story...
Related posts:
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