Inspired by David Harsanyi’s excellent take-down of Dr. John Holdren, newly-installed director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, I decided to to revisit the predictive track-record of Holdren’s erstwhile co-author, Paul Erhlich. Marvel at his powers of divination and then ask yourself why someone who evidently bought into this claptrap is now the president’s chief scientific adviser:
“The battle to feed humanity is over. In the 1970s the world will undergo famines . . . hundreds of millions of people (including Americans) are going to starve to death.” – Paul Ehrlich, 1968
“I would take even money that England will not exist in the year 2000.” – Paul Ehrlich, 1969
“Population will inevitably and completely outstrip whatever small increases in food supplies we make, … The death rate will increase until at least 100-200 million people per year will be starving to death during the next ten years.” – Paul Ehrlich, 1970
“In ten years all important animal life in the sea will be extinct. Large areas of coastline will have to be evacuated because of the stench of dead fish.” – Paul Ehrlich, 1970
“When you reach a point where you realize further efforts will be futile, you may as well look after yourself and your friends and enjoy what little time you have left. That point for me is 1972.” – Paul Ehrlich, 1971
“Before 1985, mankind will enter a genuine age of scarcity…in which the accessible supplies of many key minerals will be facing depletion.” – Paul Ehrlich, 1976
“Human-induced land degradation… affects about 40% of the planet’s vegetated land surface… [and is] accelerating nearly everywhere, reducing crop yields.” – Paul Ehrlich, 1997
“…humanity’s prospective collision with the natural world… [means that] what is at risk now is global civilization.” – Paul Ehrlich, 2004
He’s due!Report
I’m just glad he convinced us to adopt draconian population control and environmental regulations to avert all of those catastrophes. Also, Julian Simon tells me that Ehrlich puts his money where his mouth is: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simon-Ehrlich_wagerReport
Wow.Report
How appropriate -Willful ignorance.
In politics, it may be true that it is better to keep silent and be thought a fool than to speak and remove all doubt.
Not so in science. Better to be spectacularly wrong and know WHY
than to be right and not know why, or be unable to repeat the prediction
under changed circumstances.
Erhlich looked at a lot of exponential curves and made predictions.
We found out that the behavior was not exclusively exponential.
You hire a scientist do do two things:
Tell you his methodology and make predictions based on it.
To the extent Erhlich did that, (which is where any real
argument with Erhlich should occur) I have no complaints.
You would prefer Nostradamus?Report
Well, if there were also scientists who were making predictions using models that happened to be accurate, would I be allowed to prefer them?Report
In much the same way that I don’t hold Malthus accountable for not anticipating the Industrial Revolution, I wouldn’t really hold it against Erhlich for being wrong about population growth three decades ago. His hysterics since then, on the other hand . . .Report
The problem with Erhlich is that he behaved not merely like a scientist, but like a public polemicist. Had his predictions not been cloaked in such smugness and superiority, history would be more forgiving.Report
Bingo.Report