1
Human Population
Since the late 1960s and early 1970s the ‘population problem,’ as an immediate threat to humanity, has been
trumpeted by a number of ‘technological luddites,’(look-up the meaning of ‘Luddite’ ), including Paul R.
Ehrlich [The Population Bomb (1968)], Garrett Hardin [“The Tragedy of the Commons,” Science, 162
(1968), 1243-1248], and the authors of the Club of Rome Report – Donella H. Meadow, Dennis L.
Meadows, Jørgen Randers and William W. Behrens III [The Limits to Growth (1972)]. The following list
of source materials is quite controversial, since many contemporary so-called ‘scientists’ have chosen to
abandon the ‘Baconian Scientific Method,’ and have willingly substituted a ‘belief-system’ (which is one of
the definitions of ‘religion’) for empirical testing of hypotheses. It would be well to look up each of the
authors discussed in this course on the internet and discover their academic backgrounds and reliability as
‘scientists’ in their chosen professions.
Sources:
“What is science?”
www.thingsrevealed.net/science1.htm.
“The scientific method <the habit of truth>,”
www.geowords.com/histbooknetscape/b10.htm.
“In Defense of Bacon,”
www.uno.edu/~phil/bacon.htm.
Dr. Michael Crichton, M.D. 2005. “Complexity Theory and Environmental Management,”
November 6. Available under “Speeches,” at: www.crichton-official.com
__________. 2005. “The Role of Science in Environmental Policy-Making.” Statement before the
U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, September 28. Available @:
www.epw.senate.gov/hearing_staements.cfm?id =246766.
__________ . 2005. “The Case of Skepticism on Global Warming.” January 25. Available
under “Speeches,” at: www.crichton-official.com
__________. 2003. “Environmentalism as Religion,” Speech to the Commonwealth Club, San
Francisco, CA., September 15. Available under speeches, at:
www.crichton-official.com
____________. 2003. “Aliens Cause Global Warming,” Lecture California Institute of
Technology, Pasadena, CA, January 17.Available under speeches, at:
www.crichton-official.com
__________. 2002. “Why Speculate?” April 26. Available under speeches, at:
www.crichton-official.com
__________. 1999. “Ritual Abuse, Hot Air, and Missed Opportunities: Science Views
1
2
Media,” January 25. Available under speeches, at: www.crichton-official.com
__________. 1993. “Mediasaurus: The Decline of Conventional Media,” April 7. Available under
speeches, at: www.crichton-official.com
Paul Ehrlich. 1968. The Population Bomb.
Scott Gordon. 1958. “Economics and the Conservation Question,” Journal of Law and
Economics, Vol. 1, 110Garrett Hardin.1968. “The Tragedy of the Commons,” Science, 162, 1243-48.
Sir John Maddox. 1972. The Doomsday Syndrome. [Sir John Maddox (1925 -
) served as
the editor of the prestigious scientific journal, Nature, for twenty-two (22) years – 196673 and 1980-9].
Donella H. Meadows, Dennis L. Meadows, Jørgen Randers and William L. Behrens III. 1972.
The Limits to Growth.
Julian L. Simon. 1980. “Resources, Population, Environment: An Oversupply of False Bad
Ideas,” Science, 208 (June 27), 1431-7.
__________. 1981. The Ultimate Resource. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.
__________. 1986. Theory of Population and Economic Growth. New York: Blackwell.
__________. 1990. Population Matters: People, Resources, Environment and Immigration.
New Brunswick, N.J.: Transactions Press.
__________. 1999. Hoodwinking the Nation. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers.
The ‘population explosion/resource depletion/global warming’ problems expressed by the ‘global
doomsday’ crowd cannot be examined and/or evaluated in isolation. There are a number of social and
economic issues that are all too frequently either skirted or totally ignored, and in some cases, outright
denied. One of the fundamental purposes of this outline is to draw these supporting currents into full view,
so that individuals can arrive at informed decisions based on ‘scientific facts’ and not sloppy research,
distorted information, and biased opinion.
Posing the Issues
John Stossel in Chapter Six of Give Me a Break (2004) “Junk Science and Junk Reporting,” begins
by employing a quotation of a statement made by Daniel Patrick Moynihan, former U.S. Senator and:
“Everyone is entitled to his own opinion but not his own facts.” In his comment Moynihan comes close to
expressing the view that: “There are many opinions, but, despite the feelings of their holders, only one is
correct.” Stossel begins the chapter with the following example of the chapter title’s nexus – how reporters
2
3
are “…supposed to double-check and get it right”:
Remember the news coverage about how schools had become much more violent?
Newspaper reports said a survey found today’s teachers’ worries were (1) drug
abuse, (2) alcohol abuses, (3) pregnancy, (4) suicide, (5) rape, (6) robbery. But in
the ‘40s, teachers worried about (1) talking, (2) chewing gum, (3) making noise, (4)
running in the halls. It was a powerful illustration of social deterioration, and reporters
loved the list. It appeared everywhere – newspapers, magazines, the Congressional
Quarterly, Ann Landers’s column.
Then Yale School of Management professor Barry O’Neill finally checked the survey
out. He poured through hundreds of references to it without finding the original study.
Instead, he found “the International Herald Tribune picking it up from the
Congressional Quarterly. They just took it from the Wall Street Journal.” O’Neill
finally traced the story back to Texas oil man T. Cullen Davis, who said he made it up.
“When he talked to me, he said, ‘I know what the problems in the ‘40s were, because I
was in school then, and I know what they are now because I read the papers. I didn’t
make these from a scientific survey.’ He had no idea that professors and government
officials were all using the list that he’d sat in his house and assembled.”
Journalists joke that some stories are ‘too good to check.’ This was one of those. (97-8,
emphasis added)
This example may call to mind CBS Evening News and Dan Rather’s insistence on the ‘authenticity’ [since
it may support and sustain preconceived ‘opinion,’ ‘hope,’ or ‘political bias’] of the so-called ‘Killian
documents’ that emerged during the 2004 Presidential election. Once again, apparently: ‘…some stories are
‘too good to check,’ even for the mainstream, self-anointed ‘media elite’ on the ‘public airwaves’ (ABC,
CBS, and NBC), and especially the so-called ‘Public’ Broadcasting System (PBS) which is supported by
Federal tax dollars, extorted (the ultimate threat of the use of ‘force’ by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS).
The individual my COSTLESSLY avoid the tentacles of the media elite of ABC, CBS, and NBC by not
watching them (which affects their ‘ratings’ and the advertising fees that they command, but she is forced to
support PBS through her taxes.
Stossel addresses the following issues in “Junk Science and Junk Reporting”:
Science Worship –
When covering what scientists say, reporters are particularly prone to getting the story
wrong. Most of us have little training in science, little understanding of how it works,
and too much faith in any one given scientist. When I started reporting, I thought
scientists were dispassionate observers, so what they published must be objective truth.
I considered the top scientific journals ironclad arbiters of fact. After all, most studies
submitted to the journals are rejected, so every study that’s accepted has to pass the
withering scrutiny of peer review.
Then my brother Tom, who had become a research scientist and worked for some of the
journals, pointed out that much of what is published turns out, a few years later, to be
irrelevant or wrong. Science is not as precise as I thought it was. (98, emphasis added)
3
4
Scientific consensus is important. When the majority of respected scientists working within
their field of specialty …… (98, emphasis in original)
… now I realize that individual scientists reach dubious conclusions almost as often as the
rest of us do. But when scientists reach them, we reporters are less likely to question the
conclusion Have you cut down on salt because it’s bad for you? Pumped up on vitamin
C to ward off colds? Forced the kids to eat spinach because it’s uniquely healthy? Then
you’re a victim of junk science – peddled by a gullible press. (99, emphasis added)
And, just what is the cause/source of such a plethora of ‘junk science’? In part, ironically the ‘scientific
method’ is itself part of the cause … all scientific principles are ‘provisional’ – subject to revision as more
and better information is acquired. The history of science is rife with examples, perhaps one of the most
illuminating is the curious case of Alfred Lothar Wegener – his is not a name that is well-known to most
folks.
Alfred Lothar Wegener (1880 – 1930), a German scientist and the ‘father’ of ‘continental
drift theory’, earned his PhD. in astronomy at the University of Berlin in 1904. He had an
early interest in geophysics, and meteorology and climatology, and wrote a pioneering
meteorology textbook used in German schools. In 1906 he joined an expedition to
Greenland to study polar air circulation. In 1911 he read scholarly reports of ‘identical’
plant and animal fossils on both sides of the Atlantic … the prevailing ‘scientific’
explanation for this distribution was the existence of ‘land bridges’ that had facilitated the
diffusion of various life-forms across the world. Additionally, Wegener noted the close
correspondence of coastline of western Africa and eastern South America. During 1912/13
he joined another research expedition to Greenland and published his ‘hypothesis’ of
continental drift in The Origins of Continents and Oceans (1915). He continued to
gather evidence supporting his hypotheses regarding continental drift throughout his life.
Wegener was drafted into the Germany Army and was wounded during World War I, and
then served in the German Army’s weather forecasting service until the war’s end. In 1924
he accepted a professorship in meteorology and geophysics at the University of Graz
(Austria). In 1930 he undertook his last expedition to Greenland.
He postulated that some 300 million years ago all of the continents formed a single ‘super
continent’ he designated a Pangaea (‘all earth’), which broke up and drifted into their
current locations. In nearly all geology and physical geography textbooks used today
accept Wegener’s views on the super-continent and continental drift.
Despite the current acceptance of Wegener’s views, when his research was originally published in 1915, it
was disparaged nearly universally:
Reaction to Wegener’s theory was almost universally hostile, and often exceptionally
harsh and scathing; Dr. Rollin T. Chamberlain of the University of Chicago said,
“Wegener’s hypothesis in general is of the footloose type, in that it takes considerable
liberty with our globe, and is less bound by restrictions or ties down by awkward, ugly
facts than most of its rival theories. www.ucmp-berkeley.edu/history/wegener.html
4
5
Stossel’s second major heading in Chapter Six, is the ‘Crack Baby’ syndrome:
Crack Babies –
What could be more heart-breaking than an innocent new-born addicted to cocaine and handicapped
for life:
In the late ‘80s and early ‘90s, the media used a few small studies of babies born of cocaineaddicted mothers to convince America that thousands of children were permanently
damaged. Dr. Ira Chasnoff, of the National Association for Families and Addiction Research
and education, after studying only 23 babies, reported that mothers were delivering babies
that ‘could not respond to them emotionally.’ He told People magazine that the infants
‘couldn’t respond to a human voice.’ This led to a frenzy of stories on ‘crack babies’. Many
people still believe ‘crack babies’ are handicapped for life.
It isn’t true. It turn out there is no proof that crack babies do worse than anyone else. In fact,
they do better, on average, than children born to alcoholic mothers …. (99-100)
In seeking answers to what went wrong, why such erroneous conclusions were accepted? Stossel
interviewed Claire Coals, a psychologist at Emory University: He asked her:
How could that happen?
Coals replied:
Well, they wanted to get published.
Wow! Facts don’t matter, just getting ‘published’ … the more papers that an individual publishes in
the Academy, the sooner they get promoted, the higher their pay, the fewer the number of hours
you’re forced to spend in the classroom (so-called ‘release time’ to support research), the grander
their ‘reputation’ among other scholars! Now that’s REAL science! All of this is taking place on the
taxpayers’ dime, at Universities’ which profess that their goal is educating the taxpayers’ children!
Stossel continues by noting:
It is easier to get your work published, and, more important, funded, if you find something
dramatic.
If you go to an agency and say: ‘I don’t think there’s a big problem here, I’d like you to give
me $ 1 million,’ the probability of getting the money is very low. (101)
We’ve been taught to expect certain levels of fraud from the business community, degrees of
dishonesty from politicians, but the ‘self-serving,’ intellectually misleading, and in many cases
intellectually dishonest, behaviors by members of the academic community largely have been
ignored … despite the costs that they impose on others – students and taxpayers alike! Stossel
maintains that:
It’s also easier to get funded if what you conclude feeds someone’s political agenda. (101)
5
6
Vitamin C –
Stossel’s second target of opportunity is the vitamin C mythology created by the Nobel Prize (in
chemistry) winning Linus Pauling, that megadoses of the vitamin will help ward-off colds! He notes:
… the press reported his claim enthusiastically, and the public believed. …. No matter that
Pauling’s Nobel was in chemistry, not biology; no matter that dozens of follow-up studies
found no evidence that vitamin C prevents colds. The pills still fly out of stores. (102)
*N.B.: There is a ‘hidden’ explanation for the ‘popularity’ and ‘prevalence’ of so much false bad news and
misinformation – the silliness of the unquestioned acceptance that expertise in one field (chemistry
or entomology) qualifies an individual to speak with authority on issues in all or other fields that also
demand their own unique levels of expertise (biology or economics). While I have a PhD., that
degree does note qualify me to practice law or perform surgery, let alone teach chemistry.
Stossel explains the source of misinformation in the media by reporting the comments made by his
scientist brother:
As my brother explains it, ‘You reporters have trouble ascertaining whether arrogance, bias,
or money has colored a scientist’s opinion. You gravitate to scientists considered the ‘elite.’
But the irony is that elitism fosters arrogance and does not immunize against error. Pauling,
for example, was spectacularly right about the fundamental principles of chemistry, but he
was wrong about the structure of DNA, as well as about vitamin C.’
Stossel, then observes ironically:
Scientific communication is very stilted, as if to convey impartiality. Scientists are happy to
have nonscientists view them as uniquely unbiased, and reporters fall into the trap of believing
them. But supposedly ‘dispassionate’ scientists are as passionate about their ideas as an
entrepreneur. (102)
As far as he goes, Stossel is correct, when he writes ‘… scientists are as passionate about their ideas
as an entrepreneur.’ There is a major difference between ‘scientists’ and ‘entrepreneurs’ – scientists
are ‘intellectuals’ that live in the world of ideas (the inner world of the mind), while entrepreneurs
are ‘businessmen’ and live in a world of products, services, and customers (the external world of
people and things). These distinctions are significant … First and foremost, scientists and their
ideas must please other scientists in a controlled ‘market place’ overseen by other ‘intellectuals’
with no explicit prices; in contrast, businessmen and their products and services, must please
customers in a ‘free competitive market place’ with explicit prices.
Empire Building –
According to Stossel, ‘empire building’ “… is another corrupter of science.” As an example, he
points to the emerging bureaucracy:
6
7
The U.S. government now has an antisalt bureaucracy that churns out thousands of pamphlets
and run public service announcements that warn Americans to cut back on salt.
‘We should eat ‘no more than 2,400 milligrams a day,’ says Dr. Jeffrey Cutler, the official who
runs the government’s antisalt campaign. ‘It should probably be lower, but that’s a reasonable
interim goal.’ ….
Cutler decided that Americans should eat less salt because high blood pressure can lead to heart
disease, and eating less salt can lower blood pressure. It’s a plausible theory, but it doesn’t prove
that less salt leads to less heart disease. Too many other things may be going on. (103, emphasis
in the original)
Those with even a simple working knowledge of introductory statistics know that ‘correlation is not
causation’ and that there are ‘spurious correlations.’ So, Stossel continues:
Experts on blood pressure told us there isn’t enough scientific research to justify the government’s antisalt campaign, and there definitely isn’t enough to justify Cutler’s 2,400-milligram
limit. … (103)
‘I can’t imagine how they came up with that number. I mean, there isn’t a single bit of evidence
that suggests that 2,400 milligrams is better than 2,100 or 3,700,’ says Dr. Michael Alderman,
who headed the American Society of Hypertension, America’s biggest organization of specialists
in high blood pressure. (104)
I confronted Dr. Cutler at his office at the government’s huge National Heart, Lung, and Blood
Institute (the institute’s recent budget was ($ 2,569,794,000).
John Stossel: In the Journal of the American Medical Association, [it says] reducing salt in diet
has little effect on blood pressure.
Dr. Jeffrey Cutler: My study has not concluded that.
John Stossel: We just called up ten leading cardiologists, major hospitals. Nine out of ten said
they don’t think this is a reasonable program. I mean, nine out of ten.
Dr. Jeffrey Cutler: I don’t know what kind of sample you…
John Stossel: People at Stanford, Johns Hopkins. It suggests you’re just trying to build a
bureaucracy.
Dr. Jeffrey Cutler: I don’t accept that……
Now isn’t that an example of the pursuit of the Scientific Method … the use of hypothesis testing …
“My study…” and “I don’t accept …”
… If he finds that Americans ‘eat more than twenty times the salt your body needs,’ he may be
on Good Morning America, and his supervisors may assign more people to work for him. He’s
important. (104-5)
If he finds no threat, he is just another bureaucrat. (105)
The ‘Facts’ vs. the Truth –
7
8
Perhaps one of the more disturbing elements of the entire abandonment of the Baconian Scientific
Method – the search for ‘truth’ – substituting for it an intensified search for ‘facts’ to substantiate a
preconceived conclusion. Now that is really ‘junk science’ – unsubstantiated ‘facts,’ discovered
using spurious relationships (correlation), and testified to by ‘expert’ opinion! Stossel opens this
segment of the chapter provocatively:
One good thing about science is that in the long run the truth usually comes out. The media may
be gullible, but other scientists are skeptical. They keep testing – questioning – so gradually we
keep moving closer to the truth. (105, emphasis added)
He continues more starkly, and even more shockingly:
When I began reporting, I assumed America’s courts would help this process along. But now I
realize lawyers are more concerned with winning than with truth. If the lawyers have money on
the line, truth may not matter much at all. (105, emphasis in the original)
Notice Stossel’s wording: “If the lawyers have money on the line, truth may not matter much at all.”
With a former tort lawyer, Senator John Edwards, who made millions of dollars suing corporate
America, lives in a multi-million dollar, 20,000 ft2 home, and is running for the Presidency of the
United States, can anything that he says during the political campaign be trusted as TRUTHFUL?
Stossel then continues, observing:
Since reporters pay so much attention to court decisions, a lawyer who can sell junk science to
a few judges and juries can get reporters to sell junk science to the world.
That’s what happened with silicone breast implants. Lawyers used the media to terrify the nation.
In the 1990s, lawyers told women that Dow Corning, an evil chemical company that made silicone,
was responsible for their ‘being poisoned by their own bodies’! Silicone from their breast implants
was probably leaking into their breasts and would soon give them cancer and autoimmune diseases.
One lawyer got on a TV news show and told women they had ‘time bombs’ in their breasts. (105, all
emphasis added)
One question leaps immediately to mind and looms large: “Where is the ‘epidemiologic’ evidence
(fr. Gk., epi + dēmos – on + the people) for such claims?” Epidemiology is a science – a science that
deals with the incidence, distribution, and control of disease in a population. It may be diseases in
humans, in plants, or in animals. Such claims made by the purveyors of ‘junk science’ are
irresponsible, and dangerous in the extreme. This ‘junk science’ approach is designed to transfer
‘income’ and ‘wealth’ from those that have produced it to alleged victims and their ‘tort-lawyers’
(who ‘earn’ a third of the final judgment, plus costs … ‘several’ dollars for each photocopied page
of ‘documentation’ and the so-called ‘expert witnesses’ testifying to the ‘potential’ physical damages
to health and ‘potential’ economic losses to earning power.
John Stossel next observes that:
The women’s fear and anger were palpable. At least one was so desperate to remove her implant,
8
9
she took a razor to her own breasts. At an anti-implant demonstration, an ABC cameraman
captured the fury of the women when a skeptical reporter dared ask, ‘Where’s the evidence that
the implants cause these diseases?’ (105-6, emphasis added)
The reporter asked a very reasonable and ‘scientifically appropriate’ question, but the answers
he/she received from the ‘demonstrators’ reflect the rejection of the ‘Baconian scientific method’!
Demonstrators: We are the evidence! We are the evidence! We are the evidence!
Woman with breast implants: It’s in throughout my body. And it’s eating at my muscle tissue.
Demonstrators: We are the evidence. (emphasis in the original)
…. While some women had complaints…most were satisfied.
Then doctors reported that about 1 percent of women who have breast implants – 10,000 American
women – had connective-tissue disease. To reporters, that was evidence that implants caused the
disease. But 10,000 illnesses didn’t prove anything. It turns out that the same percentage of women
without implants got the disease. (106, emphasis added)
Once again confusion over the issues of ‘correlation’ and ‘causation’ arises. It is necessary to
constantly keep in mind that “Correlation is not causation.” In a well-known statistics book, the
authors cite a newspaper article that describes a correlation between the Dow-Jones stock index and
the number of whales killed over a given period – the correlation coefficient [r] was high (r = 0.94),
but this does not mean that the buying and selling of shares of stock on the Dow Jones kills whales
in the Arctic or the South Atlantic! A little knowledge of basic statistical techniques and their
appropriate use, say the χ2 (Chi-Square) Test of Independence, should be sufficient to ‘prove’ this
nonsense is false!
Stossel reports another anti-scientific aspect of the breast-implant situation – the fact that the same
proportion of women, with or without implants acquires ‘connective tissue diseases’:
That fact wasn’t publicized. Instead, lawyers ran ads on TV like ‘Your breast implants may be
making you sick! Call us, Kind Lawyers Who Protect Women, 1-800…..’ (106)
Have you seen recent examples of such advertisements by ‘tort’ lawyers? For injured drivers seeking
claims against insurance companies – ‘Fast’ Eddie Ferrah or Harrell and Harrell? For Mesothelioma?
Women called; the lawyers brought them into court. With the help of ‘expert’ witnesses who said
implants caused the disease, they convinced juries that Dow Corning had recklessly poisoned
women.
‘Juries’? Do the jurors have degrees in medicine or advanced degrees in the biological sciences? Are
they ‘qualified’ to understand the ‘scientific issues’ at hand? Then, there’s the issue of ‘expert’
witnesses! Consider:
Two of the most influential experts on breast implants were Drs. Nir Kossovsky of Los Angeles
and David Smalley of Memphis. Both had tests that they said detected whether a woman’s immune
system was affected by silicone. But then surgeon Leroy Young at the Scripps Research Institute
9
10
tested the ‘experts’ tests. Young sent Dr. Smalley blood from women who didn’t have breast
implants – and they tested positive. The tests were bunk.
But juries didn’t know that.
… Facing thousands of lawsuits, Dow Corning declared bankruptcy.
But where was the science? Studies by the Mayo Clinic, Harvard, Brigham and Women’s Hospital,
and others concluded that women with implants were no sicker than those without. It didn’t matter.
The ‘doesn’t cause connective-tissue-disease stories’ got much less media attention. People still
think implants cause disease.
And the lack of scientific evidence didn’t stop the lawyers. Even after America’s top scientists
concluded that implants did not cause disease, the lawyers kept suing, and winning. After all, they
didn’t have to convince a majority of scientists – they just had to convince a jury. (107)
Scientifically Clueless –
How is it that the reporters and the media can be manipulated by ‘tort’ lawyers into perpetuating
‘myths, lies, and downright stupidity’ (the title of Stossel’s latest book: 2006. Myths, Lies, and
Downright Stupidity: Get Out the Shovel – Why Everything You Know is Wrong) that permits
lawful theft – transfers of wealth and income from producers to lawyers and their clients? Note:
these ‘tort’ lawyers may be responsible for doing great harm to the rest of society by destroying
incentives for the development of new and better products, including life-saving drugs!
Those familiar with basic economic principles understand the phrase written by Gwartney, Stroup
and Lee: “Incentives Matter.” [James D. Gwartney, Richard L. Stroup & Dwight R. Lee. 2005.
Common Sense Economics: What Everyone Should Know About Wealth and Prosperity.] In
simple terms, if you want more of a certain activity or behavior, reward it, if you want less, then
penalize it. The ‘reward’ may be profits (sales), an ice cream cone (a child minding his/her parents),
or a kindly word (a ‘Thank you’) for a good deed done. The penalty may be a higher tax on the
activity, a spanking, or deprivation of a pleasurable activity (watching a favorite TV program for a
naughty child) or a rebuke for bad behavior. Responses are not instantaneous, but require time for
behavioral adjustments (a ‘lagged effect’). Since the effects are ‘lagged’ there is a general tendency
by ‘economic illiterates’ to fail to make the connection between ‘cause’ and ‘effect.’ This failure
provides politicians with the opportunity to avoid responsibility for their actions, and, then blame the
free market, in general (so-called ‘market-failure,’ à la A.C. Pigou), ‘greedy businessmen’ who
place ‘profits’ above all other things, or member of the opposing political party! Perhaps the classic
example of such dishonest posturing may be found an early article written by the former Chairman of
the Federal Reserve, Alan Greenspan:
That Act [the Interstate Commerce Act of 1887] was not necessitated by the ‘evils’ of the free
market. Like subsequent legislation controlling business, the Act was an attempt to remedy
the economic distortions which prior government interventions had created, but which were
blamed on the free market. The Interstate Commerce, in turn produced new distortions ….
[1961. “Antitrust,” paper presented at the Antitrust Seminar of the National Association of
Business Economics (September 25); printed in Ayn Rand. 1967. Capitalism: The Unknown
10
11
Ideal. New York: Signet Books, 65, emphasis added.]
Stossel argues that the source of reporters succumbing to the guile of the ‘tort’ lawyers is their LACK
of training and understanding of how science really works:
Reporters are easy to convince, too. Most of us are so clueless about science, we assume
unusual numbers of cancer cases near a chemistry plant means the chemicals caused the
cancer, but association is not causation. There is no more reason to blame the chemicals
than to blame diet soda for making people fat because you see lots of fat people drinking it.
The cluster of cancers may have been caused by a hundred other factors, or it may be
‘statistical noise.’ (107)
A perfect example of the media’s (journalists’) lack of understanding, bureaucrats’ desire
(lust) for power and influence OVER other people and their lives (since they know better and need to
have their weak egos built-up), and ‘special-interest-group’ lobbying for government regulations that
may help them, EVEN AT THE EXPENSE OF OTHERS, USUALLY THE MAJORITY IN
SOCIETY … is to be found on the editorial page of the Wall Street Journal for August 17, 2007 –
‘DDT for Health,’ A12. The editorial was written by Henry I. Miller, M.D., a Fellow of the Hoover
Institution and former official at the NIH (National Institute of Health) and the FDA (Federal Drug
Administration) from 1977 through 1994. Miller exposes the consequences of the environmental
movement’s regulatory legacy for the poor in many tropical countries and for many in the subtropics
– the increased incidence of PREVENTABLE diseases, especially malaria, dengue fever,
encephalitis, and West Nile Virus (WNV). Dr. Miller has written:
The eight-year-old outbreak of West Nile virus shows no signs of abating. Last year, there
were 4,300 serious cases and almost 200 deaths. And though it is still early in the season,
statistics release by the CDC [Center for Disease Control] on Tuesday are alarming: The
insect-borne virus has been found in animal hosts (primarily birds) in 39 states, and in
humans has caused about 450 serious infections and at least 15 deaths. The numbers have
been increasing exponentially.
To confirm Dr. Miller’s figures, the data in the following table have been compiled from CDC
sources, including MMWR (Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report), available on the net):
Human Incidence of West Nile Virus, 1999 to 2006
Year
1999-2001
2002
2003
2004
2005
2006
2007*
_____________________
Cases
Deaths
149
4,156
9,862
2,539
3,000
4,261
3,304
18
284
264
100
119
174
93
11
12
* As of November 13, MMWR, November 16, 2007, 56 (45), 1191-1197.
Summary statistics of West Nile virus during 2006 are available from CDC’s MMWR (“West Nile
Virus Activity – United States, 2006,” @ www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/ mm5629a4.html.) [June 8,
2007, 56 (22), 556-9] Four thousand two hundred and sixty-one human cases of West Nile virus,
with three deaths, were reported from 731 counties in forty-three states, with major clusters
occurring astride the Mississippi (River) Valley. The disease affected more than 23 percent of the
3,142 counties of the United States.
As of August 14, 2007 twenty-seven (27) states reported ‘human disease case(s)’ of West Nile virus.
(“West Nile Virus Update – United States, January 1 – August 14, 2007.” www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/
mmwrhtml/mm5632a4.htm) The states with the largest number of case were:
Human Incidence of West Nile Virus, 2007 (through November 13)
State
August 14
Number of
Cases
November 13
Number of
Cases
Deaths
California
Colorado
South Dakota
North Dakota
Wyoming
Montana
Texas
Nebraska
86
72
62
52
34
6
7
16
371
555
207
361
180
197
144
144
16
6
6
2
1
4
10
3
Total
335
2.159
48
Rest of nation
106
1,145
45
[Source: www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dvbid/westnile/Mapsactivity/surv&control07Maps.htm.]
It might be noted that according to the CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR) for
July 27th (www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/ mmwrhtml/mm5629a4.htm) has reported that nineteen (19) states had
reported 122 cases of West Nile virus (WNV) to the CDC between January 1 and July 24 of 2007.
Since West Nile virus is, one of a number of mosquito-borne diseases (malaria, dengue fever, and
yellow fever), it must be noted the WN virus has been detected in sixty-two (62) of the 175 mosquito
species found in the United States. The virus is most prevalent in Culex mosquitoes. (www.cdc.gov/
mmwr/preview/ mmwrhtml/mm5622a3.htm) Additionally, MMWR has reported the incidence of malaria in
the United States – 1,278 cases in 2003; 1,324 cases in 2004; and 1,528 cases in 2005 … clearly the
12
13
number of cases are on the rise.
Dr. Miller continues his observations:
Many of these illnesses and deaths could have been avoided. Thanks to flawed, politically
correct federal regulatory policy, however, the available tools are limited and largely
ineffective.
By now, you must be saying to yourself, “Well, here we go again!” And, you would be correct to be
saying this. Dr. Miller continues:
West Nile virus is transmitted mainly between avian hosts and mosquitoes, and until the
mid-1990s was associated with only mild infections of humans in Africa and the Middle
East. Then more severe outbreaks of encephalitis and other serious manifestations were
reported in Romania in 1996, and subsequently in Israel, Tunisia, Russia and North
America.
An excellent entry for ‘West Nile virus’ on Wikipedia reports that:
… it was initially believed that direct human-to-human transmission was only caused by
occupational exposure or conjunctival [mucous membrane that lines the inner surface of the
eyelids] exposure to infected blood.
Later, it was revealed that infection with WNV was associated with blood transfusions, organ
transplantation, intrauterine exposure, and breast-feeding. It has also been revealed that a genetic
mutation (CCR5) provides some protection to HIV, but, also leads to more serious complications for
WNV.
Perhaps more alarmingly Dr. Miller reports:
In the current issue of Nature Genetics, researchers at several American universities and
the National Institutes of Health reported the apparent reason for this worrisome transformation [‘more severe outbreaks of encephalitis’]: A single mutation in a gene that
encodes a viral enzyme can transform a low-virulence strain of the virus to one that is
highly virulent. Ominously, the research also provides evidence that the mutated virus
enjoys an evolutionary advantage that enables it to adapt rapidly to changing environments, to spread, and to cause disease outbreaks.
Just how does the CDC recommend the WNV threat be handled? Let me see: “For humans to escape
infection the avoidance of mosquitoes is key….” “Fight the Bite.” (www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dvbid/
westnile/index.htm) And, how are humans to avoid mosquitoes – “use insect repellant – with EPAregistered active ingredients”, “dusk-to-dawn wear long sleeved shits and long pants”, “consider
staying indoors dusk to dawn”, ‘have good screens”, and “get rid of mosquito breeding sites …
saucers for potted plants and emptying birdbaths”!!! [See: www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dvbid/
wesrnile/wnx_factsheet.htm] Wow! These are certainly welcome strategies derived from the
spending of billions of taxpayer dollars! Responding to such nonsense, Dr. Miller states one of the
obvious solutions:
13
14
In the absence of a vaccine, eliminating the carrier – the mosquito – should be the key to
preventing an epidemic. But in 1972, on the basis of data on toxicity to fish and migrating
birds (but not to humans), the Environmental Protection Agency banned virtually all uses of
DDT, an inexpensive and effective pesticide once widely used in the U. S. to kill diseasecarrying insects.
Once again you may be asking yourself, “How can this happen?” “How is it that the possibility of
harming “fish and migrating birds” is sufficient to prevent certain human actions?” “Is avoiding
potentially harmful effects to fish and/or birds more important than the lives of humans?” These
questions have been addressed and commented upon many times. One of the earliest direct
comments was made by William Baxter. People of Penguins: The Case for Optimal Pollution, a
book rarely cited by members of the Environmental Movement. There are two summaries of his
work on the internet that may be consulted for a ‘philosophical’ summary of his views, see, for
example:
William Baxter. ”People or Penguins: The Case for Optimal Pollution,” January 25, 2005 @
www.cofc.edu/hettinger/Enviornmental _Ethics/
www.home.myuw.net/himma/phil102/baxter.htm.
Notice that these reviews and commentaries on Baxter’s book involve issues of ‘ethics’ and
introductory philosophy. Those unfamiliar with these areas of inquiry might want to review a short
pamphlet by Ayn Rand. 1982. Philosophy: Who Needs It? She calls attention to the role of
philosophy in human society and observes:
The third branch – ethics – may be regarded as its [philosophy] technology. Ethics does not
apply to everything that exists, only to man, but it applies to every aspect of man’s life: his
character, his actions, his values, his relationship to all of existence. Ethics, or morality, defines
a code of values to guide man’s choices and actions – the choices and actions that determine
the course of his life. (3, emphasis in original)
… you cannot know what you should do until you know the nature of the universe you deal
with, the nature of your means of cognition – and your own nature. Before you come to ethics,
you must answer the questions posed by metaphysics and epistemology: Is man a rational
being, able to deal with reality – or is he a helplessly blind misfit, a chip buffeted by the universal
flux? Are achievement and enjoyment possible to man on earth -- or is he doomed to failure and
disaster? Depending on the answers, you can proceed to consider the questions posed by ethics:
What is good or evil for man – and why? Should man’s primary concern be a quest for joy – or an
escape from suffering? Should man hold self-fulfillment – or self-destruction – as the goal of his
life? Should man pursue his values – or should he place the interests of others above his own?
Should man seek happiness – or self-sacrifice? (4, emphasis added)
I do not have to point out the different consequences of these two sets of answers. You can see
them everywhere – within you and around you.
The answers given by ethics determines how man should treat other men, and this determines
the fourth branch of philosophy: politics, which defines the principles of a proper social system.
As an example of philosophy’s function, political philosophy will not tell you how much rationed
14
15
gas you should be given and on what day of the week – it will tell you whether the government
has the right to impose any rationing on anything. (4, emphasis added)
The banning of DDT, a synthetic pesticide, for mosquito control, as well as for the control of insect
pests in agriculture, has enabled the resurgence globally of many mosquito-borne diseases, including
malaria, dengue fever, yellow-fever) which had been held in check by DDT.
An extremely significant discussion of the increases in ‘preventable’ deaths attributable to the
banning of the use of DDT to control disease carrying mosquitoes may be found on a September
24, 2006 entry written by Gary Becker entitled “DDT and Deaths from Malaria.” This commentary
may be found on the blog-site of Gary Becker (a winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics) and
Richard Posner, two University of Chicago economists [www.becker-posner-blo.com/archives/2006/09/
ddt_and_deaths.html] Becker has commented on the disparity in concerns over AIDs and malaria, noting
that there are 3 million deaths worldwide from AIDs each year. He then writes:
Malaria receives far less attention, even though it too is very deadly, causing 11/2 million
deaths per year.
Deaths from malaria have been increasing, not falling…
Rising, despite a World Trade Organization’s (WTO’s) [sic. corrected World Health Organization or
WHO, September 30, 2006] declared ‘war on malaria’ announced in 1998. This sounds a lot like
America’s so-called ‘war on drugs’! Devastatingly, Becker observes:
The reason for the failure of this malaria war is mainly that in the name of environmentalism,
he WTO and other international organizations rejected the use of an effective technique,
namely the spraying DDT on the walls of homes in malaria infected areas.
What is especially disheartening about the huge number of deaths from malaria, and a fact
that sharply distinguishes malaria from Aids, is that malaria deaths could be greatly reduced
in a cheap way without requiring any fundamental changes in behavior. A small amount of
DDT sprayed on the walls of homes in vulnerable malaria regions is highly effective in
deterring malaria-bearing mosquitoes from entering these homes. Finally, recognizing this, a
couple weeks ago the WTO [WHO] relaxed its support of the ban on DDT, and instead
supported spraying of DDT on house walls in malaria-ridden areas. The decision is likely to
influence the position on DDT spraying of the World Bank, USAID, and other relevant
organizations. Some African countries like Zambia and South Africa, which are not
dependent on international support for their efforts at fighting disease, had already started
to use DDT as a fundamental malaria-fighting weapon prior to the new WTO [WHO] guidelines. South Africa decided to use DDT in the face of EU opposition after suffering a deadly
malaria outbreak. DDT apparently helped that country greatly reduce its incidence of
malaria ….
An Op-Ed piece in the October 10, 2002 issue of the Investor’s Business Daily, “DDT Delirium,”
provides an additional perspective of the ethical issues involved in the consequences and human
costs resulting from Rachael Carson’s jihad against DDT with her book Silent Spring:
DDT Delirium
15
16
Psuedoscience: On the Senate agenda is ratification of the Stockholm Treaty, which would
virtually ban the pesticide DDT. The payoff is the death of millions.
Numbers don’t lie. DDT is the most effective means to fight malaria, a mosquito-borne
disease. Take India in the 1940s, where 75 million people contracted malaria and 800,000
died each year. By 1961, thanks to DDT, the number of cases dropped to 50,000.
In Sri Lanka [formerly Ceylon], DDT use began in 1946. By 1964, the number of cases
dropped from 3 million to 29, with zero deaths.
DDT came under attack in the 1960s, beginning with the book ‘Silent Spring,’ by Rachael
Carson, which claimed “a minute quantity can bring about vast changes in the body.”
Scientists criticizing the book included San Jose State entomologist Gordon Edwards, known
for consuming spoonfuls of DDT to make his point. He’s alive and well today.
Nonetheless, the campaign against DDT grew. In 1972, the Environmental Protection Agency
held hearings to listen to evidence for and against DDTfrom 125 witnesses over 81 days.
The hearing examiner concluded: “DDT is not a carcinogenic hazard to man. The uses of DDT
under the registrations involved here do not have a deleterious effect on fresh-water fish,
estuarine organisms, wild birds or other wildlife.”
The EPA was supposed to decide whether to ban on the basis of the examiner’s recommendations.
Less than two months later, William Ruckelshaus, then EPA administrator, banned DDT for all
practical purposes in the U.S. He never attended any part of the hearings and later admitted he had
not even read the transcripts.
It was a victory of politics over modern science. DDT use dropped. Malaria cases rose. A disease
that had been all but wiped out half a century ago returned.
According to a 1996 U.N. report: “Sub-Saharan Africa is he worst affected area for malaria with
about 90% of all malaria and 80% of deaths. This means about 1.5 to 2.7 million people, mainly
children, die each year from malaria.”
The Stockholm Treaty on Persistent Organic Pollutants, which focuses on 12 chemicals, permits
health exceptions to allow developing nations to use DDT against malaria. But its practical effect
will be to discourage DDT use. Some nations that once used it have already stopped.
Fifty nations must ratify the treaty to make it international law. The U.S. should not be one of
them. The Senate, either in the current session or the next if senators are not too busy to vote this
week, has the opportunity to try to save millions of Third World children’s lives.
So, there it is – the EPA banning a chemical, despite the science, for political reasons. This anti-scientific
action of a governmental agency is a reminder of past bureaucratic forays into science. Perhaps the worst
examples include: the eugenic movement in both the United States and in Nazi Germany, as well as Stalin’s
championing of T.D. Lysenko in the former Soviet Union.
Henry Miller continues his WSJ editorial:
16
17
The effectiveness and relative safety of DDT was underplayed, as was the distinction
between the large-scale use of the chemical in agricultural and more limited application
for controlling carriers of human disease. There is a world of difference between
applying large amounts of it in the environment – as American farmers did before it was
banned – and using it carefully and sparingly to fight mosquitoes and other disease
carrying insects. A basic principle of toxicology is that the dose makes the poison.
The regulation who banned DDT also failed to consider the inadequacy of alternatives.
Because of its persistence, DDT works far better than many pesticides now in use, some
of which are toxic to fish and other aquatic organisms. With DDT unavailable, many local
jurisdictions are depleting their mosquito-control budgets by repeated spraying with shortacting, marginally effective insecticides. (emphasis added)
Hummm? Is it better for the environment to use DDT once or some other pesticide multiple times
over some specified period of time? What are the longer-term consequences of multiple-doseapplications? Miller, appropriately, adds a cautionary note:
Of course, spraying any pesticide -- let alone DDT – has been greeted by hysteria from
environmental activists, who have attacked the killing of mosquitoes as ‘disrupting the food
chain.’ New York’s Green Party literature declared several years ago, ‘These diseases only
kill the old and people whose health is already poor.’ (emphasis added)
Now let me get this right, ‘the old and people in poor health,’ according to the Green Party (read,
wealthy, elitist environmentalists), are expendable. It seems to me that this was the same stance
adopted in Nazi Germany by Adolf Hitler in his drive to create the ‘Master Race,’ by eliminating
‘defective’ beings – both physically and mentally – described as “Life unworthy of life!” What is the
Green Party’s stance regarding those with AIDs and compromised immune systems. [See: the
Eugenics movement on the internet.]
Miller points out that after the removal of DDT from the market, deaths from mosquito-borne
diseases reversed their declining trends and began, once again, to rise:
Since countries around the world began to ban DDT in the 1970s, insect-borne diseases
such as malaria and dengue, and now West Nile virus, have been on the rise. The World
Health Organization estimates that malaria kills about a million people annually, and that
there are between 300 and 500 million new cases each year.
In seeking answers to the question: “If DDT was effective and safe, why and how was it banned for
use?” Looking back, it becomes clear that a pattern begins to emerge that is parallel with many of the
issues that John Stossel has raised in Chapter 6 “Junk Science and Junk Reporting,” in his book,
entitled Give Me a Break and Chapter 1 “Clueless Media,” in Myths, Lies, and Downright
Stupidity. First, a shocking and ‘fear-inducing’ claim is made by an apparently qualified individual;
before the claim can be rigorous inform ‘the people’; a campaign is organized by the ‘people’ to
demand action from politicians to ‘protect them’ from whatever the threat may be; legislation is
passed and the apparent, immediate danger is past! But, the ‘Baconian Scientific Method’ –
independent testing of a hypothesis employing a time-tested, rigorous stipulated procedure has been
aborted by ‘individual’ or ‘group self-interest’ – a career advancement for the scientist, a Pulitzer
17
18
Prize for the news reporter, donations for ‘political-action-groups’ (PACs), campaign contributions
for politicians, and potential lawsuits for ‘tort lawyers – everyone benefits, except the ordinary
working citizen! When the scientific process is pushed aside because of the immediacy of the
perceived dangers there are always unintended consequences! (usually the result poorly thought
through governmental policies, which need additional governmental intervention to correct; See:
Alan Greenspan. 1961. “Antitrust,” reprinted in Ayn Rand’s, Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal, 6371).
What was the initial ‘shocking and fear-inducing’ claim? It was the publication of Rachael Carson’s
book, Silent Spring. I would be well to do extensive research into Carson’s background, her claims,
subsequent research by reputable and qualified scientists on those claims. But perhaps more
important is a dispassionate evaluation of the ‘unintended outcomes’ that have resulted from
Carson’s book, the induced fears and governmental actions. As a preliminary overview, Chapter 1,
“Clueless Media,” [Myths, Lies and Downright Stupidity, 1-27] provides an illuminating startingpoint! He begins his analysis by quoting Thomas Jefferson on the media or ‘the Fourth Estate:’
‘Where the press is free, and every man able to read,’ said Jefferson, ‘all is safe.’
However, thirty-six years working in the media has left me much more skeptical of its product….
But when is comes to science and economics, and putting life’s risks in perspective, the media do
a dismal job.
MYTH: The media will check it out and give you the objective truth.
TRUTH: Many in the media are scientifically clueless, and will scare you to death. (1)
He continues:
We know that the scarier and more bizarre the story, the more likely it is that our bosses will
Give us more air time or a front-page slot. … Fear sells. …
Also raising alarms makes us feel important.
In their small book, Common Sense Economics: What Everyone Should Know About Wealth and
Prosperity (2005), Gwartney, Stroup, and Lee have addressed the economic factors responsible for
many of these issues, as well as the consequences for individual and social welfare.
Stossel continues his evaluation of the media, science and the complete lack of understanding of the
basic principles and processes by the media elite:
If we bothered to keep digging until we found the better scientific experts, rather than the ones
who send out press releases, we’d get the real story. But reporters rarely know whom to call.
And if we did, nay real scientists don’t want to be bothered. Why get involved in a messy debate?
It might upset someone in government and threaten the scientist’s grant money. ‘I’d rather be left
Alone to do my work, and not have to babysit dumb reporters,’ one told me.
One real scientist, Dr. Bruce Ames of the University of California, Berkeley, did make the effort.
18
19
He urges a skeptical reporter (me) to be more skeptical of pseudologic from pseudoscientists: ‘The
Number of storks in Europe has been going down for years, the birth rate’s going down for years,’
Dr. Ames pointed out. ‘If you plot one against the other, it’s a beautiful correlation. But it doesn’t
mean storks bring babies.’
We’ve been swallowing the storks-bring-babies kind of logic for years. … For instance, stories
about pesticides making food carcinogenic would fill several pages of a Google search. To the
scientifically illiterate, the stories are logical. After all, farmers keep using new pesticides, we
consume them in the food we eat, and we keep hearing more people are getting cancer. It must be
cause and effect! Get the shovel.
MYTH: Pesticide residues in food cause cancer and other diseases.
TRUTH: The residues are largely harmless. (2)
Ames laughs at the claims of chemically induced caners, and he should know – he’s the one who
invented the test that first frightened people about a lot of those chemicals, It’s called the Ames
Test, and its first use in the 1970s raised alarms by revealing there were carcinogens in hair dye,
and in flame retardants in children’s pajamas. Ames helped get the chemicals banned. (3)
Stossel continues to lay-out the key issues involved in ‘contemporary science,’ the scientific
ignorance of reporters (print and broadcast), the substitution of individual self-interest for consumer
interest, and the utter disregard for the ‘Baconian Scientific Method.’ He continues his report on and
interview with Dr. Bruce Ames:
Before the Ames Test, the traditional way to test a substance was to feed big doses of it to
animals and wait to see if they got cancer or had babies with birth defects. But those tests took
two to three years and cost $ 100,000. So Dr. Ames said, ‘Instead of testing animals, why not
test bacteria? You can study a billion of them on just one Petri dish and you don’t have to wait
long for the next generation. Bacteria reproduce every twenty minutes.” (3)
The test proved successful. It was hailed as a major scientific break-through, and today, the
Ames Test is one of the standards used to discover if a substance is carcinogenic.
But after getting the hair dye and the flame retardants banned, Dr. Ames and other scientists
continued testing chemicals. “People started using our test,” he told me, “and finding mutagens
everywhere – in cups of coffee, on the outside of bread, and when you fry your hamburger!” (3,
emphasis in original)
This made him wonder if his tests were too sensitive, and led him to question the very bans he’d
advocated. A few years later, when I went to a supermarket with him, he certainly didn’t send out
any danger signals.
Dr. Ames: Practically everyone in the supermarket, if you really looked at it at the
parts per billion level, would have carcinogens. Vegetables are good for
you, yet vegetables make toxic chemicals to keep off insects, so every
vegetable is 5 percent of the weight in toxic chemicals. These are Nature’s
pesticides. Celery, alfalfa sprouts, and mushrooms are just chock-full of
carcinogens.
Stossel:
Over there it says ‘Organic Produce.’ Is that better?
Dr. Ames: No, absolutely not, because the amount of pesticide residues – man-made
pesticide residues – people are eating are actually trivial and very, very tiny
19
20
amounts! We get more carcinogens in a cup of coffee than we do in all the
pesticide residuals you eat in a day. (3)
In a most surprising commentary, Stossel reports of the finding of Dr. Ames and his research staff.
Please note the health danger posed to human beings by DDT:
In a cup of coffee? To put the risks in perspective, Ames and his staff analyzed the results of every
cancer test done on rats and mice. By comparing the dose that gave the rodents cancer to the typical
exposure people get, they came up with a ranking of the danger. Pesticides such as DDT and EDB
came out much lower than herb tea, peanut butter, alcohol, and mushrooms. We moved over to
the mushrooms as the camera continued to roll, and Dr. Ames put his mouth where his convictions
were. (3, emphasis added)
Dr. Ames: One raw mushroom gives you much more carcinogens than any polluted
water you’re going to drink in a day.
Stossel:
So you’re saying we shouldn’t eat fresh produce?
Dr. Ames: No. Fresh produce is good for you! Here, I’ll eat a raw mushroom even
though it’s full of carcinogens. (4)
Dr. Ames is widely respected in the scientific community, but he is not on many journalists’
Rolodexes. He’s the real deal, and no help at all if you’re looking for screaming headlines.
(4, emphasis added)
Next Stossel turns his attention to the media scare over the ‘irradiation’ of food to destroy bacteria! –
A classic example of journalists falling for a stunningly stupid scientific scare – falling en masse and
and really hard – was the outcry over treating food with radiation. ….
But reporters and environmental activists don’t worry much about the horrible tool from bacteria.
For some reason, even when bacteria pose a far greater risk, the media obsess about chemicals and
radiation. Radiation! Horrors! Three Mile Island! Jane Fonda! Nuclear Bombs! …
They don’t worry much about bacteria because bacteria is natural. But radiation is natural too. We
are exposed to natural radiation every minute of our lives: cosmic radiation from space, radiation
from the ground, and radiation from radon in the air we breathe. Every year, the average U.S. citizen
is exposed to natural radiation equal to about 360 dental X-rays. (4, emphasis added)
Wow! That much natural radiation – almost a dental X-ray each and every day! Little wonder some
people glow in the dark. As a survivor of thyroid cancer and prostate cancer, each of which returned
after surgery, radiation was the next option – radioactive iodine – so radioactive that isolation in a
lead-lined room was necessary, as was radiation therapy for the prostate cancer. But back to Stossel’s
analysis:
News stories featured Dr. Walter Burnstein, founder of a ‘consumer group’ named Food & Water,
saying, ‘This will be a public health disaster of the magnitude we have never seen before.’ I have to
admire the activists’ skill in naming groups: Foods & Water. What reporter could argue with a group
with a name like that? They must be good guys, right? I interviewed Dr. Burnstein and his ‘political
organizer,’ Michael Colby.
20
21
Mr. Colby: If you look at the existing studies on humans and animals fed irradiated food.
you will find testicular cancer, chromosomal abnormalities, kidney damage, and
cancer and birth defects.
Stossel:
Cause because someone irradiated food?
Mr. Colby: Absolutely. Absolutely.
Stossel:
[Food & Water claimed an Indian study had said that, but we called the author
and she told us she didn’t conclude that at all.] We just talked to her and she says
she didn’t say that! She never said those kids were developing cancer.
Dr. Burnstein: The are pure scientists and she doesn’t want to make that break. We are taking
it the extra mile. We’re saying to people, “Don’t – don’t be put to sleep by people
who work in test tubes – don’t.” I don’t need proof that it goes to cancer. We already know it
lead to cancer.
What da’ya know about that. The Baconian scientific method is not needed! We already know that
global warming is cause by human actions. The question is: “How do you know that without some
method of proof?” Dreams? Imagination? Conventional wisdom? What mommy and daddy have told
them? Oh, that is what was taught to you by a public school teacher with the degrees in Education
and NOT math, history or English – maybe they had twelve (12) to fifteen (15) hours of preparation
in the courses they are teaching! Were you told this by Dan Rather on CBS – you remember the
‘forged’ documents that he claimed were real, and continues to claim to be the ‘originals’ even after
he was ‘mustered-out’ of the CBS family!
Reporters gave Burnstein and Colby’s dubious claims so much credulous press coverage that
politicians in Maine quickly banned food irradiation. New York and New Jersey followed suit.
(5)
This is truly scary! Junk Science. That irradiated food → cancer, given press time and space by
undereducated reporters, stampedes scientifically illiterate politicians banning a technology that
benefits ALL of food consumers by protecting them from bacterial infections. A proposed plant in
Mulberry, Florida, Vindicator, was designed to irradiate strawberries … the media’s demonization of
‘radiation’ of food lead to pickets with signs: “Don’t nuke our food!” forced Florida’s government to
place a moratorium on Vindicator’s opening, perhaps causing dozens of cases of salmonella! The
following is the comment made by Dr. Burnstein – ‘not a research scientist, but rather an osteopath:
Dr. Berstein: Vindicator will go out of business, and not only Vindicator. That’’ be the end of the
entire irradiation industry … When we go to talk to people, we don’t have to break their
arms to convince them not to eat irradiated food. We just say ‘Irradiated food,’ and people
go, “What? Who wants the food irradiated?”
This is ‘intellectual ludditism’ at its worst! Just imagine haw many more factories Ned Ludd’s Army
could have burned and how many more factory managers killed, had Ned had such a supportive
media! The Junk Science (and the basic stupidity of America’s government educated population) is
clearly revealed:
People think food irradiation makes food radioactive, but it doesn’t; the radiation just kills the
bacteria, and passes right out of the food. That’s why the FDA and USDA approved the process
a long time ago. … But scaremongering has kept it from catching on.
21
22
Food & Water told people that the AMA and the World Health Organization did not approve of
irradiation, but that was a lie. Both organizations did approve.
… If 50 percent [America’s meat] were irradiated, the CDC says nearly a million cases of
bacterial infections could be avoided and 350 lives could be saved every year! (6, emphasis
added)
Does this make those ‘blocking’ the adoption of the ‘irradiation’ of food products responsible for the
illnesses of millions and the deaths of hundreds? If so, then these Luddites are MASS MURDERERS
… participating in the killing of consumers that may have lived had food been irradiated.
John Stossel has raised the issue of DDT several pages later:
MYTH:
DDT causes all kinds of cancers, and nearly wiped out every bird in the world.
TRUTH: DDT saves lives. (8)
Malaria will kill more than one thousand children before you finish reading this book. The
chemical DDT is at the core of the problem – not the use of DDT, but the failure to use it
because of media hysteria. In Uganda alone, said minister of health Jim Muhwezi, ‘We are
losing between two million and three million people a year.’ Think of it: Millions die
because the media gets it wrong.
Yep! That’s correct, the media – like the Congress – is protected legally by the Constitution, even
when they lie. The First Amendment [1791] provides ‘protection’ to the members of the Fourth
Estate –
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the
free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right
of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of
grievances. (emphasis added)
And, members of the Congress are protected under the U.S. Constitution under Article I, Section 6,
Paragraph 1:
The Senators and Representatives shall receive a Compensation for their Services, to be
ascertained by Law, and paid out of the Treasury of the United States. They shall in all
Cases, except Treason, Felony and Breach of the Peace, be privileged from Arrest during
their Attendance at the Session of their respective Houses, and going to and returning
from the same; and for any Speech or Debate in either House, they shall not be
questioned in any other Place. (all emphasis added)
Clearly there is a confluence of observations arrived at by the sources cited previously: Henry I.
Miller [‘DDT and Heath’], Gary Becker and Richard Posner [‘DDT and Deaths from Malaria’], and
John Stossel [‘DDT Saves Lives’ in Myth, Lies, and Downright Stupidity] – DDT, virulent
pathogens carried by insect-hosts, and human health – Miller states:
The huge toll has caused some bureaucrats to reconsider. In 2005, the United States
Agency for International Development endorsed DDT for malaria control, following the
22
23
lead of the WHO.
But, if we go back to the bureaucratic ‘followers’ at the Center for Disease Control (CDC), still
under the influence of the bureaucrats at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), they continue
to advocate, “Fight the Bite”: (i) insect repellants with ‘EPA-registered’, active ingredients, such as
DEET; (ii) eliminate mosquito breeding sites (police your yard, dump water from flower-pot dishes);
when going out-of-doors from ‘dusk-to-dawn,’ people should wear long-sleeved shirts and long
pants and, even ‘consider staying indoors’; and (iii) have good screening on your windows! All of
these are passive measures to avoid being bitten, and do nothing to eliminate the ‘disease-carrying
mosquitoes,’ many species of which are capable of reproducing with scant quantities of water that
may even be from a heavy dew … Miller continues:
To control mosquitoes that carry West Nile virus [malaria, yellow fever, and dengue (or
‘break-bone) fever] the pesticide would need to be used extensively – and it should be.
DDT should be made available, immediately, for both indoor and outdoor mosquito
control in the U.S.; and the government should oppose international strictures on the
pesticide. Federal officials should also educate local authorities and citizens about its
safety and potential importance. Right now, most of what people hear is the reflexively
anti-pesticide drumbeat of the environ movement. (emphasis added)
Because DDT has such a bad rap, it will be politically difficult to resurrect. But we
should begin the process now. In the meantime, we’ll just slather on the insect repellant,
slap, scratch – and occasionally become infected with a life-threatening but preventable
disease.
So there ya’ have it! A potential ‘life-threatening but preventable disease’ and the powers that be in
D.C. want to adopt a minimalist policy that put thousands, if not millions, of their fellow citizens at
risk.
Finally, John Stossel addresses the issue of the source of the ban on DDT – Rachel Carson and the
publication of her book, Silent Spring in 1962. He has written:
Despite this overuse [of DDT by farmers and the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s
program to control/eradicate the ‘fire ant’ problem], there was no surge in cancer
or any other human injury. Scientists found no evidence that spraying DDT seriously
hurt people.
It did cause some harm: It threatened bird populations by thinning the shells of
their eggs.
In 1962, the book Silent Spring by Rachael Carson made the damage famous and
helped instill our fear of chemicals. The book raised some serious questions about
the use of DDT, but the legitimate nature of those questions was lost in the media
feeding frenzy that followed. DDT was a ‘Killer Chemical!’ and the press was off on
another fear campaign.
It turn out DDT itself wasn’t the problem – the problem was that much too much
was sprayed. That’s often true with chemicals; it’d the dose that matters. We need
water, for example, but six feet of it will kill us. (9)
23
24
Remember: “The dose makes the poison.”
In the 1950s we sprayed DDT indiscriminately, but it only takes a tiny amount
to prevent the spread of malaria [or West Nile virus, yellow fever, dengue]. If
sprayed on walls of an African hut, a small amount will keep mosquitoes at bay
for half a year. That makes it a wonderful malaria fighter. But today DDT is
rarely used to fight malaria because environmentalists’ demonization of it
causes others to shun it.
Certainly, these environmentalists justify the banning of DDT by the naïve ‘self-appointed’ saviors
of the world!’ stating that they are just ‘Doing it for Mother Nature.’ The same statement is used for
justifying ‘Carbon credits as a means of ‘reducing carbon foot-prints’ – that is simply a TAX
CREDIT for the WEALTHY, who would have done what they would have done anyway!
Remember St. Hillary Clinotn’s statement that ‘We’re doing it for the children.’ The demonization
of DDT –
That frustrates Dr. Amir Attaran, who researched the issue at Harvard University.
‘It it’s a chemical, it must be bad,’ he told us. ‘If it’s DDT, it must be awful. And
that’s fine if you’re a rich white environmentalist. It’s not so fine if you’re a
poor black kid who is about to lose his life from malaria. Uganda’s health
angrily minister angrily asked us: ‘How many people do they want us to lose before
we use DDT?’ (9)
Good question.
The U.S. government does spend your tax dollars trying to fight malaria in Africa,
but it has not spent a penny on DDT. The money goes for things like mosquito
netting over beds (even though not everyone in Africa even has a bed). The office
that dispenses those funds, the Agency for International Development [USAID],
acknowledges DDT is safe.
I went to the State Department to interview the USAID official in charge of interNational health. With a straight face, she denied that their no-funds-for DDT policy
has anything to do with being ‘environmentally correct.’ I felt like I was talking to a
robot. (9)
Dr. Anne Peterson: I would recommend that if those who want to use [DDT for]
indoor spraying, that they can and should. And it is definitely less
harmful than dying and being exposed to malaria.
Stossel: But you won’t pay for it?
Dr. Anne Peterson: Currently we don’t pay for it.
Stossel: This is pathetic. Millions of people are dying and you, to be politically
correct, are saying , ‘No we don’t want to pay for DDT.’
Dr. Anne Peterson: I believe that the strategies we are using are as effective as
spraying with DDT. And we are getting them out as far and as fast as we can.
So politically correct or not, I am very confident that what we are doing is the
right strategy. (10)
The right strategy? Dr. Attaran has a better perspective: ‘If I were to characterize what
24
25
USAID does on malaria, I’d call it medical malpractice. I would call it murderous.’
After my interview with Dr. Peterson, USAID said it has reconsidered its policy, and
it may fund spraying of DDT.
Great! This comes after years of refusing to spray, while more than a million black Africans have died of
malaria, and hundreds of millions more have been infected by the debilitating illness, only NOW does
USAID decided that ‘it may fund spraying of DDT’. Was it the cold light of revelation of the policy being
featured on John Stossel’s interview with Peterson on ABC News’ program, 20/20? Stossel finishes off this
section by observing:
We’ll see For now, millions die while USAID dithers.
The agency was simply responding to media hysteria. Media hysteria invites politicians
to do the wrong thing. In this case, the result of the media getting it so wrong is millions
of deaths.
Media attention also kills reputations, particularly when sensationalism and the herd
mentality are in play. Serious subjects, worthy of careful examination, are often treated
with a kind of journalistic shorthand that cheats readers and viewers, while ruining lives.
Big surprise here! A feeding frenzy whipped-up by scientifically challenged ‘journalists’ hiding behind the
privileges of the ‘Fourth Estate’ (the First Amendment to the Constitution), encourages equally scientifically
challenged politicians to react, usually making things far worse, especially in the future, as things work
themselves out!
Origin’s of DDT Ban and the Rise
of the Environmental Movement
The demonization of DDT may be traced back to a pseudo-scientific book written by a science writer named
Rachael Carson (1907-1964) entitled Silent Spring (1962). Carson obtained a Master’s Degree in biology
from Johns Hopkins University in 1932, having written a thesis on ‘the embryonic development of the
pronephros (precursor to excretory organs) in fish.
She found employment at the federal government’s Fish and Wildlife Service as a publicist, writing copy for
a radio broadcast series, ‘Romance under the Waters.’ She published materials in the popular media based on
her work on the radio-copy! See: Atlantic Monthly article, “The World of Waters.” Carson became
concerned with the ‘dangers of pesticides’ in the environment. She read the scientific literature and
interviewed researchers and found that there were two camps regarding pesticides:
One side dismissed the possible dangers, barring conclusive proof; and
The other side was open to the possibility of harm and willing to consider alternative control
strategies, e.g., biological pest control.
One has to wonder – what constitutes the ‘Scientific Method’? Do conclusions based on a literature review,
25
26
constitute a ‘proof of anything’? Or is it the ‘first step’ in the formulation of an hypothesis to be tested?
GATHER
DATA
OBSERVE, RECORD
& CLASSIFY
ANALYZE
FORMULATE
HYPOTHESES [H0 and HA]
TEST HYPOTHSES
SEEK TO REJECT THE
NULL HYPOTHESIS [H0]
In this rejection of adherence to the Baconian Scientific Method can be seen the source of so many aspects of
‘Junk Science’ described by John Stossel and described by Michael Crichton in a number of his speeches to
be found on his web site; See: above citations.
Bias –
Finally, John Stossel discusses the issue of ‘bias,’ reporting:
We are quicker to spot bias when business funds research. Corporate money sets off
alarms. Several years ago, a study found oat bran lowers cholesterol. People rushed out
to buy oat bran muffins, even though the fat in the muffins surely outweighed any
oat bran benefit to anyone’s heart…. , but once reporters realized that the research was
funded by the Quaker Oat Company, they noticed you had to eat vast quantities of oat
bran to see any effect, the exciting oat bran news faded away. But we in the media are
less vigilant when it comes to detecting researchers’ political agendas – especially when
the researchers’ and reporters’ politics are in sync. Consider this astounding statistic
propounded by feminists: Did you know 150,000 women a year die of anorexia? The
Washington Post and other media simply accepted the number, but think about it –
150,000 is absurd. Triple the number killed in cars? Triple the number of Americans
killed during the entire Viet Nam war? [And FIVE HUNDRED TIMES those killed in
more than four years of war in Iraq?] The real anorexia death toll is somewhere between
50 and 1,750. (112, emphasis added)
Is there any logical reason that no one in the main stream media has raised a question about the
source(s) of Senator John Edwards’ wealth? Nor are questions raised about the consequences of his
activities on the lives and well-being of ALL other Americans? As a tort lawyer, his income is
26
27
derived from winning cases and obtaining large settlements for ‘allegedly-harmed parties’ from
‘Corporate America’. Typically, ‘tort’ lawyers receive at least one-third on the settlement, plus costs!
Now, what does that mean to the corporation and the consumer? Is it reasonable for a Doctor (M.D.)
sued by a ‘tort’ lawyer to personally absorb the settlement? No really! Yes, she probably carries malpractice insurance and the insurance carrier will pay the settlement, but the Doctor can be expected to
be charged higher rates, which will be passed on to ALL of his patients in the form of higher doctor’s
fees! The losses to the insurance company and its shareholders for covering the mal-practice
settlement may be so substantial that they will raise insurance premiums to ALL other Doctors in
that particular specialty, say spinal surgery or obstetrics, forcing them to pass-on the added costs to
their patients. In some cases, Doctors may decide to exit the practice, choosing to devote their time to
less risky specialties, perhaps General Practice! This may mean that potential patients will be under
served in certain high-risk medical specialties, either lengthening the time necessary to see the
specialist and/or raise the price for such services.
Remember the immutable ‘laws of supply and demand’ – not even governments are powerful
enough to repeal these laws, all that they can do is, distort the market! Past attempts by
government to ‘control prices’ have not been encouraging, especially since politicians NEVER learn
from the past, so society is doomed to be subjected to the same errors that had been made in the
past… for those with a wit of sense, consider the sad history of the Federal government’s imposition
of ‘price-ceilings’ (illegal to charge higher prices) on gasoline during the two, so-called ‘energycrises’ of the 1970s; or local government setting ‘price-ceilings’ for rents (New York City and
Berkley, California); or the Federal government’s subsidies to agriculture, imposed originally during
the Great Depression, but never abolished, especially ‘sugar-quotas’ designed to keep ‘cheap’
foreign sugar out of the United States and price supports for wheat. Sugar-quotas have encouraged
wasteful developments of beet-sugar production and the use of corn syrup as a sweetening agent
(check the ingredients on your Coke can). The current government policy of encouraging the
substitution of ethanol for gasoline has had a number of unintended consequences – forced candy
manufacturers to re-locate in Canada and Mexico, where foreign-sourced sugar can be used at worldmarket prices, currently, the world price is $ 0.13/lb. on 08/22/07 (www.sugartech.co.za/sugarprice)
These observations correspond closely with the findings of Julian L. Simon (1932 – 1996), who sought to
reveal the mythology of the ‘environmental’ movement (1999. Hoodwinking the Nation). In the
‘Introduction,” Simon has written:
Public-opinion surveys tell us this for sure: most persons in the United States believe that
our environment is getting dirtier, we are running out of natural resources, and population
growth in the world is a burden and a threat…. (1)
It is also sure by now that these beliefs are entirely wrong. Though it is not well-known
To he public, there is broad scientific consensus that the air and water in the United
States are getting cleaner rather than dirtier, that natural resources are becoming less
scarce rather than more scarce, and that there is no quantitative evidence that population
growth is detrimental to economic growth in poor countries or rich ones. (1, emphasis
added)
27
28
Simon’s statement about ‘broad scientific consensus’ is inappropriate for describing ‘real scientific
investigations,’ since the term ‘consensus’ simply means ‘agreement’ and the ‘scientific method’ demands
‘proof’—through the ‘testing of hypotheses’ and the acceptance of the ‘null hypothesis’ (HO) or the
rejection of the ‘null hypothesis (HO), leading to the acceptance of the ‘alternative hypothesis’ (HA). A
single best source on the use of the Baconian Scientific Method, see:
“What is Science?” www.thingsrevealed.net/science1.htm.
“The scientific method <the habit of truth>,” www.geowords.com/histbooknetscape/b10.htm.
“In defense of Bacon,” www.uno.edu/~phil/bacon.htm.
Before continuing with Julian Simon’s observations on the plethora of ‘false bad news,’ the issue of
‘consensus’ demands a bit more attention; Russell Madden wrote the following encounter with a ‘middleaged petition worker’ in Seattle (where else?) – the petition sought to prohibit the use of tax dollars going to
‘charter schools,’ since such a diversion of tax payer dollars would ‘hurt public education’:
‘But charter schools would hurt public education.’
I looked at him and said, ‘I think all schools should be private. I don’t think government
has any business regulating ideas.’
The astonished expression on his face quickly hardened into annoyance. ‘But we live in a
consensus society,’ he said, evidently astounded at my abysmal ignorance. ‘We’ve voted
to support public education.’
‘There are some things that we are not supposed to vote on,’ I said, growing equally
irked. ‘That’s what the Constitution and the Bill of Rights are all about.’ (18, emphasis
added)
… this random encounter encapsulated on of the biggest problems undermining the
integrity of our society. This gentlemen’s invocation of the phrase ‘consensus society’
was clearly designed to crush any objections I had to his plans. For him, as long as
people reach a ‘consensus,’ no one else has a legitimate right to complain. Dissenters
simply have to accept what a majority of their fellow citizens desire and have voted to
support. (18-9, emphasis added)
(Even in this, the activist was wrong. In communication theory, ‘consensus decisionmaking’ occurs only when everyone examines an issue and eventually agrees that
solution X is the best one given the constraints of the situation. NB: Everyone has to
agree to support the solution for there to be a true consensus.)
As have most Americans, this activist has all but obliterated the concept of ‘freedom’
from his thoughts and submerged what tattered fragments remain beneath the crushing
weight of ‘consensus,’ that is, democracy or voting….
Pure democracy. Majoritarianism. Collectivism. Consensus. By any name, the notion that
the ‘good’ is defined by how many people support it; that any policy garnering the most
votes can and should be imposed on an unwilling minority; that no area of life should be
off limits to the ‘will of the people’ – all those beliefs are profoundly dangerous. They have
been used throughout history to justify not only the most heinous actions imaginable but
28
29
also those that are the most petty and intrusive on our day-to-day existence. (19)
Next, Madden quotes from an Ayn Rand article, “The New Fascism: Rule by Consensus,” found in her book:
(1967) Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal, 202-220. Madden uses a quote from Rand’s article to unpeel the onion of
subterfuge surrounding contemporary interventionist policies of our governments (Federal, state and local):
As Ayn Rand wrote in “The New Fascism: Rule by Consensus” (in Capitalism: The
Unknown Ideal), governing by consensus means ‘that statistics should be substituted
for truth, vote-counting for principles, numbers for rights, and public polls for morality
…that the number of … adherents should be the criterion of an idea’s truth or falsehood – that any desire should be accepted as a valid claim, provided it is held by a
sufficient number of people – that a majority may do anything it pleases to a minority.
(19)
Was this not what happened in Nazi Germany with the Jews? To the ‘Kulak class’ in Stalin’s Soviet Russia?
To the Shia in Sadam’s Iraq? Madden continues his analysis:
Sadly, the man who confronted me is, of course, correct: we do live in a ‘consensus
society.’ There is no area of society that is not subject in one way or another to the
god of democracy. If some small areas of existence yet remains for us alone to decide,
that simply means the ‘consensus’ has yet to turn its cyclopean eye in that direction.
What the advocates of a ‘consensus society’ have yet to understand – or still refuse to
accept – is that at the end of the road on which they have embarked lies an omnipotent
government, a government that can not only do many things for them, but many things
to them. When the dragon they helped create eventually turns on and devours them, it
will be far too late for them to realize and acknowledge that the only consensus
appropriate for a society is one that supports freedom. (19, emphasis added)
*N.B. Please read the following quotations written by Ayn Rand carefully. Agreement with her point of
view is not the goal, rather the goals are twofold – (i) to address an issue that too often is ignored
(‘consensus’ in the political process); and (ii) to provide a template of how to rationally approach and
discuss any controversial issue – also something that is too often ignored in the ‘public’ education
processes. Rand begins this article, cited by Madden, “The New Fascism: Rule by Consensus,” by
providing dictionary definitions for: Socialism; Fascism; and Statism. She then concludes:
It is obvious that ‘statism’ is the wider, generic term, of which the other two are
specific variants. It is also obvious that statism is the dominant political trend of our
day. But which of those two variants represents the specific direction of that trend?
(202)
Next, Rand draws attention to some subtle points:
Observe that both ‘socialism’ and ‘fascism’ involve the issue of property rights. The
right to property is the right to use and disposal. Observe the differences in those two
theories: socialism negates private property rights altogether, and advocates ‘the
vesting of ownership and control’ in the community as a whole, i.e., in the state;
fascism leaves ownership in the hands of private individuals, but transfers control of
the property to the government. (202-3,
29
30
emphasis in original)
Ownership without control is a contradiction in terms: it means ‘property,’ without
the right to use it or to dispose of it. It means that the citizens retain the responsibility
of holding property, without any of its advantages, while the government acquires
all the advantages without any of the responsibilities. (203, emphasis added)
In this respect, socialism is the more honest of the two theories. I say ‘more honest,’ not
‘better’ – because, in practice, there is no difference between them: both come from the
same collectivist-statist principle, both negate individual rights and subordinate the
individual to the collective, both deliver the livelihood and the lives of the citizens into
the power of an omnipotent government – and the differences between them are only a
matter of time, degree, and superficial detail, such as the choice of slogans by which the
rulers delude their enslaved subjects. ….
She continues by reporting that:
The disgraceful and terrifying answer is: there is no ideological trend today. There is no
ideology. There are no political principles, theories, ideals or philosophy…
…. But since, in fact, neither an individual nor a nation can exist without some form of
ideology, this sort of anti-ideology is now the formal, explicit, dominant ideology of out
bankrupt culture. (203, emphasis in original)
This anti-ideology has a new and very ugly name: it is called ‘Government by Consensus.’
(204)
This is followed by the full and correct quotation of Ayn Rand’s statement found in Madden’s article:
If some demagogue were to offer us, as a guiding creed, the following tenets: that statistics
should be substituted for truth, vote-counting for principles, numbers for rights, and public
polls for morality – that pragmatic, range-of-the-moment expediency should be the criterion
of a country’s interests, and that the number of its adherents should be the criterion of an
truth or falsehood – that any desire of any nature whatsoever should be accepted as a valid
claim, provided it is held by a sufficient number of people – that a majority may do anything
it pleases to a minority – in short, gang rule and mob rule – if a demagogue were to offer it,
he would not get very far. Yet all of it is contained in – and camouflaged by – the notion of
‘Government by Consensus.’ (204)
Rand seeks the definition of just what constitutes ‘government by consensus’ by examining the following
statement written by Tom Wicker in the New York Times (October 11, 1964):
That mainstream is what political theorists have been projecting for years as ‘the national
consensus’ – what Walter Lippmann has aptly called ‘the vital center.’ … Political
moderation, almost by definition, is at the heart of consensus. That is, the consensus generally
sprawls over all acceptable political views – all ideas that are not totally repugnant to and do
not directly threaten some major segment of the population. Therefore, acceptable ideas must
take the view of others into account and that is what is meant by moderation. (204)
Her interpretation is as follows:
30
31
Now let us identify what this means. ‘The consensus generally sprawls over all acceptable
political views…’ Acceptable -- to whom? To the consensus. And since the government is to
be ruled by the consensus, this means that political views are to be divided into those which
are ‘acceptable’ and those which are ‘unacceptable’ to the government. What would be the
criterion of ‘acceptability’? Mr. Wicker supplies it. Observe that the criterion is not
intellectual, not a question of whether certain views are true or false; the criterion is not moral,
not a question of whether the views are right or wrong; the criterion is emotional: Whether the
views are or are not ‘repugnant’ To whom? ‘To some major segment of the population.’ There
is also the additional proviso that those views must not ‘directly threaten’ that major segment.
(205, emphasis in original)
What about minor segments of the population? Are the views that threaten them ‘acceptable’?
What about the smallest segment: the individual? Obviously, the individual and the minority
groups are not to be considered; no matter how repugnant an idea may be to a man and no
matter how gravely it may threaten his life, his work, his future, he is to be ignored or
sacrificed by the omnipotent consensus and its government – unless he has a sizable gang,
to support him.
What exactly is a ‘direct threat’ to any part of the population? In a mixed economy, every
government action is a direct threat to some men and an indirect threat to all. Every
government interference in the economy consists of giving an unearned benefit, extorted
by force, to some men at the expense of others. By what criterion of justice is a consensusgovernment to be guided? By the size of the victim’s gang. (205, emphasis added)
Now note Mr. Wicker’s last sentence: ‘Therefore, acceptable ideas must take the views of
others into account and that is what is meant by moderation.” And just what is meant here
by the ‘views of others’? Of what others? Since it is not the views individuals nor of
minorities, the only discernable meaning is that every ‘major segment’ must take into
account the views of all the other ‘major segments.’ But suppose that a group of socialists
wants to nationalize all factories, and a group of industrialists wants to keep its properties?
Consider the seizure of private property by the current President of Venezuela, Hugo Chávez (Hugo Rafael
Chávez Frias). Chávez is a revolutionary, who sought to come to power through a failed coup d’état in 1992.
He advocates a ‘democratic socialism’, not unlike that of Fidel Castro’s Cuba, in which the so-called ‘means
of production’ (capital) is owned by the ‘entire population’!? With a little effort even a semi-internet
literate person can find examples, even from the BBC, 15 February 2007, “Chavez Threat to Seize Food
Shops.” Reason: failure to abide by price-controls established in 2003 – Once again ‘government pricecontrols’ lead to distorted markets and shortages … And in a column by David Lynch in USA Today,
January 9, 2007 it was reported that Chavez plans to ‘nationalize’ telecommunications and electricity
providers! Who put-up the funds to build these industries? Who bore the risks? Who deserves the rewards?
What have been the records of past attempts at nationalization of industries?
Ayn Rand continues her discussion:
What would it mean, for either group, to ‘take into account’ the views of other? And
what would ‘moderation’ consist of, in such a case? What would constitute ‘moderation’
in a conflict between a group of men who want to be supported at public expense – and
a group of taxpayers who have other uses for their money? What would constitute
‘moderation’ in a conflict between the member of a smaller group, such as a Negro
in the South, who believes that he has an inalienable right to a fair trial – and the
31
32
larger group of Southern racists who believe that the ‘public good’ of their community
permits them to lynch him? What would constitute ‘moderation’ in a conflict between
me and a communist (or between our respective followers, when my views are that I
have an inalienable right to my life, liberty, and happiness – and his views are that the
‘public good’ of the state permits him to rob, enslave, or murder me? (205-6)
There can be no meeting ground, no middle, no compromise between opposite
principles. There can be no such thing as ‘moderation’ in the realm of reason and of
morality. But reason and morality are precisely the two concepts abrogated by the
notion of ‘Government by Consensus.’ (206)
Ayn Rand next describes emphatically that ‘compromise’ is no solution in fact it may involve utter
capitulation resolutely held values and principles –
The advocates of that notion [Government by Consensus] would declare at this point
that any idea which permits no compromise constitutes ‘extremism’ – that any form of
‘extremism,’ any uncompromising stand, is evil – that the consensus ‘sprawls’ only
over those ideas which are amenable to ‘moderation’ – and that ‘moderation’ is the
supreme virtue, superseding reason and morality. (206)
Whatever has happened to being a highly principled individual? Who remembers what sustained Horatio
[Horatius] at the bridge [Pons Sublicius] over the River Tiber in 510 B.C.? Or King Leonidas, the 300
Spartans, and the 700 Thespians at Thermopylae in 450 B.C.? And Rand continues:
This is the clue to the core, essence, motive, and real meaning of the doctrine of
‘Government by Consensus’: the cult of the compromise. Compromise is the precondition, the necessary, the imperative of a mixed economy. The ‘consensus’
doctrine is an attempt to translate the brute facts of a mixed economy into an
ideological – or anti-ideological -- system and to provide them with a semblance
of justification.
One might ask, “Where does the notion arise?” Probably from the rejection of ‘moral absolutism’ – there
are some basic standards of good behavior governing human interaction – in favor of ‘Moral Relativism.’
The idea of moral relativism came to epitomize the 1960s -- and may be encapsulated by two popular ‘catchphrases’ of the era – “If it feels good, do it!” and, and even more characteristic of the era, was the
admonition by the psychologist, Timothy Leary (1920-1996), the guru of the ‘counter-culture’, who
advocated the use of psychedelic drugs, especially LSD: “Turn on, tune in, and drop out.” According to
Wikipedia:
… moral relativism is the position that moral or ethical propositions do not reflect
objective and/or universal moral truths, but instead make claims relative to social,
cultural, historical or personal circumstances. Moral relativists hold that no
universal standard exists by which to assess an ethical propositions’ truth; it is the
opposite of moral absolutism. Relativistic positions often see moral values as
applicable only within certain cultural boundaries or in the context of individual
preferences. An extreme relativist position might suggest that judging the moral
or ethical judgment or acts of another person or group has no meaning , though
most relativists propounded a more limited version of the theory. (www.en.wikipedia.
org/wiki/Moral_relativism)
32
33
Another website (www.moral-relativism.com) provides similar insights:
Moral relativism is the view that ethical standards, morality, and positions of right or
wrong are culturally based and therefore subject to a person’s individual choice. We
can all decide
One of the primary sources of ‘moral relativism’ is to be found in the writings of the 19th Century German
philosopher – Friedrich Nietzsche (1844 - 1900), especially: Beyond Good and Evil and Thus Spoke
Zarathustra (1883). In Zarathustra Nietzsche proposed the idea of the Übermensch, the ‘superman,’ and
by extension, the Üntermensch, or the ‘subhuman,’ concepts which were to play such an important role
during Adolf Hitler’s Nazi regime in interwar Germany … Slavs, Jews and Gypsies were all considered to be
Üntermensch, or the ‘subhuman’ and worthy of extermination. Yes, ideas have consequences! A good
example of moral relativism may be found in the ‘existentialism’ of Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980), who
maintained that the basis of an individual’s moral acts is/or should be found in the personal or subjective
moral core. Sartre was one of the most influential philosophers of the mid- to late-Twentieth Century.
Another website (www.moral-relativism.com) provides similar insights:
Moral relativism is the view that ethical standards, morality, and positions of right or
wrong are culturally based and therefore subject to a person’s individual choice. We
can all decide what is right for ourselves. You decide what’s right for you, and I’ll
decide what’s right for me.
Moral relativism has steadily been accepted as the primary moral philosophy of modern
society.
What this implies is that the individual has been transmuted into a demigod.
Julian Simon seeks to understand the current intellectual situation, much as John Strossel has done. He
asks a provocative question:
Why is there so much false bad news about the subjects of the environment,
resources, and population? From the very first public talk about population growth
that I gave in 1969, and the first article that I wrote for the broad public in Science
in 1980, this question has arisen again and again from the few people who took the
argument seriously.
An even tougher question is this one: Why do we believe so much false bad news about
the environment, resources, and population? What we read and hear would not matter
unless we also come to believe that ‘news’ is true. Hence this book [1999 Hoodwinking
the Nation] is about a complex structure (emphasis added):
◦
◦
◦
◦
the nature of the false bad news;
the production of false bad news by researchers, politicians, organizations;
the dissemination of it by the press and television; and
our propensities as human beings that lead us to consume (and be consumed by)
that body of false statements. (1, emphasis in original)
33
34
He then provides a list of factors that account for “Why do false statements of bad news dominate public
discussion of these topics?:
◦ There is a funding incentive for scholars and institutions to produce bad news
about population, resources, and the environment. The AID [Agency for
International Development] and the UN’s Fund for Population Activities
disburse more than $ 100 million each year to bring about fertility decline.
Gwartney, Stroup and Lee [2005. Common Sense Economics: What Everyone Should Know about Wealth
and Prosperity] have noted that: Incentives Matter. In simple terms, if you want more of a certain activity or
behavior, reward it, if you want less, then penalize it. The ‘reward’ may be profits (sales), an ice cream cone (a child
minding his/her parents), or a kindly word (a ‘Thank you’) for a good deed done. The penalty may be a higher tax on
the activity, a spanking, or deprivation of a pleasurable activity (watching a favorite TV program for a naughty child) or
a rebuke for bad behavior. Responses are not instantaneous, but require time for behavioral adjustments (a ‘lagged
effect’). Since the effects are ‘lagged’ there is a general tendency by ‘economic illiterates’ to fail to make the
connection between ‘cause’ and ‘effect.’ This failure provides politicians with the opportunity to avoid responsibility
for their actions, and, then blame the free market, in general (so-called ‘market-failure,’ à la A.C. Pigou), ‘greedy
businessmen’ who place ‘profits’ above all other things, or member of the opposing political party!
◦ Bad news sells books, newspapers, and magazines; good news is not half so interesting.
Is it a wonder that there are lots of bad-news bestsellers warning about pollution,
population, population growth, and natural-resource depletion but none telling us
the facts about improvement?
◦ There are a host of possible psychological explanations for this phenomenon about which
I am reluctant speculate. But these two seem reasonably sure (1) Many people have
a propensity to compare the present and the future with an ideal state of affairs
rather than with the past or with some feasible state; the present and the future
inevitably look bad in such a comparison. (2) The cumulative nature of exponential
growth models has the power to seduce and bewtitch.
On November 26, 1999 the Investor’s Business Daily published on its front page, its Sixth of the ‘20th
Century’s Ten Greatest Myths’: “Overpopulation Fears Fading Fast: Dire Consequences Fall Under
Weight of Free Markets’ by Daniel J. Murphy. This article, if read carefully, reveals the shifts in emphasis of
those critics of capitalism (‘free-markets’), individual liberty, and contemporary Western civilization. First,
it was global cooling and the coming Ice Age, then, the starvation of hundreds of millions, and running-out
of natural resources, and now, global warming. Unfortunately, these ‘true believers’1 find it difficult, if not
impossible, to reject or simply abandon their ‘false bad ideas’2 in the face of contradictory empirical
evidence. Murphy acknowledges that over the past hundred (100) years or so the population of the world has
‘rocketed skyward’. Yet, “All the while the human race thrives at unprecedented levels of wealth.” He
continues:
Go figure. Then think freedom and markets for ever-improving results.
Their reality has punctured the false idea that too many people will drain Earth’s ability
to sustain life in the not-too-distant future. It was a serious worry some three decades
34
35
ago. Scholar and U.S. official Paul Ehrlich published The Population Bomb, a late
1960s best seller predicting that humanity’s demands would soon sap the land and sea
of their riches.
Ehrlich2, a trained entomologist (‘bug-expert’), with an expertise in Lepidopeteria (butterflies), became wellknown in the late 1960s with the publication of an article in the New Scientist (a popular magazine, not a
scholarly journal). The article was not peer-reviewed (read, evaluated and commented-on on the basis of its
scientific merits by recognized experts in the field). This article, a re-hash of the First Edition of Thomas
Mathus’s Eighteenth Century Essay on the Principle of Population as It Affects the Future Improvement
of Society (1796).2 The article launched Ehrlich’s career, not in the field of entomology, but as a
‘demographer’ and ‘pseudo-scientific environmentalist’. (Harsh words? Yes, but wait for the evidence!)
Nonetheless, in the 1967 (December) article Ehrlich predicted famines between 1970 and 1985, as
population growth outstripped the world’s resource base, including its food supply. Ehrlich was encouraged
to write the book, The Population Bomb (1968) by then executive director of the Sierra Club, David
Brower. [See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_R_Ehrlich #Education.] Ehrlich was hardly a disinterested scientific
observer of the human condition, since he was one of the founders of the Zero Population Growth (ZPG)
group, a group that advocated active population control.
On the first page of The Population Bomb (1968) Ehrlich wrote:
… the battle to feed all of humanity is over…. In the 1970s and the 1980s hundreds
of millions of people will starve to death in spite of any crash program embarked
upon now. [Emphasis added]
When these predictions failed to materialize, they were removed [or, is it: purged?] from the next edition of
the book (1971), as if they had never been made. Is this the response called for by the Baconian Scientific
Method? Hardly! You remember from high school science courses: Observe, Classify, Identify (patterns in
the data), Formulate (hypotheses – null, HO and the alternative, HA), Test your hypothesis (H0) in the ‘real
world’ and either Accept the Null Hypothesis (H0) at some level of probability or Reject it and Adopt the
Alternative Hypothesis (HA)! So one may only conclude that Ehrlich has chosen, deliberately, to abandon the
tradition of the sciences and the Scientific Method, since HIS OPINION clearly trumps SCIENTIFIC
PROOFS. After all he did stipulate the dates and the numbers of expected deaths from starvation and
malnutrition!
When criticized for his predictions and his actions by opponents, Ehrlich claimed that these were NOT
predictions! They were merely ‘scenarios’. If they were simply ‘scenarios’, why bother to omit them from
the second edition of The Population Bomb? His reaction raises two serious questions: (i) how can one
claim the mantle of ‘scientist’ when one deliberately abandons the Baconian Scientific Method? and (ii) Is
Paul Ehrlich being ‘intellectually honest’ when he re-labels ‘predictions’ as ‘scenarios’? What can explain
such behaviors? Julian Simon in Hoodwinking the Nation has identified ten factors that help explain such
curious behavior which typify much of what currently passes for ‘scientific inquiry’ in such diverse fields as
demography, ‘global warming’/ ‘climate change’, conservation/resource depletion. Simon’s explanations
range from “bad news sells” to “psychological propensities” and “the idealistic belief that such warnings
[‘dire predictions’] can mobilize institutions and individuals to make things even better; they think that
nothing bad can come from such prophecies.” [1999, 2-3] One may tell untruths, so long as the intentions
35
36
are ‘good’! This is reminiscent of the modern criticism of Scholastic Philosophers who are known for their
disputes over the number of angels that could dance on the head of a pin!3 A less favorable and
uncomplimentary explanation might be a ‘will to power’, which is felt to be well deserved (an entitlement)
and derived from ‘pathological egocentricity’ – a willingness to impose their views and wills on others.
[See: ‘Narcissism’ under ‘Personality Disorders’ in the American Psychiatric Association’s (APA)
Diagnostic Statistical Manual IV-TR (DSM IV-TR)]
Now, back to Daniel Murphy’s article in the Investor’s Business Daily (IBD):
Followers of Ehrlich who urged concerted action against burgeoning populations
did not account for human ingenuity and adaptation. Both have outstripped the birth
rate at nearly every turn. (Emphasis added)
This was precisely the point made by Julian L. Simon in his extensive research into ‘the economics of
demography’ (study of population) – see: The Ultimate Resource [humans themselves] and Hoodwinking
the Nation – and his deep-seated belief in the ‘free-market.’ The reasons for Ehrlich’s failure to predict (oh!
I forgot, formulate a scenario) accurately are old, going back to the baseless assumptions made by Malthus
[1796] – population is permitted to expand GEOMETRICALLY (1,2,4,8,16,32,64,128, … ∞) through time,
while food (or other resources) are restricted to ARITHEMETIC GROWTH RATES (1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,… n).
The full implications of this assumption that resources can only grow arithmetically are a subtle, yet
significant, error – it means that technology is HELD CONSTANT. This was the underlying point of
Simon’s famous 1980 wager with Ehrlich. [See: “Julian Simon’s Bet With Paul Ehrlich,” @
www.overpopulation.com]4
Resources, Technology and Population
Perhaps the greatest contradiction to both Malthus and Ehrlich may be found in the increased
productivity of agriculture. Technological developments of the Second Agricultural Revolution – improved
plows and the use of artificial fertilizers served to increase the productivity of both the land and of labor. But
it was the improvement of the plants themselves that proved to be of greatest significance – the development
of hybrids and genetic engineering. Their significance may be observed in corn production statistics in the
United States, see: table below:
Corn for Grain, U.S., 1866 – 2005.
Year
Harvested Acres
(000,000 acres)
Production
(000,000 bushels)
Yield
(bushels/acre)
________________________________________________________________________
1866
30.02
730.81
24.3
1876
55.28
1,478.17
26.7
1886
73.91
1,782.77
24.1
36
37
1896
89.07
2,671.05
30.0
1906
95.62
3,032.91
31.7
1916
100.56
2,425.21
24.1
1926
83.28
2,140.20
25.7
1936
67.83
1,258.67
18.6
1946
78.41
2,916.09
34.2
1956
64.87
3,075.34
47.4
1966
57.00
4,167.61
73.1
1976
71.51
6,289.16
88.0
1986
68.91
8,225.76
119.4
1996
72.64
9, 232.56
127.1
2004
73.63
11,807.22
160.4
2005
74.33
11,032.11
148.4
2006*
78.32
149.1
2007*
81.78
148.0
_______________________________________________________________________
Source: U.S. Department of Agriculture, National Agricultural Statistical Service, annual figures
are available at www.nass.usda.gov.
Even a cursory examination of these data reveals an almost constant level of productivity (bushels per acre)
from the 1860s through the 1930s. Variations in productivity around a common trend line reflect several
factors, including: (i) weather, (ii) market conditions (prices) and (iii) capital inputs such as improved access
to natural (guano) and artificial fertilizers (nitrates, after Muscle Shoals had been developed during the First
World War). Perhaps the most striking deviation occurs in 1936 – the middle year of the Dust Bowl – and
the nation’s worst heat wave and drought on record!5 This coincided with the world-wide Great Depression
and contracting national economies.
The rapid growth of corn productivity in the post-World War II era is the result of the development of
hybrids. Early in the Twentieth Century (1906), G.H. Shull, a geneticist at Cold Spring, Harbor, N.Y., started
experimental research on inheritance in corn. A decade later (1918), D.F. Jones, a corn researcher at the
Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station suggested that corn might be hybridized using “the double37
38
cross hybrids involving four inbred parents.” “The first commercial double-cross hybrid, Burr-Learning, was
released and recommended by the Connecticut station in 1921.” [www.ars.usda.gov/is/timeline/corn.htm.] These
hybrids faced farmer resistance to the adoption of a new technology. The reservations of farmers were
quickly overcome by demonstration programs and field observation, which provided concrete evidence of
the ‘value-added’ potential of hybrid corn, first by the older farmers, who owned their land), and
subsequently by younger farmers with mortgage payments. So rapid was the adoption process, that: “The
demand for hybrid seed in 1935 in the Corn Belt exceeded production….” Unfortunately, the penetration of
hybrid corn was buffeted by both the economic collapse of the Great Depression and the drought of the Dust
Bowl. With a return to the normal temperature and precipitation phase of the Middle West/Great Plains
weather cycle, the full benefits of hybrid corn would be realized.6
The more than six-fold increase in harvested grain per acre in half a century and the identification of
hybridization – a technological improvement – as its source, makes a lie of Malthus’ and Ehrlich’s
predictions of mass starvation based on their assumption of ‘holding technology constant’. Notice that there
were dramatic increases in acreage devoted to corn production during both the First (1916) and the Second
(1946) World Wars, responding to market signals, i.e., higher prices. Over the past half century, the
number of acres harvested has remained essentially constant, in the 64 to 78 million acre range, while
production increased by nearly 2.8 times. Clearly, technology has increased the capacity of an acre of land
to support a growing population! Technology trumps the ‘population explosion’. Two further
considerations: (i) similar results occurred with the production of wheat [see: the most recent National
Agricultural Statistical Service data]; and (ii) the potential that these ‘high-yield’ grains hold for improving
agricultural production in the developing world, reducing malnutrition and starvation.
It should be noted that similar results have been attained in the improvement of wheat strains through
hybridization [See: Table below.] Once again, the Second World War provides a watershed for revealing the
role of hybridization and the productivity of wheat. The number of bushels per acre of wheat remained
essentially constant, at less than 20 bushels per acre from just after the American Civil War (1861-65) to the
end of the Second World War (1945). During the second half of the
All Wheat, U.S., 1866 – 2006.
Production
Harvested Acres
(000,000 of bushels/
Yield
Year
(000,000 acres)
acres)
(bushels/acre)
________________________________________________________________________
1866
15.41
169.70
11.0
1886
36.31
531.54
14.1
1906
46.23
740.51
16.0
1926
56.62
832.21
14.7
38
39
1946
67.11
1,162.12
17.2
1966
49.61
1,304.89
26.3
1986
60.69
2,090.57
34.4
1996
62.82
2,277.39
36.3
2004
49.99
2,158.25
43.2
2005
50.12
2,104.69
42.0
2006
46.81
1,812.04
38.7
2007
52.48
2,114.02
________________________________________________________________________
Source: U.S. Department of Agriculture, National Agricultural Statistical Service,
annual figures are available at www.nass.usda.gov.
Twentieth Century wheat yields, on average, more than doubled in the United States, thanks to hybrid
varieties.
Improvements in the productivity of food crops based on the development of new, hybrid varieties
are not confined to the primary grains of the mid-latitudes. Crops cultivated in the low latitudes or tropics,
where malnutrition had been most severe were the subjects of hybridization efforts. Perhaps the best known
example has been the result of contributions made by the Ford and Rockefeller Foundations for the
establishment of the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) in the Philippines in 1960. Through
hybridization of rice and the creation of a high-yield variety – IR-8 – per hectare outputs over the last fifty
years, have increased by more than 2.5 times. [See table below] Over the 1961-2005 period world output of
rice nearly tripled, while productivity of land in rice more than doubled and the area under cultivation rose
by merely 34 percent. World rice production increased at a 2.4 percent average annual rate. This growth rate
should be compared with the growth rate of population. The development of hybrid, high-yield tuber crops,
including cassava, sweet potato, yams and arods, have been conducted at the Central Tuber Crops Research
Institute (India) since 1963.[See: www.ctcri.org.] Research for the improvement of both maize and wheat
has been carried out at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center [Centro Internacional de
Mejoramiento de Maiz y Trigo (CIMMYT)] in Mexico. [See www.cimmyt.org]
World Rice Production, 1961 – 2004.
Harvested Acres
Production
(000 of bushels/
39
Yield
(tons/
40
Year
(000 hectares)
1961
115,501
215,655
1.87
1971
134,735
317,762
2.36
1981
145,291
401,061
2.82
1991
146,635
518,402
3.54
2004
155,257
606,441
4.04
618,447
4.02
2005
hectares)
hectares)
________
Source: International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) @ www.irri.org/science/ricestat/index.asp.
So, there you have it, the ability to extract more from the same, or even, less factors of production is
associated with the introduction of time and technology (the contriving brain of man – Julian Simon’s
‘ultimate resource’) into the analysis of population and natural resources. If past is prologue to future, the
silly notions of the so-called ‘population explosion’ and its visions of ‘mass starvation,’ which have always
and everywhere been unable to predict future events and must be ‘entombed’ once again with the oak stake
through it’s heart! That’s ‘real science.’
Back to the Overpopulation Myths of Paul Ehrlich
Murphy continues his summary of the ‘overpopulation myth’ by noting:
There’s even a change in the tune heard these days among population-control
advocates, who have shifted away from singing the blues about overwhelming
numbers to crooning the quality of life ditties. {Emphasis added]
Yet the population-boom-doom myth still holds sway with the smartest and
richest among us. Microsoft’s Bill Gates is one.
In the myth’s benign form, supplying food to the world’s hungry stands out as
the best reason for taking well-intended action. ….
But Ehrlich’s dire forecasts for the 1970s and beyond never materialized. Few
seem to fret any longer about the mass of humanity.
Murphy’s observations are continued on page A-22, but there they take a strange twist:
‘As the environment has become a subject of more importance over the last 20 to
40
41
30 years,’ explained Zero Population Growth’s Executive Director Peter Kostmayer,
‘we have begun this kind of shift away from the numbers discussion , which is still
important, and more toward the environmental impact.’
This is a terribly revealing statement, coming from the Executive Director of the Zero Population Growth
group, which counts Paul Ehrlich as one of its founders. But it is entirely predictable and focuses attention of
the true motivations of such groups. Once the rates of population growth began to decline and the specter
of the predicted “hundreds of millions of people starving to death” failed to materialize (and catch the
attention of the citizens and the mainstream media), new shocking catastrophes had to be imagined. One
can grasp this jumping from one potential future catastrophe when predicted outcomes failed to occur to the
next, and as these predictions too failed to materialize, moving on to a ‘new’ potential global catastrophe!
This is little more than an academic equivalent of the infamous gambling ‘shell-game’ of the late 19th
Century, but this time the pay-offs are in the billions of research dollars! It is possible to graph these actions:
Dates
Major
Participants
Outcom es
Predicted
Actual
Issues
1968
Paul Ehrlich
Population explosion
Mass starvation
1968
Garett Hardin
ZPG
Population explosion
Population control
196575
1970
2005
Gaylord Nelson,
Sen. Wisconsin
Al Gore
Never occurred
In China
Climate change
Coming ice-age
Slight warming
Climate change
Global warming
Little evidence
Environmental
degradation
Quality of life
Resource depletion
Dirtier environment
More abundant
Earth Day
Less pollution
Climate change
Rising sea-level
Not noticeable
‘It’s the environment, stupid!’
The logic-train of these movements involves: population growth (holding technology constant) → mass
famine and starvation → increased cultivation → involving deforestation (tropics) + use of more
marginal land (drier steppelands) → environmental degradation (including soil erosion, use of pesticides
[DDT], herbicides and artificial fertilizers; runoff of nutrients; algae blooms; ….) → global warming! It
may all be traced back to excessive population growth.
When the predictions of ‘mass starvation’ failed to materialize, a new catastrophe had to be found, in order
to sustain organizational cash flows. When in fact, it was concluded that there was more than sufficient
supplies of food available to feed the existing and expanding population, the problem, it seems, was
distribution. The successes of science and the development of higher-yielding, genetically modified tropical
41
42
grains, first rice (IR-8, developed at the International Rice Institute in the Philippines, and later, the
International Wheat Institute in Mexico, both the IRI and the IWI are funded by the Rockefeller Foundation)
were denigrated. According to the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO), between 1967
and 1985 the output of IR-8 increased rice production in Asia at an average rate of 3 percent per year! [See:
www.fao.org/wairdocs/fac/x5801e/x5801e08.htm and the International Rice Research Institute @ www.irri.org. ] These
criticisms were made for social and political reasons – “only wealthy farmers” can afford to use them,
because they require costly artificial fertilizers – somehow this sounds vaguely reminiscent of the silliness
and distorting effects of the policies of Lenin and Stalin towards the so-called ‘kulaks’ (or, wealthy peasants
= anyone with a tin roof) during the early years of the Soviet period. The following description from the
period has been provided by Alexander Erlich (1960. The Soviet Industrialization Debate, 1924-1928):
The well-to-do stratum of the peasantry and the middle peasant who wants to become
well-to-do are afraid to accumulate nowadays. A situation is created in which the
peasant is afraid to cover his house with an iron roof because he is afraid to be branded
a ‘kulak’; if he buys a machine he does it in such a way as to hide it from the communists.
The higher technology becomes conspirative. … The well-to-do peasant is dissatisfied
because we do not let him accumulate and hire farm hands; on the other hand, the poor
peasants who suffer from overpopulation are grumbling because they are not permitted to
hire themselves. (15, emphasis in original)
The culmination of the early Soviet economic policies, known as ‘War Communism’ was a disincentive to
sow and harvest agricultural commodities, declining ‘marketable’ products, and severe shortages in the
cities. Even ‘forced’ confiscation of peasant output proved counter-productive, which in turn resulted in
Stalin’s collectivization drive in agriculture. The collectivization (confiscation of both land and animals) was
an integral part of the Soviet Union’s First Five Year Plan (1928-32) and Stalin’s policy for the ‘liquidation
of the kulaks as a class’ – where the term ‘kulak’ was applied to any peasant who had owned twenty-four
acres of land or more. These practices led to the death of more than 7 million peasants. For confirmation of
the human costs of COMMUNISM in the UKRAINE, see: Arten Yaroslav Luhovy, “The 1932-33 FamineGenocide in the Soviet Ukraine,” @ www.faminegenocide.com; and www.historyplace.com/worldhistory/genocide/stalin,
For an analysis of the economic/political processes, see: Erlich, Chapter IX, “The Final Decision,” 163-87,
especially, 170-8.
Somehow the argument that “only the wealthy” farmers can afford the hybrid-seed, the fertilizers, and the
capital equipment required for production, implies ‘unfairness,’ increased concentration of wealth, and
harming the ‘rural peasant class’! Once again the focus is on ‘production’ and ‘producers’ with NO
CONCERN FOR THE CONUMERS! The use of hybrid grain substantially increases agricultural output,
and as even the intellectually short-changed know, increased supply results in falling prices, thereby
benefiting ALL consumers, but especially poor urban workers! Hence, opposition to the spread of the
cultivation of hybrid grains in the developing world serves to retard economic development, harming the
poorest, in both urban centers and on the rural landscape. Frederic Bastiat would be saddened that few
bother, after a century and a half, to pay attention to the ‘things that are unseen’.
The flames of fear that were whipped-up against ‘genetically modified’ foods, was often based on poorly
thought-out and sloppily implemented research, or sheer emotionalism. [See: for example: Greenpeace –
www.greenpeace.org/international/campaigns/ genetic-engineering.html] The poster-boy for such intellectual fraud is
42
43
one Jeremy Rifkin, with a BA in economics from the Wharton School (University of Pennsylvania) social
activism and an MA in International Relations from Tufts. Rifkin began a life-long career of, as a
‘professional scaremonger’ opposing technology and technological change in the mid-1960s. He was a
radical, anti-Viet-Nam War protester and a co-founder of the New American Movement (NAM). In 1972 he
was involved in the formation of the Peoples Bicentennial Commission (PBC), proposing a new American
Revolution! Despite his early training in economics, he “elevated human rights over property rights,”
declaring that “healthcare was a human right,” instead of a market commodity to be sold to the highest
bidder. (www.vjolt.net/vol5/issue2/v5i2a5-Naik.html#1.] Most economists disagree with these views, e.g., James D.
Gwartney and Richard L. Stroup (1993) What Everyone Should Know about Economics and Prosperity
(32-8, emphasis added) have written:
Private Ownership: People will be more industrious and use resources more wisely
when property is privately owned. (32)
One must evaluate this statement with reference to Stalin’s ‘Collectivization Drive’ during the First Five
Year Plan (1928-1932) and subsequent periods when the USSR was unable to feed its population. It was not
until the 1970s that the Soviets began to enter the world markets to purchase grain, instead of lowering its
people’s standard of living.
Gwartney and Stroup continue their analysis:
Private ownership of property involves three things: (a) the right to exclusive use,
(b) legal protection against invaders, and (c) the right to transfer. Property is a broad
term that includes labor services, ideas, literature, and natural resources, as well as
physical assets like buildings, machines, and land. Private ownership allows individuals
to decide how they will use their property. But it also makes them accountable for their
actions.
The important thing about private ownership is the structure of incentives that emanate
from it. There are four major reasons why this incentive structure will promote economic
progress. (32)
First, private ownership encourages wise stewardship….
Second, private ownership encourages people to develop their property and use it
productively…. (33)
Third, private owners have a strong incentive to use their resources in ways that are
beneficial to others…. (34) and
Fourth, private ownership promotes the wise development and conservation of resources
for the future…. (35)
Additionally, N. Gregory Mankiw, former head of President Bush’s Council of Economic Advisors (CEA)
has written, in his ‘million dollar’ introductory economics text:
Most important, markets work, only if property rights are enforced. A farmer won’t
43
44
grow food if he expects his crop to be stolen; a restaurant won’t serve meals unless it
is assumed that customers will pay before they leave; and a music company won’t
produce CDs if too many potential customers avoid paying by making illegal copies.
(N.G. Mankiw. 2007. Principles of Macroeconomics, 4th Ed., 11)
As a ‘neo-luddite,’ Rifkin opposed technology, as a source of environmental degradation, and supported the
Green Movement. He was especially opposed to genetic engineering and Genetically Modified Organisms
(GMOs), out of fear of potential unforeseen consequences. It must be observed explicitly that, strangely,
there is no mention of the first commercial product of recombinant DNA – the E. coli bacteria, producing
human insulin – increasing supply at the time of increased need, resulting from the growth of Type-II
diabetes. This bacteria-produced human insulin involves far less danger to users, far fewer reactions than
insulin obtained from the pancreas of slaughtered animals which was introduced in 1978. Nor has there been
much discussion of Calgene’s genetically-engineered, slow-ripening tomato FlavrSavr (permiting growers to
serve larger markets by making shipping the product to market easier).
What is the ultimate outcome that may be expected, as a result of such opposition to ‘technology’ and the
use of technology to increase the productivity of the land (increase the number of units of output (say
bushels) per unit of factor input (acres of land and/or units of labor)? First, and foremost, a decline in the
ability of a unit of land to support a given population → decline in the output of food = increases in prices of
food → reduction in the ability of lower income populations to have access to quality kilocalories =
malnutrition → increase in death rates = smaller populations and/or demand for greater governmental
transfers of wealth to support lower income populations → reduced incentives for production ….
Remember: Stalin’s use of force against the ‘wealthy’ peasantry and genocide – the ‘liquidation of the
kulaks as a class’? So, a death-rate solution to the over-population problem! Increased governmental
control over individuals – see: China’s current population control policies and consider Garrett
Hardin’s desired political solutions [1968. “The Tragedy of the Commons,” Science, (162), 1243-8]..
First, it was ‘human induced’ climate change – global cooling and the coming ice age. Then, there was
the criticism of the ‘genetically modified’ (GMOs) high-yield grains that had helped stave-off mass
starvation and feed the growing populations (an ‘anti-technology’ movement, the equivalent of ‘intellectual
luddites’).
Under the heading ‘Shift in Emphasis,’ Daniel Murphy, then quotes Stephen Moore, of the Cato Institute,
noting that Kostmayer’s shift from ‘numbers’ toward ‘the environmental impact’:
This is a radical departure from the origins of the population control movement, which
was intended to control fertility through coercion, not to give choice. [Emphasis added]
For an extreme example of these demands for coercive population control measures, one should read
carefully, Garrett Hardin. 1968. “The Tragedy of the Commons,” Science, Vol. 162 No. 3859 (December
13), 1243-1248; this article is available on-line @: www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/162/ 3859/1243. His
44
45
argument is couched in the idea of the medieval or feudal ‘three-field-fallow’ agricultural system, under
which the ‘laird of the manor’ would alternate land-use in a three year cycle in which alternating fields were
permitted to go uncultivated, in order to ‘recover’ their fertility every third year. The typical feudal land use
patterns involved the planting of ‘winter corns’ – wheat and rye; ‘spring corns’ – barley, wheat and peas; and
the fallow. Interestingly, under William I (the Conqueror) more than half of the land in England as
‘honours’ was held by 180 ‘tenents-in-chief’, who, in turn, supported more than 5,000 knights
(subinfeudation). [See: the Doomsday Book of 1086] It must be remembered that the King, technically
owned all the land, providing castles and lands to his ‘tenents’ in return for their services to the king – both
civil and military. During the fallow period, the ‘laird’ permitted his ‘serfs’ – landless peasants that provided
labor supporting the ‘tenents’ and their knights – to graze their animals (goats, sheep, and cattle) on the
fallowed land. These lands were referred to as the ‘commons,’ since they were open to all for grazing their
animals. The so-called ‘tragedy’ is that the first to gain access to the ‘fallows’ got the best grass, and hence
the most milk, cheese, butter and meat! How unfair!
One can discern a similar pattern in the settling of the American West (and is a popular theme in many
Western films) – the risk-takers were the first to settle, and they, pursuing their own self-interest, occupied
the BEST land, i.e., the most fertile, most productive, and best access to water. These early settlers endured
hostile Native Americans, economic hardships (great distance from markets), as well as, social isolation!
Once economic and social amenities were in-place (roads, railroads, towns, and schools), less venturesome,
risk-averse settlers were induced to move to the western frontier, where they had to occupy less-fertile land,
often without easy access to water sources. This too has been considered unfair [especially in romantic films
pitting flinty and unyielding cattle ranchers (or, in more class-conscious terms, ‘cattle barons’) against
warm-hearted, victimized farmers]. I guess this is by design – to inflame the sensibilities of ‘ordinary
citizens’ by linking cattlemen with the post-Civil War ‘Robber Barons’ – those who invested time, treasure
and talent in the creation of America’s industrial base, providing jobs and products for a rapidly urbanizing
population. This economic reality, those willing to bear the risks, deserve to reap the rewards (‘incentives
matter’), seems to offend the sensibilities of many in contemporary society. Don’t ya just love the ‘class
warfare’ rhetoric!
Citing a report published by the U.N Food and Agricultural Organization (UN FAO), Murphy notes:
… the number of undernourished people in developing nations has fallen below 800
million, or 40 million fewer famished than five years earlier….
What’s the secret to fewer people going hungry than in yesteryear? On one level,
there’s better farming, and thus more food for more people.
Farmland is leaps and bounds more productive than decades ago.
Figures on increased agricultural productivity in recent times in the U.S alone are
stunning. From 1980 to 1996, the country’s nearly billion acres of farmland shrank
6.8%. During a similar 15-year period, though, total U.S. farm output for livestock
and crops grew 24.8%. For crops alone, 9.4%
One of the crucial issues in the contemporary world has been the ‘population question’ and the rhetoric of
45
46
the ‘population bomb’ and the ‘population explosion’. This issue is not new. Population, population growth
rates, and the ability of the land to support an increasing population have been the focus of much intellectual
debate [and, wasted effort and time] over the past two hundred years. The most significant of the early
statements on population were written by Thomas R. Malthus (1766-1834), Essay on the Principle of
Population as It Affects the Future Improvement of Society, initially published in 1798. In its crudest form,
Malthus’ view may be stated as ‘human population growth tends to outstrip its resource base or food
supply.’ Before considering Malthus and Malthusianism, it is important to put world population and its
growth into perspective.
World Population, 1800-1996
Year
Population
1800
1.0 billion
1930
2.0 billion
1960
3.0 billion
1975
4.0 billion
1983
4.7 billion
1989
5.2 billion
1996
5.8 billion
_____________________________________
At this gross level, it is clear that the world’s population has been increasing, and at an increasing rate, e.g.,
it took 130 years to add a billion people (1800 to 1930), but only 30 years to add the next billion people
(1930 to 1960) and 15 years to add the next billion people (1960 to 1975). This data appears, at first glance,
to support Malthus’ conclusions that population tends to grow geometrically, i.e., 1,2,4,8,16,32,.....N or to
experience exponential growth. There is little doubt that there is a relationship between exponential annual
growth rates (percent/year) and the doubling time (in years) of some factor (money, population):
Growth rate
Doubling time
(%/yr)
(years)
____________________________________________
0.1
700
0.5
140
1.0
70
2.0
35
3.0
24
4.0
18
5.0
14
7.0
10
10.0
7
____________________________________________
It is important to identify where population growth is taking place and the rates at which population is
increasing:
46
47
Regional Distribution of the World’s Population:, 1989, and 1996.
(Percent)
Natural
Natural
Increase
Increase
Region
1989
(%)
1996
(%)
__________________________________________________________________________
Subsaharan Africa
10.03
3.1
2.7
4.69
2.7
2.1 (NE)
2.6 (NA)
56.09
1.9
1.4
Latin America/
Caribbean
8.43
2.1
1.6
North America
5.24
0.6
0.7
Europe
9.51
0.3
0.1 (WE)
Soviet Union
5.51
0.8
(Z)
Oceania
0.49
1.2
1.1
Near East/North Africa
Asia
World Population
(millions)
5,239,372
1.8
1.4
_____________________________________________________________________________
Source: U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, World Population Profile, 1989;
and U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, World Population
Profile: 1996.
From this data two things are clear: first, the most rapid rates of natural increases in population, births minus
deaths over some period, are in the developing regions of the world; and, second, the rates of natural
increase, worldwide and regionally, have declined over the 1989-1996 period.
By identifying countries with the highest and lowest population growth rates, an even clearer picture of the
world’s population distribution may be brought into focus.
47
48
Regional Distribution of the World’s Population and Growth Rates, by Country:
1989, and 1996.
Population (in millions)
Ave. Ann. G.R. (%)
Nation
1989
1996
1989
1996
____________________________________________________________________
Kenya
Syria
Iraq
Zimbabwe
Nigeria
24.3
12.0
18.1
9.9
115.3
28.2
15.6
21.4
11.3
103.9
4.2
3.8
3.8
3.3
2.9
2.3
3.4
3.7
1.4
3.0
United Kingdom
57.0
58.5
0.2
0.2
Italy
57.6
57.5
0.1
(Z)
East Germany
16.6
(Z)
West Germany
61.0
-01
Germany
83.5
-0.2
Hungary
10.6
10.0
-0.2
-0.4
____________________________________________________________________
Source: U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, World Population
Profile, 1989 (Washington, D.C.: U.S.G.P.O., 1989).
U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, World Population
Profile, 1996 (Washington, D.C.: U.S.G.P.O., 1996).
These data indicate that the most rapid rates of population growth occurred in Subsaharan Africa and the
Middle East, while the slowest growth was in Europe. This spatial pattern suggests that levels of economic
development or, perhaps, institutional arrangements (political and economic freedom or lack of freedom),
and religious beliefs (or, the lack thereof) are associated with population growth rates.
These differential growth rates may be explained using the notion of ‘demographic transition’. [M.P.
Fogarty (ed.), Thomas Malthus, An Essay on Population, p. xvi). Fogarty provides a table summarizing the
process of demographic transition associated with levels of economic development:
Four Stage Cycle of Population
___________________________________________________________________________
Birth
Death
Natural
Stage
Rate
Rate
Increase
___________________________________________________________________________
Primitive
At non-birth control
levels
High
48
Slight and variable
49
Early
Industrial
Middle
Industrial
At non-birth control
levels
Falling
fast
Falling
fast
Still
falling
Very
rapid
Moderate
Mature
Stable, near birth
Becoming
Slight
Industrial
control levels
stable
___________________________________________________________________________
Source: M.P. Fogarty (ed.) , Thomas Malthus, An Essay on Population, p. xvi.
This model is not a product of idle speculation, but conforms to the historical experience of mankind [see:
Edward S. Deevey, Jr., “The Human Population,” Scientific American (September, 1960), 195-204], as
well as recent patterns of population growth [World Population Profile, 1989 and 1996; Herbert Sinnecker,
General Epidemiology (New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1971), 30; and The Hunger Project, Ending
Hunger: An Idea Whose Time Has Come (New York: Praeger, 1985, Figure P.11, 33] . Fogarty’s table,
above, has been produced as a graph in H. De Blij’s Human Geography: Culture, Society, and Space, 5th
Ed., Figure 7.8, 83. In this graph, the Primitive State is labeled ’low growth,’ the second stage (early
industrial) is designated as ‘increasing growth,’ the third stage is referred to as ‘high growth’ and then,
‘decreasing growth’ and the fourth stage is ‘low growth.’ Population growth in the post-World War II
period has been greatest in the developing world (those areas which are in transition from traditional/
agricultural economies to commercial/industrial economies). Population growth has been slowest in
nations that have already industrialized and are moving into the so-called ‘post-industrial societies’ which
are dominated by the service sectors.
The Hunger Project (1985) has described Demographic Transition Theory in the following terms:
Population grows when birth rates exceed death rates. Death rates have been falling,
due to better nutrition, vaccinations, sanitation, and a variety of other factors; however,
they are still high in the poorest regions, especially Africa. Birth rates, too, are falling
nearly everywhere.
Every population that has become industrialized has had decreases in death rates, later
followed by decreases in birth rates. This pattern is called demographic transition....
Sweden’s period of rapid population growth occurred during the nineteenth century.
By 1930, its population growth had dropped close to replacement levels. By 1983, the
growth rate was reported as 0.0 percent. Mexico, on the other hand, is still in a stage of
explosive population growth. Death rates began to drop rapidly in the 1930s, but birth
rates did not begin to fall until the 1970s.
In general, high population growth rates seem to be associated with high infant mortality
rates (IMR), and vice versa: The higher the IMR, the higher the growth rate. Countries
with an IMR greater than 50 per thousand live births have an average population growth
rate of 2.7 percent. Nations with an IMR of 50 or fewer per thousand live births have an
49
50
average growth rate of 1.2 percent. (27)
It is clear that the industrialization process (level of economic development) has some influence on
population growth. W.W. Rostow has compiled the phasing or timing of economic development by country
in his classic book, The Stages of Economic Growth: A Non-Communist Manifesto (London: Cambridge
at the University Press, 1963, rev. 3rd Ed. ). His dating of stages of economic growth may be summarized as
follows:
Country
Take-off
Drive-toMaturity
Great Britain
1783-1802
1850
France
1830-1860
1910
Belgium
1833-1860
-United States
1843-1860
1900
Germany
1850-1873
1910
Sweden
1868-1890
1930
Japan
1878-1900
1940
Russia
1890-1914
1950
Canada
1896-1914
1950
Argentina
1935Turkey
1937India
1952China
1952______________________________________________________________
Source: W.W. Rostow, The Stages of Economic Growth: A Non-Communist
Manifesto, 1963 - Table 1, 38; and 59.
The Industrial/Scientific Revolution, which began in Great Britain during the second half of the 18th
Century, has diffused to other regions of the world. [See: Figure 35-1. Diffusion of Industrial Revolution, in
H.J. de Blij, Human Geography: Cultural, Society, and Space (New York: John Wiley and Sons, Inc.,
1996, 439)] The consequences of the diffusion of the industrial revolution, which was facilitated by
‘colonialism,’ particularly in the post-World War II period, was to reduce the death rates for many nations,
leaving the birth rates unchanged. Sinnecker, in his book General Epidemiology (1971), in commenting on
demographic transition and the decline in death rates, while birth rates remain high, used the model with
data from England and Wales. He has described his phases of the population cycle in England in the
following manner:
Phase 1: “Comprises the original condition of all peoples with both a high birth and high death
rate and corresponds to a small increase in population.” (30) In England and
Wales these conditions prevailed until the beginning of the Industrial
Revolution, or about 1750.
Phase 2: “Embraces the development section with a strongly falling death rate but a steady
birth rate, from which the localized population explosion emerges.” (30) He
50
51
is indicating that the growth in population in the area is the result, exclusively,
of net natural increases (births minus deaths); and excludes net migration
(immigration minus emigration). In England and Wales this phase extended
over the period 1750 - 1880, or about 130 years.
Phase 3: “Comprises the development section with moderate death and birth rates, resulting
in a declining rate of increase.” (31) In England and Wales Phase 3 extended
over the fifty year period, 1880-1930.
Phase 4: “Is characterized by both death and birth rates remaining small; the numbers of the
population remain approximately constant or decline.” (31) In the U.K. the
phase has been in place since 1950.
He then reports on the effects of inoculation (vaccination) and the role of eliminating the causative factor (or
vector). In the case of Sri Lanka (formerly Ceylon), where malaria was endemic, the use of DDT to kill the
disease-carrying mosquitoes reduced the death rate over a very short period of time. He observed that:
In many developing countries, Phase 2 of the population cycle in which a population
explosion occurs is now taking place. This is mainly due to the drastic control of
malaria, as in Sri Lanka (Ceylon), where the death rate fell from 22 to 12 per thousand
in the years 1945 to 1952.
Pestilences, therefore had and still have, in some instances even up to the present day,
a depopulating effect with marked influence on the development of mankind.
Their retrogression due to the success of medicine and of society, or to reasons which
often we still do not know, led and lead to drastic falls in death rate and to population
explosions. With this development then, a change in the morbidity structure increasingly
sets in, leading up to Phase 4: low mortality, especially in infant and child age groups,
resulting in an increase in expectation of life and also in degenerative disease conditions.
Infectious diseases are no longer in first place as causes of death, but nevertheless have
not lost their importance or their problems. (31)
Note: DDT is no longer a defense against the mosquito, not since Rachael Carson’s book Silent Spring
created demands for its being banned. In addition, many pathogens or vectors have developed
resistance to both pesticides and antibacterial from over and improper use.
The retrogressions of infectious diseases were due to the success of medicine and of society, or to reasons
which often we still do not fully understand [the differential virulence of a disease through time, e.g.,
bubonic plague], led and lead to drastic declines in death rate and to population explosions. With this
development then, a change in the morbidity structure increasingly sets in, leading up to Phase 4: low
mortality, especially in infant and child age groups, resulting in an increase in expectation of life and also in
degenerative disease conditions. Infectious diseases are no longer the ‘great destroyer of life and health,
except in the Developing World, and has been replaced by chronic or degenerative diseases and genetic or
hereditary diseases as the major killers in the Developed World. Regardless, pathogens (disease causing
agents) reproduce rapidly, which enables them to also mutate rapidly. The process of pathogen-mutation
(adaptation) is essential for species survival in a changing environment. As a result, as hosts develop
51
52
immunity, the pathogens mutate in the direction of host-vulnerability.
In the post-World War II era, with the end of colonialism, the speed with which the Industrial Revolution
spread (diffused) to former colonial nations in Africa and Asia increased. Nations in Latin America had
gained their political independence during the first quarter of the 19th Century, but institutional factors
supporting a free economy (‘well defined and enforceable private property rights,’ the ‘rule of law,’ and a
well established legal system) were lacking, which retarded economic development, including
industrialization. [See: Sir Peter T. Bauer, “The Vicious Circle of Poverty,” Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv,
95 (1965), 4-18; and G.W. Scully, “The Institutional Framework and Economic Development,” Journal of
Political Economy, 96 (3), 652-662].
The spread of the Industrial Revolution represents two separate diffusion processes: first, the spread of
technologies; and second, the spread of economic and political ideologies. Both factors have proven
significant in the reduction in population growth rate -- the first has provide the opportunity to artificially
reduce birth rates (contraceptive devices) and the second has provided the incentives for smaller families,
e.g., rising affluence, longer periods required to make offspring productive (education), and shift in
population from rural to urban locations, reducing the need for child labor in agriculture.
The perception that world population growth has been rising rapidly, and that the growth is
concentrated in many of the developing countries of the world, has stimulated a resurgence of neoMalthusian pessimism concerning the man/land relationship and mankind’s existential condition. The
original Malthusianism has been fused with extreme concern about environmental issues (population
pressure, increasing affluence, excess consumption, resource depletion, pollution, etc.; see: Club of Rome,
The Limits to Growth); Nuclear Winter; Global Warming; holes in the ozone layer: and the loss of the
tropical rainforests. John Maddox, the former editor of Nature, has characterized these concerns as the
‘Doomsday Syndrome.’ He has written of their extreme views:
The doomsday cause would be more telling if it were more securely grounded in facts,
better informed by a sense of history and an awareness of economics and less
cataclysmic in nature....In short, the weakness of the doomsday prophecies is that they
are exaggerations. Many of them are irresponsible. {J. Maddox, The Doomsday
Syndrome, 1972, pp. 4-5]
As an example of these exaggerations and, perhaps, the irresponsibility of environmentalist claims of
population growth, Maddox cites Paul R. Ehrlich, the author of The Population Bomb (1968), and more
recently, The Population Explosion, who wrote in the first sentence of the Prologue to his first book:
The battle to feed all of humanity is over. In the 1970s and 1980s hundreds of millions
of people will starve to death in spite of any crash programs embarked upon now. At
this late date nothing can prevent a substantial increase in the world death rate. (1968
The Population Bomb, xi)
Such exaggerations are not new. In fact, they represent a retreat to the views expressed by Thomas R.
Malthus (1766-1834) in the first edition of his Essay on the Principle of Population (1798). It was written
in response to the optimistic writings of William Godwin (1756-1836), step-father of Mary Shelley
52
53
(authoress of Frankenstein; the theme of this novel involves the arrogance of man and his trust in
technology, especially the newly discovered phenomenon of electricity), particularly his collection of essays,
The Enquirer (“Enquiry Concerning Political Justice”). Malthus was less optimistic about the continued
improvement in the human condition and the ‘extensive diffusion of liberty and happiness.’ (“Of Avarice
and Profusion”). It should be noted that in later editions, Malthus appears to back away from the extreme
views of the first edition and offers greater hope for improvements in the human condition.
Godwin looked forward to the ‘perfectibility of man’ and, by extension, the perfectibility of society – “Every
man will seek, with ineffable ardor, the good of all.” This faith in the inherent goodness of man must be
contrasted with the less sanguine views of Adam Smith (1723?-1790). Smith, in An Inquiry into the
Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (1776), indicated that the good that a man does is often
unintentional, since the individual is always governed by the pursuit of self-interest. He observes that the
individual
... intends only his own security; and by directing that industry in such a manner as its
produce may be of the greatest value, he intends only his own gain, and he is in this, as
in many other cases, led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was no part of his
intention. Nor is it always the worse for society that it was no part of it. By pursuing his
own interest he frequently promotes that of the society more effectually than when he
really intends to promote it. I have never known much good done by those who affect to
trade for the public good.
The spatial extension of the Industrial Revolution represents two separate diffusion processes: first, the
spread of technologies; and second, the spread of economic and political institutions and ideologies. The
role of the first should be obvious to all, while that of the second is less clear; the need for free markets; for
the rule of law; and for well defined and enforceable private property rights. Both factors play essential roles
in the economic development processes of nations, resulting in reductions in death rates, leaving birth rates
temporarily stable (Phase 2), and populations growing rapidly, until birth rates are brought down and back
into harmony with the reduced death rates. The factors which result in diminishing birth rates are a
combination of economic, social and cultural forces – factors that change slowly. Political solutions – the
use of coercion or force -- have been successful in the People’s Republic of China. [For more on coercion
and the need for ‘population control’ especially in Western Societies, see: Garrett Hardin, “The Tragedy of
the Commons,” Science, Vol. 162 No. 3859 (December 13, 1968), pp. 1243-1248.]
Malthus was less optimistic about the continued improvement in the human condition and the ‘extensive
diffusion of liberty and happiness.’ (William Godwin, “Of Avarice and Profusion,” 1797) Malthus’ less
sanguine views may be summarized from his First Essay [1797]:
I think I may make two postulata. First, That food is necessary to the existence of man.
Second, That the passion between the sexes is necessary, and will remain nearly in its
present state.
These two laws, ever since we have had any knowledge on mankind, appear to have
been fixed laws of our nature. (19)
Assuming then, my postulata as granted, I say, that the power of population is
53
54
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. A slight acquaintance with numbers will shew the immensity of
the first power in comparisoned with the second.
By that law of our nature which makes food necessary to the life of man, the effects of these
two unequal powers must be kept equal.
This implies a strong and constantly operating check on population from the difficulty of
subsistence....The race of plants, and the race of animals shrink under this great restrictive
law. And the race of man cannot, by any efforts of reason escape from it. Among plants
and animals its effects are waste of seed, sickness, and premature death. Among mankind,
misery and vice. The former, misery, is an absolutely necessary consequence of it Vice is
a high probable consequence....
This natural inequality of the two powers of population and of production of the earth and
the great law of our nature which must constantly keep their effects equal form the great
difficulty that to me appears insurmountable in the way by which man can escape from the
weight of this law which pervades all animated nature ..... (20)
Consequently, if the premises are just, the argument is conclusive against the perfectibility
of the mass of mankind. (21)
Thomas Robert Malthus, An Essay on the Principle of Population, (Phillip Appleman, ed.). New York:
NY: W.W. Norton and Company, Inc., 1976.
In the second chapter of his Essay, he has written more emphatically:
Taking the population of the world at any number, a thousand millions, for instance, the
human species would increase in the ratio of --1,2,4,8,16, 32, 64, 128, 256, 512, &c. and
subsistence as --1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10, &c. In two centuries and a quarter, the population
would be to the means of subsistence as 512 to 10, in three centuries as 4096 to 13, and
in two thousand years the difference would be almost incalculable, though the produce
in that time would have increased to an immense extent. (23)
Malthus foresaw a series of disasters that would ensnarl humankind, creating misery. This pessimistic view
led to Carlyle to dub economics as ‘the dismal science.’ Malthus argued that when population outstrips
subsistence, living standards will fall; disease and infant mortality will rise; famines will reap a staggering
toll; mass discontent and wars will arise. These threats to civil order were called the ‘checks of Misery’ by
Malthus. As if these conditions were not enough, he postulated a second check on population, ‘Vice’. This
check involved homosexuality, prostitution, abortion, and the use of contraceptives (which Malthus called
‘Improper Arts’). The checks of Misery and Vice were referred to as ‘Positive Checks’ by Malthus. In his
second edition of An Essay on the Principle of Population, Malthus noted that there was the possibility of
the most desirable check -- Moral Restraint. This is the Preventative Check and involves family planning
through late marriages and Malthus was an advocate of raising the legal age for marriage.
Malthus believed that only suffering, based on a minimum standard of living, would encourage self-restraint
on the part of workers, and for this reason, he opposed the Poor Laws. He opposed them on the grounds that
54
55
the workers must be made to realize that their living standard depends only upon what they can earn and
save.
Alfred Marshall, that great neo-classical economist, wrote of Malthus’ views:
We have already noticed that the English economists of the earlier half of last century
[19th] overrated the tendency of an increasing population to press upon the means of
subsistence; and it was not Malthus’ fault that he could not foresee the great developments of steam transport by land and sea, which have enabled Englishmen of the present
generation to obtain the products of the richest lands of the earth at comparatively small
costs. (Principles of Economics, 8th Ed., 149)
Marshall makes clear the differences between Malthus’ first edition and his second edition of the Essay
on the Principle of Population:
In the second edition, 1803,....he took a less despondent view of the future of the human
race; and dwelt on the hope that moral restraint might hold population in check, and that
‘vice and misery,’ the old checks, might thus be kept in abeyance. (Footnote 1, 149)
Marshall, looking ahead acknowledged that technological change could forestall population pressure on
subsistence, but could not permanently abolish this tendency:
...there will probably be great improvements in the arts of agriculture; and, if so, the
pressure of population on the means of subsistence may be held in check for about two
hundred years, but not longer. (Footnote 1, 150)
In discussing the mechanism of population growth, Marshall identifies ‘natural increase’ and ‘migration’. In
his analysis of natural increases, he reports that:
The number of births depends chiefly on habits relating to marriage....The age of
Marriage varies with the climate. In warm climates where childbearing begins
early, it ends early, in colder climates it begins later and ends later; but in every
case the longer marriages are postponed beyond the age that is natural to the
country, the smaller is the birth-rate... (150)
It would seem that this view reflects some tinge of environmental determinism, while ignoring the role of
cultural (social) and developmental factors. He continues to use ‘climate’ as a factor while discussing the
‘health and strength’ of a population, i.e., the “…basis of industrial efficiency, on which the production of
material wealth depends.” (161) In regards to “the causes which determine length of life,” he writes:
The first of these causes is the climate. In warm countries we find early marriages and high
birth-rates, and in consequence a low respect for human life: this has probably been the cause
of a great part of the high mortality that is generally attributed to the inslaubrity of the climate.
(162)
In the second footnote on this page, Marshall reports:
A warm climate impairs vigour. It is not altogether hostile to high intellectual and
artistic work; but it prevents people from being able to endure very hard exertion
of any kind for a long time. More sustained hard work can be done in the cooler half
55
56
of the temperate zone than anywhere else; and most of all in places such as England
and her counterpart New Zealand, where sea-breezes keep the temperature nearly
uniform....Extreme and sustained cold is found to dull the energies, partly [perhaps
because is causes people to spend much of their time in close and confined quarters...
(162)
In true colonial fashion, he continues:
Vigour depends partly on race qualities : but these, so far as they can be explained at
all, seem to be chiefly due to climate. (163)
In the two hundred years since Malthus wrote these words, his dire predictions have not been realized, i.e.,
‘the population would be to the means of subsistence as 256 to 9.’ Nor have the predictions of his neoMalthusian followers, e.g., Paul Ehrlich or the Club of Rome (D.H. Meadows, D.L. Meadows, J. Randers
and W.W. Behrens, The Limits to Growth: A Report for the Club of Rome’s Project on the Predicament of
Mankind (New York: New American Library, 1972). The fundamental question that must be asked is: What
went wrong with these apocalyptic visions?
First, many environmentalists would say that nothing went wrong, that all we have to do is wait and
Malthus predictions will be realized! This is what Paul Georgia calls the ‘inevitability defense.’ Georgia
notes that it is an old justification for theories fail to explain reality. He writes:
The environmentalist’s last line of defense is the inevitability defense, just as the
socialists ultimately resorted to the argument that socialism is an historical inevitability
and therefore not subject to intellectual debate. Environmentalists bring up apocalyptic
scenarios that demand coercive responses. [Paul Georgia, “Owning the Unownable,”
The Freeman, Vol. 45, No. 3 (March, 1995), 184]
For a graphic example of this, see: G. Hardin’s article, “The Tragedy of the Commons,” (see above) in which
he classifies the ‘population problem’ – ‘overpopulation’ and/or ‘too rapid population growth’ – as
situation that has “no technical solution.” (1243) He states that, “We can make little progress in working
toward optimum poulation [sic.] size until we explicitly exorcize the spirit of Adam Smith in the field of
practical demography.” (1244) Hummmm … ‘exorcise’ … that’s what’s done in religious communities to
free an individual or the community from demons! This must me that Adam Smith is a demon or his ideas
are demonic to Garrett Hardin! Seems to me that this is either a poor metaphor, or the antipopulation/environmental movement is, as Micheal Crichton has suggested, little more than ‘earth worship’
(the old Mesopotamian goddess, Gaea) [See: “Environmentalism as Religion.” speech at the Commonwealth
Club, San Francisco, CA, September 15, 2003 @ www.michaelcrichton.net/speeches.html. ]. The reason that
Adam Smith is demonized by Hardin, a biologist, is related to his idea of ‘the invisible hand’ and the fact
that he:
...contributed to a dominant tendency of thought that has ever since interfered with positive
action based on rational analysis, namely, the tendency to assume that decisions reached
individually will, in fact, bethe best decisions for an entire society. If this assumption is
correct it justifies the continuance of our present policy of laissez-faire in reproduction. If
it is correct we can assume that men will control their individual fecundity so as to produce
the optimum population. If the assumption is not correct, we need to reexamine our
individual freedoms to see which ones are defensible. (1244, emphasis is added)
56
57
Hardin then talks about ‘morality’ as being ‘system-sensitive,’ i.e., he is advocating ‘situational ethics’
and ‘moral relativism.’ Somewhat later he provides us with his solution to the ‘population problem’:
The social arrangements that produce responsibility are arrangements that create coercion....
temperance also can be created by coercion Taxing is a good coercive device....The only
kind of coercion I recommend is mutual coercion, mutually agreed upon by the majority
of people affected. (1247)
The only instrument of with legitimate (legal) authority to exercise coercion in a free society is the
government. It has a monopoly on the use of force! He concludes:
Individuals locked into the logic of the commons are free only to bring on universal ruin;
once they see the necessity of mutual coercion, they become free to pursue other goals....
The most important aspect of necessity that we must recognize, is the necessity of
abandoning the commons in breeding. No technical solution can rescue us from the misery
of overpopulation. Freedom to breed will bring ruin to all....The only way we can preserve
and nurture other and more precious freedoms is by relinquishing the freedom to breed...
(1248)
Such silliness represents a truly Orwellian logic, a logic in which ‘War is Peace,’ and ‘Freedom is
Slavery.’
Second, it must be recognized that Malthus was not writing facts or revealed truths, rather he
was stating a theory with a set of ‘posulata’ or assumptions, stated and unstated. Nobel Prize
winner, Milton Friedman has observed that “...the belief that a theory can be tested by the realism of
its assumptions independently of the accuracy of its predictions is widespread and the source of
much of the perennial criticism of economic theory as unrealistic.” [Milton Friedman, “The
Methodology of Positive Economics,” in M. Friedman, Essays in Positive Economics. (Chicago:
The University of Chicago Press, 1953, 41), emphasis added.] Somewhat later he has noted,
...undue emphasis on the descriptive realism of ‘assumptions’ has contributed to
neglect of the critical problem of determining the limits of validity of the various
hypotherses that together constitute the existing economic theory in these areas.
(42)
The failures of Malthus’ theory of population and of Hardin’s ‘no technical solution’ to the
‘population problem’ to be confirmed by history forces a reexamination of the assumptions of the
models. First, the assumption that suffering (minimum standard of living) will lead to lower levels
of population growth (self-restraint) must be examined. In the era when population growth was
greatest, the transition from a traditional society to an industrial society, the perceived need was for
large families (infant death rates were high) which would support the parents in their old age. This
behavior reflects the parents pursuing their own self interest. But once the death rate (particularly the
infant mortality rate) fell, parents recognized that large families were no longer necessary to assure
the survival of children, birth rates began to fall. One writer, Frank Notestein has observed that “Not
poverty and disease, but improved living conditions and rising aspirations motivated the trend
toward birth regulation.” [F.W. Notestein (ed.), Three Essays on Population: Malthus, Huxley, and
57
58
Osborn, p. x]. Again, this is an irony, and is utterly unexpected given Malthus’ theory and those
who have accepted his views. Once again, parents were pursuing their own self-interest, as is borne
out by the demographic transition model.
It is important to note that the industrialization process, itself, has played a major role in the
reduction of family size, even within a highly developed country (HDC) like the United States -rural-agrarian families are larger, on average, than urban-industrial/professional families. The
economics are clear -- in an industrial or post-industrial society it is no longer an economic
advantage to have large families (many children) to help support the family, welfare and AFDC
excepted. In fact, children have become an economic liability to the parents, from a self-interest
perspective, i.e., they must be fed, clothed and educated for at least sixteen and often 25 years.
Industrialization also opened many alternatives outside the home to women this emancipation of
women has also played a role in reducing fertility rates, via later marriages and smaller families. The
Industrial Revolution was accompanied by numerous scientific and technological improvements
(sanitation, the germ theory of disease, inoculation) that served to reduce death rates and improve
living standards.
A second of Malthus’ assumptions, the capacity of the earth’s bounty to increase only as an
‘arithmetical ratio’ a la Scott Gordon, is severely flawed! Remember J. Maddox argues that the
‘doomsters’ or ‘doomsdayers’ cause would be better served the paid more attention to history and
economics. Perhaps the critical issue in determining the failure of the Malthusians’ apocalyptic
visions is their lack of ‘awareness of economics.’ Scott Gordon has noted that the economic
pessimism about population, resources (subsistence) and the environment results from ‘arithmetic
fright,’ which he defines as “the tendency to induce despondency in oneself through the
contemplation of a ratio.” (Scott Gordon, “Economics and the Conservation Question,” Journal of
Law and Economics, Vol. 1 (October, 1958). Gordon continues and spells out this self-induced
despondency:
The Malthusians are its most apparent victims, and the natural resource pessimists
usually display a compounded version of the same disorder. The Malthusian
analysis of the possibility of human progress fixes its attention on the ratio L/P
where L is land, or more generally, natural resources, and P is population. The
arithmetic fright manifests itself in an extended delineation of the lamentable
consequences that must ultimately ensue if, L being fixed in quantity, P increases
without limit. The resource pessimists usually Malthusian enough to postulate an
endless increase in P and, in addition, he describes L as steadily decreasing.
Extended meditation upon a fraction whose numerator decreases to zero while its
denominator rises towards infinity, results in particularly virulent manifestations
of the neurosis. (111-112, emphasis added)
The key assumption in the Malthusian view is the fixity of land (L). To assume that the amount of
cultivatable land and its productivity (output/unit area) will remain constant over long periods of
time is to ignore the lessons of economic history. Or, alternatively, it is to fall into the Marxian trap
of over-emphasis on the ‘labor theory of value’ and to ignore and/or to reduce to insignificance the
contributions of other factors of production (land, capital and entrepreneurship) to productive efforts.
58
59
In a review article, provocatively titled, “Slaying the Malthusian Dragon,” [Economic Geography,
40 (1), January, 1964, 82-89] Ian Burton and Robert W. Kates have observed that the problem of
interpretation of the man/land relationship also involves the ideas of David Ricardo [and later of
Alfred Marshall (Principles of Economics)]. Ricardo formulated the doctrine of increasing
resource scarcity, which implies increasing real costs of resource commodities (factor inputs) and
he proposed the ‘law of or statement of tendency to diminishing returns,’ particularly from
agricultural production.(See: A. Marshall, Principles of Economics, 8th Ed., 120-124). Marshall
reports that:
An increase in the capital and labour applied in the cultivation of land causes in
general a less than proportionate increase in the amount of produce raised, unless
it happens to coincide with an improvement in the arts of agriculture (125)
It is important to note Marshall’s ending caveat “unless it happens with an improvement in the
arts of agriculture” -- or technology!
Burton and Kates, reviewing the history of resource availability and prices for the immediately
preceding ninety years (the 1870s to the 1960s), conclude:
An examination of the prices of resource commodities (both in deflated dollars and
in actual inputs of labor) reveals a downward rather than an upward trend. The
Malthusian view is so ‘oversimplified’ that it is completely wrong. (82)
They quote from Neal Potter and Fracis T. Christy, Jr., Trends in Natural Resource Commodities
(Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press for Resources for the Future, Inc., 1962), indicating that:
“...technology can overcome increasing shortages of natural resources ad infinitum.” (82) An
somewhat later they report that Potter and Christy observed that: “...output per capita...may
conceivably increase into the indefinite future, and eventual overcrowding is by no means a foregone
conclusion.” (83)
One of the environmentalist arguments is that by consuming too much today, we leave too little to
future generations. This represents the assumption that there is an ‘intertemporal misallocation of
scarce resources.’ This argument is easily disposed of by any well-informed, thinking person. First,
higher current levels of production (and consumption, for that matter) stimulates increased
investment, research and development that improves technology, and potential productivity in the
current and future periods. These activities add to the technology and productive capacity of future
generations, thereby improving their standard of living. Second, as pointed out by Scott Gordon,
To conserve or postpone the use of one resource usually involves depleting or
accelerating the use of another. This results from the fact that resources are
substitutes for one another....The only meaning that could possibly be given to
the objective of general conservation is that it is considered desirable to ‘sacrifice’
the enjoyment of part of society’s current total output in order to increase the rate
of total output in the future. This is a question of the rate of investment and capital
formation in the economy at large...The question of the desirability of conservation
of resources in general is the inseparable from the (larger) question of the optimum
rate of capital investment in the economy.... (114-115)
59
60
Gordon then notes that typically conservation concerns are focused on a particular resource
(petroleum, timber, soil) as opposed to conservation in general. He argues that usually these
efforts are misguided because of:
...the interrelatedness of economic activities is lost sight of. The interaction of
natural phenomena too can be forgotten, with consequences for conservation
policy that are not intended. (115)
He notes government policy has protected, separately, seals and salmon from over-exploitation
by fishermen. However, seals are predators of salmon. The consequences of these policies are:
...the protection of salmon merely furnishes more food for seals and the
protection of seals provides more predators for salmon. If the objective of
these conservation policies is to benefit the seals, this is a skillful set of
regulations....
Neglect of economic interrelationships leads to consequences no less
undesirable, and one particular manifestation of this is undoubtedly the single
most important source of error in conservation policies....the optimum rate of
exploitation of a resource is that which maximizes its physical output....the error
in the proposition can be discovered if one asks what other resources must be
expended in order to achieve this maximum....The only condition under which
such a simple maximization would be a correct economic objective would be if
the resource in question were the only factor of production that was scarce, the
others all being so abundant as to be ‘free good’ to society as a whole. This is
the implicit assumption of many conservation arguments and policies. The
conservationist frequently has his eye so steadily fixed upon the particular
resource with which he is concerned that he disregards the fact that between the
gross value of its production and the net value there lies the element of cost.
(115-116)
For recent examples, see: Lawrence Reed, 1995, “Recycling Myths,” The Freeman, 45 (3),
March, 152-154. He has written, that:
There’s nothing wrong with recycling when it’s approached from a perspective
of sound economics, good science, and voluntary cooperation. Too often, it’s
promoted as an end in itself without regard to whether it’s worth the time and
expense....
In recent years, more than 140 recycling laws were passed in 38 states -- mandating
the activity or requiring taxpayers to pay for it or both. All this has occurred at the
same time that cost-cutting entrepreneurs are busy producing less and less packaging
to contain more and more goods.
Without any edicts from politicians, plastic milk jugs today contain 30 percent less
plastic than they did just 20 years ago. The weight of aluminum cans declined by 36
percent between 1960 and 1990. Experts like Lynn Scarlett of the Los Angeles-based
Reason Foundation point out that America’s solid waste problem is a public policy
failure, not a market failure.
60
61
Some may remember the deservedly well-regarded article written by the former Chairman of the
Federal Reserve Bank, Alan Greenspan – “Antitrust.” In this paper, Greenspan reports on other
‘government failures’ which bureaucrats frequently blame on the ‘Free Market’ and ‘market
failures’
Because of flat rate charges for municipal garbage pick-up and disposal, government
policies in most areas subsidize those who throw away large quantities of refuse at the
expense of those who throw away very little. (152-153, emphasis added)
Quite often, more energy and resources are spent than saved in the process of recycling.
(153)
Reed then reviews the social benefits and the social costs of McDonald’s shift from polystyrene
containers to ‘more environmental friendly’ containers (paper)! Here are his results:
-- polystyrene is 100% recyclable;
-- paper cups cost the consumer 2.5 times as much;
-- polystyrene burger containers require 30% less energy to produce,
result in 46% less air pollution and 42% less water pollution
than their paper counterparts;
-- paper cups use 36 times more chemical inputs, weight 7 times as
much, consume 36 times as much electricity and twice as
much cooling water to produce as a polystyrene cup;
-- production of paper cups result in 580 times as much waste water
and three times the air emission pollutants. (154)
Remember, Scott Gordon’s analysis of the ‘economics of conservation’ in his 1958 article in the
Journal of Law and Economics.
The economist, Julian L. Simon argues that things have improved over time, even while population
has grown. For example, over the long course of human history (the last 10,000 years), he has
observed, as resources have become more scarce, people have responded to those scarcities with
technological inventions and innovations. New sources of supply were found or conservation (via
higher prices) was practiced. In many cases, scarcity and rising prices resulted in the discovery of
substitutes and often these substitutes were superior to the original resource. Simon notes that
temporary shortages may occur and that absent an intrusive government mandating price controls or
conservation measures, rising prices will stimulate greater geologic exploration (greater depths of
deposits, more remote areas, smaller deposits) and more invention/ technological innovation seeking
substitutes. Simon’s criticism of the environmentalists is that their claims are ‘exaggerated’ and that
“As soon as one predicted disaster doesn’t occur, the doomsters skip to another.”
Simon represents a continuation of the school of optimism begun by William Godwin, while Paul
Ehrlich’s pessimistic view may be traced back to Thomas Malthus. Simon has reacted to Ehrlich’s
view that the world is over-populated and his call for the government to use coercion to limit
population growth. In October, 1980 the two made a $ 1,000 bet on the future prices (in October,
1990) of five metals (chrome, copper, nickel, tin and tungsten), since Ehrlich had stated that
“…before 1985 mankind will enter an age of scarcity”, and that, “the accessible supplies of many key
61
62
minerals will be nearing depletion.” Absolutely not true. The bet involved the change in the ‘real’
prices (inflation-adjusted) of the metals – if they are becoming increasingly scarce – as believed by
Ehrlich -- then their real prices of would be higher after the ten year period. Contrarily, is they are
becoming relatively more abundant, then, the ‘real’ prices should be falling through time, as
predicted by Julian Simon! At the end of the stipulated period, the ‘real’ market prices for all five
metals were lower! Julian Simon received a check in the mail!
When his predictions failed to materialize in terms of population growth, Ehrlich reported: “Look at
the new problems: the ozone hole, acid rain, global warming. I have no doubt that in the next
century, if we keep running downhill, we could have a gigantic population crash.” Just as a child
caught in a lie, Ehrlich sought to change the subject, and raise the bar!
Clearly, it seems as if many folks views on population undergo periodic shifts -- from optimism to
acute pessimism. A similar pattern may be detected in reference to the ‘human condition’ and the
world’s food supply or, as Malthus would describe it, ‘subsistence.’ For example, see:
T.T. Poleman. 1975. “World Food: A Perspective,” Science, 188 (9 May 1975), 510-518; and
F.H. Sanderson. 1975. “The Great Food Fumble,” Science, 188, 503-509.
Footnotes
1
Eric Hoffer. 1951. The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements. Hoffer
(1902-83) was a self-educated longshoreman on the docks of San Francisco from 1943 until
he retired at age 65. He read both German and English until he was blinded by an accident at
the age of 7. His sight returned when he was 15, and out of fear of his blindness would
return, he read constantly. Over his lifetime Hoffer wrote eleven books and numerous
articles. The following is a list of his major writings:
The True Believer (1951);
The Passionate State of Mind (1955);
The Ordeal of Change (1963);
The Temper of Our Time (1967);
Working and Thinking on the Waterfront (1969);
First Things, Last Things (1971);
Reflections on the Human Condition (1975);
In Our Time (1976);
Before the Sabbath (1979);
Between the Devil and the Dragon (1982); and
Truth Imagined (1983).
Despite his substantial written legacy, in commenting on Eric Hoffer’s self-perception, the
author(s) of the background on this longshoreman at Wikipedia wrote:
He did not consider himself and ‘intellectual,’ and scorned the term as descriptive of the
62
63
mostly anti-American academics of the West. Academics he believed, craved power, but
they were denied it in democratic countries of the West (though not in totalitarian
countries which Hoffer saw as an intellectual’s dream. Instead, Hoffer believed
academics chose to bite the hand that fed them in their quest for power and influence.
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Hoffer]
In his distrust of ‘intellectuals’ Hoffer was not alone! Ludwig von Mises’ short book, The
Anti-Capitalist Mentality (1956) provides an illuminating insight into the mind and
motivations of ‘intellectuals’ – the self-anointed social leaders. Mises wrote in Section I,
Part 5 “The Resentment of the Intellectuals” of The Anti-Capitalist Mentality:
The common man as a rule does not have the opportunity of cavorting with people who
have succeeded better than he has. He moves in the circle of other common men….
It is different with people whom special conditions of their occupation or their family
affiliation bring into personal contact with winners of the prizes which – as they believe
– should have been given to themselves. With them the feelings of frustrated ambition
become especially poignant because they engender hatred of concrete living beings.
They loathe capitalism because it has assigned to the other man the position they themselves would like to have. [Available on-line @ www.mises.org/etexts/mises/anticap]
The American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental
Disorders (DSM-IV-TR) may be consulted for examining such behaviors. Under the
category: 16. Personality Disorders, one can find, 301.81 Narcissistic Personality Disorder,
accompanied by the flowing diagnostic criteria: (i) grandiosity; (ii) fantasies; (iii) believes
he/she is special or unique; (iv) envious; (v) sense of entitlement; (vi) takes advantage of
others; and (vii) arrogant affect. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narcissistic_Personality_Disorder#Diagnostic_criteria.] In many ways these descriptors conforms to Carl G. Jung’s ideas of
egocentricity, ego-inflation, and the ego’s possession/contamination by the shadow. (See, for
example: C.G. Jung.1969. “Concerning Rebirth,” in The Archetypes and the Collective
Unconscious, Second Edition, 113-147. Particularly revealing are his comments on page
123:
There are still other factors which may take possession of the individual, one of the
most important being the so-called ‘inferior function.’ This is not the place to enter
into a discussion of this problem; I should only like to point out that the inferior
function is practically identical with the dark side of the human personality.
[Emphasis added]
It is important to keep in mind the role that Jung’s comments played in the characterdevelopment of Darth Vader in movie series,. Star Wars, and his seduction by the ‘dark
side.’ Jung continues his analysis:
The darkness which clings to every personality is the door into the unconscious and
the gateway of dreams, from which those two twilight figures, the shadow and the
anima, step into our nightly visions or, remaining invisible, take possession of our egoconsciousness.
63
64
Continuing, Jung reveals a horrific truth about human nature:
A man who is possessed by his shadow is always standing in his own light and falling
into his own traps. Whenever possible, he prefers to make an unfortunate impression
on others. In the long run luck is always against him, because he is living below his
own level and at best only attains what does not suit him. And if there is no doorstep
for him to stumble over, he manufactures one for himself and then fondly believes he
has done something useful.
2
Remember the article: Julian L. Simon. 1980. “Resources, Population, Environment: An Oversupply
of False Bad Ideas,” Science, 208 (June 27), 1431-7. Also, see: John Stossel.2004. Give Me a
Break: How I Exposed Hucksters, Cheats, and Scam Artists and Became the Scourge of the
Liberal Media …, especially Chapter 6 “Junk Science and Junk Reporting,” 97-115.
It is always important to seek to identify an ‘scholars’ credentials – degrees, subjects of
expertise, affiliations, etc., in order to evaluate his/her ‘reliability’ in commenting on
specific topics. A prime example of such a need is revealed in the person of Garrett
Hardin, the author of a truly frightening article, titled: “The Tragedy of the Commons,”
Science, 162 (1968), 1243-48. This paper is often cited by environmentalists, populationcontrol advocates, resource depletion critics, pollution ‘experts,’ and human-induced
global-warming alarmists. It would be surprising if they have read the article, but if they
have, then they are clearly willing to employ brute force against fellow humans, in order
to achieve their own ‘superior’ modes of social organization. In the paper, Hardin
develops a ‘justification’ for ‘mutual coercion’ [as if ‘coercion’ (force) is morally
appropriate] to reduce the birth rates of human population. The subheadings of this article
are revealing in the extreme:
(i)
(ii)
(iii)
(iv)
(v)
(vi)
(vii)
(viii)
“What Shall We Maximize”
“Tragedy of Freedom in the Commons”
“How to Legislate Temperance”
“Freedom to Breed is Intolerable”
“Conscience is Self-Eliminating”
“Pathogenic Effects of Conscience”
“Mutual Coercion Mutually Agreed Upon”
“Recognition of Necessity.”
Several questions arise: Is Hardin suggesting that some people are ‘better’ or ‘smarter’
than other folks? Does such self-perceived superiority endow them with special ‘rights’
(or, in their minds is it ‘social obligation’) to override the ‘freedoms’ of the great
‘unwashed’ masses, for their own good, of course? It seems that there is a certain
psychopathology at work here – extreme ‘narcissism’ or in Jungian terms ‘pathological
egocentricity’ in which the dark-side of the personality (the ‘shadow’) has captured the
ego for its own purposes. This is seen precisely in the Star Wars episodes by Anakin
Skywalker’s seduction by the so-called ‘dark-side’ and transformation into Darth Vader
– a creature that is part-human and part-machine – robbed of his conscience by the
64
65
Emperor Palpatine.
Some background on Garrett Hardin may be helpful in assessing conscious and
unconscious aspects of his work: he BA was in zoology (a general field) and his PhD was
in microbiology. Yet, he spent much of his academic career as Professor of Human
Ecology! It must be noted that the origin of ‘human ecology’ is to be found not in
zoology, microbiology nor even in the physical sciences, but in the social sciences – in
the Chicago School of Sociology of the 1920s – long before the term ‘ecology’ was
adopted by physical scientists! More about the Chicago School will be provided a little
later.
Behind the scenes, Garrett Hardin received monetary support from the shadowy Pioneer
Fund for his research on ‘race and intelligence’. The Pioneer Fund supported eugenics
research, groups seeking to limit immigration and has been defined as a ‘hate group’ by the
Southern Poverty Law Center. [See: www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pioneer_Fund] The fund itself was
founder in 1937 by Wickliffe Preston Draper (1891-1972) – a eugenicist and follower of the
so-called Progressive movement. It might be noted that the popularity of the ‘eugenics
movement’ in the United States began to wane in the 1930, perhaps in reaction to rise of
Adolf Hitler in Germany and the adoption of ‘eugenics’ by the Nazis as an instrument for
attaining ‘racial purity’.
Draper provided funding for the waning American Eugenic Society (AES) and in 1935
traveled to Germany, accompanied by Dr. Clarence Campbell, to attend the International
Congress for the Scientific Investigation of Population Problems. The conference was
presided over by the Reichminister of the Interior, Wilhelm Frick (hanged by the Allies in
1947 after conviction of crimes against humanity at the Nuremberg Trials). Dr. Campbell
delivered an oration to the Conference that concluded:
The difference between the Jews and the Aryan is as unsumountable [sic.] as that between
black and white …. Germany has set the pattern which other nations must follow ….To the
great leader Adolf Hitler
For a revealing and shocking visual overview of the origins, development and activities of
the eugenics movement, see: www.eugenicsarchive.org. Here, the following topics on
eugenics are examined:
(i)
(ii)
(iii)
(iv)
(v)
(vi)
(vii)
(viii)
social origins;
scientific origins;
research methods;
trait studies;
research laws;
eugenics popularization;
marriage laws;
sterilization laws; and
65
66
(ix)
immigration restriction.
The Pioneer Fund was initially created to provide “scholarships to the descendants of White
colonial-era families” and to support racial improvement through eugenics. The Fund never
provided any scholarships to its targeted audience, but did fund the distribution in the United
States of two documentary films from Nazi Germany. One of the films was entitled
Erbkrank (or, Hereditary Illness). The films extolled the Nazi successes in the field of
eugenics. It has been reported that in Nazi Germany more than 400,000 people were
subjected to the eugenics programs of ‘compulsory sterilization’ during the 1930s and
1940s. Before judging Germany, it is well to remember that:
The first country to concertedly undertake compulsory sterilization programs
for the purpose of eugenics was the United States.
www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compulsory_sterilization
The primary targets of the eugenics program of compulsory sterilization in the U.S. were: the
mentally retarded, the mentally ill; as well as the deaf, blind, epileptic and physically
deformed, and in many states Native Americans. This seems to mirror the Nazi experience
some two and a half decades later carried out in the interest of racial purity by Henrich
Himmler and Heidrich. Indiana was the first state to enact a ‘compulsory sterilization law’
in 1907 and was followed by Washington and California in 1909. Eventually33 states
enacted such laws, and about 65,000 people would be sterilized eventually, some without
their knowledge. Sweden had the greatest rate of compulsory sterilization, some 64,000 out
of a population of 6 million (between 1930 and 1970).
The first director of the Pioneer Fund was Harry H. Laughlin (1891-1972). [See:
www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~wellerst/laughlin. ] In 1914 he had composed a Model
Sterilization Law while at the Eugenic Records Office. Later, in 1936, he translated the
Nazi Law: “Law for the Prevention of Defective Progeny” and at the 550th Anniversary of
the Heidelberg University was awarded and honorary degree.
The influence of the Chicago School of Sociology was deep and wide, beginning with the
collaborative efforts of Robert E. Park (1864-1944) and Ernest W. Burgess, especially:
Introduction to the Science of Sociology (1921) and The City (1925). Their approach to
sociology was empirical, involving field studies and an emphasis on ‘human ecology’ –
the study of the relationship between man and the environment. They considered the city
to be uniquely the ‘human environment’ – as expressed in Park, Burgess and McKenzie,
“The Growth of the City,” included in The City.
3
It should be noted that Thomas Malthus ‘mellowed’ in the Second and later editions,
acknowledging that humanity was not doomed, that individuals can take their destiny into
66
67
their own hands and that they could choose to be celibate, postpone marriage until later in
life and practice contraception.
4
Scholasticism was a medieval (1100-1550) ‘philosophy’ that sought to reconcile classical
philosophy with Christian theology. It represented a method involving dialectical
reasoning and was governed by the rules of formal logic.
5
The bet involved the ‘real’ [‘inflation-adjusted’] price of resources over a decade long period.
In 1980 Simon challenged Ehrlich to pick $ 1,000 worth of any five (5) metals, and if the
‘real’ price in ten years (1990) is higher than the ‘real’ price in 1980 (increased scarcity,
increased ‘real’ price), then Ehrlich would win the bet. But, if the ‘real’ price is less than
it was a decade earlier (increased availability, the lower the ‘real’ price), then Simon
would be the winner. The winner would receive the difference in the real prices of the
metals over the time period. Ehrlich chose copper, chrome, nickel, tin and tungsten.
Simon won the bet and a check from Ehrlich for $ 576.07 – the ‘real’ prices of ALL
FIVE metals fell over the 1980-90 period, by as little as 3.5% to more than 72%! For full
details, see: “Julian Simon’s bet with Paul Ehrlich” www.overpopulation.com/faq/People/julian_
simon.html.
6
It should be acknowledged that the Dust Bowl (1932-1939), was eared into the national psyche
by John Steinbeck’s, The Grapes of Wrath (1939), coincided with the aftermath of the
“Crash of 1929” and the ensuing economic dislocations associated with the Great
Depression which eased only with the outbreak of the Second World War in Europe. The
heat wave of 1936 set temperature records that still have not been eclipsed: 121o F. (50o
C.) in Steele, N.D. in July; and the 110o F. (43o C.) in Ohio “came close to tying their
record high set in 1934.” [See: “1936 North American heat wave,” @
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1936_North_American_heat_wave] For those who question the
accuracy of Wikipedia, see: www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/research/cag3/cag3.html. According to
the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration this heat wave was
responsible for 5,000 deaths. Temperatures in Canada reached 110o F. in both Manitoba
and Ontario during July of 1936. [See: www.canadianencyclopedia.ca/index.cfm?PaNm
= TCE&Params = A1ARTA0010739] Curiously, so-called Global Warming experts fail
to report the severity of the heat wave and drought of the mid-1930s.
7
See: John R. Borchert. 1971. “The Dust Bowl in the 1970s,” [Annals of the Association of
American Geographers, 61 (1), 1-22] in which he identifies the recurrence of drought
conditions in the North American Great Plains in the 1890s, 1910s, 1930s and the 1950s.
67