Word: malthus
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1950-1959
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Darwin's view, the human molecules have one fundamental property that dominates all others: they tend to increase their numbers up to the absolute limit of their food supply. This is the familiar thesis of Thomas Malthus, a senior contemporary of Grandfather Darwin whose gloomy predictions of starvation have haunted mankind for 150 years...
Grandson Darwin restates Malthus. Human increase, he says, is a "geometrical progression." The more it has increased, the faster it will increase in the future. Food supply, on the other hand, increases only "arithmetically" by simple addition. Past increases do not add to its speed of increase...
This sort of reasoning is as old as Malthus, and Darwin knows the arguments that are commonly used against it. One of them is to point out that the earth's population has increased enormously since the time of Malthus, but that much of it is better fed now than it was then. His reply: humans have been living in a fleeting Golden Age that is due to the impact of science on transportation and agriculture. When the Golden Age is over (and its end is in sight), most of the earth's babies will again starve...