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Population control or race to oblivion?
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
55 of 76 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I read the Population Bomb when it first came out, and believed it. Paul Ehrlich envisioned a horrific future with mass starvation of millions, if not billions of people by 1995. As we now know, Ehrlich was a Malthusian of the worst order, and almost single-handedly gave environmentalists a bad name. He is the epitome of an alarmist who has significantly harmed the ability of reasonable environmentalists to be taken seriously (The Boy Who Cried Wolf Syndrome). I'm sure Dr. Ehrlich meant well, but boy, was he wrong. This book should rest in peace, never to be read again. Or, perhaps it could be read as a lesson learned in how to avoid making extremist statements that make you and your colleagues look stupid.
20 of 29 people found the following review helpful
By Eric Laffoon
Format:Paperback
I was required to read this pap in high school. I'm astonished this book could even be in print. It is the height of hubris of a tenured professor. I wonder if those people giving it a positive review are bothered by every prediction being wrong or even know who Malthus was. It is a sad indictment of our educational institutions that they fail to teach students to acually think. Instead they regurgitate disproven ideas by the likes of Malthus, Keynes and Ehrlich. I recall seeing a Time Magazine list of the worst books of the 20th century and this book made it.
In 1980 economist Julian Simons made a $1000 bet with Ehrlich. They picked precious metals and Ehlich bet in 10 years the price would go up vs down. At the end of 10 years Ehrlich wrote a check for more than $400 which the victor promptly framed and hung on his wall. Of course being tenured Ehrlich need not be right. Today he is an oracle for anthropogenic global warming, another discredited whacky idea. Read this book if you want to experience an intellectual moron or have read everything from Stephen King and like cheesy horror. In closing, it was a really lousy thing for my duluded teacher to have me under a cloud of dread for years. Had she instead directed me to read Malthus it would have been easy to see he was historically wrong. Paul Erlich has made a career of being wrong and scaring people. This book is a bad joke!
In 1980 economist Julian Simons made a $1000 bet with Ehrlich. They picked precious metals and Ehlich bet in 10 years the price would go up vs down. At the end of 10 years Ehrlich wrote a check for more than $400 which the victor promptly framed and hung on his wall. Of course being tenured Ehrlich need not be right. Today he is an oracle for anthropogenic global warming, another discredited whacky idea. Read this book if you want to experience an intellectual moron or have read everything from Stephen King and like cheesy horror. In closing, it was a really lousy thing for my duluded teacher to have me under a cloud of dread for years. Had she instead directed me to read Malthus it would have been easy to see he was historically wrong. Paul Erlich has made a career of being wrong and scaring people. This book is a bad joke!
2 of 5 people found the following review helpful
3.0 out of 5 stars
AN "ALARMIST" PERSPECTIVE THAT, THOUGH DISCREDITED, STILL HAS VALUE
January 26, 2012
Format:Mass Market Paperback
Paul Ralph Ehrlich (born 1932) is an American biologist (specializing in butterflies) at Stanford University, who is a prominent ecologist and demographer.
It is popular to discount Ehrlich, and particularly this book (which begins with the stark prediction that "In the 1970's the world will undergo famines---hundreds of millions of people are going to starve to death in spite of any crash programs embarked upon now"). It should be noted that he has substantially revised his predictions in later books such as The Population Explosion, Betrayal of Science and Reason: How Anti-Environmental Rhetoric Threatens Our Future, etc.
(It should also be noted that he admittedly lost his 1980 bet with conservative economist Julian Simon, about the trend of prices for certain metals.)
To be sure, his tone in this book was unduly "alarmist"; and his proposal to create a "stable optimum population size for the United States" (Pg. 135) certainly didn't anticipate the dramatic "Green Revolution" increases in agricultural production that would happen in the 1970s and later. His recommendation for "Proselytizing Friends and Associates" (e.g., praising childless people for their "selfless devotion to mankind" on pg. 185; telling families with two children that "two is plenty") seems almost ludicrous, in light of decreasing birth rates, later marriage dates, etc. His appeal to a variant of Pascal's Wager in the last chapter ("In other words, play it safe. If I'm right, we will save the world. If I'm wrong, people will still be better fed...") likely leaves us shaking our heads.
However, a "reality check" is in order. People ARE starving in the world---the Sub-Saharan African countries, India, etc.---and population control is definitely a part of the solution in such areas.
Ehrlich's book is still worth a read to gain "perspective"---but his later books are more useful, and they need to be balanced by also reading people like Julian Simon.
It is popular to discount Ehrlich, and particularly this book (which begins with the stark prediction that "In the 1970's the world will undergo famines---hundreds of millions of people are going to starve to death in spite of any crash programs embarked upon now"). It should be noted that he has substantially revised his predictions in later books such as The Population Explosion, Betrayal of Science and Reason: How Anti-Environmental Rhetoric Threatens Our Future, etc.
(It should also be noted that he admittedly lost his 1980 bet with conservative economist Julian Simon, about the trend of prices for certain metals.)
To be sure, his tone in this book was unduly "alarmist"; and his proposal to create a "stable optimum population size for the United States" (Pg. 135) certainly didn't anticipate the dramatic "Green Revolution" increases in agricultural production that would happen in the 1970s and later. His recommendation for "Proselytizing Friends and Associates" (e.g., praising childless people for their "selfless devotion to mankind" on pg. 185; telling families with two children that "two is plenty") seems almost ludicrous, in light of decreasing birth rates, later marriage dates, etc. His appeal to a variant of Pascal's Wager in the last chapter ("In other words, play it safe. If I'm right, we will save the world. If I'm wrong, people will still be better fed...") likely leaves us shaking our heads.
However, a "reality check" is in order. People ARE starving in the world---the Sub-Saharan African countries, India, etc.---and population control is definitely a part of the solution in such areas.
Ehrlich's book is still worth a read to gain "perspective"---but his later books are more useful, and they need to be balanced by also reading people like Julian Simon.
Most Recent Customer Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
Review
This is a classic book, and actually foretells
alot of the problems we have in the world today. Read more
alot of the problems we have in the world today. Read more
Published 22 months ago by mdmde
4.0 out of 5 stars
Time for a Kindle Version
A seminal Work, circa 1971, still current and relevant. Should be a Kindle offering.
Published on August 1, 2009 by Blake C. Lawless
4.0 out of 5 stars
We paid attention and got another 40 years
With global warming making the cracking sound of ice melting at both poles,
it seems that even if we stave off starvation and scare resources,
our behavior is going to... Read more
it seems that even if we stave off starvation and scare resources,
our behavior is going to... Read more
Published on July 3, 2008 by R. Bagula
4.0 out of 5 stars
Ray
Sorry, Mr Gallagher, I disagree with your review of The Population Bomb, which I find to be a useful book. Read more
Published on May 9, 2008 by R. Keller
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