6 Billion Day 16. Some might argue that population issues began with the publication of Thomas Malthus' work, Essay On the Principal of Population in 1798. Strictly speaking, it is a Eurocentric bias because non-European state level societies going back about 6,500 years have had policies that enumerated and regulated human populations. Even earlier, major prehistoric events impacted human populations as revealed by archeological investigation. Mesoamerican research has revealed over a 100 fold increase in human numbers as food became more available and dependable.
Analysts know that there is a close correlation between food availability and population dynamics.
Early Population Science Malthus argued in 1798 that food shortages would occur because of the difference between arithmetic growth of food production against the geometric growth of human numbers. Arithmetic growth is an upward line of change through time while geometric growth is an exponential curve. The result of this gap, according to Malthus would be food shortages , malnutrition, starvation, and famine which would lead to social disorder and threaten his propertied class. Malthus' recommendations to reduce the exponential growth of poor folks included marrying later, spacing children further apart, and abstinence from sexual relations. Malthus' influence was extraordinary since it was a systematic analysis of the relationship of food to human numbers.