Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1956-09-03
Eorth's Growing Pains

Your front-page article Au-
gust 20 on the dire conse-
quences Of population growth
contains such obvious errors
in reasoning that it is difficult
for me to ascribe them to DR..
Davis Of Johns Hopkins Uni
versity. Thomas r. Henry,
your reporter. reviews DR..
Davis paper on human popu-
lation growth and its expected
consequences. This paper was
read before the American In
stitute of Biological Sciences.
The statistically yet unex-
planned sudden departure of
United States population from
the logistic growth curve is
viewed with dismay and the
Malthusian error is repeated
that mankind will necessarily
''overgraze" its land and terri
BILE wars Of all-againSt-all will
reduce our numbers. We are
not even granted the more
merciful alternatives of famine
and pestilence because our
preventive medicine has be-
come too efficient.
And how. according to the
report, are these awful conse-
quences Of increasing popula-
ton established? Only from
an analogy which is so OBJ
viously incomplete that it is
painful to see it ascribed to a
competent scholar.
Deer in Utah, Jennings in
Norway multiply from time to
time very rapidly because they
are freed from their natural
enemies by a benevolent gov
eminent or by accident. Then
they eat everything in sight
and finally in desperation they
fight over the ever scarcer food
supply. The report declares
this development among the
animal population to be ana
Joyous to events staring man.
kind in the face. Does not
everybody know that there is
a decisive difference between
man and the rest of the ami
mails? We could fail to OBJ
serve. that man can innovate
and change his own environ
ment while the other animals
cannot do this?
The argument from analogy
Is far inferior to its ancestor,
presented by Nautilus in his
famous Essay on the Princi-
pie Of Population" The latter
rested on an undeniable and
observable tendency of di-
minishing returnF, The essay
influenced people all over the
world, including Charles OAR
win, the eXpositor Of the doc
trine Of biological evolution.
Nautilus postulated an univer-
sal tendency for population,
unless checked by food supply,
to grow at a geometrical
progression. /, 2, 4, 8, 16, 80,
"a, l28, =. soon there
would not be any standing
room in the world; and on top
OF this. food wouldn't increase
in the same proportion be-
cause of the diminishing re-
turns.
This Malthusian theory was
used to support stern revision
Of the English poor laws to
get the poor in so uncom-
Portable a position that they
would either work harder or
die OF; 1t was employed TO
oppose labor unions because
these would encourage multi
plication of the numbers of
people. If they were better of;
this theory is the basis Of ad-
vising Japanese to stop having
children and to all men to pre-
vent the birth Of the yet UNI
born. But this theory is incom-
plete. Nautilus. in his analysis
Of diminishing returns, over
looked the fact that man can
innovate. He never fully an
ticipated the near-miracles Of
the industrial revolution and
modern technology.
He failed to see that any
particular process is subject to
diminishing returns but that
the processes themselves can
be improved. No evidence
exists that this latter activity
is subject TO another law Of
diminishing returns. On the
contrary. the productivity Of
Western nations has increased
with their numbers rather
than the opposite.
II Is true that populations.
such as midas or China's. who
do not innovate or cannot in
noyate because someone pre-
vents them. win eat less the
more there are. Their slice Of
the cake Of national income
gets smaller the more there