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This article is supposed to be about Malthusian catastrophe, and the following quote and reference certainly does NOT belong in the section where it has been placed:
"In her book Humanity and it's foolishness, Stacey Walker invites readers to challenge previous views on individuality looking instead for a paradigm shift towards a collective Hive Mind. Once in Humanity has entered the 'Hive State' Walker postulates an end to resource depletion via the Druidic virtue of 'Survival of the Fittest'."
That should be removed and if necessary placed into some sort of "related works" section.
Addendum to note: I would also beg to differ with the statement implying that Druids are somehow responsible for the theory of 'Survival of the Fittest'.
—Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.46.43.230 ( talk) 23:01, 29 June 2009 (UTC)
It says next to this image "The annual increase graph does not appear as one would expect for exponential growth. For exponential growth, it should itself be an upward trending exponential curve whereas it has actually been trending downward since 1986. " I don't think this is quite correct. In an exponential growth situation, the annual growth rate (given in % like the graph), should remain constant, not trend upwards exponentially. Comments? Ed Sanville 21:33, 22 April 2006 (UTC)
I have completed the edits I planned to make to this page. I would be interested to see any comments.
Buzz Bloom
Some of this article's information has been moved to Neanderthals Bandits and Farmers or Cannibals and Kings articles where it more rightfully belongs. The remainder contained some pretty basic errors (e.g. supply and demand) and has been mostly rewritten. I am pretty confident about this, but if you think it was correct we can discuss it here. User:H7asan
H7asan
We obviously have a disagreement regarding the relevance of " Beyond the Limits". I found the entire book exactly on the point. It deals with the exhaustion of food (and other resources) as a result of unconstrained population growth (as well as the unconstrained growth of consumption). I definitely think this book should be referenced from a discussion of neo-Malthusean theory. Why do you think otherwise? Also, what is the proper mechanism for getting a disagreement of this kind resolved?
By the way, I thought your moving of the discussion about the Harris and Tudge books to their own pages was a good idea.
Buzz Bloom
I have nothing against the Beyond the Limits book. (Actually I know nothing about it.) My problem was with the article which was empty.
User:H7asan
I plan to remove the two paragraphs beginning with "Another problem is that there is no strong evidence ... " including the two graphs. This discussion is irrelevant to the topic of the Mathusuan catastrophe. Malthus never described population growth as being exponential. He said the growth would be expoential in unchecked, and then only until a subsistance level was reached. Growth of a population until a subsistance level would correspond to what Securiger describes in the current text I plan to remove as a Logistic curve. All that the curves show is that the current trend of world population from 1950-2000 may be begining to reach a new limit of a kind that Malthus discusses: use of contraception, which Malthus called a vice.
I put this notice of intent here to elicit comments or alternative suggestions before doing it.
I also plan to edit the remaining material in the "Non-occurrence of the catastrophe" section cbecajuse I think it un fairly represents the state of the world at the end of the 19th century, which the anthropoligist Marvin Harris describes as one of approaching catastrophe as predicted by Malthus. The section should discuss the innovations of the twentieth century that offer opportunities to avoid the catastrophe, or only postpose it. From this perspective, I would change he title of the section to "Postponement or non-occurrence of the catastrophe".
I also elicit comments or alternative suggestions regarding these intentions.
User:BuzzB Feb 28, 2004
I have extended the graph using the same data source, out to the years 1800-2005. Unfortunately, there seems to be some problem with the new image. Sometimes it appears when the article is displayed, and sometimes I see only a reference to an image. I have posted a query over at WikiMedia, and I hope to have it resolved in a day or two. Meanwhile, if you are looking for the image, please have some patience! -- Aetheling 16:53, 30 September 2006 (UTC)
Addressing the original question of this section, an exponential curve does not have a constant growth rate. A constant growth rate yields a linear curve (for example, y=2x, a linear curve, has a growth rate of 2, a constant). An exponential curve has a growth rate that is, itself, an exponential curve (simplest example is y=e^x, a curve whose growth rate is equal to itself y'=e^x). For more information on this, you could visit the wikipedia page on exponential growth. I corrected the incorrect sentence.
Matt
I have updated the figures for world population and world population growth rate, to reflect the latest figures and estimates from the US Bureau of the Census. I also took the opportunity to improve these charts a little. I narrowed the range of the first and converted the vertical scale from semilog, so as to bring out more detail. If you look at this chart in its highest resolution, you can see that we have been following pretty closely the UN Medium projection (though it is still way too early to make any definitive judgement on this point). For the growth rate chart I added the latest projections by the US Bureau of the Census out to 2025, in red. Cheers! — Aetheling ( talk) 18:16, 19 September 2008 (UTC).
I wanted to point out that this approach to exponential growth is to limited. In the article it is suggested that you should view the population as different groups with different growth rates. You could compare a population that is decreasing with 2,5% per year with a population that consists of two groups. Lets say half of the population is a group that decreases with 10% and the other half increases with 5%. The latter would have a decrease of 2,5 percent in the first year. But this would slowly change over time. After 15 years you will see a growth of about three percent. And over time the growth of the entire population will be five percent. The group with the largest growth wins.
This is an important aspect because people will respond differently to the changes in society. There are a lot of explanations why population growth slowes when gdp rises. There will be more contraceptives and more luxury etc. However there will be a group within the population that despite all these changes still has a preference for having children. M. Meijer —Preceding unsigned comment added by Meijer1973 ( talk • contribs) 20:05, 29 August 2010 (UTC)
Hmm. I just wanted to object to a few things:
I think these things should be included because they strongly effect what decisions should be made regarding Malthusian theory. I find it impossible to argue with or doubt the basic theory. Almost the only requirements for its applicability are that life exists and there is no centralized control. What is in question are the time scale and the nature of the catastrophe. Both of these are strongly effected by pollution and resource depletion, especially energy and farm land. One can consider food the "fuel" of non-industrial man, so energy is the modern equivalent.
The only way I feel I am being pessimistic is that nuclear (breader fission and/or fusion) power may well be able to replace fossil fuels with acceptable pollution and hazard, but no-one is sure of that. Anyway it can't support the kind of increase in energy consumption we are seeing.
David R. Ingham
There is no cite given for the following assertion:
In fact, currently, food supply per person is several times higher than when Malthus wrote his essay
Reference #10 links to the International Data Base home page, but does not contain a reference to any particular article.
I read what was discussed before, and I still think it is misleading to only show data from 1950-2000. Regardless of the precision of the data before 1950, the numbers can still be shown to be in the right ballpark. (One reader commented that the data before 1950 were often approxomations that, in part, assumed exponential growth - but one can not possibly assume linear growth, or there would have been no people before 1900! And the numbers for earlier dates are based on real data, not merely assumptions.)
It's obvious that the period from 1950 to 2000 looks much more linear than, say, 1750 to 2000, and gives a misleading impression. The correct answer is, as has been said, that world population appears to follow a more complex function than simple linear, exponential, or quadratic growth. So why show only the select portion that appears linear? – Quadell ( talk) 13:47, 10 October 2005 (UTC)
When you say:
(this being one of many statements you've made in support of your interpretation) you seem to be claiming that Malthus was describing (and predicting) a future catastrophic global event - one that has yet to occur. That is not what he was saying, at all.
Malthus posited a doubling of world population every 25 years under ideal conditions (no shortage of food and none of the "positive" constraints of, for example, war and disease). It is wrong to assume that Malthus actually thought the world population would double every 25 years until some future event in which there would not be enough food to sustain the population. (Given his ideal conditions and a population at the close of the 18th century of 1 billion, the world population would now be in excess of 250 billion.)
What he predicted was not some apocalyptic event but ongoing catastrophes playing out simultaneously in localized areas all over the world, wherever and whenever any group of people could not sustain themselves because their population had outrun the local area's food production capacity. His intent is quite clear in his statement (when discussing the American Indian):
It is also implicitly clear that when Darwin found in Malthus' essay the mechanism that drives evolution - a constant competition for survival due to limited resources - he didn't think Malthus was predicting some future global catastrophe.
Malthus was addressing the idea of utopian societies gaining popularity at the time he wrote his essay. The point of his essay was to show that there could never be a population free from poverty and hunger and, therefore, the dream of a utopian society was just that - a dream. While your point that food production is now far greater than Malthus could ever imagine is true, what Malthus was saying remains valid. There are more people living in extreme poverty today than there were people (in total) at the time Malthus wrote his essay.
Paul Pomeroy 06:14, 24 December 2005 (UTC)
I was going to make those very points (see above) about the logistic curve behaviour not contradicting Malthus's ideas, i.e. that he did not predict exponential growth but rather a tendency towards it, always modified by "checks", which is precisely where the logistics curve comes from. But then, why hasn't that change yet been made?
I'd also like to draw attention to [Nassau Senior]'s work on wages, which has some of this thinking behind it. The particular point I want to bring out is his idea that machinery could theoretically compete with people for food, if only it needed fuel that drew on the same resources - which using more renewable fuels might soon cause. PML.
Hi,
when discussing the correctness of the geometric growth assumption and Malthus' theory in general it's important to keep Malthus' exact words in mind: "Population, WHEN UNCHECKED, increases in a geometrical ratio". Since the late 18th century occured plenty of Malthusian' checks to the human population: wars and epidemics, unhealthy living conditions, still existing infant mortality, contraception and abortion etc.
Arguing that the Malthusian population model is void because we can't see a perfect exponential growth in the world population chart seems somewhat dubios; without considering the existence of checks (that, in Malthus' thinking, avoid, or delay, the "big catastrophe").
-- 212.144.193.196 12:01, 19 February 2006 (UTC)
There has been enormous decrease in female fertility worldwide and this is something that is not just specific to the west. The average worldwide fertility is now 2.59 (2.1 is the replacement rate fertility at which no population growth will occur in the long term). For instance the fertility rate in India is now 2.73. This implies that growth is not exponential since a constant fertility rate would be required for exponential growth. This is the reason for the UN estimates. A scientific approach (scientific does not mean environmentalist) implies that population growth must level off due to decreasing fertility. Therefore neo-malthusian theory makes no sense and has just been debunked. QED bitches.
That assumes fertility does not continue to decrease and we have no reason to expect that will happen given that it has decreased from 6 to less that 3 worldwide from 1960 to 1990. You say India will continue to experience population increase. It will but at a slower rate which is completely inconsistent with Malthus. Showing an increase in population is not enough. You are required to show an exponential increase. A decrease from 6 to 3 definitely implies that growth is not exponential since exponential growth requires constant fertility.
They're already mentioned, but not emphasized. Could we maybe stress that there are currently improved population models available. Both these newer models *do* actually have malthusian style exponential growth for certain parameters. They just also have different behaviour under other parameters. -- Kim Bruning 09:01, 20 July 2006 (UTC)
The section on "is the catastrophe happening?" seems to have a Non-NPOV and perhaps even some factual accuracy. I just stumbled on this article and don't know enough to necessarily correct it all myself, but tagged the section. For example, the unsourced and original opinion that the UN study is "less scientific" than contradicting studies. There are weasel words/phrases like "numerous scholars accept...", "some analysts consider...", etc. I think the section has definitely been massaged to push a subtly apocalyptic point of view.-- 160.39.213.64 01:54, 27 September 2006 (UTC)
I did enjoy the bit about one lone economist suggessting that global starvation might not be inevitable! Most economists (and others with a half a brain!) regard theories of Malthusian catastophes as a 19th century goof, and comprehensively disproven! Neo-Malthusianism is up there with those who believe that reading the Bible backwards reveals Satanic messages! -- Nmcmurdo 19:02, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
I agree that the earlier version had some serious problems with bias. As time permits, I have been trying to improve this section with both text and figures that let readers make up their own minds based on the most impartial and accurate graphics that I can devise. — Aetheling 20:55, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
As first user states. There are lots of NPOV issues with that section. Whoever authored that section was determined to reject all notions that the Malthusian Catastrophe is shoved back/not happening at all. Then again murdo, isn't it a bit personal to talk, ad hominem, to the Neo-Malthusians? We sure could use a little tact everywhere in Wikipedia. Pasonia 03:31, 18 November 2006 (UTC)
True. The way I heard it, the world food supply is more than enough to comfortably sustain the entire population, and famine is due mostly to politics and poor distribution. Vultur 9:48 PM, 16 December 2006 (UTC)
Maybe this article is asking for a "Malthusian catastrophe in popular culture" section, as popular on many other articles? To seed such a section, here's a piece of trivia: the Guardians of the Universe, from DC Comics, originated in a planed named Maltus, and were called Maltusians. Some of them evolved into the Guardians and left for Oa, while most stayed behind, and were later depicted as much less advanced than Earth, presumably due to Malthusian effects. It may be that the name is only a coincidence, and as such I'd rather not touch the article, but I believe it's intentional. I'm sure other people can remember lots of other pop references. LaloMartins 05:01, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
Following are the sections I wrote on critics of malthusian catastrophe. However, they might first be further discussed before any display on the article page again, so I moved them here. Please state if you find them reasonable or not. Mikael Häggström 06:54, 9 June 2007 (UTC)
By the simple rule of supply and demand, an increasing population would lead to an increasing demand for food. If then the supply of food isn't increasing at the same rate, the price of food will increase. Thus, more people would find it worth to work agricultural, and if the land area of agriculture isn't enough, find alternatives for producing food. Such alternatives could be food based on algae or fungi [1] or, on the long term, purely synthetic food. On the other hand, increasing prices of food would render the consumers to find cheaper alternatives. Thus, the worst catastrophe that could happen is that all people would have to become vegetarians, instead of the wasting system of eating animals eating vegetables. Alternatively, the population would have to eat more algae or seaweed.
Shouldn't the growing occurrence of obesity in the developing world render Malthus' theory (at least as it relates to food) void once and for all? I mean now we can manufacture junk food with ridiculously high calorie content for next to nothing. The number of obese individuals worldwide has now equalled the number of underfed. This should be mentioned somewhere http://www.fao.org/FOCUS/E/obesity/obes1.htm 81.153.62.232 20:23, 10 July 2007 (UTC)
The starvation we see on earth today isn't a result of an insufficiency of the earth to supply food, even without prospects of purely synthetic food and a shift to eating algae and fungi. Rather, it's a result of inability to transport it to all areas where it is needed. By the economic reasons above, this will continue into the future as well. Thus, there will be no deterioration of mankind due to the Malthusian catastrophe, although an unfair distribution of supply might persist.
References
In most discussions/articles RE: the sustaniability or otherwise of future (or even current) population levels there is far too much emphisis on the feasibility (or otherwise) of meeting projected demands of FOOD but what of other resources required by modern people to lead worthwhile lives like housing, clean water, clothing, energy, transport, medicine and all manner of manufactured goods. There are serious question marks over the long term availability of sufficent supplies of raw materials to meet these needs even at current population levels. And what pollution ? All other considerations being equal surely twelve billion people will produce a lot more than say two billion. 80.229.222.48 11:14, 11 August 2007 (UTC)
http:Disablelink//www.optimumpopulation.org/ your right about this one... it is a spam one really here ... because of the donation thing pov. etc... thanks for catching that NJGW it is not a good link here at all... and I guess you agree that you probably mistakenly removed this one previously... that is excellent information M. King Hubbert on the Nature of Growth. 1974 Thanks for being alert on the other one. skip sievert ( talk) 18:46, 5 September 2008 (UTC)
I agree with NJGW here. The WP:OR violation he is referring to is not in the contents of the linked article itself; it's in your tacit assumption that the latter relates to the main topic of Malthusian Catastrophe. That is far from being a given. I echo his guidance in trying to place it within the body of the article. It's compliance or lack thereof will then become apparent. ~ Alcmaeonid ( talk) 22:06, 6 September 2008 (UTC)
First I just want to point out that links within the See also section shouldn't have the same level of scrutiny as those in the EL sections. That said, this connection is a bit loose... I can see how one might argue that an Anarcho-primitivist might support the return to a different lifestyle in order to avoid a Malthusian catastrophy, but couldn't the same be said for any type of primitivst? Maybe a section could be inserted in the text which discusses movements which aim to mitigate a catastrophy and primitivism could be mentioned there (but since this is essentially a population issue, a sudden drop in technology levels worldwide would create an instant and artificial--rather than organic--Malthusian catastrophy).
This seems a bit tricky, but if done correctly could improve the article. NJGW ( talk) 18:11, 18 September 2008 (UTC)
It's complicated to distinguish "artificial" from "organic" social phenomenon. The connection is very clear if you consider that the "Malthusian catastrophe" is in itself part of the anarcho-primitivist theory on why civilization is unsustainable. In this sense, the anarcho-primitivists are not exactly looking to “mitigate” the problem, but to find alternatives of sustainable survival trough the inevitable collapse. Maziotis ( talk) 21:05, 18 September 2008 (UTC)
I believe there is not exactly a Marx in anarcho-primitivism like there is one in marxism. There is this general assumption that civilization is a two second disease in our biological history. Other than that, there is a space for different interpretations to what the unsustainability of civilization means. I never meant to argue that the Malthusian theory is a corner stone in anarcho-primitivist theory. Simply, if I understood it well, this theory is an explanation on how agriculture is unsustainable for human beings in the long run. This in turn is central to a political philosophy called anarcho-primitivism. There is where I see a clear connection. Maziotis ( talk) 11:52, 19 September 2008 (UTC)
"An August 2007 science review in The New York Times raised the claim that the Industrial Revolution had enabled the modern world to break out of the Malthusian Trap,[1] " ... uh... the idea the that the Industrial Revolution enabled the modern world to break out of the Malthusian Trap goes back to ... well, shortly after Malthus. Certainly it was widely accepted among economists by the early 20th century. And that's way, way, way before 2007. This is so outdated (2007 vs. 1900) and trite ("raised the claim" to characterize a widely held view completely supported by empirical evidence) that it just does not belong in the article, and definitely not in the lede. radek ( talk) 22:23, 1 August 2009 (UTC)
I am curious if Malthusian theory can be applied to other areas of growth. For example, educational institutions continually birthing graduates in relation to the number of jobs available. In trying to ease the problem, different organizations or government entities are wanting to create new jobs. This is not stated as reality but to only an example. Beetlebailey75 ( talk) 09:01, 3 April 2010 (UTC)beetlebailey75
"In some cases, population growth occurs due to increasing life expectancies, even though fertility rates are below replacement."
Does not seem to make mathematical sense. The mechanism where increasing life expectancies creates population growth works in the way that: greater life expectancies cause increasing fertility rates, which causes population growth. Increasing life expectancies cannot create population growth without increasing fertility rates about replacement first. Think about the arithmetic of it:
If you have an initial number, say, 0, and can (only) add or subtract as many 1s from it anytime, you need to add more times than you subtract to get a greater number. I'm no mathematician, by the way, so I don't know if this is always true, but I'm pretty true it applies here. Anyways, if "fertility rates are below replacement," as in the sentence in question, it corresponds to subtracting more times than adding, if the resulting number corresponds to the population, but since you need to add more times than you subtract to get a greater number, the population could only decrease. If the population could only decrease, it wouldn't make sense how "population growth occurs". If no one objects, I'll remove this statement at February. 173.180.202.22 ( talk) 06:36, 2 January 2012 (UTC)
Wouldn't it be better to have this article, with a slight rewrite and shift of focus, under Malthusian theory (currently a redirect here) rather than "catastrophe"? The way the idea works is that there are demographic checks on income per capita but a "catastrophe" in the sense of something sudden and very bad is not necessarily a consequence of the model. VolunteerMarek 08:13, 4 July 2012 (UTC)
In the section " Neo-Malthusian theory" in the 4th paragraph, "Second figure" is mentioned. There is no obvious "second figure". The first image shown in the article is close, but not quite matching "Figure on the right". -- Tikmok ( talk) 07:25, 17 June 2015 (UTC)
Dr. Lasserre has reviewed this Wikipedia page, and provided us with the following comments to improve its quality:
basically good.
Minor point:
However, some contend that the Malthusian catastrophe is not imminent...SHOULD BE In fact, some contend that the Malthusian catastrophe is not imminent
We hope Wikipedians on this talk page can take advantage of these comments and improve the quality of the article accordingly.
Dr. Lasserre has published scholarly research which seems to be relevant to this Wikipedia article:
ExpertIdeas ( talk) 10:09, 15 July 2015 (UTC)
The Malthusian "catastrophe" (or theory) only applies to development countries, where the growth of a population is depending on the food supply. However, in industrialized countries the food production is almost "unlimited" (actually only limited by the land used for food production) and as such the Malthusian catastrophe won't play here anymore. Maybe Boserup or Simon explained this in details (I didn't read them), however these facts should be somehow mentioned within the introduction of this article. -- 81.6.59.42 ( talk) 13:26, 9 October 2015 (UTC)
Dr. Khalil has reviewed this Wikipedia page, and provided us with the following comments to improve its quality:
I am not an expert. But after the end of section "Criticism", after Engels, I suggest adding this paragraph
Further, Malthusian theory of population is unfalsifiable, failing to pass the test of Karl Popper. If one does not witness Malthusian catastrophe, advocates of Malthusian theory can appeal to intermediate measures, such as birth control or late marriage as the reason. There is simply no clear empirical prediction that can be tested.
Popper, Karl. The Logic of Scientific Discovery. New York: Harper & Row, 1959.
We hope Wikipedians on this talk page can take advantage of these comments and improve the quality of the article accordingly.
We believe Dr. Khalil has expertise on the topic of this article, since he has published relevant scholarly research:
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I've made a merge proposal to combine this article with Malthusian Trap. They seem to cover the same topic, rely on the same evidence, and both came out of the same essay by Malthus. Both are also small articles, and I think would be more useful together. TripleShortOfACycle ( talk - contribs) 02:22, 19 July 2020 (UTC)
I merged Malthusian trap in September 2020. Doing Malthusianism now. (Seems there was some confusion over which proposal was being discussed.) -- Beland ( talk) 01:40, 21 January 2021 (UTC)
This is not covered, and if any references could be found that would be a good addition.
There are two angles. Firstly, the ideas of Malthus were part of the inspiration for Alfred Wallace (and then Darwin) to propose the theory of Natural Selection.
Secondly, Natural Selection says that the purpose of existence is simply to exist. Our preference for good living vs large families is likely temporary, as those from large families tend to have large families, and eventually they will dominate any society. And who is to say that Nature is wrong and that that is a bad thing. Tuntable ( talk) 10:28, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
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This article is or was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment. Further details are available
on the course page. Student editor(s):
Mikerailey.
Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT ( talk) 03:12, 17 January 2022 (UTC)
This article is supposed to be about Malthusian catastrophe, and the following quote and reference certainly does NOT belong in the section where it has been placed:
"In her book Humanity and it's foolishness, Stacey Walker invites readers to challenge previous views on individuality looking instead for a paradigm shift towards a collective Hive Mind. Once in Humanity has entered the 'Hive State' Walker postulates an end to resource depletion via the Druidic virtue of 'Survival of the Fittest'."
That should be removed and if necessary placed into some sort of "related works" section.
Addendum to note: I would also beg to differ with the statement implying that Druids are somehow responsible for the theory of 'Survival of the Fittest'.
—Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.46.43.230 ( talk) 23:01, 29 June 2009 (UTC)
It says next to this image "The annual increase graph does not appear as one would expect for exponential growth. For exponential growth, it should itself be an upward trending exponential curve whereas it has actually been trending downward since 1986. " I don't think this is quite correct. In an exponential growth situation, the annual growth rate (given in % like the graph), should remain constant, not trend upwards exponentially. Comments? Ed Sanville 21:33, 22 April 2006 (UTC)
I have completed the edits I planned to make to this page. I would be interested to see any comments.
Buzz Bloom
Some of this article's information has been moved to Neanderthals Bandits and Farmers or Cannibals and Kings articles where it more rightfully belongs. The remainder contained some pretty basic errors (e.g. supply and demand) and has been mostly rewritten. I am pretty confident about this, but if you think it was correct we can discuss it here. User:H7asan
H7asan
We obviously have a disagreement regarding the relevance of " Beyond the Limits". I found the entire book exactly on the point. It deals with the exhaustion of food (and other resources) as a result of unconstrained population growth (as well as the unconstrained growth of consumption). I definitely think this book should be referenced from a discussion of neo-Malthusean theory. Why do you think otherwise? Also, what is the proper mechanism for getting a disagreement of this kind resolved?
By the way, I thought your moving of the discussion about the Harris and Tudge books to their own pages was a good idea.
Buzz Bloom
I have nothing against the Beyond the Limits book. (Actually I know nothing about it.) My problem was with the article which was empty.
User:H7asan
I plan to remove the two paragraphs beginning with "Another problem is that there is no strong evidence ... " including the two graphs. This discussion is irrelevant to the topic of the Mathusuan catastrophe. Malthus never described population growth as being exponential. He said the growth would be expoential in unchecked, and then only until a subsistance level was reached. Growth of a population until a subsistance level would correspond to what Securiger describes in the current text I plan to remove as a Logistic curve. All that the curves show is that the current trend of world population from 1950-2000 may be begining to reach a new limit of a kind that Malthus discusses: use of contraception, which Malthus called a vice.
I put this notice of intent here to elicit comments or alternative suggestions before doing it.
I also plan to edit the remaining material in the "Non-occurrence of the catastrophe" section cbecajuse I think it un fairly represents the state of the world at the end of the 19th century, which the anthropoligist Marvin Harris describes as one of approaching catastrophe as predicted by Malthus. The section should discuss the innovations of the twentieth century that offer opportunities to avoid the catastrophe, or only postpose it. From this perspective, I would change he title of the section to "Postponement or non-occurrence of the catastrophe".
I also elicit comments or alternative suggestions regarding these intentions.
User:BuzzB Feb 28, 2004
I have extended the graph using the same data source, out to the years 1800-2005. Unfortunately, there seems to be some problem with the new image. Sometimes it appears when the article is displayed, and sometimes I see only a reference to an image. I have posted a query over at WikiMedia, and I hope to have it resolved in a day or two. Meanwhile, if you are looking for the image, please have some patience! -- Aetheling 16:53, 30 September 2006 (UTC)
Addressing the original question of this section, an exponential curve does not have a constant growth rate. A constant growth rate yields a linear curve (for example, y=2x, a linear curve, has a growth rate of 2, a constant). An exponential curve has a growth rate that is, itself, an exponential curve (simplest example is y=e^x, a curve whose growth rate is equal to itself y'=e^x). For more information on this, you could visit the wikipedia page on exponential growth. I corrected the incorrect sentence.
Matt
I have updated the figures for world population and world population growth rate, to reflect the latest figures and estimates from the US Bureau of the Census. I also took the opportunity to improve these charts a little. I narrowed the range of the first and converted the vertical scale from semilog, so as to bring out more detail. If you look at this chart in its highest resolution, you can see that we have been following pretty closely the UN Medium projection (though it is still way too early to make any definitive judgement on this point). For the growth rate chart I added the latest projections by the US Bureau of the Census out to 2025, in red. Cheers! — Aetheling ( talk) 18:16, 19 September 2008 (UTC).
I wanted to point out that this approach to exponential growth is to limited. In the article it is suggested that you should view the population as different groups with different growth rates. You could compare a population that is decreasing with 2,5% per year with a population that consists of two groups. Lets say half of the population is a group that decreases with 10% and the other half increases with 5%. The latter would have a decrease of 2,5 percent in the first year. But this would slowly change over time. After 15 years you will see a growth of about three percent. And over time the growth of the entire population will be five percent. The group with the largest growth wins.
This is an important aspect because people will respond differently to the changes in society. There are a lot of explanations why population growth slowes when gdp rises. There will be more contraceptives and more luxury etc. However there will be a group within the population that despite all these changes still has a preference for having children. M. Meijer —Preceding unsigned comment added by Meijer1973 ( talk • contribs) 20:05, 29 August 2010 (UTC)
Hmm. I just wanted to object to a few things:
I think these things should be included because they strongly effect what decisions should be made regarding Malthusian theory. I find it impossible to argue with or doubt the basic theory. Almost the only requirements for its applicability are that life exists and there is no centralized control. What is in question are the time scale and the nature of the catastrophe. Both of these are strongly effected by pollution and resource depletion, especially energy and farm land. One can consider food the "fuel" of non-industrial man, so energy is the modern equivalent.
The only way I feel I am being pessimistic is that nuclear (breader fission and/or fusion) power may well be able to replace fossil fuels with acceptable pollution and hazard, but no-one is sure of that. Anyway it can't support the kind of increase in energy consumption we are seeing.
David R. Ingham
There is no cite given for the following assertion:
In fact, currently, food supply per person is several times higher than when Malthus wrote his essay
Reference #10 links to the International Data Base home page, but does not contain a reference to any particular article.
I read what was discussed before, and I still think it is misleading to only show data from 1950-2000. Regardless of the precision of the data before 1950, the numbers can still be shown to be in the right ballpark. (One reader commented that the data before 1950 were often approxomations that, in part, assumed exponential growth - but one can not possibly assume linear growth, or there would have been no people before 1900! And the numbers for earlier dates are based on real data, not merely assumptions.)
It's obvious that the period from 1950 to 2000 looks much more linear than, say, 1750 to 2000, and gives a misleading impression. The correct answer is, as has been said, that world population appears to follow a more complex function than simple linear, exponential, or quadratic growth. So why show only the select portion that appears linear? – Quadell ( talk) 13:47, 10 October 2005 (UTC)
When you say:
(this being one of many statements you've made in support of your interpretation) you seem to be claiming that Malthus was describing (and predicting) a future catastrophic global event - one that has yet to occur. That is not what he was saying, at all.
Malthus posited a doubling of world population every 25 years under ideal conditions (no shortage of food and none of the "positive" constraints of, for example, war and disease). It is wrong to assume that Malthus actually thought the world population would double every 25 years until some future event in which there would not be enough food to sustain the population. (Given his ideal conditions and a population at the close of the 18th century of 1 billion, the world population would now be in excess of 250 billion.)
What he predicted was not some apocalyptic event but ongoing catastrophes playing out simultaneously in localized areas all over the world, wherever and whenever any group of people could not sustain themselves because their population had outrun the local area's food production capacity. His intent is quite clear in his statement (when discussing the American Indian):
It is also implicitly clear that when Darwin found in Malthus' essay the mechanism that drives evolution - a constant competition for survival due to limited resources - he didn't think Malthus was predicting some future global catastrophe.
Malthus was addressing the idea of utopian societies gaining popularity at the time he wrote his essay. The point of his essay was to show that there could never be a population free from poverty and hunger and, therefore, the dream of a utopian society was just that - a dream. While your point that food production is now far greater than Malthus could ever imagine is true, what Malthus was saying remains valid. There are more people living in extreme poverty today than there were people (in total) at the time Malthus wrote his essay.
Paul Pomeroy 06:14, 24 December 2005 (UTC)
I was going to make those very points (see above) about the logistic curve behaviour not contradicting Malthus's ideas, i.e. that he did not predict exponential growth but rather a tendency towards it, always modified by "checks", which is precisely where the logistics curve comes from. But then, why hasn't that change yet been made?
I'd also like to draw attention to [Nassau Senior]'s work on wages, which has some of this thinking behind it. The particular point I want to bring out is his idea that machinery could theoretically compete with people for food, if only it needed fuel that drew on the same resources - which using more renewable fuels might soon cause. PML.
Hi,
when discussing the correctness of the geometric growth assumption and Malthus' theory in general it's important to keep Malthus' exact words in mind: "Population, WHEN UNCHECKED, increases in a geometrical ratio". Since the late 18th century occured plenty of Malthusian' checks to the human population: wars and epidemics, unhealthy living conditions, still existing infant mortality, contraception and abortion etc.
Arguing that the Malthusian population model is void because we can't see a perfect exponential growth in the world population chart seems somewhat dubios; without considering the existence of checks (that, in Malthus' thinking, avoid, or delay, the "big catastrophe").
-- 212.144.193.196 12:01, 19 February 2006 (UTC)
There has been enormous decrease in female fertility worldwide and this is something that is not just specific to the west. The average worldwide fertility is now 2.59 (2.1 is the replacement rate fertility at which no population growth will occur in the long term). For instance the fertility rate in India is now 2.73. This implies that growth is not exponential since a constant fertility rate would be required for exponential growth. This is the reason for the UN estimates. A scientific approach (scientific does not mean environmentalist) implies that population growth must level off due to decreasing fertility. Therefore neo-malthusian theory makes no sense and has just been debunked. QED bitches.
That assumes fertility does not continue to decrease and we have no reason to expect that will happen given that it has decreased from 6 to less that 3 worldwide from 1960 to 1990. You say India will continue to experience population increase. It will but at a slower rate which is completely inconsistent with Malthus. Showing an increase in population is not enough. You are required to show an exponential increase. A decrease from 6 to 3 definitely implies that growth is not exponential since exponential growth requires constant fertility.
They're already mentioned, but not emphasized. Could we maybe stress that there are currently improved population models available. Both these newer models *do* actually have malthusian style exponential growth for certain parameters. They just also have different behaviour under other parameters. -- Kim Bruning 09:01, 20 July 2006 (UTC)
The section on "is the catastrophe happening?" seems to have a Non-NPOV and perhaps even some factual accuracy. I just stumbled on this article and don't know enough to necessarily correct it all myself, but tagged the section. For example, the unsourced and original opinion that the UN study is "less scientific" than contradicting studies. There are weasel words/phrases like "numerous scholars accept...", "some analysts consider...", etc. I think the section has definitely been massaged to push a subtly apocalyptic point of view.-- 160.39.213.64 01:54, 27 September 2006 (UTC)
I did enjoy the bit about one lone economist suggessting that global starvation might not be inevitable! Most economists (and others with a half a brain!) regard theories of Malthusian catastophes as a 19th century goof, and comprehensively disproven! Neo-Malthusianism is up there with those who believe that reading the Bible backwards reveals Satanic messages! -- Nmcmurdo 19:02, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
I agree that the earlier version had some serious problems with bias. As time permits, I have been trying to improve this section with both text and figures that let readers make up their own minds based on the most impartial and accurate graphics that I can devise. — Aetheling 20:55, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
As first user states. There are lots of NPOV issues with that section. Whoever authored that section was determined to reject all notions that the Malthusian Catastrophe is shoved back/not happening at all. Then again murdo, isn't it a bit personal to talk, ad hominem, to the Neo-Malthusians? We sure could use a little tact everywhere in Wikipedia. Pasonia 03:31, 18 November 2006 (UTC)
True. The way I heard it, the world food supply is more than enough to comfortably sustain the entire population, and famine is due mostly to politics and poor distribution. Vultur 9:48 PM, 16 December 2006 (UTC)
Maybe this article is asking for a "Malthusian catastrophe in popular culture" section, as popular on many other articles? To seed such a section, here's a piece of trivia: the Guardians of the Universe, from DC Comics, originated in a planed named Maltus, and were called Maltusians. Some of them evolved into the Guardians and left for Oa, while most stayed behind, and were later depicted as much less advanced than Earth, presumably due to Malthusian effects. It may be that the name is only a coincidence, and as such I'd rather not touch the article, but I believe it's intentional. I'm sure other people can remember lots of other pop references. LaloMartins 05:01, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
Following are the sections I wrote on critics of malthusian catastrophe. However, they might first be further discussed before any display on the article page again, so I moved them here. Please state if you find them reasonable or not. Mikael Häggström 06:54, 9 June 2007 (UTC)
By the simple rule of supply and demand, an increasing population would lead to an increasing demand for food. If then the supply of food isn't increasing at the same rate, the price of food will increase. Thus, more people would find it worth to work agricultural, and if the land area of agriculture isn't enough, find alternatives for producing food. Such alternatives could be food based on algae or fungi [1] or, on the long term, purely synthetic food. On the other hand, increasing prices of food would render the consumers to find cheaper alternatives. Thus, the worst catastrophe that could happen is that all people would have to become vegetarians, instead of the wasting system of eating animals eating vegetables. Alternatively, the population would have to eat more algae or seaweed.
Shouldn't the growing occurrence of obesity in the developing world render Malthus' theory (at least as it relates to food) void once and for all? I mean now we can manufacture junk food with ridiculously high calorie content for next to nothing. The number of obese individuals worldwide has now equalled the number of underfed. This should be mentioned somewhere http://www.fao.org/FOCUS/E/obesity/obes1.htm 81.153.62.232 20:23, 10 July 2007 (UTC)
The starvation we see on earth today isn't a result of an insufficiency of the earth to supply food, even without prospects of purely synthetic food and a shift to eating algae and fungi. Rather, it's a result of inability to transport it to all areas where it is needed. By the economic reasons above, this will continue into the future as well. Thus, there will be no deterioration of mankind due to the Malthusian catastrophe, although an unfair distribution of supply might persist.
References
In most discussions/articles RE: the sustaniability or otherwise of future (or even current) population levels there is far too much emphisis on the feasibility (or otherwise) of meeting projected demands of FOOD but what of other resources required by modern people to lead worthwhile lives like housing, clean water, clothing, energy, transport, medicine and all manner of manufactured goods. There are serious question marks over the long term availability of sufficent supplies of raw materials to meet these needs even at current population levels. And what pollution ? All other considerations being equal surely twelve billion people will produce a lot more than say two billion. 80.229.222.48 11:14, 11 August 2007 (UTC)
http:Disablelink//www.optimumpopulation.org/ your right about this one... it is a spam one really here ... because of the donation thing pov. etc... thanks for catching that NJGW it is not a good link here at all... and I guess you agree that you probably mistakenly removed this one previously... that is excellent information M. King Hubbert on the Nature of Growth. 1974 Thanks for being alert on the other one. skip sievert ( talk) 18:46, 5 September 2008 (UTC)
I agree with NJGW here. The WP:OR violation he is referring to is not in the contents of the linked article itself; it's in your tacit assumption that the latter relates to the main topic of Malthusian Catastrophe. That is far from being a given. I echo his guidance in trying to place it within the body of the article. It's compliance or lack thereof will then become apparent. ~ Alcmaeonid ( talk) 22:06, 6 September 2008 (UTC)
First I just want to point out that links within the See also section shouldn't have the same level of scrutiny as those in the EL sections. That said, this connection is a bit loose... I can see how one might argue that an Anarcho-primitivist might support the return to a different lifestyle in order to avoid a Malthusian catastrophy, but couldn't the same be said for any type of primitivst? Maybe a section could be inserted in the text which discusses movements which aim to mitigate a catastrophy and primitivism could be mentioned there (but since this is essentially a population issue, a sudden drop in technology levels worldwide would create an instant and artificial--rather than organic--Malthusian catastrophy).
This seems a bit tricky, but if done correctly could improve the article. NJGW ( talk) 18:11, 18 September 2008 (UTC)
It's complicated to distinguish "artificial" from "organic" social phenomenon. The connection is very clear if you consider that the "Malthusian catastrophe" is in itself part of the anarcho-primitivist theory on why civilization is unsustainable. In this sense, the anarcho-primitivists are not exactly looking to “mitigate” the problem, but to find alternatives of sustainable survival trough the inevitable collapse. Maziotis ( talk) 21:05, 18 September 2008 (UTC)
I believe there is not exactly a Marx in anarcho-primitivism like there is one in marxism. There is this general assumption that civilization is a two second disease in our biological history. Other than that, there is a space for different interpretations to what the unsustainability of civilization means. I never meant to argue that the Malthusian theory is a corner stone in anarcho-primitivist theory. Simply, if I understood it well, this theory is an explanation on how agriculture is unsustainable for human beings in the long run. This in turn is central to a political philosophy called anarcho-primitivism. There is where I see a clear connection. Maziotis ( talk) 11:52, 19 September 2008 (UTC)
"An August 2007 science review in The New York Times raised the claim that the Industrial Revolution had enabled the modern world to break out of the Malthusian Trap,[1] " ... uh... the idea the that the Industrial Revolution enabled the modern world to break out of the Malthusian Trap goes back to ... well, shortly after Malthus. Certainly it was widely accepted among economists by the early 20th century. And that's way, way, way before 2007. This is so outdated (2007 vs. 1900) and trite ("raised the claim" to characterize a widely held view completely supported by empirical evidence) that it just does not belong in the article, and definitely not in the lede. radek ( talk) 22:23, 1 August 2009 (UTC)
I am curious if Malthusian theory can be applied to other areas of growth. For example, educational institutions continually birthing graduates in relation to the number of jobs available. In trying to ease the problem, different organizations or government entities are wanting to create new jobs. This is not stated as reality but to only an example. Beetlebailey75 ( talk) 09:01, 3 April 2010 (UTC)beetlebailey75
"In some cases, population growth occurs due to increasing life expectancies, even though fertility rates are below replacement."
Does not seem to make mathematical sense. The mechanism where increasing life expectancies creates population growth works in the way that: greater life expectancies cause increasing fertility rates, which causes population growth. Increasing life expectancies cannot create population growth without increasing fertility rates about replacement first. Think about the arithmetic of it:
If you have an initial number, say, 0, and can (only) add or subtract as many 1s from it anytime, you need to add more times than you subtract to get a greater number. I'm no mathematician, by the way, so I don't know if this is always true, but I'm pretty true it applies here. Anyways, if "fertility rates are below replacement," as in the sentence in question, it corresponds to subtracting more times than adding, if the resulting number corresponds to the population, but since you need to add more times than you subtract to get a greater number, the population could only decrease. If the population could only decrease, it wouldn't make sense how "population growth occurs". If no one objects, I'll remove this statement at February. 173.180.202.22 ( talk) 06:36, 2 January 2012 (UTC)
Wouldn't it be better to have this article, with a slight rewrite and shift of focus, under Malthusian theory (currently a redirect here) rather than "catastrophe"? The way the idea works is that there are demographic checks on income per capita but a "catastrophe" in the sense of something sudden and very bad is not necessarily a consequence of the model. VolunteerMarek 08:13, 4 July 2012 (UTC)
In the section " Neo-Malthusian theory" in the 4th paragraph, "Second figure" is mentioned. There is no obvious "second figure". The first image shown in the article is close, but not quite matching "Figure on the right". -- Tikmok ( talk) 07:25, 17 June 2015 (UTC)
Dr. Lasserre has reviewed this Wikipedia page, and provided us with the following comments to improve its quality:
basically good.
Minor point:
However, some contend that the Malthusian catastrophe is not imminent...SHOULD BE In fact, some contend that the Malthusian catastrophe is not imminent
We hope Wikipedians on this talk page can take advantage of these comments and improve the quality of the article accordingly.
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ExpertIdeas ( talk) 10:09, 15 July 2015 (UTC)
The Malthusian "catastrophe" (or theory) only applies to development countries, where the growth of a population is depending on the food supply. However, in industrialized countries the food production is almost "unlimited" (actually only limited by the land used for food production) and as such the Malthusian catastrophe won't play here anymore. Maybe Boserup or Simon explained this in details (I didn't read them), however these facts should be somehow mentioned within the introduction of this article. -- 81.6.59.42 ( talk) 13:26, 9 October 2015 (UTC)
Dr. Khalil has reviewed this Wikipedia page, and provided us with the following comments to improve its quality:
I am not an expert. But after the end of section "Criticism", after Engels, I suggest adding this paragraph
Further, Malthusian theory of population is unfalsifiable, failing to pass the test of Karl Popper. If one does not witness Malthusian catastrophe, advocates of Malthusian theory can appeal to intermediate measures, such as birth control or late marriage as the reason. There is simply no clear empirical prediction that can be tested.
Popper, Karl. The Logic of Scientific Discovery. New York: Harper & Row, 1959.
We hope Wikipedians on this talk page can take advantage of these comments and improve the quality of the article accordingly.
We believe Dr. Khalil has expertise on the topic of this article, since he has published relevant scholarly research:
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I've made a merge proposal to combine this article with Malthusian Trap. They seem to cover the same topic, rely on the same evidence, and both came out of the same essay by Malthus. Both are also small articles, and I think would be more useful together. TripleShortOfACycle ( talk - contribs) 02:22, 19 July 2020 (UTC)
I merged Malthusian trap in September 2020. Doing Malthusianism now. (Seems there was some confusion over which proposal was being discussed.) -- Beland ( talk) 01:40, 21 January 2021 (UTC)
This is not covered, and if any references could be found that would be a good addition.
There are two angles. Firstly, the ideas of Malthus were part of the inspiration for Alfred Wallace (and then Darwin) to propose the theory of Natural Selection.
Secondly, Natural Selection says that the purpose of existence is simply to exist. Our preference for good living vs large families is likely temporary, as those from large families tend to have large families, and eventually they will dominate any society. And who is to say that Nature is wrong and that that is a bad thing. Tuntable ( talk) 10:28, 2 December 2020 (UTC)