Home
/
RELIGION & LIBERTY ONLINE
/
Debunking the durable Malthusian myths
Debunking the durable Malthusian myths
Jul 1, 2025 2:57 PM

On his show yesterday, Rush Limbaugh discussed the famous bet between Julian Simon and Paul Ehrlich in 1980 over the question of whether or not the Earth had sufficient natural resources to sustain the growing global population. Erlich — a biologist from Stanford University — had gained some notoriety through his issuance of dire public warnings about the potential catastrophic consequences of continued human population growth, and had authored a book on the subject that was gaining a good deal of attention at the time.

The wager came about in response to Erlich’s published claim that “If I were a gambler, I would take even money that England will not exist in the year 2000.” Simon took him up on the challenge, or a modified version thereof: He asked Erlich to choose any raw material he wanted and a date more than a year away, and he would wager that the inflation adjusted price of the material would decrease rather than increase, indicating that the resource had e more widely available rather than more scarce. Erlich accepted the bet and chose five metals: copper, chromium, nickel, tin, and tungsten. The bet was formalized in the fall of 1980; by the fall of 1990 the price of all of the materials had decreased (in the face of significant world population growth over that time), and Paul Erlich was forced to write a check to Julian Simon.

It might also be worth noting that as of 2018, England still exists, and Erlich is still a professor at Stanford.

Even though Ehrlich’s ideas on population have been thoroughly discredited, he continues to wield influence. Last year, the Vatican invited him to speak at one of its conferences in Rome.

The Acton media team has searched the archives for helpful background on this question, including a clip of Fred Smith—founder of the Competitive Enterprise Institute and current director of CEI’s Center for Advancing Capitalism—talking about the bet and the clash of ideas behind it.

Also check out these web resources:

Acton remembers Julian Simon

Comments
Welcome to mreligion comments! Please keep conversations courteous and on-topic. To fosterproductive and respectful conversations, you may see comments from our Community Managers.
Sign up to post
Sort by
Show More Comments
RELIGION & LIBERTY ONLINE
Charlie Self on Spiritual Empowerment in Work and Economics
AEI’s Values & Capitalism recently posted an interview with Dr. Charlie Self, professor at Assemblies of God Theological Seminary and senior advisor for the Acton Institute. In the last few weeks, I’ve posted several excerpts from Self’s new book, Flourishing Churches and Communities: A Pentecostal Primer on Faith, Work, and Economics for Spirit-Empowered Discipleship,which he discusses at length in the interview. When asked what a Pentecostal worldview adds to the “larger Christian conversation about faith, work and economics,” Self responded...
The Utopian-Progressive Worldview: Feel Good First, Ask Questions Later
Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI) recently appeared on the MSNBC round-table discussion show Morning Joe and was asked by Senior Political Analyst Mark Halperin to give his personal take on the reality of a world where Obamacare is the law of the land. Here’s what transpired: JOHNSON: Well, it’s obviously the law of the land right now. Obviously, I’m concerned about it. I think that the cost estimate of Obamacare is grossly understated. I think far more Americans are going to...
Commentary: A Passion for Government Leads to Neglect of Our Neighbor
When government provision is expected in all areas of life we begin to neglect our personal obligations to our families and neighbors, says Dylan Pahman, assistant editor of the Journal of Markets & Morality. “For the ancient Jews, intergenerational relations were a religious matter,” says Pahman. mand ‘honor your father and mother’ (cf. Exodus 20:12) served as a bridge between duties to God and duties to neighbors. Our situation today may be quite different than that faced by Jews in...
5 TV Shows That Demonstrate the Importance of Ordinary Work
Television is often lamented for its propensity to exaggerate the mundane and the ordinary. Yet when es to something as routinely downplayed and unfairly pooh-poohed as our daily work—the “rat race,” the “grindstone,” yadda-yadda—I wonder if television’s over-the-top tendencies might be just what we need to reorient our thinking about the broader significance of our work. As I’ve argued previously, we face a constant temptation to limit our economic endeavors to the temporal and the material, focusing only on “putting...
Women of Liberty: Abigail Adams
(March is Women’s History Month. Acton will be highlighting a number of women who have contributed significantly to the issue of liberty during this month.) In today’s era of texting, Facebooking and emails, one wonders fortable our nation’s second First Lady would have felt about these forms munication. Abigail Smith Adams, while not a “woman of letters” (she had little formal education), left behind letters that tell us much about her, her marriage and her desire to be part of...
9 Things You Should Know About Pope Francis
Early today, Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio of Buenos Aires, Argentina was elected as the 266th pope of the Catholic Church. Here are nine things you should know about Pope Francis. 1. Bergoglio was born in Buenos Aires in 1936. His father was an Italian immigrant. 2. He’s the first pope from South America. The only remaining continents that have never had a e from their lands are Australia, Antarctica, and North America. 3. He’s the first Jesuit pope. 4. He...
The Duck Commander’s Business as Mission
Taking a look at these videos will give you a pretty good idea of what the Duck Commander’s mission is. You’ll see how the popular A&E series Duck Dynasty, focusing on the lives of the Duck Commander products, embodies a vision of business as mission on a variety of levels. As Phil puts it, “we all are preachers.” Here’s Phil Robertson, the Duck Commander, describing his journey to faith in Jesus Christ: Here’s the Duck Commander on the origins of...
Rev. Sirico: Don’t Underestimate Benedict’s Silent Influence
New Delhi TV recently published a Agence Franch-Presse report describing the former pope’s “invisible presence at conclave:” Retired pope Benedict XVI is gone but far from forgotten as cardinals begin voting for candidates to replace him, with his personal secretary Georg Gaenswein one of the last to leave the Sistine Chapel before the start of the conclave. Rev. Robert Sirico addresses Benedict’s influence on the conclave: Benedict has “been very careful not to insert himself into the proceedings” for his...
What is Fair?
In their book, American Society: How It Really Works, authors Erik Wright and Joel Rogers make the case that when we talk about social injustice most Americans think in terms of some sort of material inequality that might be considered unfair and possibly remedied if our social institutions were different. There are multiple problems with this reduction but it is fair to say that this is a dominant conceptual framework in our culture today. As a result, one of the...
Acton Institute’s Rev. Robert A. Sirico Comments on the Election of Pope Francis
With the election of Pope Francis, the Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio of Buenos Aires, Argentina, the Rev. Robert A. Sirico released the following statement. “Pope Francis is a man of great spirituality who is known for mitment to doctrinal orthodoxy as well as for his simplicity of life,” Rev. Sirico said. “Like Benedict XVI, bines concern for the poor with an insistence that it’s not the Church’s responsibility to be a political actor or to prescribe precise solutions to economic...
Related Classification
Copyright 2023-2025 - www.mreligion.com All Rights Reserved