November 5, 2003
"FLIES IN THE OINTMENT":
Friends of humanity? (Roger Kimball, November 2003, New Criterion)
Godwin and Condorcet saw splendid vistas opening up for humanity once it had dispensed with the albatross of religion, conventional morality, and private property. Malthus detected a few flies in the ointment. These he enumerated in An Essay on the Principle of Population, the first edition of which was published in 1798.On Population became one of the most influential books of the nineteenth century. It had two additional distinctions. It was among the most reviled books of its era. It was—and is—also among the most widely misunderstood.
Malthus wrote On Population as an anti-utopian attack on Enlightenment optimism and the “systems of equality” (i.e., what we would call “socialism” or “communism”) which that optimism promulgated. The subtitle of the first edition clarifies Malthus’s intentions: Population “as it affects the future improvement of Society, with remarks on the speculation of Mr. Godwin, Mr. Condorcet, and other writers.”There are many ironies attached to the history and reception of On Population. One has to do with a persistent popular misunderstanding. Everyone learns about gloomy “Malthusian” prognostications in school. These involve warnings about the alleged difference between the rate at which the food supply and the population grow. Malthus is presented as the Jeremiah of overpopulation, even a covert advocate of contraception, warning that, unless humanity acts fast, it will over-breed and run out of food.
In fact, Malthus issued no such warnings. And he was certainly no advocate of birth control (a species of “vice” that he congregated under the heading of “improper arts”). What Malthus calls the “principle of population” was (in David Stove’s phrase) a “steady-state” theory. It holds that, for any body of organisms, the population is always at or near the limit of the food supply. At nature’s table, Malthus says, all the places are always filled. Hence, to the extent that the equality heralded by Godwin, Condorcet, et al., was achieved, “distress for want of food would be constantly pressing on all mankind.” The relative impoverishment of some would be replaced by the absolute impoverishment of all.
Malthus wrote On Population as a political tract. But a large part of its fame is due to its place in the history of biology. For it was the principle of population that gave Darwin and A. R. Wallace the mechanism that propelled the process of natural selection. That evolution occurred they knew from the fossil record and comparative anatomy. But by what means did it operate? This is where the principle of population came in. In his autobiography, Darwin recalls reading Malthus in 1838. “It at once struck me that under these circumstances favorable variations would tend to be preserved, and unfavorable ones to be destroyed. The result of this would be the formation of new species. Here, then, I had at last got a theory by which to work.”
The principle of population was an essential part of what is perhaps the most successful biological theory ever formulated. It is a further irony, then, that the principle is not true, at least as regards human beings. It deserved, and received, criticism from many quarters. For one thing, Malthus contrasts the rate at which population increases with the rate at which food increases; but his theory ignores the fact that food consists of organic populations, i.e., stuff that according to his principle is supposed to increase “arithmetically.” In later editions of his book, Malthus so modified what he said about the principle of population that he abandoned it in fact if not in words.
It's the perfect recipe for a tragically flawed theory--start with a false proposition; apply reason rigorously; end up with Darwinism. Posted by Orrin Judd at November 5, 2003 10:49 AM
This is the primary reason I enjoy reading this blog - I can learn from it. I never would've suspected that Malthus' work was anything other than the catastrophe-prognosticating Jeremiad that we all had heard it was. Thanks, OJ.
Posted by: Bruce Cleaver at November 5, 2003 10:57 AMSame here.
Although it seems a real stretch to vitiate Evolutionary Theory based on what Malthus wrote.
OJ:
If Evolutionary Theory is so barking mad, what's your proposal?
Posted by: Jeff Guinn at November 5, 2003 1:27 PMBTW--your link leads with a fallacy a couple big fallacies. Do you know which they are?
Posted by: Jeff Guinn at November 5, 2003 1:33 PMI propose that a high school student from elsewhere in the Multiverse periodically intervenes and plays around with genes at random as a science class project.
Posted by: OJ at November 5, 2003 2:36 PMFunny, this interpretation never mentions what Malthus WAS defending, the Christian principle that the lower orders deserve to starve, which, indeed, in 1798 where Malthus lived, they did.
To say that the Malthusian principle concerning food was "wrong" is akin to saying "it is not raining."
More needs to be said to make it a valid statement. "Where is it not raining." Humans, unlike other animals or plants, have a limited ability to manage their food supply.
So Darwin extracted the part of Malthus's observation that is completely correct, and applied to to nature in general, including mostly nature in the absence of humans.
That Malthusian population dynamics work to a high degree of precision can be demonstrated by experiments simple enough for high school students to do for science fairs.
Posted by: Harry Eagar at November 5, 2003 3:17 PMHarry,
Is that why we all died of starvation?
Straight line assumptions bear peculiar fruit.
And where, pray tell, do you think lie the limits of human ingenuity?
Posted by: RDB at November 5, 2003 5:38 PMRDB:
Harry meant limited as opposed to none.
Rabbits breed like crazy, and can't manage their food supply.
Hence, population boom & bust cycles.
Posted by: Jeff Guinn at November 5, 2003 10:28 PMThanks, Jeff. Yes, limited as compared with none.
You can always tell a person knows nothing really about Darwinism when he uses arguments only from the metazoa. Many Darwinian arguments, including some of the most surprising, come from plants or microbes. I don't suppose anybody here cares to argue that plants manage their food supplies, do they?
Yet Malthusian population dynamics work as well for plants as for any other kind of life.
Posted by: Harry Eagar at November 6, 2003 1:10 AMYou're already a winner, if you're named "Purple Loosestrife".
Makes "human" seem a bit pedestrian.
Purple loosestrife is a good example of the dynamic, but so is wheat.
You have often stated that humans can produce unlimited food. This was not true in the past and is probably not going to be true in the long run, although we're in a good period right now.
One reason for that is that field crops give very much greater yields when removed from their dangerous original habitats and planted in areas where they face a smaller load of disease and pests.
Food supply is not the only limit to population. If there are not enough nesting sites, for example, there will not be enough individuals to consume all the food that may be available.
With almost all plants, lack of atmospheric carbon dioxide limits growth.
Harry
"You can always tell a person knows nothing really about Darwinism when he uses arguments only from the metazoa."
I know just how you feel. Drives me crazy too.
Harry, this is what I was talking about yesterday. It isn't just the details or data. The whole theory is inacessible. Jeff says that to comprehend (not follow, verify or validate, just comprehend) one needs college physics and "just" a smidgeon of calculus. You guys can't seem to reduce it to common intelligiblity without "my grandad the chimp" distortions that drive you crazy too.
Is this really a coherent theory or a desperate "connect the dots" exercise for a lot of disparate and distant dots.
Posted by: Peter B at November 6, 2003 4:45 PMPeter:
If you want to comprehend General Relativity, you need calculus. For evolution, the ability to reason from simple precepts to counteintuitive conclusions would be handy.
Exactly the same kind of ability one might use to comprehend market economies (see Adam Smith, David Ricardo).
The theory itself is completely accessible. In the book I offered, it lists the precepts of evolutionary theory in four sentences of no more than ten words each.
The "connect the dots" you disparage involves both far more dots than you think, and your decision as to whether phenomena typically taking far longer than human history can ever be amenable to analysis.
Given the immensity of time, the--thankful--infrequency of cataclysmic events, and the glacial pace of many natural processes, a great deal of the universe is off-limits if you insist on occurrences within the last 3000 years.
Plate tectonics is one such. If OJ were to apply the same standards of proof for that as for evolution, that's another multiply overdetermined theory that would have to hit the bin.
Posted by: Jeff Guinn at November 6, 2003 5:18 PMPeter, you are the one who thinks Darwinism is abstruse. It is, rather, probably the least difficult to understand of all the important scientific theories.
But to understand it, you have to hear its statements. You cannot, as virtually all its critics do, simply take the principles and start ratiocinating. Life is more complex than that.
I agree with Jeff that certain short books (like Mayr's "What is Evolution?") are excellent introductions. But, to me at least, the evidence that the propositions in the short book are really well supported requires a great amount of just facts -- you have to be willing to learn a lot of natural history.
Of course, once you get to molecular biology -- which is also entirely Darwinian -- the details do become exceedingly abstruse, and you do have to study chemistry and physics to follow the experiments. As Lynn Margulies puts it (quoting from memory): "Wherever there is a photon, life will find a way to exploit it."
That's right. Darwinists can now explain how life works at the level of photon transport. That part is, in fact, not too complex, but the next level up -- the cellular machinery -- is hideously complex, and I cannot pretend to understand it in detail, although I can follow most of the arguments to some degree.
The experimental validations are very tight, though.
Posted by: Harry Eagar at November 6, 2003 6:07 PMHarry:
For what it is worth, the book I have in mind is from the Scientific American Library, entitled Fossils. It is all about natural history, and aside from the 40 words at the end of the book, says scarcely a thing about evolution.
Posted by: Jeff Guinn at November 6, 2003 8:32 PMHarry/Jeff;
OK. Christmas is coming. If you two can agree on a short, relatively succicnt, honest text I can read to fill in my gaps, I will do so. I owe you this. Screw the calculus, I want intelligent, critical, intelligible theory with critical analysis combined. No propaganda.
And believe me, I will be back.
Posted by: Peter B at November 6, 2003 9:59 PMThe one I'd really like you to read, Peter, and I think you'd actually like it whether you agreed with it in the end or not, is Ernst Mayr, "The Growth of Biological Thought: Diversity, Evolution and Inheritance, vol. 1."
Vol. 2 has never appeared and although Mayr is still publishing books, he's 99 and I don't think we'll see volume 2.
The reason this volume is so good is that it systematically (and I mean systematically, Mayr was educated in Germany) takes up every argument for and against Darwinism you've ever heard of, and a lot you haven't.
Problem is, it's over 600 pages of fairly hard reading. (The style is beautifully clear, but you have to have a broad and deep acquaintance with western philosophy to follow.)
Although I have not read it, Mayr's "What Evolution Is," is, I'm sure, the distillation of the previous book for those without benefit of a Gottingen education. It's short, more like what Jeff is aiming at.
I haven't read Scientific American "Fossils," but it it's in their series on scientific topics, it should be excellent. I read the first 25 volumes of that, and every one was at least pretty good.
In between, in length and degree of difficulty, is Mayr's "One Long Argument: Charles Darwin and the Genesis of Modern Evolutionary Thought."
One of the best little explications -- combining an excellent statement of theory with first-hand accounts of the natural discoveries that led to it -- is a book written for teenagers, "Wallace and Bates in the Tropics," edited with commentary by Barbara Bedell. Somewhat dated (1956), it is untainted by recent religious controversies.
There are plenty of others, but I like Mayr because he is such a rigorous thinker.
Posted by: Harry Eagar at November 8, 2003 12:17 AM