Population growth vs resources | Malthus

[Farcus]

What's more interesting the is the persistence of the Malthusian myth that there are too many people on the planet.

Proponents of such beliefs should, I think, lead by example.

That would be good. Even better would be for those who think people can get by without food to demonstrate just how wrong Malthus was. That would shut the pesky persistent mythologizers up in jig time.

[Typhoon]

What's more interesting the is the persistence of the Malthusian myth that there are too many people on the planet.

Proponents of such beliefs should, I think, lead by example.

That would be good. Even better would be for those who think people can get by without food to demonstrate just how wrong Malthus was. That would shut the pesky persistent mythologizers up in jig time.

No need. Global food production has kept pace with population growth.

Two of the greatest challenges faces societies today are the drop in births below replacement level and an epidemic of obesity.

Globesity

Malthus was not even wrong.

[monster_gardener]

Why are eugenicists always leftists?

http://www.infowars.com/bill-maher-we-n ... ote-death/

During a recent appearance on the StarTalk Radio Show, Real Time host Bill Maher expressed his desire to see more people killed via abortion, suicides and the death penalty because “the planet is too crowded and we need to promote death.”

Asked by host Neil deGrasse Tyson what he thought about the death penalty and abortion, Maher re-affirmed his support for both, remarking, “The Pope is consistently pro-life, I am consistently pro-death.”

Expressing how he was pro-death penalty, Maher said, “my motto is let’s kill the right people.”

“I’m pro-choice, I’m for assisted suicide, I’m for regular suicide, I’m for whatever gets the freeway moving – that’s what I’m for,” said Maher, adding, “It’s too crowded, the planet is too crowded and we need to promote death.”

Explaining how he knew many people who felt the same, Maher went on to say that “people who’ve earned it” deserved to die, remarking, “kill the right people.”

The HBO host emphasized how he disagreed with the notion that all life is precious, referring to an argument made by Rick Santorum that prenatal testing should not be covered by the government because it encourages people to have abortions.

“I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that,” said Maher, expressing his support for abortion and noting, “It’s not that hard to create life, it’s teeming everywhere, it’s something a dog can do.”

The claim that eugenicists are always leftist is false.

Eugenics was a popular social movement in the US [and Europe] that went across party lines.

Why Politicized Science is Dangerous

Although Mr. P. is possibly correct in that today there are more people on the US Left, wannabe altriusts, that claim to care about humanity but hate the species.

What's more interesting the is the persistence of the Malthusian myth that there are too many people on the planet.

Proponents of such beliefs should, I think, lead by example.

Such people should look forward to the next imminent Ice Age with happy anticipation,
when much of the N hemisphere will be under ice and what remains will be far more arid than today - possibly leading to the deaths of billions.

Thank you VERY Much for your post, Typhoon.

the next imminent Ice Age with happy anticipation,
when much of the N hemisphere will be under ice and what remains will be far more arid than today - possibly leading to the deaths of billions.

The silver lining might be that the continental shelves should be accessible....

Please tell more about your vision of the how it happens........ Sincere question....

Off the cuff guesses........

Global Warming shuts off the Gulf Stream......... AIUI this may have caused the Little Ice Age...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Ice ... r_slowdown

Yellowstone Super Volcano erupts pumping dust into the air...... or similar

Big Space Rock hitting Earth and doing the like dust wise.......

Mr. Madhi meeting Ms. Samson Masada or Uncle Sam in a nuclear wrestling match..... The worst as the dust would be radioactive....

[monster_gardener]

What's more interesting the is the persistence of the Malthusian myth that there are too many people on the planet.

Proponents of such beliefs should, I think, lead by example.

That would be good. Even better would be for those who think people can get by without food to demonstrate just how wrong Malthus was. That would shut the pesky persistent mythologizers up in jig time.

No need. Global food production has kept pace with population growth.

Two of the greatest challenges faces societies today are the drop in births below replacement level and an epidemic of obesity.

Globesity

Malthus was not even wrong.

Thank you VERY Much for your post, Typhoon.

Global food production has kept pace with population growth.

Yes.. True... But doesn't that depend on maintaining & using our High Agriculture Tech which AIUI is sensitive to things like the price of oil........

And our Agricultural diligence....... Maintaining good agricultural practices..........

Remembering the Dust Bowl and thinking of Arab Spring Egypt.........

[Typhoon]

. . .

the next imminent Ice Age with happy anticipation,
when much of the N hemisphere will be under ice and what remains will be far more arid than today - possibly leading to the deaths of billions.

The silver lining might be that the continental shelves should be accessible....

Please tell more about your vision of the how it happens........ Sincere question....

Off the cuff guesses........

Global Warming shuts off the Gulf Stream......... AIUI this may have caused the Little Ice Age...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Ice ... r_slowdown

Yellowstone Super Volcano erupts pumping dust into the air...... or similar

Big Space Rock hitting Earth and doing the like dust wise.......

Mr. Madhi meeting Ms. Samson Masada or Uncle Sam in a nuclear wrestling match..... The worst as the dust would be radioactive....

None of the above.



Ice ages have occurred with relative regularity in the past.

The cause[s] are still a subject of considerable debate.

We're fortunate to be living in an interglacial period today.

[Marcus]

. . Global food production has kept pace with population growth. . . Malthus was not even wrong.

That and then some . . the problem isn't production, the problem is distribution. The earth can support lots more people than it does today.

. . Mencken . . saw the countryside dwellers as "the Middle West pumping its revolting silo juices into the East and West alike," stupid people looking to impose their ideas upon "their betters".

And Menken was a snob and an durian. Who the hell did Menken think produced the food he so ungratefully used to keep his sorry ass alive?

[monster_gardener]

. . .

the next imminent Ice Age with happy anticipation,
when much of the N hemisphere will be under ice and what remains will be far more arid than today - possibly leading to the deaths of billions.

The silver lining might be that the continental shelves should be accessible....

Please tell more about your vision of the how it happens........ Sincere question....

Off the cuff guesses........

Global Warming shuts off the Gulf Stream......... AIUI this may have caused the Little Ice Age...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Ice ... r_slowdown

Yellowstone Super Volcano erupts pumping dust into the air...... or similar

Big Space Rock hitting Earth and doing the like dust wise.......

Mr. Madhi meeting Ms. Samson Masada or Uncle Sam in a nuclear wrestling match..... The worst as the dust would be radioactive....

None of the above.



Ice ages have occurred with relative regularity in the past.

The cause[s] are still a subject of considerable debate.

We're fortunate to be living in an interglacial period today.

Thank you VERY Much for your reply, Typhoon.

Thank you for the link.

http://www.divediscover.whoi.edu

[Typhoon]

The problem here is your interpretation of Malthus.

No no. There's not a problem. People can engineer all the loaves and fishes they want, to perpetuity. Just look around. The way it is now is the way it's always been, and always will be. So have kids for demography. There'll always be food aplenty, and liebenstraum too.

The logical error is to assume that infinite carrying capacity will be required.

Bacteria in a petri dished multiply geometrically until all resources are consumed.

Human population and other species do not.

Within the limits of fecundity and offsetters, that's exactly what they do. There's standard curves for this.

It's a boom and bust economy in the natural world, which includes the primates, who live paycheck to paycheck like everything else.

Prey predator populations oscillate, but do not grow geometrically to exhaustion:



Contrary to Malthus' hypothesis.

The right grain blight would jog the auld genetic memory right quick-like.

Sure, but it's purely speculative. So would a new flu or other pandemic.

[Marcus]

Prey predator populations oscillate, but do not grow geometrically to exhaustion . .

Exactly. When moose increase, so do wolves. When snowshoe hares decrease, so do lynx. So far, so good, but things are rarely that simple:

. . in tundra regions lemmings typically fluctuate in cycles with a 3–4 year periodicity. [This paper is a] review 60 years of research that has uncovered many of the causes of these population cycles, outline areas of controversy that remain and suggest key questions to address. Lemmings are keystone herbivores in tundra ecosystems because they are a key food resource for many avian and mammalian predators and are a major consumer of plant production. There remains much controversy over the role of predation, food shortage and social interactions in causing lemming cycles. Predation is well documented as a significant mortality factor limiting numbers. Food shortage is less likely to be a major limiting factor on population growth in lemmings. Social interactions might play a critical role in reducing the rate of population growth as lemming density rises.

[Farcus]

The problem here is your interpretation of Malthus.

No no. There's not a problem. People can engineer all the loaves and fishes they want, to perpetuity. Just look around. The way it is now is the way it's always been, and always will be. So have kids for demography. There'll always be food aplenty, and liebenstraum too.

The logical error is to assume that infinite carrying capacity will be required.

Bacteria in a petri dished multiply geometrically until all resources are consumed.

Human population and other species do not.

Within the limits of fecundity and offsetters, that's exactly what they do. There's standard curves for this.

It's a boom and bust economy in the natural world, which includes the primates, who live paycheck to paycheck like everything else.

Prey predator populations oscillate, but do not grow geometrically to exhaustion:

Malthus didn't talk about predator/prey relationships. That is after Malthus.

Take away offsetters like predators, and an animal polulation wil increase until it exceeds the carrying capacity of its ecosystem, then crash, then increase, then crash... It's a boom and bust economy in the natural world.

[Typhoon]

The problem here is your interpretation of Malthus.

No no. There's not a problem. People can engineer all the loaves and fishes they want, to perpetuity. Just look around. The way it is now is the way it's always been, and always will be. So have kids for demography. There'll always be food aplenty, and liebenstraum too.

The logical error is to assume that infinite carrying capacity will be required.

Bacteria in a petri dished multiply geometrically until all resources are consumed.

Human population and other species do not.

Within the limits of fecundity and offsetters, that's exactly what they do. There's standard curves for this.

It's a boom and bust economy in the natural world, which includes the primates, who live paycheck to paycheck like everything else.

Prey predator populations oscillate, but do not grow geometrically to exhaustion:

Malthus didn't talk about predator/prey relationships. That is after Malthus.

Malthus was talking about human populations. You were referring to the animal world.

Take away offsetters like predators, and an animal polulation wil increase until it exceeds the carrying capacity of its ecosystem, then crash, then increase, then crash... It's a boom and bust economy in the natural world.

An animal population without predators is very rare. Not the natural order of things.

The human species is an exception and the historical growth in the human population and it's current deceleration disproves your claim.

[Farcus]

The human species is an exception and the historical growth in the human population and it's current deceleration disproves your claim.

Now you're the Malthusian. He said that human populations would be held in check by famine, pestilence, war, and God.
He was wrong about that. We may encounter the limits of carrying capacity before.

The human population is growing geometrically, like an animal population with fewer and fewer predators. Which is exactly what we are.

[Farcus]

Take away offsetters like predators, and an animal polulation wil increase until it exceeds the carrying capacity of its ecosystem, then crash, then increase, then crash... It's a boom and bust economy in the natural world.

An animal population without predators is very rare. Not the natural order of things. . .

Animal populations in the wild are subject to cycles the causes of which we are ignorant. .

Bullshit. No animal has ever been seen to increase independent of a food supply. How could it?

These cycles (oscillations of a graph of pop/time) you speak of are well known, as are many of the causes. Like food supply and morbidities. Many with a short period can be predicted accurately, and more importantly with respect to observed factors that may temporarily offset a simple projected time series. Some of us are not as ignorant as others.

In this case as in most others, simple minds like simple answers. "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."

And to prove that point some toss clichés and vote Republican.

[Farcus]

The human species is an exception and the historical growth in the human population and it's current deceleration disproves your claim.

Now you're the Malthusian. He said that human populations would be held in check by famine, pestilence, war, and God.
He was wrong about that. We may encounter the limits of carrying capacity before.

The human population is growing geometrically, like an animal population with fewer and fewer predators. Which is exactly what we are.

You're both right. Contraception has caused human population growth to break away from the traditional causes of population growth and decline, but it is also an extremely brief experiment in human history, let alone biological history as a whole. We don't know if this is something that will last.

We can have faith Shipmate. A simple gentle word. Especially with regard to the high density liquid fuel component of current Carrying Capacity. We'll make landfall before we run out of rum, I can feel it. Besides, it will be The Horrors if we don't.

[Farcus]

The problem here is your interpretation of Malthus.

No no. There's not a problem. People can engineer all the loaves and fishes they want, to perpetuity. Just look around. The way it is now is the way it's always been, and always will be. So have kids for demography. There'll always be food aplenty, and liebenstraum too.

The logical error is to assume that infinite carrying capacity will be required.

Bacteria in a petri dished multiply geometrically until all resources are consumed.

Human population and other species do not.

http://goo.gl/pm1lz

http://goo.gl/yZk1e

Why do you post rate charts, and log charts that normalize to a diagonal line? You could have just as easily posted raw population:






Refresher Course in Honest Stats

[Typhoon]

The problem here is your interpretation of Malthus.

No no. There's not a problem. People can engineer all the loaves and fishes they want, to perpetuity. Just look around. The way it is now is the way it's always been, and always will be. So have kids for demography. There'll always be food aplenty, and liebenstraum too.

The logical error is to assume that infinite carrying capacity will be required.

Bacteria in a petri dished multiply geometrically until all resources are consumed.

Human population and other species do not.

http://goo.gl/pm1lz

http://goo.gl/yZk1e

Why do you post rate charts, and log charts that normalize to a diagonal line? You could have just as easily posted raw population:

The preferred method to display data varying over many orders of magnitude is to use a linear - log plot, a.k.a. a semi-log plot
In such cases a semi-log plot is more informative.

Refresher Course in Honest Stats

Not clear what claim you are trying to make here:

That the wikipedia plot is in some way dishonest?

Or that you're in need of a refresher course in "honest stats"?

The more interesting plot is the one that show a rapid decrease in the rate of population growth:



from ~ 1963 without any resource constraints. It's mainly due to the recent rapid rise in the global standard of living.

[Azrael]

Population growth is hard to predict. Global population growth has declined since 2000 (according to table in linked site), as has implied "doubling rate" of population.

Increasing access to safe and affordable birth control is still very important, of course; especially in areas with extreme poverty.

[Typhoon]

Population growth is hard to predict. Global population growth has declined since 2000 (according to table in linked site), as has implied "doubling rate" of population.

Increasing access to safe and affordable birth control is still very important, of course; especially in areas with extreme poverty.

Birth rates seem to be mostly correlated with the probability of infant survival into childhood and adulthood.

Regions of extreme poverty with high infant mortality will continue to have lots of kids even if one rains contraceptive pills out of planes.

Raise the standard of living to industrialized world standards and the problem will quickly become one of too few births.

[Farcus]

No no. There's not a problem. People can engineer all the loaves and fishes they want, to perpetuity. Just look around. The way it is now is the way it's always been, and always will be. So have kids for demography. There'll always be food aplenty, and liebenstraum too.

The logical error is to assume that infinite carrying capacity will be required.

Bacteria in a petri dished multiply geometrically until all resources are consumed.

Human population and other species do not.

Why do you post rate charts, and log charts that normalize to a diagonal line? You could have just as easily posted raw population:

The preferred method to display data varying over many orders of magnitude is to use a linear - log plot, a.k.a. a semi-log plot
In such cases a semi-log plot is more informative.

No it's not. It's rather visually deceptive in a discussion of population size over time. A simple graph of population size over time suffices to show Malthusian population growth like bacteria in a Petri dish.
You post charts that illustrate the RATES of population growth, rather than the rapidly increasing number of mouths to feed. You've apparently conceded the undeniable geometric growth of species sapiens in response to an easier environment, and now wish to concentrate on the finer points of the rates of geometric growth.
This will be useful when you project those rates a couple centuries into the future. Then, all you'll have to do is show a valid reason why you think past food production volumes and rates will project into the future. And from there it's just a short step to show just how there will always be enough food for everyone, thus refuting Malthus, who has already taken your advice.

Refresher Course in Honest Stats

Not clear what claim you are trying to make here:

I honestly thought you could honestly step through the honest exercise and honestly show your work, and perhaps along the way honestly explain how the numbers honestly lead you to the honest conclusion that human population is honestly not growing geometrically.

[anderson]

Because population isn't increasing geometrically. Not for the past 10, maybe 20 years. Check the global stats.
Human population went from 5-6 billion, an increase of 20%, in, if I recall, about 12 years. 6-7 billion, an increase of only 16.7%, took over 15 years. 17 years if I recall correctly. The rate of increase is slowing, and has been for a while. Reasons? China one child is one factor. Another is cultural - as developing world develops, populations become more urbanized, and families smaller.

[Typhoon]

Because population isn't increasing geometrically. Not for the past 10, maybe 20 years. Check the global stats.
Human population went from 5-6 billion, an increase of 20%, in, if I recall, about 12 years. 6-7 billion, an increase of only 16.7%, took over 15 years. 17 years if I recall correctly. The rate of increase is slowing, and has been for a while. Reasons? China one child is one factor. Another is cultural - as developing world develops, populations become more urbanized, and families smaller.

Quite right.

[Enki]

The best example of animal populations rising with the lack of predators that I can think of are deer in suburban areas where the county usually institutes culling measures.

[Farcus]

Because population isn't increasing geometrically. Not for the past 10, maybe 20 years. Check the global stats.
Human population went from 5-6 billion, an increase of 20%, in, if I recall, about 12 years. 6-7 billion, an increase of only 16.7%, took over 15 years. 17 years if I recall correctly. The rate of increase is slowing, and has been for a while. Reasons? China one child is one factor. Another is cultural - as developing world develops, populations become more urbanized, and families smaller.

More rates while simply not addressing the number of mouths? The religious need to abstract to sidestep the main thrust is a little much here.

Maybe it would help if framed human population as a discussion of compound interest?

[Farcus]

The best example of animal populations rising with the lack of predators that I can think of are deer in suburban areas where the county usually institutes culling measures.

The classic from high school biology is the bounty culling of mountain lions and the response of the Kaibab deer herd, which swelled until it overgrazed its food supply, and then crashed dramatically, taking a long time to recover to pre predator-cull numbers.

The Kaibab Plateau is essentially an island of enough elevation to rise above the Sonoran Zone into the Transalpine. This isolates the habitat enough for relatively convenient observation. A Petri dish.




http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaibab_Plateau

[anderson]

Because population isn't increasing geometrically. Not for the past 10, maybe 20 years. Check the global stats.
Human population went from 5-6 billion, an increase of 20%, in, if I recall, about 12 years. 6-7 billion, an increase of only 16.7%, took over 15 years. 17 years if I recall correctly. The rate of increase is slowing, and has been for a while. Reasons? China one child is one factor. Another is cultural - as developing world develops, populations become more urbanized, and families smaller.

More rates while simply not addressing the number of mouths? The religious need to abstract to sidestep the main thrust.

Maybe it would help if framed population as a discussion of compound interest?

Again, compound interest would not be relevant because world population stopped growing exponentially a few decades ago. Inflection point. Curve went from concave up to concave down.
You need graphs with better resolution. The curve is no longer exponential. It is becoming s-shaped.