i get that bingo on occasions, i should be breeding more white babies, or i should be breeding smart babies..
ehrlich based his idea on malthus..
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malthusian_catastrophe
"I think I may fairly make two postulata. First, That food is necessary to the existence of man. Secondly, That the passion between the sexes is necessary and will remain nearly in its present state. These two laws, ever since we have had any knowledge of mankind, appear to have been fixed laws of our nature, and, as we have not hitherto seen any alteration in them, we have no right to conclude that they will ever cease to be what they now are, without an immediate act of power in that Being who first arranged the system of the universe, and for the advantage of his creatures, still executes, according to fixed laws, all its various operations.
...
Assuming then my postulata as granted, I say, that the power of population is indefinitely greater than the power in the earth to produce subsistence for man. Population, when unchecked, increases in a geometrical ratio.
– Malthus 1798, Chapter 1, online"
and
"If unchecked over a sufficient period of time, and if the ratio between successive sequence members is larger than 1.0, then exponential growth will always outrun linear growth. Malthus saw the difference between population growth and resource growth as being analogous to this difference between exponential and linear growth. Even when a population inhabits a new habitat – such as the American continent at Malthus' time, or when recovering from wars and epidemic plagues – the growth of population will eventually reach the limit of the resource base. (Malthus 1798, chapter 7: A Probable Cause of Epidemics)."
malthus can be a read but a good one, and a lot of what he says in the 1800's is true today.
http://www.ac.wwu.edu/~stephan/malthus/malthus.0.html one of his essays
there are some comments he makes, which as the beginning of the idea of population controls. He does use his life as a basis, which we cant really blame him for, as he needed to learn more, but it was a step into learning.
"It very rarely happens that the nominal price of labour universally falls, but we well know that it frequently remains the same, while the nominal price of provisions has been gradually increasing. This is, in effect, a real fall in the price of labour, and during this period the condition of the lower orders of the community must gradually grow worse and worse. But the farmers and capitalists are growing rich from the real cheapness of labour."
so some bad, i agree, but a lot good. as i said it was over 200 years ago he wrote it. so you can forgive him a little.
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I just post the stories, for interest.. for everyone
Lord, what fools these mortals be!
- A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act III, Scene ii
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Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former. Albert Einstein