Raymond J. de Souza: Paul Ehrlich's wicked ideas about overpopulation caused massive suffering |
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Raymond J. de Souza: Paul Ehrlich's wicked ideas about overpopulation caused massive suffering
His 1968 book, The Population Bomb, unintentionally became a racist tract of huge impact
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A false idea spread abroad is much worse than a single person telling falsehoods. A wicked idea does greater evil than a wicked person. Wicked ideas can ruin the lives of millions.
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Professor Paul Ehrlich was not in the conventional sense a wicked person, but his ideas certainly were. He was serially, sensationally and spectacularly wrong about the true causes of human suffering, and thus his remedies were worse than the supposed disease. Unrepentant after a long and celebrated career built on being wrong about everything, Ehrlich died at age 93 on March 13.
Raymond J. de Souza: Paul Ehrlich's wicked ideas about overpopulation caused massive suffering Back to video
Author of The Population Bomb in 1968, it is hard to think of any popular thinker of his generation who was more influential. Generations of policy-makers were Ehrlich’s children, a strange outcome for someone passionately against having children — the babbling baby a threat to the health, welfare, even survival of the planet.
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