Paul Ehrlich, and the Perils of the Scientific Deformations

Paul Ehrlich's death last month is a reminder of how careless extrapolations from one field of knowledge to another can still pass for “science” with devastating consequences. Ehrlich, an entomologist with genuine scientific expertise concerning butterflies, parasitic mites and insects around the Berin Sea and in the Canadian arctic, ventured in his 1968 The Population Bomb book into the field of human demography. He speculated that overpopulation brings disasters such as famine and high death rates.  All evidence to the contrary notwithstanding, the book turned out to be influential as if it was “scientific.”