From Newsgroup: alt.online-service.comcas
NYT, of course, says he was criticized because his predictions were "premature."
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/15/books/paul-r-ehrlich-dead.html
Excerpt:
In 1980, Julian Simon, an economist at the University of Maryland,
challenged Dr. Ehrlich and two of his colleagues with what Stewart
Brand, a founder of the Whole Earth Catalog, called "one of the
great revelatory bets."
Convinced that the growing population would make natural resources
ever more scarce and thus drive up costs, Dr. Ehrlich accepted Mr.
Simon's challenge, betting that the prices of five key metals
would rise in the 1980s. Mr. Simon believed that innovation would
drive prices down.
In 1990, Dr. Ehrlich and his colleagues conceded defeat and sent
Mr. Simon a check for $576.07 -- an amount that represented the
decline in the metals' prices after accounting for inflation.
The disclosure of the bet came amid a national backlash to
American environmentalism in the early 1990s, led by people who
had the ability to read, think critically, and understand that
science requires testing of hypotheses rather than blind
acceptance.
Oh, wait, that last part isn't exactly what the Times published. The
original read:
[...] led by free-market conservatives and industrial executives
who questioned the movement's scientific data.
--
jd
--- Synchronet 3.21f-Linux NewsLink 1.2