How many times can an “expert” be wrong before losing credibility as an expert?
Stanford University biologist Paul Ehrlich has been utterly wrong about his ecological and sociological predictions since at least 1968. However, because Ehrlich’s pronouncements fit leftist models for scarcity and control, he continues to be uncritically promoted by establishment media.
Since billionaire Elon Musk returned more freedom of speech to Twitter, now there is a platform to criticize partisans like Ehrlich to a mass audience. Musk himself took to Twitter to sum up Ehrlich’s record as a supposed prophet of science after Ehrlich appeared on “60 Minutes” on Sunday.
The research site “Human Progress” reported on Ehrlich’s notorious claims versus the actual state of the world.
In 1968 Ehrlich released the book “The Population Bomb,” which gave this dire warning: “The battle to feed all of humanity is over. In the 1970s hundreds of millions of people will starve to death in spite of any crash programs embarked upon now. At this late date, nothing can prevent a substantial increase in the world death rate…”
This doom-saying supported radical organizations like Planned Parenthood’s agenda for population control. The 1969 Planned Parenthood Jaffe Memo, written by then-organization president Frederick Jaffe, proposed strategies like taxpayer-funded abortion, promotion of homosexuality and sterilization to prevent population growth.
Ehrlich was wrong. There were not massive, unpreventable famines in the 1970s. In fact, world population and food supplies increased.
That hasn’t stopped Ehrlich, who is now 90 years old and the Bing Professor Emeritus of Population Studies of the Department of Biology of Stanford University and President of Stanford’s Center for Conservation Biology, according to his school profile.
For some reason “60 Minutes” thought a downer segment starring Ehrlich was a great way to start off 2023. Perhaps the show’s executives felt Ehrlich’s predictions of famine and mass deaths may finally be happening, thanks to globalist assaults on farming and fertilizer.
As always, Ehrlich is thinking — or talking — big. In earth science, five cataclysmic events known as “mass extinctions” are thought to have taken place over hundreds of millions of years. In a “mass extinction,” 75 percent or more of the species on earth are said to have gone extinct in a short period of time, to be replaced by new ones.
Ehrlich published a Twitter post about his segment segment touting a theoretical “sixth mass extinction event.”
CBS did a fine job — hope it does some good. https://t.co/TICnsNhnkS
— Paul R. Ehrlich (@PaulREhrlich) January 2, 2023
“I and the vast majority of my colleagues think we’ve had it, that the next few decades will be the end of the kind of civilization we’re used to,” Ehrlich told the program.
Many Twitter responses showed it’s Ehrlich who has had it, and is at the end of the unaccountable lecturing he is used to.
Independent journalist Michael Shellenberger destroyed Ehrlich’s talking points.
On CBS “60 Minutes” w/ @ScottPelley last night, @PaulREhrlich claimed a) humans are causing a “sixth mass extinction” & b) that it would require “five Earths” for all humans to enjoy a Western standard of living.
Both claims are totally & utterly false.https://t.co/xXslyyUxQ2
— Michael Shellenberger (@ShellenbergerMD) January 2, 2023
“On CBS ‘60 Minutes’ with Scott Pelley last night, Paul R. Ehrlich claimed a) humans are causing a ‘sixth mass extinction’ & b) that it would require ‘five Earths’ for all humans to enjoy a Western standard of living. Both claims are totally & utterly false.”
In a Substack entry, Shellenberger debunked Ehrlich’s alarmist extinction claims.
“To cause a ‘mass extinction,’ humans would need to be wiping out 75-90 percent of all species on Earth,” he wrote. “The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), the main scientific body that tracks species, says just 6 percent of species are critically endangered, 9 percent are endangered, and 12 percent are vulnerable to becoming endangered.
“Further, the IUCN has estimated that just 0.8 percent of the 112,432 plant, animal, and insect species within its data set have gone extinct since 1500. That’s a rate of fewer than two species lost every year for an annual extinction rate of 0.001 percent.”
Alex Epstein, an outspoken writer and president of the for-profit think tank Center for Industrial Progress, was scathing on Ehrlich’s appearance.
Why is @60Minutes featuring Paul Ehrlich, the anti-human ecologist who has been 180° wrong for 55 years??!!
“humanity is not sustainable. To maintain our lifestyle (yours and mine, basically) for the entire planet, you’d need 5 more Earths.”
More on Ehrlich’s catastrophizing
pic.twitter.com/q6daPn8LGJ
— Alex Epstein (@AlexEpstein) January 2, 2023
Epstein tweeted, “Why is 60 Minutes featuring Paul Ehrlich, the anti-human ecologist who has been 180 [degrees] wrong for 55 years??!!”
Twitter CEO Musk had the best take on Ehrlich. Musk has long warned that the real danger to humanity was not too many people, but too few.
Population collapse is the biggest threat to civilization https://t.co/ZrHN5DsrVB
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 24, 2022
“Population collapse is the biggest threat to civilization,” Musk wrote in a May Twitter post.
Commenting on Ehrlich’s “60 Minutes” appearance, Musk identified a potential motivation for the biologist, and then suggested a proper response to him.
Ehrlich despises humanity. Nothing he says should be given the slightest credibility.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 2, 2023
“Ehrlich despises humanity. Nothing he says should be given the slightest credibility.”
In those nine words, Musk made more sense than Ehrlich has in 55 years.
The post Anti-Human Ecologist Starts Spewing Nonsense, Musk Quickly Shuts Him Down: ‘Nothing He Says…’ appeared first on The Western Journal.
