Less “Ironic,” More “Terrifying”

Contuing the Reverse Cassandra theme, Obama has picked neo-Malthusian John Holdren to be “Science Czar.” It would be hard to find a less qualified pick. Harriet Myers would be a better candidate than this guy. Wikipedia has this to say about Holdren:

In 1969, writing with Paul R. Ehrlich, Holdren claimed that, “if the population control measures are not initiated immediately, and effectively, all the technology man can bring to bear will not fend off the misery to come.”[9] In 1973 Holdren encouraged a decline in fertility to well below replacement in the United States, because “210 million now is too many and 280 million in 2040 is likely to be much too many”[10]. Currently, the U.S. population is 306,908,000[11].

In other words, Paul Holdren wishes you were dead. He also has argued for the need “to convince society and its leaders that there is no alternative but the cessation of our irresponsible, all-demanding, and all-consuming population growth.” And according to American Papist, he has advocated forced abortions to achieve this goal. And wait… Paul Ehrlich? Where have we heard that name on this blog recently? OH YEAH. Ehrlich is the guy who bet that due to “overpopulation,” Great Britain would cease to be by 2000, and by the 1970s, massive food shortages would leave hundreds of millions dead by starvation. He bet against an actual economist, Julian Simon, and lost on all 5 parts of the bet. And the reason he lost? Because Holdren is wrong: technology can increase the productive capacity of Earth. Green Revolution, anyone? The Earth is now capable of feeding more people than at any prior point its history. Why? Because of human innovation, and stewardship of the Earth.

So we have a nominee for “science czar” whose predictions on population growth have been invariably wrong. And who supports really Draconian measures (like forced abortion and population control) to prevent imaginary disasters from occurring. Is this some sort of new meaning of “science” I’m not familiar with?

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