"Malthus is usually full of it," said an online friend and instead of walking quietly by, I plunged in. The conversation then went down paths as familiar as a night-time trip to the bathroom. He talked about birth control and food-production technology as "disproving" Malthus. I talked about primary productivity and long timescales and tried, unsuccessfully, to say that you couldn't disprove Malthus since the fundamental ideas are axiomatic. Population growth is -- has to be! -- exponential, although with very effective birth control the exponent can be close to zero. And food supply grows geometrically, even with fabulously advanced technology, because it requires surface area to intercept sunlight. As a result, population is bound to outstrip food in the absence of technological and behavioural change, the core of Malthus' argument.
An email arrived a few days ago. Here's a picture of it.
It just seemed fishy, so I dumped it in the trash, even though I am actually expecting a delivery that could well involve USPS (although not in Italy, and certainly not any time near Ferragosto). Why was it fishy? Because of the writing....
Richard Dawkins seems to have upset a bunch of people again with his latest “Muslim jibe”. So, Muslims, taken as a whole, are less well-endowed than Fellows of Trinity College when it comes to Nobels. So?
Frankly, I don’t give a fig how many Nobel prizes any group of people have won. What inter...
The Food Programme on BBC Radio 4 recently did a programme on butter, and jolly interesting it was too. That the Danes and the French caught the Irish dozing 1and overran Ireland's global butter domination was news to me. The rapid romp through the health debate was a bit light. I don't think I'...
When apricots are 3 euros a kilogram in the market (with smaller ones -- more slicing -- for 2 euros) what's a chap to do? Make apricot jam, obviously.
