In addition to scientists and engineers, another profession where individuals tend to believe their particular expertise in a field automatically translates into more widespread knowledge is medicine. Further evidence of this was provided by a letter to the editor in yesterday's WSJ:
Global warming, global food shortages and global diseases are all compounded because of the world-wide refusal to confront our single largest problem: uncontrolled overpopulation.
Somewhere, sometime, somehow we need to admit, confront and start to solve this problem or all else will be futile.
Arthur A. Fleisher II, M.D.
Northridge, Calif.
Paging Dr. Malthus and Dr. Erlich. Please report to the lobby for discharge as your theories have been thoroughly disproved.
It's surprising that anyone is still peddling the nonsense that overpopulation is the gravest threat to mankind.
UPDATE: Anyone except President Obama's "science czar" Dr. John Holdren:
It's not surprising. Holdren spent the '70s boogying down to the vibes of an imaginary population catastrophe and global cooling. He also participated in the famous wager between scientist Paul Ehrlich, the now-discredited "Population Bomb" theorist (and co-author of "Ecoscience), and economist Julian Simon, who believed human ingenuity would overcome demand.
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