julian simon (p532) 15 famous statement of “cornucopian” view, that seems to prevail today and...

Julian Simon (p532) Julian Simon (p532) 1515

• Famous statement of “Cornucopian” view, that seems to prevail today and opposes the Doomsayer (Malthus-ian) view.

• Life expectancy increasing, Raw materials more available, Famine deaths down, More human life, US environment improving, Greenhouse effect is not harming humans

• 1. Human creativity solves all the above• 2. Scarcity->Price up->incentive for substitutes • 3. problem is lack of freedom• 4. Claims scientific consensus on these points!• 5. Rate of known extinctions is low• 6. Many alleged reasons for false bad news

Partridge: “Response to Simon” (6th edn), Partridge: “Response to Simon” (6th edn), 1515• International commerce acts as if it accepts

“Cornucopianism”• Yet the data given are irrelevant or partial.

Ignores: nutrient cycles, feedback, limiting factors, thermodynamics and entropy. etc

• J Simon has a Worldview “radically at odds” with biological and physical scientists.

• Cornucopianism ignores the scientific falsifyability principle, replaces it with faith in the future.

• It is a reversal of Copernicus (astronomer): i.e. Cornucopians put humans at the center of universe

• Overall, neo-classical / neo-liberal /business-as-usual, is engineering-mechanical, not biological. Need to consider “systemic” analysis (with entropy, energy flows, synergies, feedback, time lag, threshold effects).

• But (for Cornucopians): “biological services” might be replaced, by “mechanical” engineering, i.e. human intervention in biological world, like GM food.

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