Talk:Julian Simon/Archive 1

Archive 1

Archive 2

("Oh, I meant 7 million years.")

The following contrib was probably left behind at what was Talk:Julian Simon and is now Talk:Julian Simon (disambiguation).^{--Jerzy•t 23:46, 8 March 2010 (UTC)}

Note: It's no longer at the disambiguation page, and I've moved its history to the main talk page. Graham87 10:29, 26 January 2017 (UTC)

I have a suspicion that the quote from Garrett Hardin's "Population Myopia" is apocryphal ("Oh, I meant 7 million years.") Simon harped against cherry-picking a slice from an historical trend and extrapolating the consequences of that trend to continue indefintely. So, I would be very surprised that he had accepted the premise of a resource calculation based on exponential population growth.--Rolofft 03:11, 22 May 2005 (UTC)

(PoV problems)

Heavy POV in the second paragraph. I just happened to find an article on Simon, and haven't made *my* mind up about his theories, but there's some pretty blatant bias in what was originally posted about "misinformation" by the Cato Institute. There are ways to make sure your side is heard without loading a link promoting your version *twice* in the same document. That second link was removed from the second paragraph also, but remains below. 67.10.133.121 23:57, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

I agree with 67.10.133.121. The 2nd paragraph doesn't seem to have a NPOV. Argueably the 5th Paragraph has the same problem. - "This notion of technology creating limitless resources and potential for growth is at the very heart of Simon's theories. Unfortunately, the theory falls apart for natural resources such as helium, crude oil, and natural gas."
—Preceding unsigned comment added by 155.104.239.13 (talk) 22:02-:04, 6 December 2005

Wagers section

This section is misleading in how it was written, and I believe needs to clarify exactly what they were betting on. Using $$ as a proxy for resource scarcity has several flaws, much like Simon's own "Olympic performance" analogy, which in this light is at least somewhat hypocritical. Not in the least, falling prices can and do often indicate an increasing ability to exploit the resource--to open the tap ever wider and drain the resource base ever faster. While this is inevitable for nonrenewable resources, after a certain point of doing this, otherwise-renewable resources become depleted, too (such as what is happening globally with our forests). As such, money is a less direct and useful measure of human welfare than other, more direct indicators, such as the state of the environmental sinks and sources that we depend on. 72.244.201.27 04:19, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

Human welfare is not determined by the state of environmental sinks. But is determined by the purchasing power, in resources, of our money (which is how Simon measured it). Human welfare is increased by having access to food, manufactured consumer goods like building material and funiture and medicine. It is not increased by having a big forest out there. Not that forests are bad, they just dont increase human welfare in any normal use of the word.
I removed much of the umming and erring after discussing the wager. This stuff just repeats arguments Simon has rebutted in his book and which were the whole point of the wager. You can always point to a short term up turn in prices. Steel is still nowhere nea as expensive as it was at the beginning of the century, etc. etc. etc. Its tiresome that this needs to be said again and again.
And the price of a commodity obviously includes the prices of the things you destroy in producing that commodity (maybe not the VALUE, but definitely the price). There is no balance in taking a hands down win in a wager and then repeating ad infinitum arguments, alrady debunked by Simon himself about why he was wrong all along.
—Preceding unsigned comment added by 220.237.14.15 (talk) 14:44, 16 October 2006

"Forests don't increase human welfare"? Where do you think air and most of our medicines come from? And if you think it's appropriate to cut away analyses of the wagers just because "Simon had already rebutted and debunked them," I'd say that's a pretty glaring violation of NPOV.

Not signing your contribution on a talk page is the easiest way to ensure it will be ignored. --Michael C. Price ^talk 21:18, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

Missing references

Some parts of the article would need some referencing.

• UN figures on declining growth rate. Maybe at the UN website?
• Inapplicability of Malthusian theories: is this POV? I am not an expert, but it seems this guy's theories were controversial in recent times. Is this a "fact", or just an opinion (no matter how dominant)?
• Suggestion for airline overbooking procedure: any sources?
• Various sources about the eagerness (or lack of it) of Ehrlich in taking part in the wager are missing.
• Missing sources about the price levels and reasons for the reduction between 1980 and 1990.

I am not in the field and I would not know where to look them all up. --Orzetto 13:03, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

(Synthesizing copper?)

Did this dude say that "copper will become cheaper because a way of synthesizing the elements will be found"? 203.218.37.45 02:36, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

(Food prices)

"Malthusian theories, further, do not appear to apply to recent life in the modern world because global prices for food have been falling while population levels have been rising." There's no basis for this opinion. Food prices are dependent on availability of agricultural land (declining due to desertification, urbanization, and overpopulation), and cheap fossil fuel energy, a finite resource. --Valwen 05:13, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

It is not an opinion that worlds food prices have been falling and population rising -- and this is contrary to the Malthusian theories (and POV) that you and others espouse. Your following statement, by contrast is the position that Simon spent his life critiquing. You really should read the Ultimate Resource. BTW I see you removed some links, which I shall be restoring, that's if I don't I'm inclined to revert your entire edit as Malthusian POV.--Michael C Price 07:38 &08:16, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

"contrary to the Malthusian theories" Not necessarily, and that statement shows your POV. Be careful about what YOU consider to be "NPOV." Malthusian predictions follow a bell-shaped curve--actually, several bell-shaped curves depending on what we are talking about (population, fossil fuel, etc) that are somewhat linked. The more fundamental debate is about where we are on the bell-shaped curve, not whether it exists. Simon spent his life creating a feel-good rationale for the status quo that does not actually refute anything from the likes of the Club of Rome, et al, who spend their time critiquing the status-quo support for cornucopia and unlimited growth. You paint it like he was some overwhelmed hero fending off the hords when he had the support of the establishment--and the ideas that he espoused still do. 72.244.201.27 04:08, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

"not whether it exists." indicates your own Malthusian POV. I know it is hard to grasp for a Malthusian (because it seems so common sensical) but not everybody believes we live on a set of Malthusian curves. As for whether the present state of the world is contrary to Malthus' theories I refer you to the statement at Malthus#Principle_of_population:

Malthus made the famous prediction that population would outrun food supply, leading to a decrease in food per person. (Case & Fair, 1999: 790). He even went so far as to specifically predict that this must occur by the middle of the 19th century

Clearly he was wrong and my statement to that effect is merely a statement of fact. --Michael C. Price ^talk 05:49, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

fair enough, but Simon did nothing to disprove Malthus' prediction--that happened on its own. He was simply wrong--or more appropriately, inaccurate. That doesn't necessarily mean that Simon was--or is--right. However, inasmuch as you take "Malthusian" to indicate the more general belief in limits to growth, then that bears clarification. Simon has also done nothing to disprove the more fundamental relevance of thermodynamics and ecological carrying capacity to the existence of the human economy and human welfare. His ideas are important and should be elaborated and discussed, but as much as they shouldn't be misrepresented, neither should "Simonians" misrepresent his critics. Simon has argued well that "nothing horrible has happened yet." His future predictions are weak and stand in contradiction to much of what we know about biological and ecosystems and physics (e.g. the laws of thermodynamics dictate, contrary to Simon's central assertion, that humans as dissipative structures cannot are not and will never be autogenerative). If he addresses these contradictions, any of these "alternative understandings," then that should be in this article. If he doesn't, then that fact equal deserves mention. Either way their implications create a coherent worldview that is very critical of the one he has constructed.
Inasmuch as you take "Malthusian" to indicate the more general belief in limits to growth, then that bears clarification.Specifically, I wonder why you label everyone who disagrees with Simon as "Malthusian POV." This appears to be a giant strawman. Is Hubbert a Malthusian because he elaborated a another bell-shaped curve? Are ecological economists Malthusians because they recognize that there is a theoretical line at which--one we cross it--we drawdown our renewable resources, which, going unchecked, can ONLY cause population collapse? propped up by false logic, ie "You are a Malthusian, you believe in the predictions of Malthus, Malthus was wrong, therefore you are wrong." I am not a Malthusian, nor are people like Robert Costanza. If you are simply parroting Simon by calling anyone who disagrees with him a Malthusian arguing a "Malthusian Crisis", then we need to rewrite the article to be more honest in that representationclarify Simon's argument as a positively defined rather than negatively defined. Something like We can also add (if it is true), "In his writings, Simon tended to liken all his opponents to Malthus." and maybe an eloboration or two if they exist. Simply calling them "Malthusians" though is at least somewhat dishonest in that it is a Wiki Editor acting as the mouthpiece of the person in question, rather than a 3rd person observer.
--72.244.201.27 22:31 & 23:27, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

The initial contrib in the following box was presumably addressed to the first 'graph of the preceding contrib, perhaps before reading the second.
All the contribs in that box were mistakenly placed inside the preceding signed contrib, and almost certainly written w/o recognition (by any of the respondents, except possibly the first) that it was part of a 2-'graph contrib made in a single edit.
(Such events are understandable in light of the general neglect on this talk page of the good habit, upon noticing an unsigned contrib, of inserting a subst'ed use of {{unsigned2}}, w/ params provided by a single copy&paste from one the last few edit-history entries, and in light of certain sloppy WP-predominating habits whose substance is suggested by my redoing of the formatting markup at the start of each 'graph of that preceding contrib.)^{--Jerzy•t 23:46, 8 March 2010 (UTC)}

The laws of thermodynamics do not forbid humans being "autogenerative" since the Earth is not a closed system. On a larger scale remember that cosmic inflation implies that "the universe is the ultimate free lunch", so open ended exponential growth is not ruled out. And please sign your posts and use ident to delimit your contributions or dialogue becomes very difficult. --Michael C. Price ^talk 02:18, 11 October 2006 (UTC) Yes, they do forbid humans--and every other (dissipative) structure in this universe, and saying otherwise means you don't understand much anything about the basic assumptions of cornucopia (not to mention anthropocentric hubris). Our so-called "ingenuity" comes at a massive cost of order that we take from our external context to maintain our internal (biological, social, economic) order. If we take too much at any given time, that external supporting context will collapse and take whoever remains with it. You are asserting at this point that, "We will destroy earth, but that's ok because there are probably other extraterrestrial resources we can exploit and live off of." If Simon has argued that or conversely somehow we can grow indefinitely but keep earth intact, as rediculous as it is, it is a central point and needs to be added to the page. 72.244.201.27 14:51, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

Instead of just asserting that I don't know what I'm talking about, I'd rather see you comment on the thermodynamics implications of the Earth not being a closed system. Since you haven't addressed the issue let me spell it out: there are no thermodynamic implications, since the sumsun supplies us with abundant low entropy energy. Harnessing this external extraterrestial resource is just a question of technology. As itis the question of thermonuclear energy, cosmic inflation etc etc. --Michael C. Price ^talk 15:06, :07, & :20, & 19:40, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

I am not clear whether your criticism of the usage of the term "Malthusian" applies to the talk page or to the article itself. If the talk page, note that this is only a discussion to aid the article's evolution. --Michael C. Price ^talk 02:18, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

It does not help the "evolution" of the article when one of the editors cannot distinguish between Malthusian and non-Malthusian critiques. Malthusian predicted something that didn't happen, and used a bell-shaped curve. However, the labeling of people who use a bell-shaped curve as Malthusian is disingenuous. Simon has critics that are not Malthusians, but who do share similarities. The fundamental difference is they aren't predicting anything and the most you will get from them is a set of qualified "If then" statements. A bell shaped curve does NOT predict disaster, and always asserting so, whether you or Simon, is a straw man. Every time something new happens (efficiences, growth rate change, etc), we must recalculate. The fundamental difference is one of determinism. Just because we are beholden--like everything else in the universe--to the laws of nature doesn't mean we will necessarily collapse under them...only under a certain set of behaviors. Many have pointed out that we are following many of those conditional behaviors. So is it you or Simon who naively and dishonestly dismiss them all as "Malthusian?" I ask you because you seem to be the Queen Bee on this entry (if it was someone else who 72.244.201.27 14:51, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

Malthus predicted that exponential growth would terminate in a 19th century resource catastrophe. Do you also accept that open ended exponential growth will eventually cause a resource catastrophe or not? There are two answers:

Yes -- you and Malthus only disgree over timescales, in which case I do not think it is dishonest to describe you as Neo-Malthusian.

No -- in which case you agree with Simon.

Which is it? --Michael C. Price ^talk 15:14, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

I have re-written much of the new material and softened POV Malthusian statements to NPOV. The link to the UN population projections didn't work; I deleted it since it was consistent with the previous statement of UN projections, but I'd be interested to see another ref. --Michael C Price 09:31, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

Based on its date, it is extremely likely that following contrib was intended as a response to what preceded it by a day and a half, and that its original non-indentation reflected simply its contributor's response to the formatting problem. Its indentation (and that of the response to it) is now adjusted accordingly.

As is typical for Mr. Simon, you mistake money for value: food prices are based on availability in the local area. If we have more food why are more people hungry? China is excluded because of it's one child policy.

Region/Subregion	Total Population (in millions)		Per Capita Dietary Energy Supply (kcal/day)		Number of people undernourished		Percent undernourished in total population
	1990-92	1997-99	1990-92	1997-99	1990-92	1997-99	1990-92	1997-99
DEVELOPING WORLD	4,050.0	4,5655	2,540	2,680	816.3	777.2	20	17
DEVELOPING WORLD excluding China	2,8805	3,311.7	no data	no data	623.7	660.9	22	20

Source: Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. 2001. Food Insecurity: When People Live With Hunger and Fear Starvation. The State of Food insecurity in the World 2001. Italy: FAO.

Malthus still applies, mainly because natural selection still applies.
Lee Wells 19:06, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

Which just shows you can prove anything by excluding a quarter of the world. The total numbers say the reverse, I note -- fewer malnourished in absolute and percentage terms.
--Michael C Price 20:11, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

Malthusian POV -- discuss here first

I've restored an external link that offered some balance to the recent Malthusian POV changes that have been made. Please don't delete such links without stating why or discussing it here. I've also deleted some other Malthusian POV changes that have been made recently. Statements to the effect that Simon's views are contradicted by the "fact" of finite resources testify that the author has not read, or completely failed to grasp, Simon's notion of the difference between economic and physical quantification of resources. --Michael C. Price ^talk 07:30, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

All you are saying is that Simon was writing inside the confines of the neoclassical tradition that viewed the circulation of money as a perpetual motion machine independent of "physical" resources (actually, exergy--that is, a value describing accessible, low-entropy matter-energy). Perhaps he elaborated this fundamental assumption in greater detail as he championed it, but I am skeptical that an intro economics textbook would cite Simon while describing its money cycle diagram. If he bears this credit, then we should state that more specifically, and of course, cite it.
—Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.244.201.27 (talk) 23:34, 10 October 2006

Calling Simon's critics "Malthusians" is pejorative and biased. Malthus existed before the era of technology and the Green Revolution, in which huge populations are propped up by petroleum-based agriculture. Simon's critics are environmentalists, Simon's critics are focused on the limits to growth, as in the Club of Rome report, the finite limits of Earth's carrying capacity and the unsustainability of natural resources, particularly oil and natural gas. Simon is the non-scientist here. He indulges in magical thinking: if We or the Market requires more copper, or oil, or whatever, we will simply transmute the elements into whatever we need. --Valwen 05:35, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

Simon does not talk about transmutation of elements: this popular myth among his critics is already demolished by the article. He is talking about the development of substitutes. See the "criticism" section. --Michael C. Price ^talk 07:02, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

No he's not. You showed his quote and his re-quote, but he still referred to copper being made from other materials (although he did *expand* the statement to include non-copper substitutes that serve the same purpose). —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 63.162.158.7 (talk) 17:23, 12 April 2007 (UTC).

True, he does talk about transmutation as a future possibility. However, it is not "magical thinking", as previously stated. --Michael C. Price ^talk 21:59, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

Transmutation itself is not physically impossible. Heck, the Sun does it all the time transmuting Hydrogen to Helium, as do Nuclear reactors transmuting Uranium into Plutonium. According to physics theory we got all the elements from the periodic table by transmutation in stars. The only problem regarding transmutation is the amounts of energy required to do it. Regardless, we can and do substitute materials for others. e.g. Copper, Bronze, Iron, Steel, Aluminium, Titanium, etc. Quasarstrider 01:26, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Diamond's Criticisms

Malthusian theories, further, do not appear to apply to recent life in the modern world because global prices for food have been falling while population levels have been rising; as Simon predicted.

I have removed this to the talk page because I don't think it fits the section heading, which is 'Criticism'... the preceding sentences are all relevant and provide a balanced counterpoint to Diamond's claims, but this last one goes over the line. Diamond's discussion of malthusian theory serves only as an introduction to his real point, which is not about gross numbers but population impact.

I don't want to get too deep into it but it should be sufficient that Diamond never discusses food prices in relation to malthusian theory (and I don't recall him mentioning food prices anywhere else) in his book. Thus, including this sentence in the 'Criticisms' section is inappropriate and strikes me as a POV 'straw man': it concludes a section allegedly devoted to criticism of Simon with a rebuttal that appears relevant but isn't. Robotsintrouble 14:24, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

I would go a little further. The talk about the assumption of exponential growth simply uses an argument mechanism that Simon himself champions--that is, taking current trends and extrapolating them. One such trend is population growth rate. It doesn't make sense that Simon would criticize an argument a) made by a device that he himself uses and b) one based on substantive assumptions from the worldview that he espouses: that growth can happen forever because we live in a cornucopia universe of limitless wealth and resources, and (or because) we have limitless creativity and intellectual potential (apart from any material limitations imposed upon us). Is Simon or isn't he a believer in cornucopia? This page can't imply it both ways--to say he strongly argues for limitless resources and then later characterize him as a growth apologist, "Well of course growth won't go on for EVER...but it could if it wanted to?" What is his actual position? I doubt it is really that ambiguous.

Please sign your comments. Sorry, I don't see where Simon is described or quoted as a "growth apologist". Can you be a bit more explicit? I am also not clear what you mean by the term. Did Simon believe that "that growth can happen forever"? I am not clear about the "forever" bit.--Michael C. Price ^talk 02:26, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

Also in this section, I added a couple of sentences to balance out what seemed a pretty quick dismissal of criticisms of Simon's claim that "We now have in our hands—really, in our libraries—the technology to feed, clothe, and supply energy to an ever-growing population for the next seven billion years." The contributor has pointed out that criticisms to the effect that Simon's statement would lead to an astronomical number of humans were based on an assumption of continued population growth, while in fact world population growth was slowing, and might (according to the UN) level out in the next century. However, Simon's statement is itself an assumption of continued growth. ("an ever-growing population for the next seven billion years"). I added a link to Albert Bartlett's mathematical analysis of where this would put us, given a 1% growth rate. (Current growth rate is 1.14%.) As a relatively new contributor (I've made a few minor edits under a prior nick, but prefer to switch to my real name.) I was reluctant to delete any of the prior contributor's comments, so I added my own in a way which I hope balances them. I hope this was acceptable JFeeney 18:59, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

The point of the text you've inserted has already been made earlier in the same paragraph. Why duplicate it? The criticism is pretty stupid as well: Simon is talking in the explicit context of space travel and is obviously thinking about humanity's explansion through the cosmos: any resulting percentage growth rate would decline with time towards zero. --Michael C. Price ^talk 19:57, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

Okay, this is about Simon's statement, "We have in our hands now - actually in our libraries - the technology to feed, clothe and supply energy to an ever-growing population for the next 7 billion years."

I added the point I did because it had actually not been made previously.The previous text had said, "These criticisms both assumed exponential population growth, with the population doubling every 43 years. However such assumptions may not be realistic since birth rates are declining in many developed and developing countries." There are two problems with this as well as with the version you created after deleting my addition. First, and most important, it weaves a little argument for dismissing Hardin, Diamond, and Bartlett's critiques. Clearly, it is seriously abandoning a NPOV for a Wikipedia contributor to piece together and post his own argument for dismissing their criticisms. I think you need simply to present the criticisms and let them speak for themselves.

Second, FWIW (as my point above is the one which should hold sway), your argument dismisses the criticisms as based on an assumption (on the part of the critics) of ongoing steady growth. Yet Simon's statement contains in it that very assumption ("an ever-growing population"). (That is the point which had not previously been made.) To assert he meant a steadily (and, of necessity, extremely rapidly) "decreasing" growth rate is to read into it an implication he didn't make. Moreover, his mention of space travel makes his statement all the more problematic, as I believe most experts would say we do not, in fact, have in our hands (or libraries) today the technology to colonize other planets. We may be getting there, but aren't there yet. Even if we were, the citics' arguments specifically take that into account. Any growth rate much more than zero, over 7 billion years, would still be too much for our galaxy and perhaps the entire universe as Bartlett's critique makes clear.

As well, if you want to make the statement, "and any growth of the human race by space colonisation beyond our solar system would necessarily impose an ever decreasing growth rate in percentage terms despite enabling an "ever-growing population," you need to back it up. But I think it's an injection of a personal argument which, as I recall, isn't there in Simon's chapter/article, and so is inappropriate for the Wikipedia article. Edit: So while backing up that statement with appropriate references would help, it would not be sufficient, as we have no evidence that Simon was thinking that when he simply said we could sustain "an ever-growing population for the next 7 billion years." Moreover, were he assuming it, one would think he'd have included specific reference to such a declining rate rather than leave his statement so vulnerable to easy criticism. (Also, you'd need to show realistic numbers indicating that we could indeed manage such growth. I suspect you'd need a rather rapidly declining growth rate to avoid absurdly large numbers after 7 billion years.) At any rate, I'm not sure your assertion is correct. Split a population in half and let each half continue growing at the previous rate, and you will have the same total number in the end.

Finally, I think you're slightly misinterpreting the UN statement about population growth leveling off around 2075. They make it very clear in their report that it is not a prediction, but rather a projection(they make a clear distinction there) which represents just one possible scenario. They're very clear that it is near impossible to predict with any certainty, and that very small changes in certain variables can affect the future numbers enormously. Some experts have cautioned that the UN's numbers may be too optimistic. I think if you're going to make reference to the UN projections, then, you should really also include mention of those who challenge them.

Simon, in fact, made a statement on which Bartlett, Hardin, and Diamond have pounced. He asserted both that we could continue with an "ever-growing population" for 7 billion years, and that we had the technology to colonize space. I think we need to let their critiques speak for themselves without the injection of personal opinion. JFeeney 23:28, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

You are correct that Simon never asserted the growth rate, as a percentage, would decline, but neither does he assert that it would remain constant (which is the strawman the critics all address), merely that it would be an "ever-growing population". I have added this factual statement. --Michael C. Price ^talk 00:51, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I don't have much problem with that. I simply turned it into a reference to what he wrote (didn't write, actually) rather than to what he was or wasn't assuming. I think, though, that your statement comes off again, a bit, as a criticism of the critics' argument, which would be better left to speak for itself. However, I'm not going to quibble about it at this point. I may come back to it if I get the time to look into what would happen to population numbers, in the context of space colonization, even at a realistically declining rate. JFeeney 01:01, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, the minor edits made at 03:03, 30 November 2006, were by me. Apparently, my log-in had timed out when I made them. JFeeney 03:07, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

Reviewing Bartlett's article, The New Flat Earth Society, I see that the '30 kilo-orders greater than the number of atoms in the known universe' comment is actually in reference to a time span of 7 million -- not 7 billion -- years. Bartlett went with the smaller number for reasons mentioned in the article. So I am correcting that. JFeeney 03:29, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

Michael, you said, but neither does he assert that it would remain constant (which is the strawman the critics all address)

This is the nub of much of this back-and-forth. I'm not at all sure it's a straw man. Simon mentioned "ever growing." Though I agree we can't be sure precisely what he had in mind, I think most would interpret that to mean steady ( = exponential) growth or close enough to it for the critics' points to be well taken. How rapid a decline in population growth rate would be necessary for their points not to apply? I suspect it would have to be very rapid. And Simon made no such mention. In fact, it would be totally un-Simon-like to say, "We'll be okay if only our population growth rate declines rapidly." :) JFeeney 04:15, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

"Ever-growing" is not the same as "exponentially ever-growing". Speculating that Simon meant something really stupid, although he doesn't say it, is not my idea of NPOV or balance. --Michael C. Price ^talk 09:18, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

First, steady growth is, of necessity, exponential growth. However, it is not the only growth which is exponential. World population growth remains exponential despite its rate having fallen in recent years. From Limits to Growth: The 30-Year Update: "This fertility downturn does not mean that total world population growth has ceased, or ceased being exponential. It simply means that the doubling time has lengthened... The net number of people added to the planet was in fact higher in 2000 than it was in 1965, though the growth rate was slower." That a constant growth rate produces an exponential curve does not mean it is characteristic of all exponential growth. Second, my point was that the phrase, "ever growing" would be most reasonably interpreted as at least something akin to steadily growing or close enough to it that the critics' points remain valid. Simon didn't say "rapidly declining rate" or "speedily diminishing in growth." He said, "ever growing." In any event you are still injecting your own editorializing when you throw in your qualifiers to try to negate the critics' arguments. You need to stick to NPOV and let their arguments speak for themselves. I've been exceedingly generous in letting you get away with as much as you have. JFeeney 17:49, 30 November 2006 (UTC)`

There is only one issue here, and it is not one of NPOV, it is one of mathematical terminology: steady growth is not necessarily exponential growth, since "growth" does not specify whether we are talking about absolute numbers or percentage figures. The statement you quote from Limits to Growth is simply incorrect: have a look at exponential growth or ask any maths student; LTG are simply incorrect in their use of the term. Steady absolute growth of any quantity implies that its time derivative is constant and positive. Steady exponential growth implies that the time derivative of a quantity, divided by the original quantity, is constant -- two very different concepts.

With this estabished all your other points require revision: "ever growing" neither implies nor excludes the possibility of exponential growth; world growth is not exponential since the percentage growth is on a downward trend: to be exponential the percentage growth rate would have to be approximately constant, but the percentage growth it has almost halved since the early 1960s. As I said LTG are simply incorrect. --Michael C. Price ^talk 21:40, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

You said, There is only one issue here, and it is not one of NPOV

No, this has everything to do with NPOV. Maybe you can't see it, but you've heavily infused this section (and, I suspect, other parts of the article) with your own personal arguments in a clear effort to negate the arguments of Simon's critics. You might be able to get away with some of this if you were simply to provide references to critics of the critics. But you're not doing that. Your just posting your own (demonstrably wrong) opinion/arguments. This is not the place for people to read Michael Prices arguments against Simon's critics. It is only a place for them to read those critics' points and make their own determinations. Your edits are not letting that happen.

You said, steady growth is not necessarily exponential growth, since "growth" does not specify whether we are talking about absolute numbers or percentage figures

Michael, when people talk about steady growth in the context of population growth, they are almost always talking about growth at some percentage rate per year. That is essentially a given in this context. Any population growing at a particular percent per year is growing exponentially. And that applies even if that percentage rate is adjusted downward from one year to the next.

I'm afraid it is you who are wrong about exponential growth. Many math students would be wrong about the question of whether world population growth is still exponential. If you research that specific question, you will find that authors such as Dennis Meadows, director of the Institute for Policy and Social Science Research at the University of New Hampshire, one of the authors of the quote I provided from Limits to Growth: The 30-Year Update, are right. Would you like more references? How about a professor of Physics at the University of Oregon? Here are two pages where he explains it. I can provide more references if you like.

Again, though, the central issue here is that you are continually inserting your own attempted refutations into the article instead of letting the critics' points speak for themselves. As much as you may like Simon's work, there is no place for that. Take a look at the guidelines about NPOV. I am beginning seriously to doubt we will reach agreement on this, so if you feel you must continue to do this, I am not going to go back and forth forever, but will refer it to one of the mediating entities here at Wikipedia. JFeeney 00:24, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for making my point for me: The physics professor goes on to say: "In population dynamics, most all species are subject to something called the logistic growth curve . It is unclear if that is the destined growth of human beings or not". BTW this is a content dispute, mediation is not the answer here, consensus is, so let's try to reach it. Assuming bad faith and bias is not productive. --Michael C. Price ^talk 06:14, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps you didn't read most of what he said. He said, The only think that is demonstrable, as shown below, is that the rate of growth of the world's population is decreasing, but it's still exponential in nature. He also said, There is no evidence in the data, yet, that we are on the flat portion of the logistic growth curve. Therefore it is most scientifically accurate to state that , in the year 2003, human population growth is exponential in nature.

I've tried hard not to assume bias, even upon seeing that you list Simon's book as one that most influenced you. (I realize that does not necessarily mean you cannot edit this without bias.) But I think you are not seeing how heavily infused with your own personal arguments this article has been. It is slightly less so now, after all this back-and-forth, but I am not optimistic about your seeing the degree to which that still exists and that expert opinion disagrees with you on the exponential point. JFeeney 06:57, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

Assuming bias when I am just trying to correct basic mathematical terminology is not sensible: I could make a similar assumption about your "neo-Malthusian/environmentalist" bias, but that wouldn't be productive; everybody projects bias onto others rather than recognise it in themselves. Perhaps you didn't read all of exponential_growth as I suggested you do? It says the human population can be considered as exponential if the number of births and deaths per person per year were to remain at current levels (but also see logistic growth). We have already seen that the birth rate is falling, so their conditional is violated, and they suggest the logistic model again as an alternative. And they also reference Meadows, so the situation is not as simplistic as you suggest. One day I guess I'll see someone convinced by logic alone, but in the meantime I suppose you wish me to trawl through sites that model population growth as logistic? ...... and I guess I shall have to. And I shall. --Michael C. Price ^talk 07:28, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

Reference provided. Happy? --Michael C. Price ^talk 08:42, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

Finally, do you really wish to see the clunky phrase "30-kilo" in there, rather than the much more comprehensible "30,000"? It looks very strange to someone with a SI/metric background. --Michael C. Price ^talk 11:24, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

Michael -- Your resorting to sarcasm does not speak well for the strength of your argument. You're relying on a rather half-baked definition of exponential growth. I haven't the time right now to respond in full, and will let you have the last word in your edits for now, but will respond more fully soon. For now, I will only ask, 1) why do you feel justified in deleting my reference to how world population growth remains exponential, and simply replacing it with one which says it doesn't? Wouldn't you at least need to present both sides of the debate for the sake of NPOV? 2) Why did you change the perfectly NPOV reference title I provided: "Albert Bartlett's critique of Simon's Claim that, 'We now have in our hands... the technology to feed, clothe, and supply energy to an ever-growing population for the next seven billion years.'" It was simply a factual statement. It would be a tiny bit more precise to word it, "Article containing Albert Bartlett's critique of Simon's Claim...," but, really, aren't you defending Simon a bit zealously here? JFeeney 08:43, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Sorry about the sarcasm. However the mathematical definition of exponential, and hence exponential growth, is quite clear and precise. Perhaps I was overzelaous in deleting your reference (I'll have a look at it in a day or two -- like you I am quite busy right now). I judged the references I gave were of higher quality than the one already there, in that they actually quantified was they were talking about and defined their terminology more carefully. Admittedly such a judgement is always prone to bias, and I am being heavily influenced by my physicist training which quite definitely tells me what an exponential is and what it isn't. I shortened the full title of Bartlett's link because it seemed a bit redundant (the phrase already occured in the article twice); saying that is was a critique of exponential grwoth seemed more accurate and less propagandistic (i.e. I didn't regard the original title as NPOV). --Michael C. Price ^talk 00:57, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

You both need to cool off and stop editing this article. You've both blatantly violeted WP:3RR and the quality of the criticism section is noticably degraded from the last time I read this article. I have posted a 3RR warning to your talk pages, though I will refrain from posting it on the administrators' noticeboard because you're no longer actively revert warring. While I applaud your efforts to talk this out, I have added the NPOV-section tag to the criticisms section until the dispute is resolved. I was tempted to do so months ago, but it's now obvious that this tag is necessary.

[1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6]

For future reference, here's a list of the 3RR violation edits. To avoid repeating myself I'm only listing MichaelCPrice's edits because he's been warned before for revert warring and should know better, but both of you share responsibility for this appalling edit war.

Robotsintrouble 01:49, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

You need to check the definition of 3RR: I don't believe that either of us have violated it. For instance many of my so-called repeat reversions are actually clarifications of text, not tit-for-tat edit warring. And more impprtantly, I think we are moving towards a consensus. --Michael C. Price ^talk 02:09, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

I'm sorry to have been involved in an "edit war" with my first edit of any substance on Wikipedia. And I do appreciate the NPOV-section tag being added to the section. I have to agree with Michael, though, with regard to the 3RR. As a new editor here, I had never heard of the rule, but stumbled on it in looking into how to revert an edit. (I didn't do it in the standard way; I just copy-pasted from the previous edit :-/ ) As I understand it, it means a full reversion to the previous edit made more than three times in 24 hours - or something pretty close to that. I've made only one full reversion in this whole thing, and I don't think Michael has made any. Again, though, I agree it has been a bit of an edit war, and your point there it taken. FWIW, to try to mover toward better resolution on this, I've been researching the topic to boost my own knowledge of it, including corresponding with some experts in the areas of population growth, and the math of exponential growth. I will post something about my findings in this discussion when I complete this process, and I suspect this will help us reach agreement. JFeeney 02:51, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

I have restored the reference to the description of "exponential" to world population growth, as I said I would a couple of days ago and tried to NPOV the text which, IMO, means explaining why world pop' growth is not exponential. I am happy to continue discussing changes to the article. JFeeney and myself are not involved in "appalling edit war", since this would seem to require acceptance of this belief by at least one of the participants to be true. As far as I can see we are resolving the divergence of opinion as to the presentation of the article in a civilised, evolutionary and productive manner. Any concerns that Robotsintrouble has about the article should be aired and sorted out here rather than just dishing out 3RR warnings. --Michael C. Price ^talk 03:03, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Your refusal to call a spade a spade doesn't make it a heart; neither of you has to acknowledge the existence of an edit war to participate in one. You have flip-flopped this article so many times that JFeeney almost gave up dealing with this issue, if this doesn't constitute an edit war I don't know what does. Please see the definition of reverting in the context of WP:3RR, specifically this part:

Reverting, in this context, means undoing the actions of another editor or other editors in whole or part. It does not necessarily mean taking a previous version from history and editing that. A revert may involve as little as adding or deleting a few words or even one word (or punctuation mark). Even if you are making other changes at the same time, continually undoing other editors' work counts as reverting.

The text about exponential population growth has changed repeatedly back and forth over the course of the edits I listed. I didn't give out the 3RR warnings lightly-- in my opinion you two are embroiled in a conflict that should have moved to the talk page as soon as you realized there was a disagreement, rather than repeatedly inserting your versions and moving to the talk page only when it became an easier venue to be uncivil to each other. While you have improved your behavior in the days since the original war, I wish you would take my advice and take a break from editing this article. It really is a relatively trivial issue that has become contentious, and it simply isn't worth all this.Robotsintrouble 09:26, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, I don't agree. The article is iterating towards a solution, not just flipping back and forth between fixed poles. Also I find it ironical that you issued the 3RR warnings at the point where we both had taken a break. It's moot now, anyway. --Michael C. Price ^talk 09:40, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Robots -- I definitely stand corrected on the definition of 3RR. (Maybe what I read about it was somewhere else on Wikipedia, but the official page you linked to is certainly clear.) In any event, I don't expect to get back to this for at least a couple of days, probably longer. My learning about exponential growth is on an exponential curve right now. :^) JFeeney 19:05, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Okay Michael, I've collected a good deal of information and will now present a list of items I think we need to address.

1. My primary objection previously was that you had inserted your own, unreferenced arguments into the section. Your most recent edits softened that problem. Nevertheless, I think the whole portion arguing that the critics' arguments are of questionable relevance because world population growth is no longer exponential should probably be left out simply because it it an instance of bringing your own argument into the article. If that was part of the public debate between Simon and one or more critics, then by all means provide a reference. If Simon responded to his critics with that very argument, then of course it would be fine to include it by quoting or referencing him. That would beNPOV, but I don't think bringing the issue into the article yourself is.

2. The above said, we should not even need to get into the technical questions about exponential population growth, as that point shouldn't, in my view, be a part of the article if it is to be NPOV. But since we've come this far with it, let's talk it out as it may have relevance to other Wiki articles anyway.

One of the key questions we discussed is whether current world population growth, despite a declining growth rate in recent years, can still be said to be "exponential." You feel it can't; I asserted that it could be.

First let me comment on the references you provided to support your side. This was one of your references. The page is actually copy-pasted from an old version of the Wiki article on Malthusian catastrophe. (i.e., as far as I can see it's a plagiarized site.) That aside, I think I can show that the Wiki article contains some serious problems and fails to support its contention that current population growth is not exponential. Take the paragraph you quoted, for example. It has a serious problem, which would likely fall under POV. That is, it pushes a POV yet is unsourced. It's just an argument constructed by whomever wrote it. It asserts things like, "A chart of total world population 1952-2002 The annual increase graph does not appear as one would expect for exponential growth. For exponential growth, it should itself be an upward trending exponential curve whereas it has actually been trending downward since 1986," without a source to support its argument, without really even supplying a logical argument to back up its own assertions. It just says, 'This is what you should see, but you don't.' I read that and think, "Well, thanks Wiki editor, but I don't think I want to just take your word for it." Ya know? (Incidentally, that paragraph, was edited out of the article on June 21,2006, and was replaced by one that is more balanced in that it mentions contrasting viewpoints, but is just as problematic in failing to provide sources.)

Your other reference is this. It turns out it doesn't actually support the argument that world population growth is not exponential. If you read a little farther down the page you will see that the author, David Coutts, with whom I've been in touch, is really arguing that world population growth fits a variable rate exponential growth model he calls "Couttsian" growth. It is definitely exponential in its essence. He equates it with variable rate compound interest.

Now on to my argument that current world population growth can and should still be termed "exponential." Before offering a mathematical justification, let me try one based on simple logic. David Coutts does this on his site. He shows [7] here, for instance, how a population growth rate can be at one level, then drop to another, and still be exponential. Referring to the table of various growth rates he presents, he points out,

   Logically, given that - for each constant rate of growth listed above -
   each row represents another year of exponential growth, it must be true that growth
   for one year at that rate is also exponential.

In email, David clarified that, viewed this way, it is fair to say that each year of population growth can be viewed correctly as a year of finite exponential growth at the specified rate.

David points out quite correctly that population growth never simply happens at a perfectly steady rate from year to year. Yet, as PeterTurchin (PDF ), professor of in the department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Connecticut, points out, population growth is generally held to follow the exponential law:

   There is a reasonable consensus among ecologists that the exponential law is
   a good candidate for the first principle of population dynamics
   (e.g., Ginzburg 1986, Brown 1997, Berryman 1999)

   ... it is a demonstrable fact that ecological theory is overwhelmingly based on the
   exponential equation.

Turchin goes on, of course, to discuss how we factor in the natural limits which ultimately impinge on exponential growth (leading to logistic growth, for example), and how all models of population growth are merely approximations of real life.

David points out on his site that Turchin told him,

   ...that exponential growth with a variable rate has been extensively studied by
   theoretical population ecologists, and that almost all ecological models have the form
   of an exponential equation with a variable rate.

David goes on to reformulate variable rate exponential growth as "Couttsian," a model he argues is more useful than the standard exponential model. But I'm not sure we need "Couttsian" growth simply to show that it is indeed correct in a Wiki article to continue to refer to current world population growth as "exponential." Turchin's statement makes clear that population ecologists are in agreement that the rate can vary while the growth remains exponential.

Investigating this more deeply, I located this old Usenet thread in which others were hashing out this very question some ten years ago. Look at the first paragraph of WayneHayes's post. (#316 in the threaded/tree view) (I will now try to let Wayne and another expert do most of the talking, somewhat akin to the way I think we should be sourcing our statements in the article.) In reply to someone who says in the thread, "Growth is exponential if and only if its rate is constant," Wayne states,

   Not true.  N(t) grows exponentially if there exist constants C > 0
   and K > delta > 0 such that N(t) >= C * exp(K*t).  If the rate is
   decreasing from say 2% to 1.01%, the growth rate is still exponential
   at 1%, or 0.5%, or any rate you'd care to name less than 1.01%. 

Now, I tracked down Dr. Hayes, who is currently a professor of computer science at Cal State University, Irvine, to ask for some clarification and follow up. I urge you to judge for yourself on his homepage, provided in the Usenet post, the extent of his math background.

He has given me permission to quote from his email. In expanding on the brief Usenet passage, he states:

   but you're not confused, you've interpreted it
   correctly.  Basically, we can't pin down *exactly* what the growth rate
   is, to an infinite number of decimal places, right?  We're usually
   satisfied with 1 or 2 or 3 decimal places, like 1.01%.  But that's
   still just an approximation.  And so, since you never pin down exactly
   *what* the growth rate is, the best you can really do, if you want to
   be rigorously correct, is to put a LOWER BOUND on the growth rate.
   That is, if your best estimate of the growth rate is 1.01%, it's safe
   to just say it's 1.00% --- it would be a lie to say it is 1.02%.  Get
   it?  And if we wanted to be even more "safe" in our estimate, then
   (still assuming a best-guess of 1.01%), we could say that the population
   is *certainly* growing faster than 0.5%.  And even more certainly it's
   growing by at least 0.25%.  In fact, for any X less than 1.01, we can
   say (with increasing confidence as X gets smaller), that the population
   is growing exponentially at a rate of (at least) X%.  The confusing
   part, perhaps, is that we usually leave off the "at least" part.  So
   it's mathematically correct to say that population is growing
   exponentially at a rate of 0.5% per year, when in fact the best
   current estimate is 1.01%.  But it would *not* be correct to claim
   a growth rate of 2%, or even 1.02%.

Somewhat relevant as well:

   An observed curve can never be fit *exactly*, so the best you
   can really do is say that "population growth over the past 10 years is
   best fit by an exponential curve with rate [whatever]".  If you fit 5
   years rather than 10, or 20 years rather than 10, you'd probably get a
   different number.

I asked him about the poster who disagreed with him (post #323 in the threaded/tree view). He explained:

   No, that speaker is wrong.  S/he's right that arctan(t) is always
   greater than 0, but the derivative of arctan(t) goes to zero as t goes
   to infinity, and thus for any delta I choose, N'(t) will eventually
   decrease below delta.  So the speaker is correct that arctan(t) does
   not represent exponential growth, but arctan(t) does not satisfy the
   definition I gave.  So there's no contradiction.  Remember: in order
   to claim exponential growth that lasts forever, the growth must *never*
   drop below some pre-chosen constant (delta in my definition above).
   If the growth is allowed to decrease ad infinitum, then it is no longer
   exponential.

And in answer to the basic question:

   > More generally, if it's something you've thought about, do you still
   > stand by your statement that a population growth rate can be declining, yet
   > still be exponential?
   Yes, as long as it remains above some pre-chosen constant delta, as I
   said above.  Now practically speaking, once the growth rate gets *really*
   small---say so small that the population is no longer *obviously*
   growing over the span of a century---then the growth rate has essentially
   halted.  But we're splitting hairs now: the growth rate *right now*
   is still huge, because (at least over my lifetime so far :-) there's
   no stopping in sight.

But I was still a bit uncertain about how one would determine when the growth more closely resembled the flat part of a logistic growth curve. Having seen his website which touches on this matter, I contacted Greg Bothun, professor of both physics and environmental studies at the University of Oregon. I asked Dr. Bothun, 'Is world population still growing exponentially, and how would we determine if it had moved into the flattening portion of a logistic growth curve?' He gave me permission to quote from his reply:

   the worlds population is continuing to grow exponentially
   but the rate of growth is declining.  That means we are asymptotically
   approaching logistic growth.

   ...the bottom line is that if
   say in 2004 the world population was growing at 1.2 % per year
   and in 2006 the population growth was 1.1% per year
   its still growing exponentially!  You would be amazed an how many people
   don't understand that basic arithmetic fact.   There is no evidence yet
   that we are on the logistic growth track, I agree.  But a model in
   which the growth
   rate declines at 0.02-0.03% per year will put us on that track in
   about 50 years.

   ...personally I think it going to be
   very difficult to get a population growth rate in the world
   that is ever gonna be less than 0.5% per year.

Okay, so yes we may well eventually recognize, in retrospect, that we have reached the flat part of logistic growth, but here we have two Ph.D.'s with extensive math backgrounds, one of whom teaches environmental science as well, completely agreeing that (a) current world population growth can and should be termed "exponential" despite the declining growth rate of recent years, and (b) we are not yet showing logistic growth. (I note that the earlier portion of the logistic growth curve is often viewed, in practice, as exponential growth. The logistic model adds carrying capacity to the equation since any population growth will eventually run into limits. Hence the flattening part of the curve.)

Add in the authors of Limits to Growth: The 30-Year Update, whom I quoted previously...

   This fertility downturn does not mean that total world population growth has ceased,
   or ceased being exponential. It simply means that the doubling time has lengthened... 
   (p. 29)

...and I've supplied five Ph.D.s in disciplines from environmental studies to economics (six if you include me, but mine is in the social sciences :-), as well as David Coutts who has obviously studied the matter in detail, all of whom stand behind the statement that world population growth currently remains exponential. From three of these experts I've supplied personal communications affirming the legitimacy of this statement.

While, for reasons I mentioned in #1, I think the whole issue should simply be removed from the article, I'd be okay with either a mention that current world population growth is still correctly seen as exponential, or, if you can round up some solid sources, providing both the point of view that it remains exponential, and the view that it is now logistic or some other non-exponential kind of growth. I think I may have seen a credible source or two that might do the trick, but all I'm finding at the moment are a few off-the-cuff discussion forum comments.

3. Previously I agreed to the sentence, "Although Simon did not specify the kind of growth to which he was referring (e.g. exponential, logistic, linear etc or a mixture) these critics have all pointed out that we can't project a small constant percentage growth rate forward for 7 billion years without getting absurd numbers." I have to take back my agreement. :-/ Here's why: It's logically impossible that Simon was referring to logistic growth, because logistic growth implies the presence of a limit on growth while he was touting "an ever-growing population for the next seven billion years." Clearly, he was not talking about any limit, much less any logistic growth curve as we know it. Moreover, I don't think he could have been talking about linear growth, since (as I mentioned above) it's generally agreed that populations follow the exponential law, at least until they reach some limits causing growth to flatten onto the logistic track. I mean, I just haven't seen anyone saying "populations tend to grow linearly." So I'm thinking maybe it's right after all to assume Simon meant exponential growth or some approximation of it. We would not, however, have to say he meant a steady percentage growth rate, as exponential growth can happen with changing rates. I'd be okay with changing that sentence simply to, "Although Simon did not specify the speed of growth to which he was referring..." and leaving out the list of types of growth. How about that?

4. A minor issue is the title I had for Albert Bartlett's critique of Simon's assertion that "We now have in our hands—really, in our libraries—the technology to feed, clothe, and supply energy to an ever-growing population for the next seven billion years." You changed it to "Albert Bartlett's critique of exponential growth." But heck, man, that's not what it is. It is a critique of the arguments of those who believe perpetual growth to be both desirable and possible. A large portion of it is specifically a critique of Simon's statement. Since the reader would have encountered the discussion of that statement in the "Criticisms" section of this article, I felt it made sense to include Bartlett's article critiquing it under "Critiques," and to title it as I did. You mentioned that you saw the title as "propagandistic." How so? I quoted Simon after all, and the article is, in large part, a critique of that quote.

5. I noticed that in the other portion of the "Criticisms" section you (?) defend Simon's statement concerning "creating copper or its economic equivalent from other materials..." (p. 63) I poked around a bit, and get the impression that in earlier editions of his book he simply said, "because copper can be made from other metals..." Note how he is quoted here, for instance. So I don't see a problem with criticizing that earlier statement. (Admittedly, though, I don't have an earlier edition of the book to check it.) That said, what about that revised, "the possibility of creating copper or its economic equivalent from other materials..."? Had he simply said, "creating copper's economic equivalent from other materials," he'd be immune to criticism there. But he said "copper or..." That means "creating copper from other materials, or creating its economic equivalent from other materials." The first portion is completely vulnerable to the critics' criticism. Know what I mean? I think the defense of Simon in that bit should be removed or softened.

I mean, in all of this, why not just report what he said, then report what the critics said? I think that should pretty much be the template for any Wiki article, but in looking at a few in recent days I see a whole lot of personal opinions andunsourced statements. Let's try to make this one stand out from the sloppy crowd, eh? In the end, it all boils down to a few minor edits. :-/

Oh, and I should reiterate that I think what I've put together may have relevance to some other Wiki articles, such as the one on Malthusian catastrophe.

Whew! I think that covers it.JFeeney 21:23, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Michael, I am, as you offered, separating your responses from mine, only because once I start to respond in-line to your responses in-line, I fear it will become a jumble that people will have trouble navigating. Also, there was a bit of a sequence of logic in my comments that would be hard to follow if they were broken up. I'll respond soon in one place below yours. (I've taken the liberty of indicating which item you were responding to with a given comment. Feel free, of course, to change the way I did that if you wish.) Let's see how this looks... JFeeney 02:59, 10 December 2006 (UTC) Thanks, I've added a title to each response section. --Michael C. Price ^talk 08:22, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

Wow, quite a response -- which is good, of course. I'm taking the liberty of responding to each numbered point seperately inline and adding your sig to your sections (as above) for clarity for other, later readers. (You can remove them and collect my responses together if you feel it helps.)

[Re JFeeney's item #1] It's a debatable point about what exactly is OR and NPOV, but I think it justified to point out when a critic's argument is completely erroneous. Bartlett's critique is of exponential or geometric growth, but Simon nowhere assumes exponential growth, nor is the world population currently growing exponentially. If we don't allow these points to be explained in response we would have to accept all criticisms of any position on any subject, where no one has responded in print because the original points by the critics are completely stupid points; should Wikipedia accept Euler's proof of the existence of God at the court of Catherine the Great, $e^{i\pi }=-1$, (depending on sources), simply because no one has bothered to refute it? (Analogous unanswered bogue creationist arguments spring to mind as well.) Also Simon never had the chance to respond to Barlett's critique (2002) since he was died in 1998.

[Re the first two sentences of item #2: NPOV conflicts with technical discussion of definiton of exponential] I don't see that NPOV means not presenting criticisms; rather it means that every side of an argument should be presented. Here it means explaining the mathematical definition of exponential, since the critics are playing loose and fast with their terminology.

[Re the rest of item #2: definition of exponential] I remain flabergasted that these experts can admit that the growth rate is declining (it has almost halved in the last 43 years) and that it is still exponential. However email submissions are not acceptable as sources so perhaps we both have a bit more reference trawling around to do..... A more fundamental problem with this position of accepting variable rate growth as exponential -- which I still maintain is absurd terminology since by this definition any growth rate could be described as "exponential" -- is that Bartlett's critique is not of "variable rate exponential growth" but of strictly geometric exponential growth (i.e. Bartlett assumes a repeated population doubling in a fixed time). Therefore since the world population is not doubling in a fixed time the whole variable rate issue is irrelevant. Bartlett's critique is simply addressing neither the real world, nor Simon's position.

[Re item #3:logistic growth halts] This is a bit mathematically pedantic I'll admit, but actually logistic growth does permit perpetual growth and accept a limit to growth -- growth slows but never stops in the logistic model -- so Simon's statement is compatible with the logistic growth. (Your repeated statement about exponential growth being the norm or compatible with declining growth rates I've already dealt with in the previous response. I know we disagree, but there's no point repeating myself.) I suggest we retain the qualifier "e.g. exponential, logistic, linear etc or a mixture" since they can be hyperlinked for the reader to explore the issue further.

[Re item #4: truncated quote included in link display] Okay, well I hope I don't seem too picky, but I felt that the quote of Simon you included would easily be taken out of context -- should we extend it to include the mention of space travel, for instance? It seemed more NPOV to remove it altogether. And I disagree with your current assessment that it is a critique of "perpetual growth" since we already seen that this would include logistic growth, whereas Bartlett is only critiquing "doubling in a fixed time growth".

[Re item #5: transmutation of copper] It wasn't just me, although I did add the exact quotations. I have (as you might expect!) both the The Ultimate Resource (1981 edition) and The Ultimate Resource 2 and I assure you that the current quotations in the article are precisely correct. (I've removed the italicisation that I had added for emphasis -- perhaps this created the appearance that the phrase "or its economic equivalent" was added later. It wasn't.) Futhermore Simon nowhere says "because copper can be made from other metals". That "dieoff.org" says otherwise is a reflection of their bias and lack of understanding of Simon's position. In fact the reference they give (p415, The Ultimate Resource) is incorrect and is apparently a reference a statement on p415 of The Ultimate Resource 2 that the notion of a fixed supply of farmland, copper or energy is "misleading". Finally, for a statement of the form "A or B" to be true it is sufficient for only one of A or B to be true; Simon's statement does not imply that he believes copper can be economically transmutated, but rather that he believes that there exists either "the possibility of creating copper from other materials" or "the possibility of creating copper's economic equivalent from other materials". I hope I have made it clear that the copper quotation is reporting what Simon said, not what the critics like to imagine what he said.  :-)

Thanks for the effort you've put in. And whew! --Michael C. Price ^talk 01:39, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

You guys are really putting in work on this, thanks! I do have a few specific points:

• Isn't there another part of the article we can improve? Maybe a more deletionist policy on the criticisms section will allow us to focus on the parts of the article that are far more important. I don't mean deleting the criticisms entirely, just keeping them relatively minimal and letting them stand for themselves.
• Diamond's book also makes the (far more logically sound and reasonable) criticism that although Simon's measures of selling prices for goods may go down, these prices do not reflect the global cost of expended non-renewable resources. Although he makes substantial environmentalist arguments in concert with this point, they have merit even from a purely economic perspective. The example he gives is something like this: If I burn down a national forest to get at a million-dollar lump of gold for an expenditure twenty dollars of gasoline, have we now made a $999,980 profit? In a sense we have because we found a more efficient way to get the gold, but we've ignored the fact that we destroyed many millions of dollars worth of timber to get it. I'll dig for my copy of Diamond's book and add this point, in my opinion it should be more prominent than the confusing and suspect assumptions of exponential growth.
• On the "point #1" of JFeeny's numbering system, and MichaelCPrice's response:

  should Wikipedia accept Euler's proof of the existence of God at the court of Catherine the Great, eiπ = − 1, (depending on sources), simply because no one has bothered to refute it? (Analogous unanswered bogue creationist arguments spring to mind as well.) Also Simon never had the chance to respond to Barlett's critique (2002) since he was died in 1998.

I must dissent here. While you make a persuasive argument, I believe wikipedia has a policy to deal with this issue already: No Original Research. Here's a quote from the policy page, emphasis added:

Original research is a term used in Wikipedia to refer to material that has not been published by a reliable source. It includes unpublished facts, arguments, concepts, statements, or theories, or any unpublished analysis or synthesis of published material that appears to advance a position — or which, in the words of Wikipedia's co-founder Jimmy Wales, would amount to a "novel narrative or historical interpretation."

We must only make arguments that have been put forward outside the wiki and let them stand on their own. While placing them in context is sometimes acceptable in my opinion, constructing a defense on behalf of the deceased crosses the line. This doesn't mean we have to explain the opponents' erroneous arguments in detail, but when in doubt we must refrain from inserting our own interpretations and let the works of the authors and critics stand for themselves. Perhaps "Diamond interprets the statement by Simon that the population can keep growing literally (insert a quote here) and criticises the mathematics of this interpretation: (quote diamond)" See what I did there? I'm equivocating with the word interpretation: the mathematics of the interpretation are being criticised, and whether the interpretation is a valid reflection of simon's points is appropriately ambiguous. Does this seem like a reasonable middle ground?Robotsintrouble 17:07, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

Some of my comments below are similar to what Robotsintrouble posted about original research. But I had written them yesterday, so I'll just leave them for what they're worth.

"[Re JFeeney's item #1] It's a debatable point about what exactly is OR and NPOV, but I think it justified to point out when a critic's argument is completely erroneous."

But the assessment that a critic's argument is erroneous is typically a subjective matter. I don't think Wiki editors are supposed to take it upon themselves to make that determination. In the current case, a decent case can be made in favor of the critics' arguments as well, but I'm pretty sure we should be staying out of that sort of thing altogether. From what I've read, it seems the role of the Wiki editor to report, but not to interpret or critique. The What is excluded? section of the page on original research appears to spell that out.

"Bartlett's critique is of exponential or geometric growth, but Simon nowhere assumes exponential growth, nor is the world population currently growing exponentially."

Well, I'll get back to those below.

"If we don't allow these points to be explained in response we would have to accept all criticisms of any position on any subject, where no one has responded in print because the original points by the critics are completely stupid points; should Wikipedia accept Euler's proof of the existence of God at the court of Catherine the Great, $e^{i\pi }=-1$, (depending on sources), simply because no one has bothered to refute it? (Analogous unanswered bogue creationist arguments spring to mind as well.) Also Simon never had the chance to respond to Barlett's critique (2002) since he was died in 1998."

I understand what you're saying, but I'm not sure we shouldn't accept any criticism, as long as it's an acceptable reference otherwise. That will filter out many fly-by-night sources, I think. That's probably better than leaving it up to editors to determine when a source's argument is patently erroneous and when it's not. There's a large zone of subjectivity in there. Either way, the section on "What is excluded?" seems pretty clear.

"[Re the first two sentences of item #2: NPOV conflicts with technical discussion of definiton of exponential] I don't see that NPOV means not presenting criticisms; rather it means that every side of an argument should be presented. Here it means explaining the mathematical definition of exponential, since the critics are playing loose and fast with their terminology."

AFAIK, it's fine to present criticisms if they have been published (or fit Wiki's criteria for acceptable references otherwise) in the context of public debate about the specific topic at hand. e.g., any Wiki-acceptable source which has refuted Bartlett's criticism of Simon would be fine. But I think that to originate such refutation oneself, as an editor, even with references, is not kosher. This is why I also don't think my sources making certain points about exponential growth should be included -- because the whole thing is an issue you've raised independently of any public debate concerning Simon. (I do think the question of what's exponential and what's not is interesting and worthwhile. It could perhaps be the subject of a separate article, and could be linked in this one for those wishing to investigate further.)

"[Re the rest of item #2: definition of exponential] I remain flabergasted that these experts can admit that the growth rate is declining (it has almost halved in the last 43 years) and that it is still exponential."

My impression is that introductory discussions (in textbooks etc.) of exponential growth sometimes leave the impression that it refers exclusively to a constant, unchanging percentage growth rate. In scanning the web, I find that many just don't get into it deeply enough to answer the question, "Can a declining growth rate sometimes still reflect exponential growth?" Yet, recall David Coutts reporting on his site (above) that Peter Turchin , told him "...that exponential growth with a variable rate has been extensively studied by theoretical population ecologists, and that almost all ecological models have the form of an exponential equation with a variable rate." That's a pretty massive statement, and is consistent with what I reported from several others. Wayne Hayes presented enough of the math, I think, to make sense of it. If the issue is included in the Simon article, I think it should at least include both the "still exponential" and the "no longer exponential" notions, at least until someone comes along to provide something that would definitively settle the debate.

"However email submissions are not acceptable as sources so perhaps we both have a bit more reference trawling around to do....."

I see some debate on a couple of discussion pages about the acceptability of "personal communications." At any rate, I can give the Limits to Growth reference, the Greg Bothun site at the U. Of Oregon, and a couple of others. Again, though, I doubt that whole debate should even be introduced into the article.

"A more fundamental problem with this position of accepting variable rate growth as exponential -- which I still maintain is absurd terminology since by this definition any growth rate could be described as "exponential" -- is that Bartlett's critique is not of "variable rate exponential growth" but of strictly geometric exponential growth (i.e. Bartlett assumes a repeated population doubling in a fixed time). Therefore since the world population is not doubling in a fixed time the whole variable rate issue is irrelevant. Bartlett's critique is simply addressing neither the real world, nor Simon's position."

But we don't know Simon's position. He said only, "an ever-growing population." Bartlett took that to imply he meant a steady rate of growth. Doesn't seem too unreasonable. Moreover, it's not like Bartlett needed 1% or anywhere remotely near it to show the problem with Simon's statement. He shows in the article, that at that 1% rate it would take only 17,000 years for the number of humans to equal the number of atoms estimated to be in the universe. And Simon also said, "Even if no new knowledge were ever gained after those advances, we would be able to go on increasing our population forever..." (emphasis added) Clearly he put no limits on it whatsoever.

"[Re item #3:logistic growth halts] This is a bit mathematically pedantic I'll admit, but actually logistic growth does permit perpetual growth and accept a limit to growth -- growth slows but never stops in the logistic model -- so Simon's statement is compatible with the logistic growth."

Well that contradicts some definitions I've read which mention that " the growth rate drops to 0," or that "growth stops." (At this point I hesitate to provide a Wiki reference, but...). But you may well be right that the growth gets infinitely close to 0 without ever getting there. But we both know the whole idea of the logistic model is to build in a limit to growth and that, for all practical purposes, any reference to it is a reference to such a limit. Yet Simon mentioned "ever-growing" for 7 billion years, and "forever." Yes there's some minute chance he was referring to logistic growth, but that chance is infinitely close to 0. :-) I think that's just too fine and far fetched a technicality on which to let him off the hook. (And, again, getting into the various kinds of growth probably constitutes OR.)

"[Re item #4: truncated quote included in link display] Okay, well I hope I don't seem too picky, but I felt that the quote of Simon you included would easily be taken out of context -- should we extend it to include the mention of space travel, for instance? It seemed more NPOV to remove it altogether. And I disagree with your current assessment that it is a critique of "perpetual growth" since we already seen that this would include logistic growth, whereas Bartlett is only critiquing "doubling in a fixed time growth". "

Well, in the introduction Bartlett says it's a critique of the ideas of those who advocate perpetual growth, who wish to do away with limits to growth. It may be the worst such critique imaginable, even to the point of not addressing what it purports to address, but you can't dispense with it because of your opinion of it. Yes, we could extend the title to say something like, "Albert Bartlett's critique of Simon's statement that, given space colonization, "We have in our hands now - actually in our libraries - the technology to feed, clothe and supply energy to an ever-growing population for the next 7 billion years ...," but the statement is already discussed above in the Wiki article, so I don't think there's really a problem with readers taking it out of context.

"[Re item #5: transmutation of copper] [snip] Finally, for a statement of the form "A or B" to be true it is sufficient for only one of A or B to be true; Simon's statement does not imply that he believes copper can be economically transmutated, but rather that he believes that there exists either "the possibility of creating copper from other materials" or "the possibility of creating copper's economic equivalent from other materials". I hope I have made it clear that the copper quotation is reporting what Simon said, not what the critics like to imagine what he said.  :-)"

Here again, you're stretching protecting Simon pretty far, I think. Logically, you're right when you say, "that he believes that there exists either "the possibility of creating copper from other materials" or "the possibility of creating copper's economic equivalent from other materials." But with that defense you would also have to defend him if, instead of referring to "the possibility of creating copper or its economic equivalent from other materials...," he referred to "the possibility that tiny fairies play in the grass or that we might create copper's economic equivalent from other materials." Ya know?

Okay, below is a suggested revision for the Criticisms section. I incorporated as best I could Robotsintrouble's suggestion regarding using the term, "interpreted."

"Simon's ideas have come under criticism from:

• authors such as Garrett Hardin in his book The Ostrich Factor: Our Population Myopia, physicist Albert Bartlett in his paper, The New Flat Earth Society and Jared Diamond in his book Collapse. They point, for instance, to Simon's assertion, given the possibility of space colonization, that "We now have in our hands—really, in our libraries—the technology to feed, clothe, and supply energy to an ever-growing population for the next seven billion years." These critics have all criticized the mathematics of that statement, as they interpret it, on the basis that we can't project a small constant percentage growth rate forward for 7 billion years without getting absurd numbers. For example, responding to correspondents who suggested to him that Simon had actually meant "7 million" rather than "7 billion," Bartlett, took the lower number and showed that at a 1% growth rate (The current world population growth rate has declined to about 1.14%.), after 7 million years, the number of humans, "is something like 30 kilo-orders of magnitude larger than the number of atoms estimated to be in the known universe!" He went on to show that the same estimate of the number of atoms in the universe would be equaled by the number of humans after 17 thousand years.

• Diamond and others who challenge Simon's reference in The Ultimate Resource (page 63) to, "the possibility of creating copper or its economic equivalent from other materials..." They challenge the inclusion of the first possibility with the assertion that the transmutation of elements is not now possible and is unlikely to become possible on any commercial scale."

As I said, it wouldn't really bother me to include "exponential or not" issue with contrasting views presented, but I think the article better fits the Wiki guidelines concerning OR with it left out altogether.

IMO, there are a couple of other instances of POV problems and lack of references in this article, but that's enough for me. I don't think there's much more I can do with this. JFeeney 19:25, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

I'll address the issues of fairies and copper later. For the moment let's focus on the issue of OR:

• (1) JFeeney and Robotsintrouble are both saying that "novel analysis" is forbidden. Yet scientific inferences are explicitly permitted here. Inferences and analyses differ only in their degree of complexity and intuitive reasonableness: both highly subjective assessments.
• (2) citing the appropriate textbook is permitted to support "Some statements [that] are uncontroversial and widely known among people familiar with a discipline. Such facts may be taught in university courses, found in textbooks,....". The relevant displine for the definition of exponential is mathematics, and any mathematics textbook will support what I have been saying about what exponential growth is and what it isn't; Bartlett's critique is talking about exponential growth.
• (3) a strict literal interpretation of what OR excludes would, according to the interpretation advanced by you both, limit us to only including sourced quotations, and forbid any supporting or linking text since the latter is someone's interpretation of what is written. Clearly this is an absurd position, and one not adhered to in Wikipedia. What is actually admitted are reasonable inferences and interpretations. This is a subjective standard, which is why the talk pages are here to reolve these differences. (I remind you that inferences are allowed: see here.)

So, for the above reasons, stating that Simon does not assume exponential growth is admissable; not to mention this alongside Bartlett's assumption that Simon has assumed exponential growth would be a violation of NPOV. --Michael C. Price ^talk 01:01, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

There is an exception for scientific inference on wikipedia. Here's a quote, emphasis added:

Wikipedia is neither a textbook nor a journal. Nonetheless, in mathematics and the mathematical sciences, it is frequently helpful to quote theorems, include simple derivations, and provide illustrative examples.

This isn't an article about mathematics, it's a biography. The sourced criticisms should stand on their own, without nitpicky POV undercutting like this one I found in the article right now:

The relevance of this criticism is debatable

No, it isn't. This is a criticism of Simon in a published work, therefore it is completely relevant to the wikipedia article. Whether it's an accurate criticism isn't for us to decide.

(3) a strict literal interpretation of what OR excludes would, according to the interpretation advanced by you both, limit us to only including sourced quotations, and forbid any supporting or linking text since the latter is someone's interpretation of what is written. Clearly this is an absurd position, and one not adhered to in Wikipedia.

This is indeed an absurd position, and it's also not what we're saying. The problem here is that there aren't any sourced quotations in the criticisms section, but there's a lot of unsourced implicit criticism of the critics. The important difference is between adding context and content.

...stating that Simon does not assume exponential growth is admissable.

If you can cite a single source analyzing the assumptions of Simon or his critics, it's admissable. It's correct to assume undisputable facts, but the question of whether Simon did or did not assume exponential growth is clearly not undisputed. The critics think he did, their positions should be mentioned in the article and left for the reader to decide. Robotsintrouble 02:22, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

You say that This isn't an article about mathematics, it's a biography. These are not mutually exclusive alternatives. Simon was an economist, economics is a science and some areas of economics are highly mathematical. That's why the definition of "exponential" is relevant.

I have cited sources analysing the assumptions of Simon, namely his works, and in particular The Ultimate Resource. These works do not assume exponential growth. And that is a sourced, verifiable statement. (If you dispute it then find me a quote where Simon assumes exponential growth.) --Michael C. Price ^talk 02:55, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Michael said,

"...and any mathematics textbook will support what I have been saying about what exponential growth is and what it isn't"

Hmmm, try to be a little open to the possibility that you don't have definitive knowledge of all nuances of exponential growth. As I said, introductory discussions, as you might find in many textbooks, may often stop at descriptions of exponential growth in which the growth rate is a fixed percentage. Once you get into more sophisticated or specialized discussions, though, you will find what Peter Turchin told David Coutts: '...that exponential growth with a variable rate has been extensively studied by theoretical population ecologists, and that almost all ecological models have the form of an exponential equation with a variable rate.' You'll find what Greg Bothun of the University of Oregon said, and what Wayne Hayes from Cal State, Irvine, whose math background is extensive clarified (above), -- that exponential growth can, up to a point, exist despite variable growth rates.

As for the rest, I think the things you linked to are not the same as what you're doing in this article. But ultimately it's not up to me. JFeeney 02:27, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps you should assume good faith and entertain the notion that I am open-minded..... You haven't addressed the point I made awhile back that "variable rate exponential growth" is sufficiently vague that any form of growth could be included within its remit -- which renders the concept of "variable rate exponential growth" meaningless. I also mentioned that Bartlett's critique is of unambigously fixed rate exponential growth, so quibbling about the definition of exponential is rather moot. --Michael C. Price ^talk 02:55, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

"You haven't addressed the point I made awhile back that "variable rate exponential growth" is sufficiently vague that any form of growth could be included within its remit -- which renders the concept of "variable rate exponential growth" meaningless."

I have. I'm not suggesting you're approaching this in bad faith. I'm suggesting you seem a bit stuck on an idea about exponential growth which is not difficult to pick up from some introductions to the topic. Wayne Hayes (and to a lesser extent Greg Bothun) did address the issue of limits to exponential growth, sufficiently for our purposes here, I think. (see correspondence above) I agree, though, that it's a moot point; the discussion really has no place in the article anyway. JFeeney 03:39, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Actually, once again, you don't seem to have addressed the point I made. But I'll let it drop. All use of "exponential growth" can be replaced by "geometric growth assuming a fixed doubling period" in the article if need be. --Michael C. Price ^talk 08:42, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Ok, I reread Collapse by Diamond and discovered some interesting things about this debate. Can't speak for other critics, but:

• On the transmutation question: This is indeed an absurd misunderstanding on Diamond's part. I like the current version of the bullet point more than JFeeny's briefer rewrite: this is a perfectly appropriate place to mention that Simon didn't intend transmutation. Diamond quotes Simon as saying only "Copper can be made from other elements", significantly omitting "...or its economic equivalent".
• The exponential growth issue is the deadest horse we've ever beaten on. Moving along...
• Diamond makes a far more significant criticism of Simon's techno-cornucopian perspective that I think deserves a place in the article... it's more relevant than quibbling over what kind of growth. There are other criticisms of beliefs Simon espoused but because Diamond doesn't mention him by name I don't think they belong in this article. Here's the relevant section; ignore the part about current rates of population growth, that's not what I consider important here:

"The world can accomodate human population growth indefinitely. The more people, the better, because more people mean more inventions and ultimately more wealth." Both of these ideas are associated especially with Julian Simon but have been espoused by many others, especially by economists. The statement about our ability to absorb current rates of population growth indefinitely is not to be taken seriously, because we have already seen that that would mean 10 people per square yard in the year 2779. Data on national wealth demonstrate that the claim that more people mean more wealth is the opposite of correct. The 10 countries with the most people (over 100 million each) are, in descending order of population, China, India, the U.S., Indonesia, Brazil, Pakistan, Russia, Japan, Bangladesh, and Nigeria. The 10 countries with the highest affluence (per-capita real GDP) are, in descending order, Luxembourg, Norway, the U.S., Switzerland, Denmark, Iceland, Austria, Canada, Ireland, and the Netherlands. The only country on both lists is the U.S. Actually, the countries with large populations are disproportionately poor: eight of the 10 have per-capita GDP under $8,000, and five of them under $3,000. The affluent countries have disproportionately few people: seven of the 10 have populations below 9,000,000, and two of them under 500,000. Instead, what does distinguish the two lists is population growth rates: all 10 of the affluent countries have very low relative population growth rates (1% per year or less), while eight of the 10 most populous countries have higher relative population growth rates than any of the most affluent countries, except for two large countries that achieved low population growth in unpleasant ways: China, by government order and enforced abortion, and Russia, whose population is actually decreasing because of catastrophic health problems. Thus, as an empirical fact, more people and a higher population growth rate mean more poverty, not more wealth. Jared Diamond, Collapse, 2005 (paperback), pp511-12

Robotsintrouble 08:13, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Responding in order:

• I'm glad we agree that Diamond is being absurd about claims of transmutation.
• Agreed, let's drop the exponential issue for the moment.
• Thanks for the Diamond quote on population. Three points:

• (1) Diamond is looking at absolute population numbers, not population densities, as Simon was. (Absolute populations change with the shifting of national boundaries, densities do not.)
• (2) The two countries that top the absolute population list are China and India which, as I'm sure we are all aware, have near-double-digit annual GDP growth rates and comprise about 1/3 of the world's population.
• (3) Absolute world poverty numbers have been dropping for decades, due in large part to China's economic miracle.

--Michael C. Price ^talk 09:02, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

We could go over (2) and (3) forever, I'm neither an economist nor any other form of social scientist and don't have the statistics to confirm or refute what you're saying. While it would make excellent dinner conversation, I don't think it's too relevant to this article here. Point (1) is more important because of the limited context I was quoting Diamond in... I said above that Diamond had made a constellation of arguments against techno-cornucopian beliefs linked with Julian Simon, but only in this one did he mention Simon by name. Quoted out of context, Diamond's point about population growth is limited and doesn't take into account all the factors of population dynamics you are going into, but in the book it's a single part of a multifaceted argument that addresses many other factors. If I had infinite patience I would retype the entire section of the book because Diamond criticises many other related perspectives Simon almost certainly would have agreed with. I'm thinking I should just summarize his criticisms in as brief a manner as possible without slogging through the details point by point. Along those lines I could get into the nitty-gritty of debating with you whether population densities and absolute populations are significantly changing the numbers, but the real heart of the matter is that our opinions shouldn't count. Diamond's subjective social science criticisms should be briefly summarized and left to stand or falter on their own merits, unless they're blatantly misrepresenting Simon's ideas as in the case of transmutation. In a few days' time, when I am less exhausted by medical school midterms, I will work on a brief, coherent summary of Diamond's criticisms.Robotsintrouble 11:51, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

I look forward to reading your summary. And I agree our opinions are irrelevant. Sourced, verifiable facts and statements are all that should concern us. If you get the time, you might like to look at the claim attached to the graphic at poverty that "The percentage of the world's population living on less than $1 per day has halved in twenty years. However, most of this improvement has occurred in East and South Asia." The doubling time at the moment for the world's population is about 50 years, so this halving of poverty's percentage must represent a considerable fall in absolute numbers as well as in percentages. --Michael C. Price ^talk 13:56, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Michael writes,

"And I agree our opinions are irrelevant."

I'm glad to hear you now saying this. Yes, as per the guidelines on original research, this is why it is wrong here to bring into the article any argument of your own, sourced or not, concerning exponential (or geometric...) growth in any effort to support any part of the published debate concerning Simon. I'd be largely satisfied with the article if only the OR-What's-excluded guideline were simply followed all the way through. So far, it hasn't been. (And while I hope this does mean we are eliminating that OR from the article, just FYI :-), I added some emphasis and to my response above to point more clearly to where I had previously addressed your question about 'any growth' being exponential in the context of a variable rate.)

Robots -- I understand exactly what you're saying about the transmutation issue. If Diamond misquoted Simon, that should be clarified. Yet we're still left with the fact that Simon wrote, "the possibility of creating copper or its economic equivalent from other materials," rather than, "the possibility of creating copper's economic equivalent from other materials"? Do you agree that the former is vulnerable to valid criticism while the latter is not? (See my "fairies" example above.) JFeeney 19:37, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

An additional comment: I hope it's been clear that despite the loooong detours in debating exponential growth, I have, from the start of this, always come back to the "original research" issue. i.e., it has been my core, bottom line point. (In my first few comments, I hadn't yet read that section on Wiki, so was just talking about what I saw as a problem of "bringing in your own arguments," etc.) I fear that may have been lost in the volume of comments. JFeeney 19:58, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Just for the record, I don't agree with JFeeney's interpretation of OR above. To repeat some earlier points: basic inferences are allowed and so is sourced criticism where it amounts to factual correction. If a critic makes a statement about Simon's position that is contrary to Simon's writings then pointing this out is not a matter of opinion but a matter of sourced correction and balance. I believe that OR-What's-excluded guideline and admissable inferences are not totally consistent on this matter. --Michael C. Price ^talk 01:00, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Well, I fear this is another well beaten horse, but I think Michael's assertion...

"If a critic makes a statement about Simon's position that is contrary to Simon's writings then pointing this out is not a matter of opinion but a matter of sourced correction and balance."

...is wrong for a simple reason: The judgment that a critic's statement is contrary to Simon's position is both a matter of opinion and, unless it involves published sources which have directly and specifically refuted the critic, is an insertion of one's own original argument/idea.

Just as it would be wrong for me to edit the article by including my personal arguments that Simon is wrong about various points, or that his arguments do not address the issued raised by those with different views, so it is wrong to include my own arguments for why his critics are wrong or their arguments do not address his position. Robotsintrouble addressed this before. If there were a published work refuting one of the critics, that would be admissible. Constructing our own arguments or otherwise trying to poke our own holes in his critics' points is not.

The more Wikipedia lets in the kind of thing Michael is condoning, the more it will be about the original thoughts and opinions of its editors. I don't think that's what it's supposed to be. JFeeney 03:55, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Bartlett claims or implies that Simon assumed perpetual exponential population growth; in pointing out that Simon makes no such assumption I am reporting Simon's position, not advancing my own opinion. No synthesis, no analysis, no original research, just reporting the (sourced) facts.--Michael C. Price ^talk 10:11, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Michael writes:

"in pointing out that Simon makes no such assumption I am reporting Simon's position, not advancing my own opinion."

No, you're not, because it is in no way established that Simon was not making that assumption, and, given his words, there's a strong chance he was.

There's no need for Michael Price to explain to the reader his problem with the critics' arguments or his personal interpretation of what Simon meant. JFeeney 18:42, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

There is, because otherwise the false impression is created that Simon did, in his writings, assume perpetual exponential population growth. It's called balance and NPOV. --Michael C. Price ^talk 20:16, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

False in your mind, not in the minds of many others. It's your interpretation, and in my view, FWIW, not the most reasonable one. (Even if that were not the case, it's slanting it to your POV not to let both sides' comments speak for themselves.) Not much more I can say on this. JFeeney 20:33, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

No, it's not my interpretation: that's why I included the phrase in his writings. What is or isn't written is a verifiable fact. (BTW the comments can't "speak for themselves" since I am pointing out the lack of existence of such an assumption.) --Michael C. Price ^talk 20:40, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Well then for heaven's sake, after all this talk, please provide the quote from Simon stating that he did not mean constant rate exponential growth in the quote in question. That will settle this! JFeeney

Let me pedantically clarify: (BTW the comments can't "speak for themselves" since I am pointing out the lack of sourced, verifiable evidence for such an assumption.) --Michael C. Price ^talk 20:55, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Ah, thank you. I hadn't seen that sentence previously, since I was just reading from the entries in the history, and failed to read that revision.

One last time: There is good evidence of such an assumption. What else could he mean? It's clear (see above) he didn't mean liner or logistic. He said, "an ever-growing population." Since it is well accepted that populations tend to grow exponentially (see Turchin references etc. above), and he didn't qualify it in any way at all, certainly not to indicate any stoppage or even decline in growth, it's reasonable to assume he meant steady rate exponential growth. (Or possibly variable rate exponential growth, which would lead to the same problems.) It is also the way Hardin, Diamond, Bartlett, Daly and other resonable people have interpreted the comment. Yes, it's possible he meant something else, but so far the only evidence of that is that you say it's so. :-/ I guess we'll have to agree to disagree. As I mentioned below, I think you're going to try to protect Simon or slant this against his critics no matter what. I'm finished. JFeeney 23:03, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Your interpretation of Simon is original research, since it is not sourced from Simon's writings. (It is also pretty shaky research, since you have ignored the frequent modelling of population growth by non-exponential functions, such as the logistic function which, I repeat for the nth time, is also ever-growing. But there we are, what anybody finds reasonable is a function of their current belief set. BTW space colonisation (which Simon alludes to) would tend to generate population growth that is a cubic function of time, assuming aliens don't eat us, validity of the speed of light etc etc, which means that the rate of growth would decline inversely with time but never reach zero, i.e. be ever-growing.) As for your final sentence, I've already commented on the nature of bias and its perception at the beginning of our dialogue. --Michael C. Price ^talk 01:02, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

Here's my rewrite. I'd prefer to replace the last quotation of Simon ("copper or its economic equivalent") with a direct quote from the Ultimate Resource 2, if anyone has a copy of the book around. Given the issue of selective quoting on transmutation, it seems most appropriate. I've deleted a lot of the wiki material in favor of letting Diamond speak for the critics.

-text moved to end of section for reworking in progress. --Michael C. Price ^talk 19:06, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

Robotsintrouble 01:06, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Simon used the phrase "other materials", not "other elements", which would include ores and such like, which further weakens Diamond's claim that Simon was talking about transmutation. Also, why do you "prefer to replace the last quotation of Simon ("copper or its economic equivalent") with a direct quote from the Ultimate Resource 2"? BartlettDiamond's transmutation claim is based on what he has read in, or heard about, "The Ultimate Resource", not "The Ulltimate Resource 2". --Michael C. Price ^talk 10:11, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Where is Bartlett's transmutation claim? JFeeney 18:57, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Typo. See correction. --Michael C. Price ^talk 20:16, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Michael, I'd prefer not get bogged down in the details of whether Diamond or Simon is more right or wrong. If you disagree with the version I posted please edit it and post the revised copy here so we can reach consensus. JFeeney is content with my version and if you agree as well we can put the bulk of the dispute behind us. Also, in asking for a quote, I mistakenly said 'ultimate resource 2' when I meant 'ultimate resource', as the quote from 2 is sourced well. If you can find me the original quote so we can put Simon's original words up against the way Diamond quotes him, I'd appreciate it. Robotsintrouble 08:57, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

Okay, I've got some new material (from the Ultimate Resource) to incorporate about the copper issue. I've cut your suggested rewording and pasted it to the bottom of this section (in it own subsection), rather than copy the proposal again and again, since it'll take a few iterations doubtless before we agree. --Michael C. Price ^talk 19:06, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

Robots -- Thanks, I'd be okay with that rewrite. Oh, and for the quote from the Ultimate Resource 2, go here and plug into the search field, "copper or its economic equivalent." Ah, one more thing: Michael and I have also disagreed over the title of the reference I had put in the "Critiques" section of the article. It is to Albert Bartlett's article which he introduces as a critique of "people [who] believe that perpetual growth is desirable." The largest part of it is actually Bartlett's mathematical critique of Simon's claim that "We now have in our hands—really, in our libraries—... seven billion years." Michael doesn't want the title, "Albert Bartlett's critique of Simon's assertion that, 'We now have in our hands... the technology to feed, clothe, and supply energy to an ever-growing population for the next seven billion years.'" He re-titled it, "Albert Bartlett's critique of exponential growth." Since Simon's assertion has been mentioned previously in the article, I thought it was convenient to the reader to title the reference as I had. But, as a compromise, how about we just title it, "Albert Bartlett's critique of the idea that perpetual growth is desirable"? JFeeney 04:08, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Out of curiosity, I'd be interested in your takes on another Simon quote which has been criticized, usually, I think, just by letting it speak for itself:

"Even the total weight of the earth is not a theoretical limit to the amount of copper that might be available to earthlings in the future. Only the total weight of the universe... would be such a theoretical limit."

Are we spending too much time on one quote, when there may be others just as relevant to the article? I think I mentioned another one above, which hasn't been addressed. It is his comment, in the Cato Institute article that,

"Even if no new knowledge were ever gained after those advances, we would be able to go on increasing our population forever..."

Forever's a pretty long time. :) JFeeney 19:52, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Yes, forever is a pretty long time and, in case you haven't noticed, the universe is a pretty big place: space colonisation (another idea that Simon is explicit about).

Re copper and the weight of Earth: I would respond by quoting or summarising The Ultimate Resource pp50-51 ("Afternote: A dialogue on finite") where these issues are both explicitly dealt with. Thanks for bringing the afternote to my attention. And no I don't think we are wasting too much time on it since the transmutation claim is a widespread misunderstanding of Simon's position. --Michael C. Price ^talk 20:34, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Well, the refutation for your first comment is simple and contained in things that have been repeated many times above. I think the critics' views on these quotes could be featured in the "Criticisms" section as well. But I'm not going to bother with it as I have no lingering doubt that you intend to protect Simon and slant this section with your own point of view to whatever extent you possibly can. Perhaps Robots or someone else will want to pursue this further. I give up. JFeeney 23:03, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Since you are signing off I guess there's no point in mentioning that everybody tends to think their own position is simple and obvious. I must have missed the "simple" refutation of space travel which was "repeated many times above". --Michael C. Price ^talk 01:11, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

I posted an updated version... It turns out Simon did say "copper can be made from other metals", and I think he said it in the article to the journal Science. There is a letter from the editor of Science that Simon publishes in Population Matters that brings up the transmutation question, but Simon's reply to the letter isn't in the free text provided by google book search. Honestly I think this isn't that important as far as needing further clarification... Anyone reading the current version closely will understand that Simon is defining "copper" not the way scientists do but in terms of its utility to industry, we can belabor the point even more but I'm content with this version except that our references for the book quotes aren't consistent in style. Robotsintrouble 07:47, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

I do think it is important for NPOV to print Simon's response. If we can't get Simon's response to Population Matters/Science letter then it makes more sense to quote Simon's response in The Ultimate Resource 2. I'm not clear why you have deleted this. --Michael C. Price ^talk 08:44, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

I deleted the blockquote from Ultimate Resource 2 because the text is substantially similar to the new blockquote from Population Matters. What difference between the two is salient here? If I missed an important distinction, please point it out... I thought it better not to repeat the same argument worded slightly differently. Robotsintrouble 09:10, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

Robots -- As I said above, I don't plan to debate Michael any further on these issues because I don't think he'll budge. But, FYI, Simon's exact quote ("copper can be made from other metals.") is available in the text of Population Matters, as he reprints there the article from Science. The quote (direct link) is on p. 52. (Not all the the article can be viewed on google, but the quote is there.)

Original article: Simon, J. L., 1980, Resources, Population, Environment: An Oversupply of False Bad News: Science, v. 208, June 27, p. 1431-1437.

Part of the article is also reprinted here. Scroll down slightly for the quote.

This is the statement cited by a number of his critics, including Albert Bartlett, Walter Youngquist (whose article contains a typo citing reference #24 for that quote, when it should have been #23). Presumably, Diamond was a little sloppy in not getting the exact quote.

All the qualifications about what he said later seem fairly irrelevant since his critics were talking about that quote, not his later comments. JFeeney 20:16, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

Robots -- Okay, I see that you did post the exact quote. (Sorry, I was just looking at the discussion above and misunderstood.) I guess, then, I don't see the relevance of whatever was in the letter responding to the letter to the editor. Having the exact quote the critics responded to is what's important, I'd think. They were criticizing his notion that "copper can be made from other metals," not his later comment, clearly adjusting to their criticisms, concerning "copper or its economic equivalent." JFeeney 21:01, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

Incorrect, since the phrase "copper or its economic equivalent" appears in The Ultimate Resource (1981). Those with an open mind might like to check out Jane Shaw's review of Diamond's treatment of Simon "Vision though a narrow Lens" [8], Energy & Enviroment, vol 16 Nos 3&4, 2005. BTW refusing to engage on the talk page and then complaining about what appears in the article is inconsistent with Wiki policy. Your choice. --Michael C. Price ^talk 00:29, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

I didn't say I wouldn't engage on the talk page, only that I wouldn't continue in debates with you as you clearly are going to defend Simon at all costs. And I think doing that is much more important to you than countering it is to me, so... I can of course continue to respond to others, or to post relevant information or respond to you as I am now.

The point is that the critics were citing Simon's 1980 statement in Science, not what he said in 1981.

FWIW, I shoudn't have said I don't see the relevance of the letter, but rather just that the quote seems more key at this point. The letter does of course have some relevance in providing Simon's response to the criticism. And I was able to pull up the whole thing. (Apparently google's book search restricts what you can view in a given session. By clearing cookies, logging out, and going back I was able to get the letter by searching for the phrase, visible in the early part of it on p.58 - "on only two points did letters challenge my data's accuracy".) On p. 60 he addresses the copper issue. The gist is:

"However, I am not in error in principle, as Holdren et al. note; rather, they claim it is "preposterous" because it is impractical now. But--this is my point--so was electricity considered impractical a century ago."

I think that would be fine to include as long as the exact quote - "we can make copper from other metals" - is included as well, so that readers can compare his two statements. (I think the critics' problem was with the statement that "copper can be made from other metals," not the idea that one day such a thing might become practical.) JFeeney 00:44, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the search tip. Of course it would be fairer to include the preceeding sentences, which I quote for future reference:

"Holden et al. and others had a good laugh about alchemy. Even if what I wrote was physically impossible (which it is not), the point would not bear importantly upon the argument, and therefore is simply a debating device questioning my competence. However, I am not in error in principle, as Holdren et al. note; rather, they claim it is "preposterous" because it is impractical now. But--this is my point--so was electricity considered impractical a century ago."

BTW I guess(?) you didn't read all of Holden's letter, since you say that you believe the critic's problem is with whether "copper can be made from other metals," not the idea that one day such a thing might become practical; it is clear from Holden's letter that he accepts that copper can be made by transmutation, but that he regards this as currently impractical -- exactly the same point Simon makes. Holden states:

[Simon] tells us that "the term "finite" is not only inappropriate but downright misleading in the context of natural resources," because, among other reasons and examples, "copper can be made from other metals." Indeed! Perhaps Simon has in mind the technique of elemental transformation by bombardment with subatomic particles in accelerators. Producing microgram quantities of copper by this means would be a gargantum feat. Any implication that this might be economically or energetically feasible is preposterous.

--Michael C. Price ^talk 01:13, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

I may not have worded it as clearly as possible. When Simon originally said "copper can be made from other metals," he was pretty clearly saying that this was at present something of practical application which we could draw on, helping to negate any notion that copper was really a finite resource. As Holden makes clear, the critics were criticizing that. (That is why second half of my sentence said they were not challenging "the idea that one day such a thing might become practical," though it's not entirely clear what Holden believed about that.) Holden was clear that he saw it as presently so impractical as to be a "preposterous" statement on Simon's part. JFeeney 03:09, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

You continue to assume Simon is an idiot -- and you're not reading Simon very carefully (one error a consequence of the other, I suspect); Simon concludes "However, I am not in error in principle, as Holdren et al. note; rather, they claim it is "preposterous" because it is impractical now. But--this is my point--so was electricity considered impractical a century ago." To spell it out: Simon does not say it is practical now -- perhaps it will be one day, just as electricity also made the transition from laboratory curiosity to commercial realisation. --Michael C. Price ^talk 09:41, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

That he backpeddled and adjusted his argument in response to critics does not take away what he said in the Science article, and to which they were responding. Again, though, because it was part of the published debate between his critics and him, I see no problem with including a quote from his letter. (provided we keep the quote to which the critics were responding) That's what matters, not our opinions. JFeeney 18:57, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

You are assuming that Simon was saying that transmutation was currently practical. He did not say that in his response, and never said that in any of the other statements quoted (he didn't say it in Science/ Population Matters article, for example, despite your claims otherwise, which continue to puzzle me). I am quite happy for all the quotes to be included. --Michael C. Price ^talk 21:00, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

Very well. Feel free to add some stuff from Simon's letter to what's below, and maybe we'll be close to wrapping this up. JFeeney 03:35, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

I readded the POV-section tag to the criticisms section because we're still working on a consensus version. Michael, adding your own version does not constitute consensus and doesn't warrant removing the POV tag. I don't actually mind that version too much except for this paragraph, which is an obvious attempt to defend Simon and discredit his critics:

Regarding the attributed population predictions Simon did not specify that he was assuming a fixed growth rate as Diamond, Bartlett and Hardin have all assumed. Nor did Simon ever say, as Diamond quotes, that "Copper can be made from other elements"; after a discussion about the definition of "finite" Simon had actually said:

I'm going away for a week and will be off wikipedia, FYI. Robotsintrouble 13:25, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

I agree with that. I also think that if we're going to add some of Simon's comments from his letter (re the letter to the editor in Science), we should preceed it with a bit of the letter(s) to which he's referring. (can't recall off hand if more than one letter is included in Population Matters.) JFeeney 18:03, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

I only removed the POV tag because (at that stage) the proposed new text had had no feedback for a day or so and I was beginning to think it might be acceptable. Obviously I was wrong. Regarding the obvious attempt to defend Simon and discredit his critics, I think rather than try to divine and attribute motives here we should focus on whether the text is factually correct, informative and sourced. IMO the text you're objecting to is factually correct, informative and sourced, i.e. it is merely setting the record straight. Whether it "defends" or "discredits" Simon is not relevant. If it were relevant then I would object to the statements earlier in the article about Simon's views on pollution, agent orange, lead etc -- but I don't object to them because they are factually correct, informative and sourced; that Simon is discredited in the process is irrelevant. You should both ask yourselves why you object to one and not the other?

FYI I too am off for a week. --Michael C. Price ^talk 20:45, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

_____________________________ Relevant Chunk of transcribed text of Letter to the editor at Science... pasted here for possible later use of some or all of it:

"What follows Simon's errors about the economics of scarcity is a discussion of the physical underpinnings of the subject in which he tells us that "the term 'finite' is not only inappropriate but downright misleading in the context of natural resources," because, among other reasons and examples, "copper can be made from other metals." Indeed! Perhaps Simon here had in mind the technique of elemental transformation by bombardment with subatomic particles in accelerators. Producing microgram quantities of copper by this means would be a gargantuan feat. Any implication that production in industrial quantities might be economically or energetically feasible is preposterous, as are his further assertions on this general topic (for instance, "Even the total weight of the earth is not a theoretical limit to the amount of copper that might be available to earthlings in the future. Only the total weight of the universe... would be such a theoretical limit....")."

John P. Holdren, Energy and Resources Group, University of California, Berkeley

Paul R Ehrlich and Anne H. Ehrlich, Department of Biological Sciences, Stanford University

John Harte, Energy and Environment Division, Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory, University of California, Berkeley

JFeeney

Proposed criticism text (work in progress)

Exponential growth

"Simon's ideas have come under criticism from authors such as Garrett Hardin in his book The Ostrich Factor: Our Population Myopia, physicist Albert Bartlett in his paper, The New Flat Earth Society and Jared Diamond in his book Collapse. They point to Simon's assertion that

We now have in our hands—really, in our libraries—the technology to feed, clothe, and supply energy to an ever-growing population for the next seven billion years.

Simon cites space exploration and nuclear technology as key recently discovered technologies that could fuel this growth. Diamond and others point out that continuing population growth at current rates will lead to absurdly large numbers:

There is an abundance of errors of the latter sort: e.g., [....] the prediction of the economist Julian Simon that we could feed the world's population as it continues to grow for the next 7 billion years; and Simon's prediction "Copper can be made from other elements" and thus there is no risk of a copper shortage. As regards the first of Simon's two predictions, continuation of our current population growth rate would yield 10 people per square foot of land in 774 years, a mass of people equal to the earth's mass in under 2,000 years, and a mass of people equal to the universe's mass in 6,000 years, long before Simon's forecast of 7 billion years without such problems. As regards his second prediction, we learn in our first course of chemistry that copper is an element, which means that by definition it cannot be made from other elements. Jared Diamond, Collapse, 2005 (paperback) pp509-10

However Simon did not specifically predict a fixed growth rate as Diamond, Bartlett and Hardin have assumed; in the context of space colonisation it is perfectly possible to imagine scenarios in which the total human populations grows perpetually, but not exponentially.

Transmutation

Diamond and others[9] also interpret statements by Simon in The Ultimate Resource (page 47) and Population Matters, as suggesting that it is either currently, or will be in the future, possible and economically viable to produce "copper" by transmutation from other elements. Simon, however, only claims that it may be economically viable in the future, not that it is currently economically viable:

But the future quantities of a natural resources such as copper cannot be calculated even in principle, because of new lodes, new methods of mining copper, and variations in grades of copper lodes; because copper can be made from other metals; and because of the vagueness of the boundaries within which copper might be found--including the sea and other planets. Even less possible is a reasonable calculation of the amount of future services of the sort we are now accustomed to get from copper, because of recycling and because of the substitution of other materials for copper, as in the case of the communications satellite. Even the total weight of the earth is not a theoretical limit to the amount of copper that might be available to earthlings in the future. Only the total weight of the universe--if that term has a useful meaning here--would be such a theoretical limit, and I don't think anyone would like to argue the meaningfulness of "finite" in that context.Julian Lincoln Simon, Population Matters, (1990) p. 53

In his 1981 book Simon stated this point slightly differently:

Simarily, the quantity of copper that will ever be available to us is not finite, because there is no method (even in principle) of making an appropriate count of it, given the problem of the economic definition of "copper," the possibility of creating copper and its economic equivalent from other materials, and thus the lack of boundaries to the sources from which copper might be drawn.Julian Simon, The Ultimate Resource, 1981 pp 47

Regarding the term "economic equivalent", Simon later clarified this with the additional response "It takes much less copper now to pass a given message than a hundred years ago." (The Ultimate Resource 2, 1996, footnote, page 62)."