How Long Will the Human Species Last?
An Argument with Robert Malthus and Richard Gott Freeman Dyson Almost two hundred years ago, the Reverend Thomas Robert Malthus published his famous “Essay on the Principle of Population as It Affects the Future Improvement of Society.” Malthus took a gloomy view of the human situation. He started by stating two general laws. First, he said, population always tends to increase geometrically, that is to say, the increase each year is a fixed fraction of the population. Second, he said, the amount of food available grows arithmetically, which is to say, the food supply each year increases by a fixed amount independent of the population. It is, then, mathematically certain that the geometrical increase of population will overtake the arithmetical increase of food. Malthus deduced from his two laws the prediction that population growth will in the end be held in check only by famine, war, and disease. The less fortunate members of our species will always be living in poverty on the brink o
