From: Denyse O'Leary (oleary@sympatico.ca)
Date: Wed Nov 19 2003 - 08:46:26 EST
All who are following this thread, please see a
very interesting article in the New Criterion,
"Friends of Humanity?" by Roger Kimball.
In general, it is a discussion of flaky early
19th century utopianism, but search on Kimball's
take on Malthus, who was such an important
influence on Darwin.
Kimball thinks that Malthus's primary intention
was to counteract utopianism. He implies that
Malthus's faulty math -- which became a rallying
point -- was actually a side issue.
Kimball makes some interesting points; for
example, when Malthus writes about the
arithmetic progression of food sources and the
geometric progression of populations, he seems
not to see that all food sources ARE populations
of organisms. Thus, his argument is incoherent,
unless he seriously means that humans increase
geometrically and all other life forms increase
arithmetically -- but that is contradicted by
simple observations and is obvious to anyone.
http://www.newcriterion.com/archive/22/nov03/friends.htm
Denyse
-- To see what's new in faith and science issues, go to www.designorchance.com My next book, By Design or By Chance?: The Growing Controversy Over the Origin of Life in the Universe (Castle Quay Books, Oakville) will be published Spring 2004.To order, call Castle Quay, 1-800-265-6397, fax 519-748-9835, or visit www.afcanada.com (CDN $19.95 or US$14.95).
Denyse O'Leary 14 Latimer Avenue Toronto, Ontario, CANADA M5N 2L8 Tel: 416 485-2392/Fax: 416 485-9665 oleary@sympatico.ca www.denyseoleary.com
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