Sir, – The naiveté demonstrated by Rev Patrick G Burke with regard to population growth is breathtaking (September 1st). His example of us not being knee deep in flies when we should have been if all the offspring of one breeding pair had survived and bred ignores the reasons why this did not happen – great fly populations were wiped out by a variety of means, which in human terms have corresponded to famines and genocidal wars interspersed with periods of low life expectancy and miserable health experiences.
The continent of Africa, for which he quotes figures, is no stranger to famine, genocidal wars, low life expectancy and miserable health experiences.
He talks of over 200 years of “lived experience”. Does he not realise that 200 years represents a mere millisecond in terms of the time humans have been reproducing? Does he not know that the increase in people on the planet in the past 50 years has exceeded the population growth up to that time in all of the ages since the first humans appeared?
He mentions Malthus. This man’s theories have never been disproved. And there is very strong evidence to suggest that, unless policies such as those adopted by China are implemented, it will only be a matter of time before they will receive as much recognition as those of Darwin and Einstein. No matter how much we increase food production by scientific means, the production capacity of the Earth still remains a finite quantity.
Some acquaintance with mathematical principles, which explain exactly what finite means (and also Malthus’s invocation of exponential growth) would greatly inform debates such as this one. – Yours, etc,
SEAMUS McKENNA,
Farrenboley Park,
Windy Arbour,
Dublin 14.