World Population
Growth
Part 5: Summary
- How has historic human
population growth compared with the "natural" (or exponential)
growth model for biological populations? What does this imply about percentage
growth rates?
- Historically, the population
growth rate has been proportional to what power of the population? Recall
that the assumption underlying the coalition model was that r would
turn out to be "small." Was it small?
- The title of the 1960 paper
by von Foerster, Mora, and Amiot was "Doomsday: Friday, 13 November
A. D. 2026." How close was your prediction of Doomsday to theirs?
(Keep in mind that you were working with more "reliable" data
before 1960, plus later data not accessible to them, so there was no reason
for your conclusion to be the same.)
- What would be the social
and political implications -- as predicted by the coalition model -- of
human beings continuing to behave indefinitely as they always have in the
past?
- Recent evidence suggests
that human behavior might in fact be changing. According to the U.
S. Census Bureau, in what year did the average percentage growth rate
peak? In what year did the annual growth in population peak?
- Given the predictions of
population growth through your lifetime, how serious a problem do you see
for your generation in coping with the pressures of increased population?
While the Doomsday authors
wrote with their tongues firmly in their respective cheeks, it's rather
remarkable that they also constructed the most accurate predictor of real
population growth for almost two generations. Historical data is a good
predictor when the behavior that produced it does not change. Only now
are we beginning to see any substantial change in this behavior on a global
scale.
Here are some additional
links for further study:
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