Population, when unchecked, increases in a geometrical ratio.
Thomas MalthusRead
Population, when unchecked, increases in a geometrical ratio. Subsistence increases only in an arithmetical ratio. A slight acquaintance with numbers will shew the immensity of the first power in comparison of the second.
Interpretation
Unchecked population growth can rapidly outpace food supply growth, leading to potential scarcity.
This quote by Thomas Malthus illustrates the disparity between population growth and the growth of resources such as food. Malthus argues that while population can increase exponentially, resources tend to grow linearly, which can lead to serious issues of overpopulation and resource depletion if not managed properly.
In practice
In a lecture on sustainability, I used this quote to highlight the importance of managing population growth alongside resource management.
Population, when unchecked, increases in a geometrical ratio.
The prodigious waste of human life occasioned by this perpetual struggle for room and food, was more than supplied by the mighty power of population, acting, in some degree, unshackled, from the constant habit of emigration.
The power of population is indefinitely greater than the power in the earth to produce subsistence for man.
The rich, by unfair combinations, contribute frequently to prolong a season of distress among the poor.
In a state therefore of great equality and virtue, where pure and simple manners prevailed, the increase of the human species would evidently be much greater than any increase that has been hitherto known.
I think it will be found that experience, _x000D_ the true source and foundation of all knowledge, _x000D_ invariably confirms its truth.
If we think of our chromosomes - they carry our genetic material - as being like shoelaces, I work on the plastic tips at the end that protect them.
Doctors, dressed up in one professional costume or another, have been in busy practice since the earliest records of every culture on earth. It is hard to think of a more dependable or enduring occupation, harder still to imagine any future events leading to its extinction.
First, it is necessary to study the facts, to multiply the number of observations, and then later to search for formulas that connect them so as thus to discern the particular laws governing a certain class of phenomena. In general, it is not until after these particular laws have been established that one can expect to discover and articulate the more general laws that complete theories by bringing a multitude of apparently very diverse phenomena together under a single governing principle.
If you want to find out anything from the theoretical physicists about the methods they use, I advise you to stick closely to one principle: don't listen to their words, fix your attention on their deeds. To him who is a discoverer in this field the products of his imagination appear so necessary and natural that he regards them, and would like to have them regarded by others, not as creations of thought but as given realities.
I do not want to drive across a bridge designed by an engineer who believed the numbers in structural stress models are relative truths.
The scientist who recognizes God knows only the God of Newton. To him the God imagined by Laplace and Comte is wholly inadequate. He feels that God is in nature, that the orderly ways in which nature works are themselves the manifestations of God's will and purpose. Its laws are his orderly way of working.
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