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To: DoughtyOne
If Verhulst's growth model was valid, why didn't the United Nations take it into consideration in the 1970s, when it was jumping up and down telling us the sky was falling?

You can't be serious. I actually had to look to see if you were a newbie. You are not. You've been here a long time, so you must know that the UN is completely motivated by politics. The UN has NOT been using this model, they have been using a simplistic exponential growth model (which has been my unstated point all along). That way they could inflate their population projections so that they can "save the world" with their socialist environmental, economic and anti-Christian population control policies. And the left has used "population explosion" as a justification for any and all of their pet projects. It has been the mathematicians and biologists who have been jumping up and down trying to tell us that the UN is wrong. Remember Paul Ehrlich? He was a California pseudo-scientist that was trying to sell a lot of books and make a name for himself. Using the UN exponential growth models, he stated in 1970 that the world population would be so great by 2000 that society wouldn't be able to function

What you are basicly saying is that it's a fabulous model as long as we can insert the "unknown factor" whenever it doesn't reflect reality.

No, these are factors applied to the specific population set that is of interest. In 1845, Verhulst predicted the 1930 population of his home country, France, to within a percent. In 1920 Pearl and Reed (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 1920, p275) predicted the 1950 population of the United States to within 1.1% accuracy, despite unforseen waves of immigration and several major wars.

In one of my replies I made the observation that this planet's populace is still increasing at the rate of 100 million per year. In eighteen years that will be 1.8 billion. Add 1.8 billion to 6.2 billion and you have 8 billion. That's reality.

No, that's the crap that the UN has been selling for decades, and you've bought it hook-line-and-sinker, like the rest of the sheeple. If you'd stop being so stubborn, you'd free yourself from the need for a socialist UN "savior". The linear model that you suggest is only accurate for very short term projections, maybe a year or two. You can accurately predict that next year's population will be 100 million more than it is today, but beyond that you would be overestimating badly. It is incredibly pessimistic for long term projections.

56 posted on 03/05/2002 12:41:56 PM PST by kidd
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To: kidd
No, that's the crap that the UN has been selling for decades, and you've bought it hook-line-and-sinker, like the rest of the sheeple. If you'd stop being so stubborn, you'd
free yourself from the need for a socialist UN "savior". The linear model that you suggest is only accurate for very short term projections, maybe a year or two. You can
accurately predict that next year's population will be 100 million more than it is today, but beyond that you would be overestimating badly. It is incredibly pessimistic for
long term projections.

You admitted to checking to see if I'm a newbee, but while you were there you evidently didn't check out the graphics right under my inception date.

I provided world population data for thousands of years.  You provide a model.  In the last twenty years we have added two billion people to the planet, yet you believe it is reasonable to think that in the next fifty we'll only add three billion.

We could keep this round robin up all week.  I don't think that would be very productive.

I suppose you think that the world population data I linked was provided as a part of a grand conspiracy by the United Nations.  What I really find humorous is that this is the first time I've been refered to as a shill for the United Nations.  I think that reflects on the power of your arguements.  But then I'm just a shill for the UN and all.

Why don't you wrap it up with a final comment and we'll let it go.  Thanks for the comments.

58 posted on 03/05/2002 1:31:17 PM PST by DoughtyOne
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To: kidd
Remember Paul Ehrlich?

I've heard of him but the way Europe and the USA are being overrun with third-world poverty stricken people, I think he was partly right. When he wrote his book, California was a state with a very healthy economy, and look at it now. Mexico is becoming very crime-ridden but back when he wrote the book, Mexico was a pretty safe country to be in.

There seems to be a problem with third world conditions growing and middle class societies becoming more rare.

61 posted on 12/05/2002 9:53:35 PM PST by FITZ
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