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JanetK comments on Against the standard narrative of human sexual evolution - Less Wrong
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Is there some meaning of "wrong" which does not involve inaccurate models?
Malthus claimed that human population doubled every 25 years unless limited in some way by the amount of available food.
So if there had been some span of time during which the human population was not limited in any way by a scarcity of available food and did not double at that rate, then that would be evidence that directly contradicts his theory.
There is, in fact, such a span of time. As I have pointed out, for two million years of human existence, there is no substantial evidence of famine. And yet the population did not double at Malthus's proposed rate. Or ten times his proposed rate. Or a hundred times his proposed rate. In what way is he not wrong?
I am having difficulty with this thread. As I understand biology:
all organisms (not just humans) tend to be able to produce more offspring then the environment can support
those individuals that produce the most living (and reproducing) offspring have their genes in higher frequency in the population
therefore natural selection works and populations evolve
Both Darwin and Wallace crystallized their ideas on evolve after reading Malthus. It doesn't matter if Malthus was wrong on some minor points - his general idea is one of the foundations of evolution by natural selection. If you throw out Malthus' general idea then you throw out natural selection. You cannot have it both ways.
Also, the idea that famine did not occur throughout human history is naive.