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Emile comments on Against the standard narrative of human sexual evolution - Less Wrong
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Comments (153)
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?
The key point here is "not limited in any way by a scarcity of available food".
The conversation went roughly like this
WrongBot: Malthus was wrong
MichaelVassar: what! why?
WrongBot: Well, here is evidence A (population growth data)
Emile: What? Evidence A is perfectly compatible with what Malthus said!
WrongBot: There is also evidence B (no signs of malnutrition in hunter-gatherers, etc.).
What I'm saying is that Evidence A alone is not enough to say Malthus was wrong. And that if you went back in time and showed evidence A only to Malthus, he would shrug. Do you disagree with this?
Evidence A without Evidence B is insufficient to wholly refute Malthus, yes, though I will point out that he predicts cycles of growth and starvation that are inconsistent with the slow and steady changes in population that seem to have characterized the spread of prehistoric humans. (There were massive die-offs at several points, but what evidence is available ties those points to natural disasters, not famine.)
Why do you separate natural disasters from possible causes of famine?
Because Malthus's theory doesn't (so far as I'm aware) discuss discontinuous decreases in the available food supply.
But you are right that much of the devastation wrought by natural disasters is due to a shrunken food supply.