I think it's important for those interested in the question of whether developing world aid is effective to look to those who can point to formal studies about the effectiveness of African aid rather than basing their judgments on quotes from individuals whose opinions may very well have been heavily skewed by selection bias and/or driven by ideological considerations which have nothing to do with the available evidence.

Do you think that people who believe aid harms are more likely to be driven by ideological considerations? I'd expect the opposite, because ideologies that say aid is good are very popular.

Engaging with the evidence in detail is a very time-consuming task and one beyond the scope of this blog entry. I will however quote various experts with links to useful references.

But... you just said... Wait - you mean you believe there are humans whose opinions are not heavily skewed by selection bias and/or driven by ideological considerations which have nothing to do with the available evidence?

I presently believe that while it's possible that saving lives in the developing world does more harm than good on account of Malthusian problem, this is fairly unlikely

The demographics of Africa are currently crazy skewed towards kids. Look at what the CIA Factbook says about median age. For almost every country in Africa except Libya, Angola, and Egypt, the median age is 15-20. For other countries, it's 30-40. The countries outside Africa with Africa-like median ages are: Afghanistan, Bolivia, the Gaza strip, Guatemala, Pakistan, the West Bank, and Yemen.

The evidence is overwhelming <EDIT>not really, see below</EDIT> that having lots of kids is strongly correlated with poverty, civil unrest, and war. Causation probably runs in both direction. But imagine trying to run a country when most of your citizens are in their teens. Is it a coincidence that the countries that are a nexus for terrorism, like Somalia, Afghanistan, the Gaza strip, the West Bank, Yemen, and Pakistan, have very low median ages? I don't think so. These countries have too many children for the adults to control. And lots of them have AK-47s.

In short: A sudden decrease in child mortality <EDIT>usually</EDIT> causes terrorism and civil war.

This brings to mind the chapter in Freakonomics arguing that the introduction of abortion to the US caused the rapid decline in violent crime about 20 years later.

Look at this graph on the demographics of suicide bombers. 82% were under age 25. 98.7% were under age 35. (Suicide bombers are much more likely to be single than married; so there is probably an age x chance of being married variable to factor out - assuming "being single" has causal power.)

(I also note that 77% of those with known educational histories went to college - while about 20% of all men in the West Bank go to college, based on population and enrollment figures and the assumption that zero women attend college in the West Bank.)