Experts frequently make predictions about how bad things are going to be.
When looking at some of the predictions listed below many people draw one conclusion: Some expert predictions would have correctly been called “idiotic” in ages prone to apply labels to intellectual abilities.
Other predictions, slightly less inane, are, in hindsight, actually moronic.
Read through some of the predictions of yesterday’s media-approved “intellectuals”. None of these people are on record as having apologized for having been so very, very wrong.
The colossal failure of “intellectuals” shows us something besides the fact they often aren’t too bright. Human vanity is such that when a person gains fame for expertise in one area, he tends to assume that he has the same expertise in other areas. This triumph of vanity is dangerous to those unable to distinguish between it and actual knowledge.
Many “experts” are hired to convince people that their employers’ position should be supported. Most trusting souls are not aware that most “experts” have been hired to help their employers. There are still a innocents who believe that environmentalists have a higher purpose than helping oil producing nations increase their share of the energy markets.
Lower-level academic and media people lack the intellectual ability to understand that. Those who make, or want to make money by lying don’t care about what it does to their souls. They will spew endless pronouncements of doom whenever they can.
The following compilation of failed predictions by acclaimed experts was posted on greeniewatch.com :
1. In 1865, Stanley Jevons (one of the most recognized 19th century economists) predicted that England would run out of coal by 1900, and that England’s factories would grind to a standstill. Actual facts: This did not happen. English factories are still running.
2. In 1885, the US Geological Survey announced that there was “little or no chance” of oil being discovered in California. Actual facts: Oil was found in California. Today, California is increasing its oil production.
3. In 1891, it said the same thing about Kansas and Texas. (See Osterfeld, David. Prosperity Versus Planning : How Government Stifles Economic Growth. New York : Oxford University Press, 1992.) Actual facts: Oil is in both states.
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5. 1944 federal government review predicted that by now the US would have exhausted its reserves of 21 of 41 commodities it examined. Among them were tin, nickel, zinc, lead and manganese. Actual facts: These minerals are still being mined.
6. In 1949 the Secretary of the Interior announced that the end of US oil was in sight. Actual facts: Oil is being produced, and in record amounts.
7. Claim: In 1952 the US President’s Materials Policy Commission concluded that by the mid-1970s copper production in the US could not exceed 800,000 tons and that lead production would be at most 300,000 tons per year. Actual facts: Copper production in 1973 was 1.6 million tons, and by 1974 lead production had reached 614,000 tons – 100% higher than predicted.
8. In 1968, Paul R. Ehrlich wrote The Population Bomb and declared that the battle to feed humanity had been lost and that there would be a major food shortage in the US. “In the 1970s … hundreds of millions are going to starve to death,” and by the 1980s most of the world’s important resources would be depleted. He forecast that 65 million Americans would die of starvation between 1980-1989 and that by 1999, the US population would decline to 22.6 million. The problems in the US would be relatively minor compared to those in the rest of the world. (Ehrlich, Paul R. The Population Bomb. New York, Ballantine Books, 1968.) New Scientist magazine underscored his speech in an editorial titled “In Praise of Prophets.” Actual facts: U.S. population is now over 300,000,000. Ehrlich was wrong by a factor of 13.6. The man is a fool.
9. Claim: “By the year 2000 the United Kingdom will be simply a small group of impoverished islands, inhabited by some 70 million hungry people … If I were a gambler, I would take even money that England will not exist in the year 2000.” Paul Ehrlich, Speech at British Institute For Biology, September 1971. Actual facts: England continues to exist, 12 years after Ehrlich said it would be gone.
10. Claim: Ehrlich wrote in 1968, “I have yet to meet anyone familiar with the situation who thinks India will be self-sufficient in food by 1971, if ever.”
Actual facts:Yet in a only few years India was exporting food and significantly changed its food production capacity. Ehrlich must have noted this because in the 1971 version of his book this commented is deleted (Julian Simon, The Ultimate Resource, Princeton: Princeton Univesity Press, 1981, p. 64).
11. The Limits to Growth (1972) – projected the world would run out of gold by 1981, mercury and silver by 1985, tin by 1987, zinc by 1990, petroleum by 1992, and copper, lead and natural gas by 1993. It also stated that the world had only 33-49 years of aluminum resources left, which means we should run out sometime between 2005-2021. (See Donella Meadows et al., The Limits to Growth: A Report for the Club of Rome’s Project on the Predicament of Mankind. New York: New American Library, 1972. Actual facts: Not a single one of those predictions came true.
12. Claim: In 1974, the US Geological Survey announced “at 1974 technology and 1974 price” the US had only a 10-year supply of natural gas.
Actual facts: The American Gas Association said that gas supplies were sufficient for the next 1,000-2,500 years. (Julian Simon, Population Matters. New Jersey: Transaction Publications, 1990): p. 90.
Did all these people, and many more, make honest mistakes? Or, were they Professional Prophets of Doom, lying for money? When we hear of danger, ask, “Who benefits?” In Latin, “Qui bono?”
