This is an accepted version of this page Paul Ralph Ehrlich (born May 29, 1932) is an American biologist known for his predictions and warnings about the consequences of population growth, including famine and resource depletion.

"[6][7] Among the solutions suggested in that book was population control, including "various forms of coercion" such as eliminating "tax benefits for having additional children".

[2] Scholars, journalists and public intellectuals have mixed views on Ehrlich's assertions on the dangers of expanding human populations.

[6] Ehrlich's mother's Reform-Jewish German ancestors arrived in the United States in the 1840s, and his paternal grandparents emigrated there later from the Galician and Transylvanian part of the Austrian Empire.

[17] During his studies he participated with surveys of insects in the areas of the Bering Sea and Canadian arctic, and then with a National Institutes of Health fellowship, investigated the genetics and behavior of parasitic mites.

[23] Although Ehrlich was not the first to warn about population issues — concern had been widespread during the 1950s and 1960s — his charismatic and media-savvy methods helped publicize the topic.

Decades later, Ehrlich's continued prominence and the failure of the book's predictions to materialize led to renewed scrutiny and criticism.

[2] Science author Charles C. Mann wrote that the book's predictions "fueled an anti-population-growth crusade that led to human rights abuses around the world", including coercive population control policies and even forced sterilizations.

[33] The Ehrlichs were accused of advocating the curtailment of reproductive freedoms and giving the state a larger role in such decisions, while leaving ambiguous "just how authoritarian a solution they are willing to endorse.

"[11] Ehrlich also asserted that 600 million people were very hungry while billions were under-nourished, and insisted that his predictions about disease and climate change were essentially correct.

[22][23] In a 2008 discussion hosted by the website Salon, Paul Ehrlich was more critical of the United States specifically, claiming that it should control its population and consumption as an example to the rest of the world.

His research group at Stanford University examined extensive natural populations of the Bay checkerspot butterfly (Euphydryas editha bayensis).

[40] During the 1960s and 70s when Ehrlich made his most alarming warnings, there was a widespread belief among experts that population growth presented an extremely serious threat to the future of human civilization, although differences existed regarding the severity of the situation, and how to decrease it.

[24][41] In the decades since, critics have disputed Ehrlich's main thesis about overpopulation and its effects on the environment and human society, and his solutions, as well as his specific predictions made since the late 1960s.

A common criticism is that Ehrlich's predictions routinely failed to come true, for instance Ronald Bailey of Reason magazine has termed him an "irrepressible doomster ... who, as far as I can tell, has never been right in any of his forecasts of imminent catastrophe.

"[10][42] In a 1971 speech, he predicted that: "By the year 2000 the United Kingdom will be simply a small group of impoverished islands, inhabited by some 70 million hungry people."

[44] Canadian journalist Dan Gardner, in his 2010 book Future Babble,[45] argues that Ehrlich has been insufficiently forthright in acknowledging errors he made, while being intellectually dishonest or evasive in taking credit for things he claims he got "right".

For example, he rarely acknowledges the mistakes he made in predicting material shortages, massive death tolls from starvation (as many as one billion in the publication Age of Affluence) or regarding the disastrous effects on specific countries.

Gardner believes that Ehrlich is displaying classical signs of cognitive dissonance, and that his failure to acknowledge obvious errors of his own judgement render his current thinking suspect.

[24] Barry Commoner has criticized Ehrlich's 1970 statement that "When you reach a point where you realize further efforts will be futile, you may as well look after yourself and your friends and enjoy what little time you have left.

In Population Bomb, Ehrlich suggests that "there is no rational choice except to adopt some form of the Paddocks' strategy as far as food distribution is concerned."

[23] Barry Commoner argued that Ehrlich emphasized overpopulation too much as the source of environmental problems, and that his proposed solutions were politically unacceptable because of the coercion that they implied, and because they would cost poor people disproportionately.

He advocated for an "unprecedented redistribution of wealth" in order to mitigate the problem of overconsumption of resources by the world's wealthy, but said "the rich who now run the global system — that hold the annual 'world destroyer' meetings in Davos — are unlikely to let it happen.

[51] Ehrlich termed Simon the proponent of a "space-age cargo cult" of economists convinced that human creativity and ingenuity would create substitutes for scarce resources and reasserted the idea that population growth was outstripping the Earth's supplies of food, fresh water and minerals.

[58] Consistent with his concern about the impact of pollution and in response to a doctoral dissertation by his student Edward Goth III, Ehrlich wrote in 1977 that, "Fluorides have been shown to concentrate in food chains, and evidence suggesting a potential for significant ecological effects is accumulating.