Talk:Thomas Robert Malthus

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Malthus and the "World Wide Population of Flies".[edit]

Forty years ago our then Science Teacher told us, whilst discussing population dynamics, that Malthus estimated that there had been so many flies on the planet that if they had not decomposed, their bodies would have covered the entire planet in a layer some ten metres high. This particularly gross image has stayed with me throughout the decade.

Corn Laws[edit]

It seems the section on Corn Laws in the lede is contradictory. Here's what it reads "He supported taxes on grain imports (the Corn Laws), because food security was more important than maximizing wealth". It seems like decreasing taxes would lead to better food security, not raising it.72.76.83.63 (talk) 00:42, 16 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, he was horrifically wrong on this, like almost everything else this clown ever wrote. I'm genuinely disappointed in this wikipedia article for not being clearer that this guy was one of the most wrong people in history, along with Marx et.al. Aujoz (talk) 20:54, 25 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The Corn Laws protected farms in Britain to operate even if food was more expensive for consumers--it allowed Britain to mostly feed itself without relying on shipping that could be cut off in wartime (as nearly happened in 1861, WWI and WW2). Rjensen (talk) 20:59, 25 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Article being vandalized/trolled[edit]

This article has a lot of trolled/vandalized edits in it, it should be protected so that not everyone can edit it. I can't tell which information in it is authentic or not. It needs a review. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.187.82.143 (talk) 10:44, 7 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

This article is a mess[edit]

Especially the section on "The Malthusian controversy", which appears to be original research and is full of [number] that aren't actual footnotes. -- Jibal (talk) 21:16, 28 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Jibal agreed100%, came here to post the same thing. Sasubpar (talk) 03:21, 27 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Went through and fixed the footnotes -- it looks like there were originally citations but they were never properly hyperlinked. (I'm guessing it was plain-text copy-pasted from another article at some point.) Agree it still reads very much like someone's essay and needs some serious editing. Moriwen (talk) 01:04, 1 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The grammar is so confusing in the article too. Like I cannot understand what certain sentences mean because of the way it’s phrased. Rhayailaina (talk) 09:12, 20 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]