Talk:Paul R. Ehrlich

Biography needs Wikipedia Webmaster/ Moderator Lockdown

As of December 2005 this biography is still slanted against this great ecologist. Dr. Paul Ehrlich has been a respected Senior Professor of Population Studies at Stanford University for over three decades. This bio makes him sound like some weird insect specialist shouting "Everyone will die at age 42...."

I tried several times to edit this article with a more accurate biography, and each time, the same neocon extremist blogger reverted article to his own hateful inaccurate version. This ability to distort biography is a flaw of Wikipedia.

I have reviewed WikiQuote page, and these quotes are accurate as of December 2005-- I have tapes of these lectures from PBS and National Public Radio. Problem is prose of main article. Part of problem is Ehrlich's famous big-mouth. In heat of debate he often says deliberately alarming things for dramatic effect. Such alarmist claims should not be mistaken for scholarship. He is an easy target because it is easy to quote him out of context in such debates. I could write a more accurate article myself but I know that same neocon extremist would just vandalize it again.

To get a better definitive biography and meaning of his work I would say Ehrlich himself or his wife or staff should write it or approve it-- then Wikipedia should lock it to prevent further neocon anti-ecology vandalism. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.37.39.176 (talk • contribs)

Your comments are not based in reality. First, this article has rarely been edited since the summer. Second, I don't see who this "neo-con blogger" is or where he has made a habit of reverting your edits. Third, I don't see where yo've ever edited this article. Fourth, your suggestion for moving forward is entirely inappropriate and violates everything that Wikipedia stands for. -Willmcw 22:19, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

This biography is a lot better today than it was a year ago. I still feel article content focuses too much on Ehrlich's "failed predictions" rather than his basic warning about ecologically sustainable Carrying Capacity. By steering content towards his failures, one still gets the impression that he was basically wrong, just some extremist shouting "We're all going to starve and die at 42!" If he was such an extremist, Stanford University would not have kept him as tenured professor for three decades, he would not have won so many awards, and would not have found an audience for so many books. In fact, Ehrlich is basically right*: Our species should live within our ecological Carrying Capacity based on the I=PAT formula and voluntarily stop at two children per family. I feel his basic message should be more obvious, considering it is the single most important message of the 21st century. (* Quite right! It is the facts that are wrong)

Such a message, that we should stop at two children, is controversial and serves as a lightning rod for his enemies. Ehrlich's message is correct but I readily admit Ehrlich has a big-mouth--When Ehrlich rants on public lectures and forums, he often shouts alarmist exaggerations and glaring howlers for dramatic effect.

Search "Overpopulation" on Yahoo and the top result is Overpopulation.com, a neocon extremist group which openly claims "overpopulation does not and will not ever exist!" Its Discussion chatroom is filled with hateful threads against Ehrlich and ecologists.

My running battle with a neocon occured in December 2004: Click Article, click History, scroll to December 30 2004: I was 63.231... and neocon was "TDC." Take a look at User Info for TDC: He describes himself as a "neocon troll" who vandalizes websites. Ehrlich's biography at that time said absurd stuff like, "Ehrlich, Planned Parenthood and the ACLU ruined America's population." That's troll vandalism. I tried to get rid of it a few times then gave up. Neocon troll won that battle.

Other neocon I disagree with is Willmcw. If he advocates "neo-confederates" as his User Info suggests, he is blood enemy of Ehrlich and ecologists. Willmcw wanted to place the bet with Julian Simon in its own section for maximum emphasis. This bet was Ehrlich's biggest public blunder, proving Ehrlich could be hoodwinked by the Cato Institute, Julian Simon's neocon think-tank. Any economist could see that harvesting natural resources is getting easier due to improving technology. Ehrlich was a fool for taking that bet. Anyone who wants to emphasize that bet is no advocate of Ehrlich. There is no mention of Ehrlich's second bet proposed in 1990's which focused on species biodiversity and habitat, which Simon refused to accept.

My last point, that Wikipedia is vulnerable to troll vandalism, is sad but true. Due to a recent famous Wikipedia biography scandal involving troll vandalism, my university just sent notice to all students, informing us to no longer use Wikipedia as a reference or resource in our papers, because content cannot be trusted. Due to troll vandalism, Wikipedia is now reduced to a minor diversion away from quotable Internet research. I don't see any solution except for Wiki webmasters to lock content when needed. As long as trolls are allowed to vandalize entries with subtle subversive point of view, any controversial article remains highly vulnerable to vandalism.

By the way, I only wrote this one "biography needs lockdown" discussion. Above criticisms come from other people. Anyone familiar with Ehrlich's work would find this current biography slanted towards his failures. I won't bother fixing article, since some neocon will just erase my fix again. Adios Wikipedia. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.37.39.176 (talk • contribs)

Reading this discussion in September 2022 and especially the voice of the unsigned "neocons are everywhere" detector while proclaiming "Ehrlich is a genius" and brilliant entomologist seems so far removed from reality even more than it seemed to be 17 years ago. This emotional state expressed here is very strange, to say the least; in support of Ehrlich, a "scientist" who most likely was and continues to be one of the most failed scientists whose "scientific" predictions were wrong more than any other scientist's yet, who's highly regarded and described as brilliant and a scientist. By the way, I wonder, if Ehrlich is so good entomologist, why there are so few words about his achievements in this field of research. 24.225.161.193 (talk) 04:02, 28 September 2022 (UTC)

Apparently this is controversial?

There's the diff

Is it controversial to say that he's best known for his wildly inaccurate predictions? I put in a whole boatload of sources. Is it controversial to use his own words to inform readers that he said that India needs to be left to die so that other, less "hopeless" countries can thrive? I don't see the issue here. Red Slash 19:12, 7 February 2023 (UTC)

Your edits are highly POV as they fail to incorporate the entirety of his views and you clearly have selected a narrow range of sources, some of them right-wing and libertarian think tanks like Foundation for Economic Education and American Enterprise Institute, which are highly critical of the subject of the article. Furthermore, shoehorning this material into the lead sentence gives undue weight to these opinion pieces, and is out of balance with the body off the article which is more neutral in tone. The edits made are clearly designed to pillory the subject, and this is highly problematic for a WP:BLP. I'm adding a neutrality template so as not to engage in edit warring, and to allow others to opine on the matter here on talk.--C.J. Griffin (talk) 19:23, 7 February 2023 (UTC)

@C.J. Griffin: User C.J. Griffin is a left-winger (socialist too—surprise, surprise) who wants to expunge all right-learning sources from articles and leave only left-wing ones, contrary to Wikipedia's policy on neutrality. 2601:547:500:4E80:1C40:B264:BF08:2B15 (talk) 22:31, 13 March 2023 (UTC)

I mean, I could've added more, like the New York Times or the Wall Street Journal or the Financial Post or ... The edits were made in an attempt to provide at least a little bit of context to what is otherwise a borderline hagiographic article. The dude is famous for predictions. What sort of predictions? Grandiose and wildly incorrect predictions. That's not POV. Omitting that information is POV. Red Slash 23:53, 9 February 2023 (UTC)

Read the article and the lead. That his predictions were wrong is certainly not omitted. What makes it POV is now your edits have the article coming out swinging against its subject in the very first sentence using belligerent language. And his recent research on biodiversity loss and demographics in collaboration with numerous prestigious biologists and ecologists is barely mentioned, let alone that his views on the issue have evolved over time, and certainly not in the lead. It's almost as though some want to give the impression all he wrote was a controversial book in the 1960s and his predictions were all wrong, and that's the crux of the story.--C.J. Griffin (talk) 01:08, 10 February 2023 (UTC)

Well, that's what he's most notable for, so that's what the lead of the article should be about. Of course he's done a lot of things in his life, but the most famous thing was the book he wrote about how there would be widespread famine within fifteen years. Junius Brutus Booth was a super-famous actor of his time, but read the lead and you'd think all he ever did was father the murderer of Abraham Lincoln. Donald Trump in 2006 had a perfectly normal article about a businessman and then he went and ran for President and his page is completely different now--and from the lead you'd never know that he had been notable enough for his own article prior to entering politics. Deep Blue Something has been recording music since 1991 and the article's lead makes it seem like they just sat around for decades after creating Breakfast at Tiffany's.

The lead, as of now, makes very clear the class of predictions that Ehrlich made, contextualizing things for the reader. What, do you expect our article on Titanic to start with "The Titanic was a ship that attempted a voyage from Europe to America" and only later in the article give the context about how that voyage went? Would you consider it "coming out swinging" against the Titanic to say that it sank? Then why would you say we're "coming out swinging" against Paul by starting with how his most noteworthy predictions also sank? Red Slash 01:52, 10 February 2023 (UTC)

I guess one difference between those examples and this article is that none of the former include in the first sentence a phrase with such a negative phrase as "wildly inaccurate", which is, by the way, pretty subjective. It's enough to say he's known for his pessimistic predictions, and it seems prejudicial to claim they were "wildly" inaccurate, even if they were certainly inaccurate in certain respects. Who shall judge whether the predictions were wildly inaccurate, or more tamely inaccurate? Maybe the reader, but not the editor, unless they can get a plethora of sources using the same language applied broadly to all his significant opera vitae. Mention the controversy and maybe, conservatively, inaccuracies. The important thing is that this is an article about a living person who has had a serious, well-respected intellectual career, and although I will admit I don't like his outlook, we should be extremely careful about prejudicing anyone who comes to find out about him. JGT Webb (talk) 06:14, 14 July 2023 (UTC)

"Who shall judge whether the predictions were wildly inaccurate, or more tamely inaccurate?" I would propose WP:RS should judge that, and they have, and the verdict is in: wildly inaccurate. As an aside, "they were certainly inaccurate in certain respects" is one of the greatest understatements I've ever read.

The man predicted that by 1972 there would be no sense in planning for the future because the world would be doomed. He predicted that England would cease to exist by 2000 (and when mocked for that prediction after the fact, said "well, they have problems, just like everyone else"). He prognosticated an end to marine animal life by 1980. How would you categorize those predictions? "Tamely inaccurate"?? Really?

The reason that we can't "mention the 'controversy'", frankly, is that there is not a controversy at all. To my knowledge, there are no reliable, secondary sources in the modern era that present his predictions in any light other than inaccuracy.

You say "The important thing is that this is an article about a living person who has had a serious, well-respected intellectual career", but the world is full of people who have had a serious, well-respected intellectual career, and they don't have a Wikipedia article because they're not notable. Erhlich is notable only because of his widely propagated predictions. How would you describe those predictions? Were they accurate or not? Not. Were they mildly inaccurate or wildly inaccurate? Based on the number of fish in the ocean, the lack of famines in democratic India, the continued existence of the United Kingdom, and most shocking of all, the fact that even after 1972 life appears to be continuing... I've got to say, looks wildly inaccurate to me. And more significantly, not just to me, but also to a whole lot of reliable sources who are linked in the first paragraph. Red Slash 15:39, 14 July 2023 (UTC)

Don't revert without discussing

Red Slash 23:32, 6 March 2023 (UTC)

The WP:ONUS is on you to justify why this material should remain, not on those who object to its inclusion. Your edits to this article have been reverted by myself and User:Ungulates, whose edit summary stated that your rewrite constituted a "partisan attack dripping with contempt for the subject, which is obviously not NPOV."--C.J. Griffin (talk) 01:12, 7 March 2023 (UTC)

No one has responded to the points that I've made above. The claims that I've added are all well-sourced and should remain; a flat-out revert of dozens of sentences of new, sourced additions should never be carried out.

Let's explore the diff. What do you have problems with?

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Paul_R._Ehrlich&diff=1143362297&oldid=1143319732

Lead:

1. I rewrote the lead sentence to explain that he's famous for wildly inaccurate predictions. That assertion was heavily sourced.
2. I included the quote about letting countries like India starve to death, which is from the main article text
3. I contextualized his being called an "irrepressible doomster"--it's important to know the context was him saying that all marine wildlife would die by 1990.

Early life:

1. Included that he's not related to the Nobel winner.

Pop Bomb

1. The first paragraph used to end with the, frankly buried, "No such famine occurred" followed by an immediate justification of the author's viewpoints. This is unconsciousable and does not reflect the way the book has been perceived by reliable sources. I gave it its own paragraph and contextualized it.
2. I removed the silly statement "Ehrlich's opinions have evolved over time," because, umm, everybody's opinions evolve over time.
3. I clarified that India was an example of a "hopeless" country.
4. The following three paragraphs are newish, but largely taken from the longstanding The Population Bomb article.

After 2000

1. Minor rewording for clarification and context.
2. Rewrote a bit, but I don't think anything major is written here. I did change that the population disaster has "completely" failed to materialize, rather than "largely"--lol, have you seen population figures? "Largely"? Who did write this originally? Sources back up that the disaster completely failed to materialize.

Reception

1. I removed one word, "allegedly". Arguably that word could be reintroduced, if you think it necessary.

I look forward to hearing what problems anyone has with the edits to the article. Red Slash 08:23, 7 March 2023 (UTC)

(Also, please forgive if I missed anything in my synopsis of the changes. I assure you I'm not trying to slip anything by anyone, which is why I posted the diff right there. If I missed anything, PLEASE say something.) Red Slash 08:25, 7 March 2023 (UTC)

@Red Slash: C.J. Griffin is a left-winger and socialist. The only problem with the referenced material you're adding to the article is that it's inconvenient for his ideology. That's a big no-no. Hence why he was whining about the fact that you included some right-learning sources among the ones you used. 2601:547:500:4E80:1C40:B264:BF08:2B15 (talk) 22:38, 13 March 2023 (UTC)

Thoughts on this revision?

It's been a couple weeks and no one has had any response to the sourced material, until very recently a slew of edits have been made to somewhat change the tone of the article. It's possible those changes are valid. I did revert them in order to bring them to talk: the other editor's edit would be on the left, and the version that had been in place previously is on the right.

Big changes include:

1. removing the words "incorrect" and "erroneously" from the lead
2. putting a "by whom" template (even though the statement literally is referenced, lol)
3. general softening of language (perhaps with some merit; "did not come true" might well be better than "were completely incorrect")
4. removing a thoroughly sourced paragraph about the book becoming an object of ridicule
5. removing a sourced paragraph that he's never admitted responsibility for his wildly inaccurate predictions
6. helpfully added a source to the statements made by Gardner (nicely done, definitely should be restored)

Any thoughts? Red Slash 19:54, 19 March 2023 (UTC)

I oppose most of these edit reversions. I think that a Wikipedia article should be more of a neutral description about a person/event instead of a hit piece against a particular person, with often questionable sources cited. Please see my edit descriptions for more details. Kamtal75 (talk) 00:13, 20 March 2023 (UTC)

I saw the edit descriptions for sure. I watched that video you linked--super informative, thank you--and in it, he literally says, and I quote:

"The critics go in, and look at these little stories, that won't come true, and when they didn't come true, say 'Ehrlich was wrong'. I was recently criticized because I had said many years ago that I would bet that England wouldn't exist in the year 2000. Well, England did exist in the year 2000, but that was only 14 years ago." ... he didn't admit he was wrong, he just moved the goalposts.

Again, we absolutely aim for a neutral point of view. That doesn't mean that we avoid saying that the Titanic sank, saying that the Challenger shuttle failed to launch, or noting that Gideon Pillow performed poorly as a general. If there are questionable sources, highlight them or remove them, but it's a bit much to remove a statement that's sourced by several sources just because one of the sources might not qualify as "reliable". Red Slash 02:38, 20 March 2023 (UTC)

These are pretty good points. I do think, however, that Paul Ehrlich's acknowledging that England did not collapse in the year 2000 as he predicted does qualify as publicly admitting to being (at least partially) wrong.

With respect to the relatively new edits in the article concerning phrasing, I generally object to hyperbolic language such as "completely incorrect" and "wildly inaccurate." Seems like a bit of editorializing to me. Kamtal75 (talk) 03:50, 20 March 2023 (UTC)

He doesn't even say "I was wrong", he just said the factual statement that disproves his prediction (but doesn't... actually... like... admit he was wrong) and immediately tries to justify it. (His further justification was that "they have problems", which... sounds like he's reaching to justify himself.) If that statement is enough to prove he admitted he was wrong, then what wouldn't have qualified? I mean, what, would he have to pretend that England doesn't exist?

And, to me, "wildly inaccurate" seems like a fair summary of the sources. It's not just "inaccurate" to say that England won't exist in 2000. It was wildly inaccurate. It wasn't just "inaccurate" to say that all marine life was going to disappear. It was wildly inaccurate. Etc. I don't view that as non-neutral with regard to the sources, but I would love to see how you'd phrase that in a way that might better satisfy neutrality. Red Slash 04:23, 20 March 2023 (UTC)

OK, will do Kamtal75 (talk) 15:51, 20 March 2023 (UTC)

Strongly disagree. What this constitutes is improper synthesis of sources and editorializing. Nonsensical comparisons to the Titanic and the space shuttle Challenger aside, this is totally unacceptable for a WP:BLP. I'll be adding additional tags for readers to see what is disputed. It should be noted that four different editors have either reverted or significantly removed disputed material from the current version, indicating there is NO CONSENSUS for this version of the article, yet it keeps being restored, violating WP:ONUS as I mentioned earlier. I propose it be rolled back to the long standing consensus version prior to the recent additions which numerous editors have issues with, which included significant criticisms of Erhlich's predictions without being so lopsided.--C.J. Griffin (talk) 16:20, 20 March 2023 (UTC)

And multiple editors have also expressed support for those inclusions, or have expressed certain reservations, while supporting the rest... and meanwhile, as no one has made any effort at all to answer the reasoning for the edits (just saying "nonsensical" doesn't count for much; why in the world is this nonsensical?), no, it's correct to leave it as such until someone can give actual reasons for why the changes I made are wrong. Red Slash 21:47, 20 March 2023 (UTC)

I agree with the roll-back proposal from User:C.J. Griffin. No need to push all these changes in one single contentious edit. There's no urgency on any of this. Introduce changes one by one, so there can be more focused discussion on the merits of each proposed change.—Myasuda (talk) 02:39, 21 March 2023 (UTC)

Sounds good to me Kamtal75 (talk) 06:40, 21 March 2023 (UTC)

Definitely no urgency. These changes were all introduced over the course of many edits, and then summarily rolled-back as one, so I'm not sure how you'd even like to proceed. But of course, there's no urgency, and you're absolutely right about that. We can chill, take our time, and make the article the best it can be. Red Slash 18:12, 21 March 2023 (UTC)

The phrase "wildly inaccurate" has no place in a Wikipedia page. The head as a whole is far too one sided and anything but neutral. SouthernResidentOrca (talk) 17:52, 29 April 2023 (UTC)

It seems to me that a consensus is starting to form around reverting to the long standing version. Anyone else want to voice their opinion? I’m considering rolling the article back, but would like a stronger consensus before doing so.--C.J. Griffin (talk) 20:33, 29 April 2023 (UTC)

Wildly

The phrase "wildly inaccurate" occurs over all sorts of articles on Wikipedia--it is not POV to say that something is "wildly inaccurate" when indeed it is wildly inaccurate. Edward_Davies_(Celtic), Historia Regum Britanniae, Guelph Transit; the list goes on and on and on and on.

The best parallel is The Amazing Criswell (which I have not ever edited); they're both from roughly the same timespan (he's a little older than Paul) and they both received intense fame from making predictions that were largely completely divorced from what would eventually happen. There's still marine wildlife. England? Still a thing, actually. American life expectancy is still quite a ways above 40. Etc. Anyway, Criswell's lead sentence reads "Jeron Criswell King (August 18, 1907 – October 4, 1982), known by his stage-name The Amazing Criswell /ˈkrɪzwɛl/, was an American psychic known for wildly inaccurate predictions." And while Ehrlich may be a scientist and Criswell may have been a psychic, the accuracy of their predictions is eerily similar.

So if the phrase is good enough for Criswell, it's good enough for Ehrlich. The thing he's most famous for is undoubtedly the doom-and-gloom predictions which generally turned out to be absolute baloney. But while "absolute baloney" isn't very encyclopedic, "wildly inaccurate" is.. Red Slash 22:42, 27 May 2023 (UTC)

I think that it isn't fair to make a comparison between a psychic and a scientist. As I have written before, I feel that a Wikipedia article needs more objective phrasing with less editorializing.

I am in favor of Griffin's suggestion of rolling the article back to an earlier version. Kamtal75 (talk) 23:19, 27 May 2023 (UTC)

It's not "editorializing"; that's an accurate summary of what our sources say about his predictions. Red Slash 18:38, 29 May 2023 (UTC)

"Wildly inaccurate" isn't encyclopedic. I moved your sources to the criticism section of the head next to the statements you wrote in that section SouthernResidentOrca (talk) 22:22, 4 June 2023 (UTC)

"Wildly Inaccurate" is not how wikipedia articles should be written, especially in the lede, and it doesn't follow guidelines like WP:IMPARTIAL and WP:WTW. The presence of the term in other wikipedia articles doesn't have any bearing on this at all, wikipedia has millions of articles, many of which are not written well. Tristario (talk) 04:21, 26 June 2023 (UTC)

I agree that the term "Wildly Inaccurate" should not be used in any WP article. The fact that it might appear in other articles, is not a valid argument for inclusion here. There are many articles on WP that need editing. That is no reason why we should allow this article to be poorly written with such a non-neutral POV. I think it is clear from the user's history, that Red Slash has a bias. This needs to stop, IMHO. 174.171.71.34 (talk) 18:52, 27 June 2023 (UTC)

• But they are wildly inaccurate, and the sources both support that conclusion and the emphasis. It is not enough to say that you don't like the phrasing, as a basis to remove it. The same, or similar, phrasing, is used in other articles without question; so why is it inappropriate here? Removing it would create an unduly pro-Ehrlich point of view. TE(æ)A,ea. (talk) 16:17, 28 June 2023 (UTC)

Again

No editor has provided a single reference that states that his predictions were anything other than wildly inaccurate. The unwillingness to call a spade a spade. The dude predicted that by 1972 there would be no point living for the future because total societal collapse would at that point be inevitable. There would be no major marine wildlife by like 1980. Etc. His predictions have been repeatedly and pointedly ridiculed across a wide variety of major and reliable sources, and no sources to the contrary have been found.

WP:NPOV essentially requires us to call the predictions something along the lines of "wildly inaccurate" in the lead, just like with another dude from that era who publicly and repeatedly made extravagant predictions that completely failed to materialize. The fact that one dressed up his predictions with "science" and one dressed them up as "supernatural" doesn't change that both men made predictions that were wildly inaccurate, and which are repeatedly referred to as such by our reliable sources. Red Slash 18:12, 6 June 2023 (UTC)

TL;DR: Needs to be less inflammatory.

I'm no fan of Ehrlich, but I agree with others that the language is not what it should be. I have little sympathy or respect for Ehrlich and got to his page to look at how he was treated. I expected to find some type of objectionable hagiography. What I found instead was something whose inflammatory language was questionable enough that I looked to the talk page for some explanation. I think that it's fair that it is made clear that some of his pronouncements were over-the-top, biased, and downright silly. However, I think that the language you frame it in actually weakens your point. It looks more like a hit piece than an encyclopedic article. Compare to the (in my opinion biased in the opposite direction) entry at Britannica: Britannica, T. Editors of Encyclopaedia (2023, May 25). Paul R. Ehrlich. Encyclopedia Britannica. [1]https://www.britannica.com/biography/Paul-R-Ehrlich

You have spent some time supporting your criticism, at least some of which is warranted. I would suggest you put in a little more effort to tone down the POV language and bring the volume of critical references in line with a NPOV.

For what it's worth, I am a hard-core socialist with an activist background and I don't at all fall in line with modern-day (purportedly) 'leftist' talking points, particularly of the 'sky is falling' kind. What disturbs me is that, from a biological point of view, population is an extreme and persistent problem that will not go away. It should be top of mind in terms of a going forward policy because it *will* bite us in the ass without positive measures to keep it under control. Sensationalizing the issue has done much more harm than good. How many people can actually articulate both why the concern is valid, and the proximate dire predictions are invalid? Like other 'sky is falling' narratives the flame and noise obscures the issue to the point that the discourse is broken. Bottom line, I think the article should make it clear that a lot of noise was made that was unscientific and not constructive without making editorial judgments that are inconsistent with an encyclopedia. DeepNorth (talk) 14:57, 30 June 2023 (UTC)

I respect your position and how you've borne it out here. I'm still not sure what language here is inflammatory. Were there any particular phrases that seemed to stand out to you? Your perspective would be tremendously valuable. Red Slash 00:00, 14 July 2023 (UTC)

And it's certainly not dubious

You might consider it "not the most encyclopedic" to call it "wildly inaccurate" but I don't think anyone calls it dubious, especially not our sources Red Slash 19:26, 14 July 2023 (UTC)

18 years later and this article still sucks

Literally 18 years since the first mention of bias in this article and it's still there. A baby born when the first topic was added on this talk page can vote now. The page literally starts saying he was best known for his "pessimistic" and untrue views. I'm going to try to make this article more neutral, but i'm sure that by the end of next month someone will edit it back to it's current state. Qwexcxewq (talk) 02:34, 21 September 2023 (UTC)

Would you argue that his views are... uh... not untrue? Red Slash 19:35, 21 September 2023 (UTC)

He's not notable for his "views", but rather his predictions.

His most famous predictions include that all marine life would end before the new millennium arrived, that England would cease to exist, and that mass worldwide famines were inevitable.

How would you classify these predictions? Do you not consider them pessimistic? Or inaccurate? Red Slash 20:00, 21 September 2023 (UTC)

This is not what he is notable for at all. He is notable for his work in population biology. Viriditas (talk) 02:51, 7 October 2023 (UTC)

Really? That runs counter to what the wealth of reliable sources that we have says. Red Slash 20:25, 7 October 2023 (UTC)

Here is the biographical entry from the Encyclopedia Britannica. Please pay attention to the differences between their article and our own. Viriditas (talk) 20:45, 7 October 2023 (UTC)

It's a blurb. It's 226 words. That's not an article. Red Slash 07:56, 9 October 2023 (UTC)

Google Scholar is instructive, as are his citations and indexes. It does not seem to support your assertion. Viriditas (talk) 08:48, 9 October 2023 (UTC)

I mean, he was objectively wrong in his predictions: [2]. I do think that undue weight is given to it. It should maybe come a bit further down in the lede, and maybe have the wording tweaked a bit -- especially the hostile tone. Maybe, instead of:

"Paul Ralph Ehrlich (born May 29, 1932) is an American biologist best known for his pessimistic and inaccurate predictions and warnings about the consequences of population growth and limited resources."

We change it to:

"Paul Ralph Ehrlich (born May 29, 1932) is an American biologist. He is best known for his book, The Population Bomb, in which he inaccurately predicted resource depletion and widespread famine as a result of population growth."

How does that sound? Any revisions? Thoughts? Professor Penguino (talk) 02:35, 11 October 2023 (UTC)

That's pretty good, honestly. I see how that addresses the concerns of other people without devolving into the hagiography of the article as I found it eight months ago, or the glossing over of how his claim to fame was based on false predictions. While it isn't the lead I'd write if this were my own article (which obviously it isn't), it's pretty stinking good. Red Slash 17:02, 11 October 2023 (UTC)

Thanks! If no one objects, I'll add it to the lede. Professor Penguino (talk) 19:02, 11 October 2023 (UTC)

@Professor Penguino: You may want to look carefully at the concerns expressed on this page and in the page history, with special attention paid to the sources used by Red Slash for the last "eight months" they have edit warred and violated NPOV and turned this article into a hit piece. It was not a hagiography when they arrived here, it was well sourced and well referenced. Your agreement to alter the lead to the satisfaction of Red Slash, the very person who has written the NPOV-violating version under discussion with poor sourcing, does not sit well with me. The better solution is to revert to the pre-Red Slash version and start from there.[3] Please take a look at that version and make suggestions. The current version is not acceptable and uses unreliable sources like Bjørn Lomborg and others. Viriditas (talk) 20:32, 11 October 2023 (UTC)

I have read the above message. I will reply when I have a moment. Professor Penguino (talk) 08:06, 12 October 2023 (UTC)

I agree with Viriditas, and in fact made the same suggestion months ago.--C.J. Griffin (talk) 15:56, 12 October 2023 (UTC)

I would first like to note that my proposed changes to the lede were not just for Red Slash, I was trying to make the lede more NPOV. You can feel free to workshop it if you want. I think what needs to be done is a quick review of all the article's sources (especially that unreliable one you mentioned), although I'm not sure how reverting the page to what it was 8 months ago would work. We can wait from input from other editors. This article definitely doesn't adhere to WP:NPOV standards. Professor Penguino (talk) 21:11, 12 October 2023 (UTC)

... I didn't think that counting to eight would be controversial.

I have not "turned it into a hit piece"; I have made edits that present the subject accurately per the reliable sources that have been gathered here.

I have absolutely not "edit warred"; I have made edits, people have disagreed and reverted me, I have explained myself on the talk page, people have failed to respond (perhaps because their arguments are indefensible?) and then I've simply carried out the original edits I made.

I hear the arguments that this article has a POV but I note that every time I've asked for any quotes of text that are actually POV, nobody's provided any (other than "wildly", used to describe "inaccurate", which I myself ultimately removed from the article lead), and I simply don't see it, and nobody has pointed it out, either. I think this article is as impartial as one can be about someone whose claim to fame is based completely on a series of bold, eye-catching and largely inaccurate assertions and predictions. Red Slash 20:41, 13 October 2023 (UTC)

You have edit warred, it is logged in the article history, you have repeatedly added and re-added edits against consensus, and you keep doing this in violation of our most basic policies. Stop. You just now reinstated disputed edits against three editors on this page.[4][5] Viriditas (talk) 20:46, 13 October 2023 (UTC)

I am still waiting for any reason why it's incorrect to mention that the predictions for which he is famous are pessimistic and incorrect. Red Slash 20:48, 13 October 2023 (UTC)

No, I am not playing this game. The problem with your edits has been repeatedly explained to you over the last year. There are three people in this discussion who disagree with you. We do not have to wait for you to "get it". Viriditas (talk) 20:50, 13 October 2023 (UTC)

I continue waiting for any reason why it's incorrect to mention that the predictions for which he is famous are pessimistic and incorrect. Eight months, still waiting. Red Slash 20:55, 13 October 2023 (UTC)

You've been given answers to your questions, over and over again, for the last year. C.J. Griffin directly answered you up above on this page in February; you edit warred throughout the year against multiple editors who disagreed with your failure to adhere to NPOV. This was recently explained to you on the NPOV noticeboard with no sign of understanding. You are engaging in "I didn't hear that", which is categorized as disruptive editing. "Editors who persistently disrupt Wikipedia, knowingly or unknowingly, may be blocked or banned indefinitely." Asking the same question, over and over again, when you've already been given answers, is disruption. Look at the number of Wikipedia editors up above who disagree with your edits. I will list them here for you. Viriditas (talk) 21:02, 13 October 2023 (UTC)

It's called WP:EDITORIALIZING. Yes, many of his predictions were inaccurate, but saying "pessimistic" and "obvious flaws" is just POV language. It's like puffery, but the other way around. Professor Penguino (talk) 23:57, 13 October 2023 (UTC)

It's not necessarily incorrect. It's out of place to put POV wording in the article. Fine, you can list all the stuff he was objectively wrong about. But the tone of the article is unencyclopedic. Professor Penguino (talk) 01:05, 14 October 2023 (UTC)

Erroneously

So, I'm a little confused. If someone comes to this article for the first time and they read this:

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. Ehrlich is the Bing Professor Emeritus of Population Studies of the Department of Biology of Stanford University, and President of Stanford's Center for Conservation Biology. Ehrlich became well known for the controversial 1968 book The Population Bomb, which he co-authored with his wife Anne H. Ehrlich, in which they famously stated that "[i]n the 1970s hundreds of millions of people will starve to death in spite of any crash programs embarked upon now."

Don't you think that it might be... just a little bit of interest to the reader... to know whether or not this predictions were true or not? Did hundreds of millions of people starve to death in the 1970s? Don't you think that just might be relevant? Red Slash 20:47, 13 October 2023 (UTC)

You need to take a break from this article. Take this article off your watchlist, stop repeating the same thing over and over on the talk page, and go do something else for a while. Viriditas (talk) 20:48, 13 October 2023 (UTC)

List of users opposing edits by Red Slash

This list excludes logged-out IPs. The list of user names is extracted only from the above talk page discussion on this page and may not represent additional opposes in the article history based on reverts or opposing edits.

Oppose

1. @JGT Webb:
2. @SouthernResidentOrca:
3. @Kamtal75:
4. @Tristario:
5. @DeepNorth:
6. @Qwexcxewq:
7. @Viriditas:
8. @Professor Penguino:
9. @C.J. Griffin:

Total: Nine opposes.

Ehrlich's role in forced sterilization of millions?

This article and the already-cited book by Dowbiggin (2008) provide credible allegations of Ehrlich's role in encouraging the forced sterilization of hundreds of thousands of people in the United States, and of millions of people in India. Yet this (surely noteworthy) topic does not yet appear in Ehrlich's article. The article already quotes Ehrlich as publishing that "We must have population control at home ... by compulsion if voluntary methods fail. We must use our political power to push other countries into ... population control." But it does not cover the results in the world of his push for compulsory sterilization. Gnuish (talk) 20:59, 15 October 2023 (UTC)

I don't think Astral Codex Ten is a reliable source for our use on Wikipedia, but Ian Dowbiggin appears reliable. You might want to take your defense of Astral Codex Ten to the reliable sources noticeboard if you so desire. Your question in the heading, "Ehrlich's role in forced sterilization of millions?" appears highly sensationlistic and polemical. Looking at Dowbiggin (2008) with the book in front of me, I see the following:

• Ehrlich is described as one of the "luminaries of the birth control movement" (p. 3)
• Ehrlich once belonged to the group EngenderHealth (p. 4)
• Hugh Moore, "inventor of the Dixie Cup and the most outspoken American advocate of population control...coined the term 'the population bomb" before it was popularized in 1968 by biologist Paul Ehrlich" (p. 10).
• "Long before media-savvy demographers such as Paul and Anne Ehrlich began warning, in the 1960s, that overpopulation would lead to mass starvation, [William] Vogt was predicting environmental, political, and social disasters if human breeding was not dramatically curtailed." (p. 111)
• "By the late 1960s, HBAA had become such a group, closely identified with activist figures such as Paul Ehrlich (see insert), author of The Population Bomb (1968), and the antinatalist organization Zero Population Growth." (p. 114)
• "In 1954, long before Paul Ehrlich made the 'population bomb' a household phrase with the title of his 1968 bestseller, [Hugh] Moore coined the term in one of his booklets warning about the dangers of overpopulation." (p. 115)
• "In the evening of October 1, 1969, Hugh Moore, president of the Association for Voluntary Sterilization (AVS), was in a buoyant mood. As he approached the microphone at New York City’s Carnegie Endowment Center, he gazed at the overflow audience, which included television host Ed Sullivan; entertainer Arthur Godfrey; feminist author Betty Friedan; and Stanford University biologist Paul Ehrlich, author of the 1968 bestseller The Population Bomb." (p. 135)
• "Caroline Rulon 'Lonny' Myers was another example of an activist whose sterilization advocacy combined issues of population, environmentalism, sexual freedom, women’s liberation, and reproductive rights...In 1969, she heard Paul Ehrlich speak, and 'the urgency hit me': she realized her interests in sex education, birth control, and women’s emancipation dovetailed with population concerns." (p. 152)
• "Fears about population growth were fanned by such books as Make Room! Make Room! (1967) and Logan’s Run (1967), which described grim, futuristic scenarios of severe overcrowding and increasingly scarce resources. The same theme appeared in Paul Ehrlich’s The Population Bomb, published in 1968 by the Sierra Club through Ballantine Books. Within two years the book went through thirteen editions. Ehrlich, whose research Hugh Moore helped to fund, borrowed the book title from Moore's pamphlet published a decade and a half earlier. Ehrlich argued that the world faced mass starvation in the next ten years if governments did not commit themselves to zero population growth. Rejecting what he called 'sugarcoated solutions,' Ehrlich proposed legislation in the form of taxes on families with more than two children, as well as financial incentives for individuals to undergo sterilization. If that struck readers as 'coercion,' he wrote, it was 'coercion in a good cause.' Ehrlich practiced what he preached: in 1963 he underwent a vasectomy after the birth of his only child." (pp. 153-154)
• "Nixon's comments and the publication of The Population Bomb set the stage for Hugh Moore’s 1969 AVS-sponsored conference on conservation and voluntary sterilization. Attendees included Donald J. Zinn of the National Wildlife Federation; Roland C. Clement, vice-president of the National Audubon Society; and Richard H. Goodwin, president of the Conservation and Research Foundation. Ehrlich told the conference that "the first thing that anyone who wishes to consider himself a conservationist should do is stop having children.'" (p. 154)

To summarize, I see nothing about Ehrlich and forced sterilization in Dowbiggin's book anywhere, but an enormous amount of material regarding voluntary sterilization. How do you explain this discrepancy between what you've claimed and what the evidence shows? Viriditas (talk) 21:42, 15 October 2023 (UTC)

Re-editing this page

I came across this page and have wanted to adopt it because I think it's in a terrible state. There is a lot of disjointed editorialising, which apart from not being encyclopedic, makes it hard to read. So I've started trying to rehabilitate bits of it, but wanted to leave a note here in case anyone is concerned or just wants to know the general gist of where my edits are going.

Firstly, I'm not here to get rid of criticisms of Paul Ehrlich. Not only does he richly deserve some criticism, but much of that criticism appears copiously in published reliable sources. However, not every iteration of every failed prediction needs to be reported and refuted here. Moreover, 90% of the time it's the same prediction - the rising population will kill us all, very soon, mainly through famine. So this page could and should be considerably shorter.

Secondly, criticisms (and support, which unfortunately also exists in copious quantities) need to be attributed. Wikipedia's voice doesn't need to point out that a prediction was failed, even when it's an obvious truth (we didn't all die of famine in the 1970s).

Thirdly, my proposal is largely to get rid of the "After 2000s" section and to narrowly tailor the writings section to talk about the reception of the books (and not so much of the ideas in the books), while merging all the support and criticism of his views and predictions into the "Reception" section which I think should be re-named - maybe to "Views & Activism".

Of course anyone else is free to edit at any time in any way they like, but I put this here in the hope that if anyone has alternative directions or suggestions, we can do this collaboratively. Samuelshraga (talk) 13:04, 13 March 2024 (UTC)