Biomedical Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Teachable moment: the dismal scientist versus the
technological optimist
British political economist Robert Malthus
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(1766-1834)
predicted that starvation would result as projected
population growth exceeded the rate of increase in the
food supply. His forecast was based on the population
growth at an exponential rate whereas the food supply
growth rate would be linear. These predictions greatly
underestimated the role of technology in increasing the
global food supply, causing many to doubt such economic
models. In a later incarnation of Malthusian thinking, Paul
Ehrlich's
Population Bomb
gives an exceedingly grim
prognosis for the future:
Malthus' pessimistic predictive framework earned for
economics the nickname of ''dismal science.'' Conversely,
engineers look upon the same problems with more of
a technical optimism. Engineers ''mess up'' the Malthusian
curve by finding ways to accomplish this (e.g., Borlaug
spoiling Ehrlich's predictions). And, such positions lead to
moral arguments as when Ehrlich criticizes the Pope for
saying ''You must strive to multiply bread so that it suffices
for the tables of mankind and not, rather, favor an artificial
control of birth, which would be irrational, in order to
diminish the number of guests at the banquet of life.''
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Ehrlich feels that this representative bread cannot indeed
be multiplied: ''Can we expect great increases in food
production to occur through the placing of more land under
cultivation? The answer to this specific question is most
definitely no.''
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The truth is, however, that Borlaug did in
fact foresee ways to multiply the bread and, that engineers
feel that they can continue to design technologies that help
to support the growing population and the expanding
needs of mankind. In
The Engineer of 2020,
the NAE
describes various ways that engineers in the future will help
solve the very same problems Ehrlich (and the Malthusian
model in general) is concerned with. Where Ehrlich felt
technology's role in solving the problem would only be
seen through how ''improved technology has greatly
increased the potential of war as a population control
device,''
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engineers look toward technology not as
a ''means for self-extermination''
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but rather as an option
for supporting and improving life in the future.
Having examined Ehrlich's prognosis from 1970s and
1980s, consider now a prognosis made by engineers for
a new future. According to
The Engineer of 2020,
the
world's population will approach 8 billion people; much of
this increase will be seen in groups that are today
considered underdeveloped countries, mainly in Asia and
Africa. Apparently, ''by 2015, and for the first time in history,
the majority of people, mostly poor will reside in urban
centers, mostly in countries that lack the economic, social,
and physical infrastructures to support a burgeoning
population.''
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Engineers, however, see an opportunity for
''the application of thoughtfully constructed solutions
through the work of engineers''
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in the challenge posed by
the highly crowded and densely populated world of 2020.
Likewise, engineers look upon the necessity for improved
health care delivery in the world of the future with
confidence. They feel that they will be able to make
advanced medical technologies accessible to this ever-
growing global population base. In the developed world of
twenty years from now they see positive implications on
human health, due to improved air quality and the control
and cleanup of hazardous waste sites, and focused efforts
to treat diseases like malaria and AIDS.
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Each year food production in underdeveloped countries
falls a bit further behind burgeoning population growth,
and people go to bed a little hungrier. While there are
temporary or local reversals of this trend, it now seems
inevitable that it will continue to its logical conclusion:
mass starvation.
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Not only does Ehrlich state that the world is headed toward
calamity, he is convinced that there is nothing anyone really
can do that will provide anything more than temporary
abatement. Ehrlich's attitude toward technology as part of
the solution to the impending problem is technological
pessimism, so to speak. Ehrlich's lack of confidence in
technology to deal with the problems plaguing the future is
perhaps seenmost explicitly in his statement: ''But, you say,
surely Science (with a capital ''S'') will find a way for us to
occupy the other planets of our solar system and eventually
of other stars before we get all that crowded.''
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Ehrlich was
sure that ''the battle to feed humanity is over.'' He insisted
that India would be unable to provide sustenance for the
200-million-person growth in its population by 1980. Hewas
wrong - thanks to biotechnologists like Norman Borlaug.
Borlaug and his team engaged in a program that developed
a special breed of dwarf wheat that was resistant to a wide
spectrum of plant pests and diseases and that produced
two or three times more grain mass than the traditional
varieties. His team then taught local farmers in both India
and Pakistan how to cultivate the new strain of wheat. This
astonishing increase in the production of wheat within a few
years has come to be called the green revolution, its
inception credited to Borlaug.
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Since 1968, when Ehrlich
published his frightful predictions, ''India's population has
more than doubled, its wheat production has more than
tripled, and its economy has grown nine-fold.''
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Pakistan
has progressed from harvesting 3.4 million tons of wheat
each year to around 18 million tons, and India has made
similar impressive movement from 11 million tons to 60
million tons.
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Continued
