by shortonsense » Sun 02 Aug 2009, 21:42:13
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Auntie_Cipation', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('shortonsense', 'C')ertainly do not take some random poster on the internets word for anything.
I would never. But some direction as to where I'd find a discussion that you feel authentically discredits any of these folks would have been appreciated.
I see.
Then let me list the following. Malthus expressed population growth as an exponential function, which it was not, and is not. By then claiming to match an exponential function to an arithmetic one, he had an obviously predictable, and horrendous, and wrong, result.
A lesser error on his part was underestimating something which is much easier to see today, which is the application of clever monkeys to any particular problem, and the resulting efficiencies.
The incorrect function might not seem like much, but it led Malthus to the basic premise that population growth will outrun food production growth. This premise has been recycled ever since, usually without consideration for why it didn't pan out the first time it was declared.
Jevons predicted the end of England because of the lack of coal in the future. Here is a wiki quote:
"Coal in truth stands not beside but entirely above all other commodities. It is the material energy of the country — the universal aid — the factor in everything we do. With coal almost any feat is possible or easy; without it we are thrown back into the laborious poverty of early times. With such facts familiarly before us, it can be no matter of surprise that year by year we make larger draughts upon a material of such myriad qualities — of such miraculous powers."
Read that quote carefully....substitute oil for coal and you might think Campbell wrote it himself.
Heres another wiki good one.
"In the increasing depth and difficulty of coal mining we shall meet that vague, but inevitable boundary that will stop our progress."
Someone lecturing on how EROEI will stop us monkeys 150 years ago...gee...I wonder what all that stuff is we burn in powerplants for electricity nowadays?
Heres the part which ended up torpedoing Jevons.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Substitute_goodIt may not be his fault, because I don't even know if the concept had been incorporated into proto-economics during his lifetime, so he may be forgiven for not suspecting it could torpedo him. In either case, torpedo him it did. Nowadays its easy to see substitutes for crude, and how we can use them, and to estimate their costs. A large part of peakerdom now is to discredit them if at all possible...although its not working as well as it used to.
Ehrlich effectively recycled Malthus, except he put firm dates and human deaths in his predictions. Unfortunate for him. I consider Ehrlich the first guy who really should have known better in all of this, and him losing the belt to Simon was just icing on the cake.
Duncan pulled a real boner. In 1999 when he presented to GSA, the evidence for the sizes and shapes of shale gas was already 20 years old. The resource pyramid was a known concept. People had been producing the shales for a century. Duncan chose to ignore the science which was already in the publis view, proclaimed the end of the world because of lack of natural gas in 2008...and now we are drowning in the stuff. Duncan is a smart guy and a full blown scientist, sometimes there is no cure for myopia.
Those are the basics.
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Auntie_Cipation', '
')If you don't care to share your sources, that's fine. I'll keep my ears open for reasons to discredit them, but in the meantime, sadly, what you're saying has no meaning to me.
I have shared. Feel free to decide for yourself.