Cornucopians and their magical thinking

We are all subject to bouts of magical thinking. The classic and most widespread form of this is to confuse correlation with causation. One can see it in daily life: Objects such as rabbits’ feet, special stones, and certain “lucky” pieces of clothing are presumed to be the cause of whatever good fortune comes to the holder or wearer.

One can see it in commentary on financial markets: Presidential election years in the United States are bullish for the stock market as if for some arcane and indecipherable reason, presidential elections cause the stock market to go up.


Another form is the belief that the mind can affect the physical world. If we wish for something hard enough (as opposed to taking concrete steps to achieve it), it will happen.

And, so it is with the cornucopian thinker. He (or she) explains that most accepted measures of human well-being have been rising since 1800. But so has population. Ergo, population increases simply cannot result in human misery in the future. The correlation–a rise in living standards while population increased–means that rising populations cause beneficial things to happen to most human beings. (Never mind that fossil fuel usage was increasing exponentially during most of this period. And, never mind that the cornucopian only considers human well-being, especially the ability of humans to extract their needs from nature in the short run. Never is the long-term health of the ecosphere on which all humans depend seriously considered.)

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