"Description misrepresented as endorsement": Bludgeoning Obama's science advisor with a 1977 textbook

The sad thing here is that Carpenter's story, like the extremist blog post that appears to be her only source (which I'll discuss later), doesn't recognize the distinction between talking about something and endorsing something.

This is one of the main cognitive pathologies of sick-fuck right-wing wackaloon America-hating scumbags.

Thanks for clearing this up. When I first heard about the textbook, I figured that there was probably more to the story.

Yeah - definitely more to the story. I encourage you to read the full pages from the chapter; you can actually find them at the zombietime blog post I've linked to. Although they cherrypick quotes in the post itself, they do supply jpgs of the entire textbook pages. I have to give them respect for doing that, especially since the content of the full pages undermines their arguments.

Yes! A fantastic and important post. Thank you for taking the time to call out such dishonest journalism. This paragraph is key:

The sad thing here is that Carpenter's story, like the extremist blog post that appears to be her only source (which I'll discuss later), doesn't recognize the distinction between talking about something and endorsing something. That distinction is absolutely central to science: science is all about discussing, testing, and evaluating many possibilities - hypotheses - until the evidence endorses one hypothesis over the others. It's also central to policy, in which multiple policy options are described prior to one being recommended. In fact, this distinction is central to all academic fields. Does a historian comparing the draconian regimes of Hitler, Mussolini and Kim Jong Il automatically support totalitarianism? Highly unlikely - unless the historian actually says he/she advocates a dictator's policies.

A sample of how wingnut media is handling this story:

Obama Science Czar Envisioned `Planetary Regime' of Forced Abortion, Sterilization

The same line is being taken by anti-abortion crusaders, Tony Perkins of Family Research Council, pseudopundit Michelle Malkin, motormouth Rick Scarborough, and of course WorldNutDaily.

Yeah, the guy was just suggesting and any policy is not apparent. I respect your article's skepticism. But when many towns drinking water have traces of pharmaceuticals, whether or not they are run-off, the coincidence is too big to be ignored and it always is.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/03/10/health/main3920454.shtml

Now, I'm not stupid enough to call this proof because the CBS article doesn't mention anything about sterilization, but it does mention sex hormones. And this article about sex hormones possibly causing infertility in British men makes it a little scarier.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-396612/Third-male-fish-rivers-c…

Now we could bicker all day long about locality and context and blah blah blah. The point is that although there is the very possibility of all this being a coincidence, that's no excuse for pharmaceutical hormones in the water, NONE. This is beyond trite left-right wing political debate, this is everyone's future. All I want to know is where can I get a fresh glass of water that isn't overpriced or exploited; and why is some guy who thoroughly analyzed population control in the white house at the same time that sterilizing hormones are possibly flowing into my sink??

Unfortunately, the Johnson C. Montgomery they cite was not some legal scholar or authority, whom one might reasonably cite in a textbook, but just Paul Ehrlich's personal attorney. Ehrlich founded Zero Population Growth, and Montgomery was a member and like-minded individual right from the beginning. The citation was not some legal scholar, but this just this lawyer they knew who happened to agree with them.

In fact, what's in Ecoscience is simply a sequel to Ehrlich's 1968 book The Population Bomb, where he first argued for compulsory population control, right in the prolog. He also argued for a government research program to develop agents for mass involuntary sterilization, and argued the US should support a proposed program in India for coerced compulsory vasectomies for men who had more than 3 children, something that was later adopted with horrible results by Indira Gandhi.

When they co-wrote Ecoscience, Holdren and Ehrlich had already been collaborating for almost a decade, and continued to collaborate for at least two decades after. Holdren was under no illusions about what Ehrlich stood for; Ehrlich has never been shy about broadcasting his opinion. There is absolutely no doubt that what is in Ecoscience is advocacy, very poorly disguised as academic writing.

And, BTW, you co-author something, and you are jointly and severally responsible for its contents. If a co-author writes something in a paper I happen to disagree with, we either change it, or I take my name off.

Bob: umm. . . are you implying that the Bush or Clinton or Bush Sr. Administrations put pharmaceuticals in drinking water to sterilize us? I think that's highly unlikely. Are there pharmaceuticals in drinking water? Yes, it's a nasty environmental problem with uncertain effects on health. But it certainly predates the Obama Administration, and I've never heard any credible suggestion that it's being done deliberately.

Gerard: Your point about co-authorship is well taken. Certainly Holdren is responsible for what is actually stated in the textbook, although it is rarely the third author who chooses the precise wording, so it's more responsible to ascribe quotes from this text to "Ehrlich and his coauthors" than to "Holdren" alone. Anyway, my point is simply that the textbook passages cited in the blog post do not support the inflammatory assertions made in the blog post or in the Washington Times.

Now, if the blog post had argued the point you do - that citing Montgomery was biased and misleading, since he was not a respected mainstream source - that might be a reasonable criticism. If so, it's certainly one the book's editor should have brought up in 1977. But that's not what the blog post does - it simply leaves Montgomery's name out to make it look like those are "Holdren's" own personal arguments. That's misleading. And so on.

I don't know about putting chemosterilants in the water, but I do think someone has been putting chemostupidity agents in the water. How else to explain this article, and the fact that people actually read the Washington Times?

Sorry, there is no excuse for this kind of pseudo-science babble.

A person who has limited to zero knowledge of the field of population/demography should not be commenting on it in the first place.

Most countries are not meeting replacement levels.

Forced sterilizations and abortions without the woman's consent are not a path I think would even be reasonable topic for discussion.

I don't believe subjugation of women is a suitable academic topic. Human rights of all individuals should be considered. I really would like to know where is guy received his training. Probably some school that doesn't "believe in evolution."

The fact that this book was written thirty years ago misses the point. From the tone of the book, and I admit I have only seen the excerpts; the authors seem to have accepted the premise that unchecked global population growth would result in a crises situation necessitating drastic solutions. I remember the arguments made at the time; by the year 2000 we would not be able to feed much less have other resources needed to support the billions of peopleon the planet. The fact that Holdren will be setting policy on today's crises de jour, manmade climate change, is scary given how he viewed the "coming" population bomb back then.

There's also fluoxetine (Prozac) in the drinking water. Does this mean the government is trying to cure depression?

(New reader, btw. I think I'll continueâ¦)

I take several issues with your argument. For one, the fact that Holdren is simply a third author shouldn't be a reason for absolving his name. It's as if the administration and their acolytes are suggesting that Holdren "virtually" had no part in it. Another point the administration mentions is the idea that Holdren supports non-coercive measures first and draconian measures if those are deemed failures by the administration. Sadly, the government doesn't always play by the rules or do what is best for the people. To force abortions on people is criminal and should always be viewed as such. In no way is it ethical or constitutional for people to be robbed of their children or for the government to add sterilizing agents to the water supply. The Supreme Court may one day legislate that things like these look to be constitutional, but as we all know, their reasoning has been fallible in many areas regardless of what party you vote for. And that's my point, the government is nothing more than a collection of fallible people pretending that they are not as fallible as the laity and thus can better decide even when the matters are personal.
I take offense with your remark that nay-sayers couldn't find anything sensational in Holdren's past so they had to dig up this one. I find it odd that more media coverage wasn't given to Holdren's suggestion of engineering the climate by seeding the atmosphere with aerosol particulates in hopes of reflecting sunlight. I think there was mention of even creating an artificial volcano (i.e. playing God). We don't have to look much further than the failed species introductions in Australia (starlings and cane toads) to see that just because "Science" says its possible to tamper with nature, that it doesn't always mean that it is, in fact, a good idea. The idea that some noted scientists suggest fighting pollution with more pollution astounds me. How are we so dumb so as to believe such tripe? It doesn't matter because when he caught some heat for it, he recanted his suggestions. Oddly, he seems to have a habit of positing extreme suggestions as "last resorts" and then backpedaling from them if the going gets rough. Finally, if he isn't an extremist than he wouldn't have spent his career associating with the like of a fear mongering charlatan like Paul Ehrlich. Ehrlich is the one who stated that 4 billion people would starve to death in the 1980's and that Americans would have a lifespan of 45 years by the start of the 21st century. Or what about this direct quote from the final chapter of his most famous work, Population Bomb, "(We need) compulsory birth regulation... (through) the addition of temporary sterilants to water supplies or staple food. Doses of the antidote would be carefully rationed by the government to produce the desired family size." And yet, Ehrlich and Holdren are somehow being mischaracterized. Not very likely, mate.

John Holdren is trained as a nuclear physicist. What he was doing writing a book on environmental science is an interesting question to start with.

I have no doubt the person who was primarily responsible for citing his personal attorney as an authoritative source on the constitutionality of forced abortion was Ehrlich, and Ehrlich was the one who had in the past advocated compulsory forced sterilization and other means of compulsory population control. And it is clear that in 'Ecoscience', what was passed off as a dispassionate discussion of population control measures, was in fact a presentation of many of Ehrlich's own positions. I have no doubt that Ehrlich sought Holdren as a coauthor because some of the material Ecoscience covered was outside his realm of expertise as a biologist. Mind you, it's not clear Holdren was much more qualified to write about it either, though IME a subfraction of physicists consider themselves experts on any system for which they can write down a Hamiltonian.

The point is, though, that Holdren has chosen to work closely with Ehrlich for over a quarter of a century. He signed his name to this book, and signed on to the idea that population growth was pushing humanity to imminent disaster. This seriously impeaches his scientific judgment; and even entertaining the sorts of authoritarian and frankly scary measures discussed in Ecoscience impeaches his judgment as a policy advisor, and IMHO, a human being.

And while it's a useful deflection to shoot the messenger, nobody needs to believe the Washington Times or Michelle Malkin, if they don't want to. They can go to their local university library, or even local lending library, and check out Ecoscience for themselves.

"They can go to their local university library, or even local lending library, and check out Ecoscience for themselves."

An excellent suggestion, Gerard. Although again, I would be careful making the assumption that Holdren still holds the same views now as in 1977. One presumes most people, right or wrong, do revise and update their opinions in the course of three decades. :)

"even entertaining the sorts of authoritarian and frankly scary measures discussed in Ecoscience impeaches his judgment as a policy advisor, and IMHO, a human being."

Could you clarify your position on this? For example, do you think China's One Child Policy is "authoritarian and frankly scary," and if so, do you think Holdren should not discuss this policy - even though China's actually doing it? More to the point, how do we decide what policies are so "scary" they should not be discussed, even in an academic setting?

The point of my post is that discussing extreme policies in the abstract, in a textbook, is very different than actually pushing them as legislation. The two should not be conflated. Given that a lot of nations in the world have instituted "authoritarian and frankly scary" policies, I'd much prefer to discuss (and reject!) these policies, than to ignore them and pretend they'll never be on the table. Does that attitude impeach my judgment and credentials as a human being? :)

Pop journalism is pretty much off the rails as it is these days, and it's certainly not unusual for 'journalists' (using the name lightly) to source decades old material as if it were current.. or use poeple's old opinions in a contemporary context.

You could do the same with anyone and anything and achieve similar effects, in 1997 I said I wasn't really interested in the internet because I can't see the point of it.

@ Gerard Harbison
Discussing ideas in a college textbook impeaches someones judgement? I don't have the energy to refute your assertion. All I can do is recommend a rethinking of what a university education is all about. It is a place of questionable ideas of all sorts.

@Jessica Palmer #15
Much more eloquently put than my attempt at a reply to that same comment.

Nice blog btw, I think I'll be back.

@Jessica

With all due respect (I understand the frustration with folks conflating issues in a constantly-partisan way, it's everywhere in 2009, and tiresome on all political sides) this is the SCIENCE CZAR that we're talking about. The person Obama selected to be the Director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy has a 35 year history of publications with Paul Ehrlich (up until at least 1995).

Ehrlich's track record on environmental science is, to put it mildly, poor. One could call it "astonishingly divergent from observed conditions in the natural world" and not be exaggerating. And that's without placing a moral judgement on his population control ideas.

It's troubling, at a minimum.

The problem with the White House's statement is that Holdren (and the Ehrlichs) were pushing compulsory population control in the book 'Human Ecology', in 1973, which was not a college textbook, and includes strong and personal policy advocacy. They said it was an unpalatable idea, but had to be considered because alternatives might be much more horrifying. Of course, it was about this time Paul Ehrlich was predicting the US population in 2000 would be 22 million as a result of overcrowding and ecological disasters. BTW, in 1973, they argued for sterilization of women with more than 3 kids.

I know several people who have been personally impacted by One Child, and I think it's a grossly inhumane policy. And, apart from anything else, it's resulted in massive abortion of female fetuses and a skewed ratio of the sexes.

If Holdren acknowledged he once held these views and has renounced them, I'd be less critical. But he hasn't, has he? And I think his work in the 1970s evinces a grotesque degree of scientific arrogance, in which he was willing to advocate an intense degree of social authoritarianism based of pseudoscientific ideas that turned out to be grossly in error.

So which ideas would you like to discuss, Jessica? Involuntary mass sterilization? Compulsory abortion or vasectomies of the over-fertile?

Dave, with all due respect right back at ya, if you want to write a post indicting Ehrlich's track record, go for it. You know Ehrlich's record is not what I'm talking about in this post. I'm talking about deliberate misrepresentation of a text in the media to make political hay, and I have a problem with that - no matter who does it.

"So which ideas would you like to discuss, Jessica? Involuntary mass sterilization? Compulsory abortion or vasectomies of the over-fertile?"

In an academic setting, I think it's good to discuss all of these ideas, Gerard. Discussion is the best way to identify the flaws, unforeseen impacts, and implicit assumptions in these kinds of policies, and to understand what political, social, and historical effects they have on nations that do implement them. I also think it's good to discuss the Holocaust, sterilization of the mentally handicapped, Tuskegee, and the epidemic of rape in Africa. Though I find all of these discussions painful and depressing, I think it's far better to talk about them than pretend they don't exist, or couldn't happen, simply because we find them horrific.

@Jessica

Holdren is the co-author here (and on multiple publications with Ehrlich). The records not only overlap they are one in the same on many occasions. I acknowledged your main point up front and still made my comment. Think about that.

The exact point of this entire post - conflation of actual science and politics - is why I have a problem with John Holdren in the first place.

(My wording was not meant to offend, btw. Likely a poor choice of Sopranos phrasing.)

Interesting that you referred to "Population Bomb" as just a text book. I remember that book back in the very early 70's (way before 1977) and it wasn't a text book then. I read it as did everyone else I knew then from college, and it was very alarming. We feared a future with an overgrown planet short on resources, starvation, etc because there would be too many people. In fact, a couple of young men I knew (in their early twenties) were so affected by this book that they got vascetomies. So, from what I remember it wasn't just a text book, but a popular book that scared a lot of people, myself included.

Donna, I don't think anyone here did refer to Ehrlich's Population Bomb as a textbook. The post is about a textbook cowritten by Holdren and the Ehrlichs, which is called Ecoscience.

Rubbish.

It is clear from the Holdren's own writings that this is more than hypothetical postulation.

Take this quote for example:

âIndeed, it has been concluded that compulsory population-control laws, even including laws requiring compulsory abortion, could be sustained under the existing Constitution if the population crisis became sufficiently severe to endanger the society.â

Concluded by who exactly? If he were simply postulating on potential remedies to overpopulation (regardless of how immoral or criminal) why does he bring the Constitution into it?

And this:

âIn todayâs world, however, the number of children in a family is a matter of profound public concern. The law regulates other highly personal matters. For example, no one may lawfully have more than one spouse at a time. Why should the law not be able to prevent a person from having more than two children?â

The point is that from this man's writings we can see that he has no moral objection to bending the law to meet goals of depopulation. That is the whole point. Firstly, the entire premise he presents is false and has been proven to be false. Secondly, his reinterpretations of the law is completely false. No sorry, compulsory abortion is NOT constituional. I don't see any part of the Constitution that mentions it at all.

This man has also proved his basic mental instability with his talk of geo-engineering by shooting pollutants into the atmosphere. If that is not a mad scientist then I don't know what is.

People, you need to go watch the film, Endgame, free on YouTube. This film clearly chronicles the history of eugenics and shows that the eugenics movement clearly mirrors the writings of Holdren. Holdren is a mad eugenicist. It's quite clear to any sane individual after watching that film.

"Take this quote for example: âIndeed, it has been concluded that compulsory population-control laws, even including laws requiring compulsory abortion, could be sustained under the existing Constitution if the population crisis became sufficiently severe to endanger the society.â Concluded by who exactly?"

I'm "WrongAgain?" Uh-huh. YOU apparently didn't even read my post (the one you're commenting on), since "concluded by who exactly" is one of the central points I discuss. Sigh...

For added value here's the original work in question for any and all's perusal:

http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=98156598

Best to all...

Jessica, others have clearly made the point that Holdren holds extreme views based on premises that history has clearly demonstrated wrong. He also advocates draconian and totalitarian government action based on his faulty premises. Actual implementation of those propositions could only be implemented by a rabid, tyranical government. It is truly frightening that he has accepted the role of science czar and has the ability to influence national policy via the Presidency. Do not forget that he advocates that you should be sterilized and even have any children you bear taken from you, by force if necessary. These are not hypothetical discussions. These are discussions about who can live and who can have children only at the whims of government. The people having these discussions are not excluded from the affected population.

One could certainly argue that high fertility rates correlate with extremely poor financial outcomes, if UN figures are trustworthy:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_and_territories_by_ferti…

The nations with highest fertility rates also are lousy places for women's rights and education, which isn't any surprise.

Jessica, defending the indefensible is a thankless and futile task, even when somebody is on your side politically. I hope President Obama cuts Holdren loose soon. He's been wrong about way too many things for way too many years to be viewed as a credible counselor, IMHO. The NYT science section did a piece discussing some rather silly predictions of Holdren's a couple of months ago, but I don't have a link. Google probably has it if you're interested.

@EJohnson

"Jessica, others have clearly made the point that Holdren holds extreme views based on premises that history has clearly demonstrated wrong."

Others have asserted that, but no one has so far offered any proof to support it.

"He also advocates draconian and totalitarian government action based on his faulty premises."

Again, just asserting something does not make it true.

"Actual implementation of those propositions could only be implemented by a rabid, tyranical government."

If I wrote in a book that you could be killed by cyanide, blunt trauma, or drowning, would you honestly believe that I advocate your death? Talking about how something could be done is a very different thing than supporting a course of action.

"It is truly frightening that he has accepted the role of science czar and has the ability to influence national policy via the Presidency."

Yes, since he'll obviously use jedi mind tricks to turn Obama into Kim Jong Il...

"Do not forget that he advocates that you should be sterilized and even have any children you bear taken from you, by force if necessary."

Again, would you care to cite a source for this? As for the rest of your rant, it didn't even make enough sense to rebut.

So following your (incredibly flawed) logic, the Nazi eugenicist race scientists of last century were merely pontificating and postulating and can't be held responsible for the horrors committed by the Nazi regime. According to your (incredibly flawed) logic we should not even be alarmed by talk of totalitarian eugenics and repopulation discussions when they are made in the context of a "scientific" discussion.

Just because it's in an academic setting doesn't mean that every possible option should be discussed without discarding the unacceptable ones.

One commenter mentioned the male/female imbalance in China. In a hypothetical discussion on how to "solve" that problem, it might be proposed that the Chinese government go the simple route and murder enough Chinese males to get the ratio back in balance.

If that "solution" were proposed in a text book without pointing out that it would be immoral and not actually a viable option, it would be completely reasonable for a reader to determine that the authors actually considered it an acceptable option.

At some point you've got to accept that your contortions to try to portray Holdren's words as something other than they were just doesn't hold up to examination. Just because he was nominated by someone on "your side" doesn't mean you need to tie yourself into knots to try to excuse his past.

Holdren has a long history of anti-science totalitarian kookiness and shouldn't be anywhere near steering any sort of policy more important than what he'd like for lunch.

When I first heard about this story, I just assumed it was neo-cons screaming "The Sky is Falling!" again.
It's gotten to the point it's a chore to refute this kind of thing. They're either going to refuse to believe the evidence, or they're going to move on to the next insane idea.

About halfway through your post, I thought "Wow. I bet a conspiracy nut declares we are being sterilized.". I'm not sure what's worse, that I've become so cynical, or that people never fail to live up to it. Admittedly, I was guessing it was going to be a flouride or aluminum nut.

Substitute whatever group in society that ticks you off for the word âpopulationâ in the writing of Holden and his co-authors and it should be clear that they are not academic postulations.

John Holdren was discussing a ridiculous viewpoint on population control that was BUNK from the start.

Much like the "man-made global warming" freak-scientists who demand we listen to them because "we're all gonna die" if we don't.

Rubbish. And your defense of Holdren is rubbish as well.

And now we have another "intellectual" douche-bag in our presidents administration who is worthless.

I disagree with your premise that we should "expect" academics to "calmly and dispassionately" discuss forced abortion and mass sterilization as valid solutions to the problem of over-population.

I will offer a challenge: find me a textbook used in any Women's Studies Department of any American university which discusses sexist policies in America, calmly and dispassionately refering to them as alternative social constructs. Or a textbook in any African-American Studies Department which calmly and dispassionately discusses slavery as a value-neutral government policy for improving productivity in the South. Or worse, a textbook which includes the suggestion that forced slavery of our countries current illegal immigrants could be a means of improving our GNP!

Why on earth would you *expect* forced abortion and mass sterilization to be treated dispassionately? As in the case of sexism or racism in my above challenge, does not dispassionate treatment of these issues indicate, at best, neutrality, and at worst, implicit approval?

"It's gotten to the point it's a chore to refute this kind of thing. "

Yeah, it's not only a chore, it's depressing. Almost no one in the comments is talking about the point of this post - which is about a news story that misrepresents its source materials. Some people appear so convinced that Holdren is evil, they think their beliefs justify this misrepresentation - something like, "who cares what was actually said in the textbook - Holdren is evil anyway so it doesn't matter! Don't try to defend his evil!" As far as I'm concerned, we should judge Holdren's policy recommendations by the actual recommendations he makes - good or bad. The quotes from Ecoscience, with few exceptions, are not recommendations. There are recommendations in Ecoscience, and those would be fair game for Holdren's critics, but so far I've only seen one critical story about Holdren that accurately sifted out the recommendations in Ecoscience from the description. Wish I had the link to that, just to prove that it really *can* be done even if you detest Holdren's politics!

As for the whole "Holdren was totally wrong about environmental disaster!!!!eleventy!!11" argument, yes indeed, he was wrong. But that's a different story. I recommend watching the Senate hearing where Holdren was asked to explain himself:

http://bit.ly/HfP6T

You'll want to start playback around 117 minutes or so.

It amuses me a little that people who just got here instantly assume I'm an apologist for the Obama Administration because i'm pointing out the flaws in these arguments. I've actually never blogged about Holdren before. The hook in this for me was the way the Ecoscience text is being misrepresented.

I think zombietimes has identified some noteworthy statements. To take one the book describes abolishing dependency allowances from student grants and military pay as more repressive than forcing single mothers to marry or have an abortion. There is really no other way to read page 786. This is a value judgement, not a description, and one that I personally find seriously warped.

There is a difference to be sure between description and endorsement. But it is far from clear that the book we are discussing falls on the description side for all of the policies we are discussing.

The textbook clearly argues that there is no right for people to make their own choices about whether to have kids. On page 837 they claim there is no constitutional right. (A dubious statement in itself, by the way.) On page 838 they are arguing that there is no moral right.

I can not read this as a description of what might happen but the authors personal political views. Political views I happen to find very wrong.

This is also an important background when you read their description of individual policies. Considering that they claim over-population is a serious problem and that people have no right to decide on whether to have children, it is an easy mistake to read their description of possible policies as suggestions. You don't need to invoke any particular right-wing mentality to explain this.

In some cases it is not even a mistake to take the authors as arguing for the policy, I would claim. Take the discussion of adding sterilant to drinking water. They say: "To be acceptable, such a substance would have to meet some rather stiff requirements:" and then list some requirements. Given the circumstances and that the authors do not say to whom it would be acceptable it is perfectly reasonable to take it as a statement that this is what it would take to make the idea acceptable to Holdern and his colleagues. Thus they are not arguing that it be implemented right away beu they are describing it as a serious option that should be considered. (Not just something that might happen in desperate countries.)

They say on the same page that "Compulsory control of family size is an unpalatable idea, but the alternatives may be much more horrifying." In my opinion the authors hope that we won't have to use compulsory population control but if people don't start having fewer kids fast it may be necessary.

BTW, Chris Mooney has now weighed in at the Intersection.

"I disagree with your premise that we should "expect" academics to "calmly and dispassionately" discuss forced abortion and mass sterilization as valid solutions to the problem of over-population."

I for one have no problem if the discussion was truly neutral and descriptive. I am not just convinced that it is a description of what might happen, when read in context. To me it sounds like they are discussing various solutions that should be considered.

By the way I think it is an interesting exercise to compare Jessicas reading of the textbook with her reading of the Washington times article. If you read the article as charitably as she reads the textbook you could easily claim that the newspaper never really says he advocated the policies. They say that the textbook discussed them, which it did, and at one point they say that it "appeared" to advocate for some of them. And well it does appear to do that, at least at first reading.

"Yeah, it's not only a chore, it's depressing. Almost no one in the comments is talking about the point of this post - which is about a news story that misrepresents its source materials. Some people appear so convinced that Holdren is evil, they think their beliefs justify this misrepresentation - something like, "who cares what was actually said in the textbook - Holdren is evil anyway so it doesn't matter! Don't try to defend his evil!"

That's not true at all. Many people are directly addressing what he said in a textbook and pointing out that what he wrote was inexcusable _in addition_ to pointing out that Holdren has a pattern of advocating those views that went beyond that particular textbook.

You're misrepresenting the source materials far more than the new story did and ignoring when people call you on it. "Oh gosh, those bad people are ignoring when I spin like a top to try to misrepresent what Holdren said, boo hoo hoo..."

Chris Mooney may have weighed in, but Gerard Harbison destroyed his argument pretty completely in the comments.

Jessica, this is zombie from zombietime.com, the person who wrote the original essay about Ecoscience which you discuss in your post.

I'm merely dropping in to thank you for linking directly to my post, which is a courtesy many Holdren supporters have been too afraid to do when attacking my essay. Since I feel my essay speaks for itself, and contains a lot of facts and information I think Americans should see, I'm very glad you gave your readers the opportunity to see for themselves the thing you're trying to debunk. I highly recommend that everyone read it and come to their own conclusions based on Holdren's own words, totally aside from what either I or you have said. So, I commend you on your style of full-disclosure journalism, even though I obviously disagree with your defense of Holdren and your presumption about my politics. (Did you notice, for example, the section where I say that I myself am pro-choice on the abortion issue, and disagree with the notion of forced abortion because it removes the concept of "choice" from the equation?)

The one point I most strongly take exception to in your post is when you say that my essay is a "blog rant - which in turn bases its accusations on out-of-context snippets." My essay is no rant, as any reader can see if they were to actually read it, but more importantly, I go to great lengths to NOT present the quotes out of context. First I give each quote in question; then I give the full extended passages from which the quotes were taken; and then I give full-page scans of the entire pages they're on; then I link to an online version of the whole book; then I recommend that readers read the book themselves. What more context could I possibly give? Have you EVER seen an article which gives more context? I address the issue of "the context game" in my essay, predicting (accurately) that Holdren supporters like you would endlessly demand "more context" until the reader becomes overwhelmed and loses interest. That technique itself -- of falsely claiming that something is "taken out of context" -- is journalistically dishonest in its own way.

Anyway, kudos for being among the few Holdren defenders to actually link to my essay.

Yes, China's policy has been an incredible success.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5953508
Draconian measures lead to results they probably never suspected. Obama, Democrats, and his advisors who seem to think that they can run people's lives better than the free individual will never learn. The reason comes back to the failed University system. No Diversity of thought in the institution that mandates diversity. America is screwed.

Regarding your cleverly written article, statistics wasn't developed for getting better corn. It was developed for the perfection of the human race by Galton and other eugenicists of the day. Galton's book "Probability, the foundation of eugenics" (1907)will answer any questions you may have about statistics being developed for eugenics. It is available for download for free from Archive.org.
As a professor of college statistics I have rubbed elbows with the chairs of biology, chemistry, psychology, and even the nursing department. In the teacher's lounge, conversation often turns to how stupid their students are, and how they would like to select out a particularly attractive female student for their own "evolutionary purposes." "I'm into survival of the fittest, you know. And she's [the student in view] is the most fit-looking to me!" (Gleeful laughter of envy follows.) These are words and jokes they hope you'll never hear. Are you listening?
Ms. Palmer, you know this as a teacher. Why aren't you being forthright with your audience? Why do you rely on straw man arguments? You've reviewed dozens of textbooks, as have I, with homework problems containing eugenics-based questions. Such crassly crafted problem makeit clear this isn't some worn-out idea. Is eugenics so much a part of your thinking that you no longer recognize it as such?

Statistics wasn't developed for getting better corn. It was developed for the perfection of the human race by Galton and other eugenicists of the day. Galton's book "Probability, the foundation of eugenics" (1907)will answer any questions you may have about statistics being developed for eugenics. It is available for download for free from Archive.org.

By the 1930's, America was in global spotlight, foremost in it's legal rationales to justify stamping out "undesirables." So much so that the German defense team at Nuremberg cited Oliver Wendell Homes write up contained in Buck v. Bell (1927) in an attempt to call the American's hypocrites for judging Nazi war crimes, when it was America's idea in the first place.

Eugenicists have always sought to distance themselves from their intentions to "eliminate useless eaters" when their agenda is discovered by moral men. But straw man arguments, clever writing that seeks to obscure the truth, and legalese-written disclaimers issued by government offices, these do not constitute repudiation. And name calling someone with whom you disagree does not constitute professional journalism. May I urge you as an educator interested in the well-being of my students, to do your own research. Starting as a skeptic who thought all the fuss was nothing but alarmist rhetoric, I did my own research and I woke up.

No problem, zombie.

As you no doubt garnered from my post, I disagree with your interpretation of the statements you cite in Ecoscience, both the two I specifically quote, and many of the others. I think your interpretation of them is biased, and occasionally turns into an emotional rant. In all honesty, your contempt for Holdren and righteous ire at the policies he is describing bleed from your prose! (I'm sure you are aware of this).

However, I give you respect (and thanks!) for providing screenshots of the original text on your post. You have clearly gone to great effort to supply people with the original text you quote, should they choose to read it. I'm glad your site is back up so people can go and look at the screenshots, because I think earlier many people could not do so. I hope people do that.

Finally, regarding your comment that you are pro-choice: honestly, I did notice it, but I don't think people's positions on abortion, eugenics, politics or anything else should affect this discussion. The discussion I raise in my post is not about whether policies like forced abortion and eugenics are desirable - I don't think *anyone* here wants to argue in favor of such policies - but about whether Holdren really said he approved of those policies in Ecoscience.

My reading of the text, as I've already said several times, is that he did not say he approved. Your reading of the text, zombie, is that he did say he approved: that he was advocating that we consider such policies acceptable options.

We obviously disagree about this. I think Holdren (with his coauthors) was describing extreme policies that might be considered if a future population crisis devastated various nations (not so farfetched, since in some nations, versions of these policies were already been implemented). Yes, he and his coauthors did explicitly approve of some population control policies - as you put it, "Holdren does occasionally advocate for milder solutions elsewhere in the book." However, looking at most of the examples you have selected in your post, I disagree with your argument that these examples show Holdren personally approved of extreme policies, like forced abortion. I just don't think that is what the text says, and my personal views on abortion or politics really don't have much to do with that interpretation.

I'm not implying anything about any administration's past actions. Whoever truly contaminated the water is not the point. Whoever is responsible or not, the gov't has the responsibility of fixing this problem and Holdren's past comments should only emphasize that even more. I understand that being a politician is a hustle and bustle job, but for goodness sake if he doesn't do SOMETHING about it, eyebrows should definitely be raised and people remind him at every possible chance. Everyone has the right to merely examine extreme situations about dystopian futures and politicians are the ones that need to examine them more than anyone else in order to make sure that they DON'T happen, so it's excusable for him to have a thought exercise about it. But it has happened already. Maybe not the forced abortions, but the contaminated water has already happened.

Ms. Palmer, Your article garnered my keen interest, especially your use of word choice. As a Recognized Expert, teaching at the master's level, I have shown patterns to my graduate students in the courses I develop. I noticed one of these patterns in your article. Did you spot it also? When a speaker or author uses this word choice they are reflecting a certain uncertainty about their position. This is especially true if the word is used more than once in any particular address or article, which, if I read your article with the attention it indeed warranted, was the case in your response.

Have you read the fascinating article, Malthus Watch Out, by Ben Wattenberg which speaks of the crackling intellectual intensity of Julain Simon's? You might personally benefit from it. If you become familar with Simon's 1981/1996 cornerstone work, The Ultimate Resource, you might perhaps be more effective in your responses. Having thought through the position that natural resources are not finite, it seems to me that any of those defending eugencists at this time in their rapid decline for merely a current position and paycheck would do well to rethink his assumptions. I would like to know who prompted you to write it.

Perhaps you wrote your article in some haste, under some time restraint or another. Your use of the word "honestly" did not strengthen the force of what you meant to say. It seems the author of the article you have responded to was careful in this regard, but perhaps he had examined his own position more precisely. LMT

LOL. GMI, my use (or overuse) of "honestly" is a recurring personal foible - as is my excessive use of em-dashes, semi-colons, and lately, the word "awesome." Since I cram writing the blog into my spare time, I regret that I do not have the leisure to craft my language as carefully as I might with a publication. ;)

Thank you for posting this,

I have read ecoscience and I do agree with your critique of the zombietime blog entry.

On pages 939-940 the authors describe a series of policies they have actively lobbied for, all of which are non-coercive and voluntary. They also point out that in a crisis situation the public will likely push for extreme measures and at numerous places in the book, the idea that people have the ultimate say and that science should even be reviewed by laymen for ethical and moral concerns is brought up. If the authors had said directly that governments should begin coercive programs against any will of the people and based on scientists whims then I would agree they are totalitarians.

Basically, what I see the argument in the book coming down to is that we should get comfortable with the ideas of zero population growth, birth control through freely available contraception, and freely available abortions or else in the future we will be facing a crisis where coercive policies (that are technologically feasible and legally acceptable) will be demanded by the people.

Luckily family planning proved to be effective and technology has kept overcrowding from becoming a crisis that warrants extreme measures in most places. However, overcrowding is still a very valid problem and the effects recounted in the book are very much true today in places where family planning and womens rights have not taken hold.

re: #47 Jessica

It all comes down to the cleverly backhanded way in which the book was written -- intentionally leaving open to interpretation what exactly the authors are recommending or simply describing. Holdren himself did this exact kind of exculpation during the confirmation hearing, saying, "Oh, I didn't PREDICT this or that. I just described a scenario." So he can weasel out of any of his earlier off-target predictions. But of course if he had turned out to have been right, he'd say -- referring to the exact same text -- "See? I predicted it!"

However...

Imagine this example -- that I write and publish the following essay:

-----------------

"THE CRYING BABIES CRISIS

Babies crying in public are a problem. The noise bothers people. There are several ways we can address this problem:

a. We can give the babies some milk; maybe that will calm them down.
b. But if it doesn't calm them down, maybe we can threaten their parents with a lawsuit for disturbing the peace.
c. And if that doesn't work, the possibility exists that we could put muzzles on the babies.
d. Another way to solve the problem is to kill all the babies.

I certainly hope this problem can be solved before it gets out of hand."

-----------------

Now, in that example, I didn't advocate killing babies, but by describing the option fairly neutrally, without any hint of condemnation or moral outrage, there remains the sense that I'm "OK with it," whether or not I overtly "advocate it."

And what if I added the following sentence:

"Screaming babies are a threat to civilization and they're driving everyone crazy; we must solve this problem at all costs, and it looks like the milder solutions just aren't working."

That's basically what Holdren did in Ecoscience. He never baldly and brazenly advocated for compulsory population control, but he essentially made the same roundabout argument I just did in my example: He dispassionately discusses all the options, then points out that the less extreme options probably won't work. That's the thrust of the whole book.

And THAT's why I'm holding him accountable for it.

It seems to me that your argument pivots on the statement concerning "the distinction between talking about something and endorsing something. That distinction is absolutely central to science:"

No argument there, but it seems to me that -- after reading pages 838, 838, and 839 in their entirety that we're not really talking about science in this tome, but about how to bend policy with science. In that, I'm sure you'd agree, the passive voice does indeed serve to obscure the intent of the authors. From what I read in the pages above they are clearly building a "scholarly" framework to argue for birth control, abortion, population control, sterilization, and euthanasia -- for, in short, whatever it will take. In doing so, this particular "textbook" format is merely part of that design, footnotes and all. It's a pretty cynical way to go, but it suits the goal.

One of their most interesting observations occurs on where they note that "Neither the Declaration of Independence nor the Constitution mentions a right to reproduce." Then they go on to cite, more lovingly The UN Charter. Following that is a long argument that the First Amendment doesn't talk about anything that can be construed to be a right to reproduce.

They forget, as these arguments always do, the 10th Amendment ("The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.") which is where the Founders foresee that they cannot foresee the future as these authors would have you suppose.

While I agree about the obvious bias of the Zombietime post and while I also agree with you that in general ""the distinction between talking about something and endorsing something. That distinction is absolutely central to science:" " I think you argument fails when people, as you suggest they do, actually read a lot of the pages entire (Something Zombietime is at pains to reproduce to his credit.) When one does that there's really no basis for arguing that this is some sort of polite discussion of Population without a sheaf of axes to grind. It's simply not that.

And again, this is not about a discussion of the science, but an attempt to influence policy by pretending to be "scientific." And that's a real perversion of science.

One may wish to discuss the policies postulated and advocated in Ecoscience. But there are many more people who find giving credibility to such ideas by discussing them as loathesome. I would, at the very least, hope that people engaging in such discussions also include overcoming resistance from a population that wants nothing to do with such government control. Governments have been brought down when they try to implement draconian programs the governed reject.

But going back to the original article. There is no misrepresentation. The ideas in ecoscience are lunacy and the authors are simply not credible. And now one is a Science Czar, a poition well above his abilities.

I do not not think we can say that he argues for every one of the policies he describe. But based on the the quoted pages I see no way around the conclusion that he would be fine with some form of compulsory population control. To quote "Compulsory control of family size is an unpalatable idea, but the alternatives may be much more horrifying. "

Sure he talks about preferring non-coercive measures but that does not mean much. To quote again: "If effective action is taken promptly against population growth, perhaps the need for the more extreme involuntary or repressive measures can be averted in most countries."

The authors here very clearly say the more repressive measures will be necessary (which is one way of advocating for them) in some countries and possibly in many more. Whether they would prefer forced sterilization, forced abortion or just throwing people who get too many kids in jail is unclear however.

Zombie, thanks for the response. It's really interesting so I do want to respond.

Your hypothetical essay outline (possibly intentionally) is strongly reminiscent of Jonathan Swift's "A Modest Proposal." For those who aren't familiar with it, it's a satirical essay in which Swift suggests in faux-seriousness that wealthy people should eat Irish babies. Here's a bit from Wikipedia:

"This essay is widely held to be one of the greatest examples of sustained irony in the history of the English language. Much of its shock value derives from the fact that the first portion of the essay describes the plight of starving beggars in Ireland, so that the reader is unprepared for the surprise of Swift's solution when he states, "A young healthy child well nursed, is, at a year old, a most delicious nourishing and wholesome food, whether stewed, roasted, baked, or boiled; and I make no doubt that it will equally serve in a fricassee, or a ragout." Readers unacquainted with its reputation as a satirical work often do not immediately realize that Swift was not seriously proposing cannibalism and infanticide, nor would readers unfamiliar with the satires of Horace and Juvenal recognize that Swift's essay follows the rules and structure of ancient Roman satires."

I bring this up because Swift's essay arouses great emotional response in its readers, despite being dry and technical. Hearing such a horrific scenario described in such calm and logical terms is outrageous. It's much more outrageous than it would have been if he had written an emotional essay pleading for people to think of the Irish children (which other activists had already done).

It seems to me that many readers of "Ecoscience" are similarly outraged by the calm, dry discussion of extreme population control measures. I find it quite understandable - even predictable- that people would be outraged and horrified by the idea of forced abortion or involuntary sterilization. What I find weird is that many people seem to think that the Ehrlichs and Holdren did not anticipate this reaction from their readers.

Some of the commenters on this thread, and you yourself, zombie, in your post, imply that because the writing is dry and calm, the authors expect the reader to be okay with the ideas discussed and accept them. That simply doesn't follow. A calm discussion of outrageous ideas can and should provoke an emotional response - as it did with Swift, and as it so obviously has done in many people commenting here on "Ecoscience".

Let me head off the obvious question. Am I saying that "Ecoscience" is a satire like Swift's essay? No, not at all. I think "Ecoscience" is a serious textbook. But I also think the authors wanted the young people reading it to be horrified by some of these options. Why? Because the textbook has persuasive elements. The authors are clearly convinced that humanity is headed for disastrous overpopulation, starvation, and social collapse, and they want to motivate people to take action. (They say this or something along these lines a few times). Scaring people into taking action by presenting a horrifying, unacceptable end scenario is a common persuasive strategy. That doesn't mean the persuaders want the horrifying end scenario to actually happen - in fact, it means the opposite.

Fortunately, we did not experience the overpopulation crisis that Holdren and his coauthors feared. I for one am really glad he and his coauthors were wrong about that. But if you look at the book from the perspectives of authors convinced such an imminent crisis is upon us, they would likely want to discuss all of the surprising, unlikely, even horrifying outcomes of such a crisis, to force people to realize the seriousness of the situation. Plus, some social policies like these could actually come to pass - they are not fantasies. China's One Child Policy, which many in the US call unconscionably repressive, is a real world example. It makes sense to talk about these outcomes because they are real possibilities, although we can hope many of them are very unlikely.

Since many people seem so upset with the way this book was written, let's ask what the alternative way of writing "Ecoscience" would have been. I can see two main options:

1. Holdren and his coauthors do NOT discuss these extreme social policies in a textbook at all, and basically leave it as "we think we'll have an overpopulation crisis, and bad stuff will happen, but we won't talk about the worst things we think could happen to our society because it's too terrible to think about."

2. Holdren and his coauthors could mention the extreme social policies, but instead of talking about the possible legal rationale for them, condemn them, express moral outrage, and say "but of course no matter how bad it gets, we should never ever ever use these policies because they are totally morally unacceptable! No!"

Option (1) doesn't make a lot of sense, either from a persuasive standpoint or a comprehensiveness standpoint. As I mention in my post, some countries were already taking actions that many of us find unacceptable. Pretending such things could never happen seems illogical.

Based the comments here, I think many people would prefer the book to be written along the lines of Option (2). And the authors could have done that in the text. But based on my experience teaching, I'd prefer that textbooks not end the debate like that, with the author's personal moral condemnation. I'd prefer that the textbook present the foundation for a debate, both pros and cons, so that my students and I can work through it in the class. Honestly, Holdren and his fellow authors may be morally outraged, but that's not the important thing to me; I would want my students to think about and articulate why *they* are morally outraged. And if the textbook is as neutral as possible, that helps set a good discussion up.

Let's hold here for a second and ask another question. Of what do you think the authors of "Ecoscience" really expected their readers to come away convinced?

Working from my own subjective experience in the classroom, I would expect that a roomful of college students in the US would find policies like forcible abortion or involuntary sterilization to be unacceptable intrusions into their personal rights. I think it would be an excellent learning experience for everyone to talk through *why* they feel that way (since they may never have articulated their ethical positions on these things before), and whether there are ever *any* scenarios under which these policies could be okay, or not. I'd probably discuss nations like China, and what unforeseen effects population control policies have had on them. (I'd expect one or two ornery students to advocate extreme policies, because there are always some people like that in a class - often little Jonathan Swifts, saying such things just for effect). But I would NOT expect that the class would ever come to a consensus that "okay, let's just sterilize everyone, because the world population is growing and "less extreme options probably won't work." " If that was their conclusion, I would be completely flabbergasted -- just as I would be flabbergasted if someone read Swift's essay and came out of it thinking "Hey! Eating babies is a good idea!"

One can make a case that Holdren and his co-authors would have been well advised to have included more discussion of the ethical and moral pros and cons of these policies than they did. But I find it odd that people reading "Ecoscience" think that classrooms of college students across America could ever have been persuaded by a textbook that we should all sterilize ourselves - even given that the late 1970s and early 1980s were a different time, were they really that different? So though I can't place myself in the minds of the authors, I think it's unlikely that Holdren and his co-authors could have expected to convince them of something that extreme in the first place. If they couldn't succeed, why would they try to do exactly that in such a "cleverly backhanded" way? It simply doesn't seem plausible to me, Zombie.

One last point. This comment, and the original post, are not written in order to defend Holdren. Zombie, I think you get that I interpret the text - on its merits as a textbook - differently than you do, which is why I'm interested in your comments. But I'm not going to bother with all the accusations that I'm defending Holdren. I don't know the guy and I don't have a position on his policies. What bothers me here is that, in my opinion, a text is being misread and misrepresented in the media. I've said this several times, and I don't think people are willing to accept it, but what the heck. I'll try one last time to make that point.

Your attempt to explain away Ecoscience would be implausible, Jessica, even if Ehrlich had not forcefully advocated mass involuntary sterilization in particular, and coercive population control in general, in 1968 in The Population Bomb; and then Ehrlich Ehrlich and Holdren had not again argued for similar measures in Human Ecology: Problems and Solutions in 1973. So we're supposed to believe they were for it in 1968 and 1973, but then were against it in 1977; and moreover did not directly argue against it, but instead presented it dispassionately, hoping their readers would be repulsed?

I think you are also unaware of the change in the zeitgeist between 1977 and today. In 1977, I was a little younger than I think you are today. Scientists and others considered to be experts had a lot more unquestioned authority than we do today, although by the 1970s that was changing; and at the same time people were willing to accept a considerably higher level of social control. Remember, people confined to mental institutions were involuntarily sterilized into the 1960s. Women were still given hysterectomies with only the most minimal level of informed consent. The Tuskegee experiment, now considered to be one of the most barbarous examples of human experimentation, ran until 1972. And so on.

The level of outrage at proposals such as those in Ecoscience was far lower in 1977 than it would be in 2009.

Gerard: may I remind you that *I* brought up both the sterilization of the mentally ill and the unethical research at Tuskegee earlier in my reply (at #22) to your comments (as painful but socially important topics of discussion). So yes, I am well aware of them, and am pleased you agree with me that they are important topics.

Though I don't remember the "zeitgeist" of the 1970s, that was the decade that the Senate held high-profile hearings on government-sponsored drug testing, and that Tuskegee was investigated. It seems to me there was a fair bit of open questioning in the 1970s on the topic of science and ethics.

While I think it's important to allow comments on blogs, and have allowed every comment in this thread to go through, I've made my points and am repeating myself, so there's little purpose in continuing. (I went over to your blog earlier to say so there, but you don't have comments enabled on your blog.) I think we'll simply have to continue to disagree on whether the text of "Ecoscience" adequately supports the assertions about Holdren made by zombie and others.

In a word, wow. I'm flabbergasted that your careful dissection of The Washington Times article provoked this barrage of comments. For what it's worth, I've read through the exchange with an open-mind, yet fail to see why people insist that you're an apologist for Holdren. You critique assumptions and shoddy homework, not the moral concerns of those offended by Holdren's listing extreme population control measures (in the 1970s!).

As for my personal reaction, perhaps I'm simply a naive fool, but I don't believe that the U.S. government would EVER implement any of the policies described in Ecoscience. That being assumed, I feel strongly that it is good that we have a man concerned by population growth in the role of "Science Czar." The vast majority of reputable scientists insist that, while many industrialized nations are below the replacement birth rate, the world population is growing by leaps and bounds. Ehrlich was an alarmist, but the general trend he forecast is real. Extreme measures aren't necessary, of course, but common sense recommendations are.

If you read through this textbook, you will find that it is very short on real science and long on what to do about imaginary problems that don't yet or never will exist. So that makes Holdren perfect for leading the global warming crusade, the people who want to say scientific debate is over because the evidence is no longer going their way.

#56 Jessica:

So, basically, your argument seems to boil down to: They didn't really mean it. What Ehrlich and Holdren wrote in Ecoscience were not recommendations, you say, but rather scare tactics. A fearsome possibility to dangle in front of us to spur us to action. In essence, they're saying, "You may think compulsory birth control is horrifying now, but if society doesn't follow our dictates -- you'll be begging for it soon enough! And then you'll be sorry!" Not exactly satire, per se, but instead hyperbole.

This exact same argument has been tried in all sorts of criminal trials -- and it has been roundly rejected as a sound logical defense. Imagine this scenario:

A robber points a gun at someone, and says, "Hands up! This is a robbery! Give me all your money!"
Victim: "Or...what?"
Robber: "What do you mean, 'Or what?' ? Give me all your goddamn money!"
Victim: "Why?"
Robber:" 'Why?' I'll tell you why -- I'll shoot you otherwise, that's why!"

The victim hands over his money. The robber runs away, but is immediately caught by the police. He is sent to jail and then appears in court with a lawyer:

Lawyer: "Judge, I move to have this case dismissed."
Judge: "On what grounds?"
Lawyer: "This was no armed robbery -- this was a request. Panhandling, if you will."
Judge: "But we have a surveillance video of the defendant pointing a gun at the victim and saying he was going to shoot the victim if he didn't hand over the money."
Lawyer: "Ah, your honor, but that was just exaggeration, an encouragement for the, er, 'victim' to donate some money. He had no intention of actually using the gun or shooting anybody. It was just there for illustrative purposes -- a scare tactic to remind the 'victim' that emptying his wallet was a wiser course of action than not emptying his wallet."

Now, if you were the judge in this scenario, would you throw out the case? Of course not! And yet that's exactly what you're asking us to do. In this example, Holdren and Ehrlich are the robbers, the 1977 American public is the victim, Jessica Palmer is the lawyer, and the 2009 American public is the judge. And based on the overwhelming response to my post (14,000 blog links and rising, millions of visitors), the "judge" in this case is not buying your argument. And I don't blame them.

In real legal cases like this (and there have been many), this line of reasoning is almost always rejected, because experience has shown that the "It was just a scare tactic" defense doesn't hold water, since countless robberies have "gone wrong" and what was intended as a nice peaceful stick-up has devolved into a violent murder if the victim doesn't behave properly. In fact, peripheral characters in criminal acts are now charged with murder if anyone gets shot during the commission of a crime, even if it wasn't planned and even if the criminal in question wasn't the one pulling the trigger.

Thus, in this situation, if the American (or global) public failed to do exactly what Holdren and Ehrlich recommended (which they indeed did fail to do), but instead of what really happened (a natural slow levelling off of the population) Holdren's dire overpopulation predictions actually came true, then what? Are we to assume that he wouldn't "pull the trigger"? I have no such reassurance.

If the overpopulation predictions made by Holdren and Ehrlich in 1968, 1971, 1973 and 1977 had come true, and by 2009 the world was teeming with "too many" people (as they had predicted), and President Britney Spears named John Holdren as Science Enforcer, do you seriously doubt that he would (in this putative scenario) push for the exact "compulsory birth control" measures that he described repeatedly? It'd be shocking if he didn't:

President Spears: "Put sterilants in the drinking water!"
Enforcer Holdren: "Er, no, I've decided against it."
Spears: "What? That's why I appointed you! Didn't you propose this very thing in all your books?"
Holdren: "Yes, but -- that was just an exaggeration!"

In your comment, you raise and then dismiss "Option 2," the possibility that the authors "condemn [the policies], express moral outrage, and say 'but of course no matter how bad it gets, we should never ever ever use these policies because they are totally morally unacceptable! No!' " You say you'd prefer that they NOT do that. I strongly disagree. That is EXACTLY what they needed to have done. Because by failing to do so, they imply that they don't have any problems with the suggestion.

Not every possibility needs to be raised and discussed emotionlessly. Some things are simply beyond the pale. Do historians calmly discuss the Holocaust, saying it was merely one rational course of action among many for the Nazis? Do Global Warming alarmists say it's perfectly OK to have a warmer climate and higher sea level, that a warm earth is neither better nor worse than the current earth? No they do not! They take positions, they express outrage.

What Holdren SHOULD have said in Ecoscience is (granting his inaccurate predictions), "Population is getting out of control, people! And since compulsory birth control, compulsory abortions and mass sterilization are morally wrong and totally unacceptable and out of the question, then we really ought to adopt social policies now which encourage low birth rates. Otherwise, the world will become too crowded."

Yes, that would have been nice -- but that's not what he wrote. Instead, he entertained the notion of compulsory birth control without really condemning it morally (only to say that it was technically unfeasible). Whether or not he was just "exaggerating" or using "scare tactics" is beside the point, because as I pointed out above, "scare tactics" often go wrong and end up really coming true.

Now, of course, Holdren's proposal will never really happen in our real modern world, because his overpopulation hysteria turned out to be flat out wrong (though Ehrlich still insists he was right all along). But the very fact that someone can employ serious-or-not "scare tactics" to get their policies adopted should disqualify that person from holding office. Because that's exactly what he's doing again, this time with anthropogenic global warming. Holdren's track record for inaccurate predictions and for outrageous suggestions (or "scare tactics") utterly discredits him in my view. But what so deeply shocking is that his 'scare tactic" proposals for grappling with global warming have now been adopted by the U.S. government!! So they're not just "scare tactics" anymore -- they're reality.

An that's something that should concern all of us.

So, you yourself can sit here and defend Holdren using this argument, but again that's not sufficient: I want to hear Holdren say it himself. If he comes out publicly and says, "Hey, folks, I was just kidding! I didn't really mean any of that stuff," then I'll back off. Until then, I'll keep pressing.

Jessica, your paragraph starting "Fortunately..." made my jaw drop. To paraphrase, "Iâm glad Holdren was wrong. But itâs really understandable why he presented all those ghastly, provocative scenarios in an effort to scare us into thinking he was right."

What makes my jaw drop, Sierra, is assumptions like yours - that simply because I don't agree with you on what Ecoscience says, I must be in favor of whatever horrible thing you want to accuse me of. I've argued that the text in Ecoscience DOES NOT JUSTIFY the kind of interpretation people are placing on it, and I've explained why I feel that way. It's really that simple. Every time someone accuses me of "defending Holdren," they are going off on a tangent, because Holdren's positions then or now are not what I am disputing.

I'll make one more analogy before I give up on this pointless thread. Since zombie wants to go there, let's use a legal scenario. Suppose you have a box of evidence from a crime scene. Several fingerprints are presented as proof that Suspect A committed the crime. But the fingerprints are smudged, and one of the detectives on the case says, "I don't think these fingerprints are convincing evidence that Suspect A did it. I need more evidence."

Is the detective saying Suspect A was never at the scene? No. Is the detective saying Suspect A is pure as the driven snow? No. Is the detective saying we shouldn't even look at any other crime scene evidence, case closed? No. Is the detective saying "maybe Suspect A committed the crime, but hey, I don't think it was such a bad crime after all?" No.

All the detective is saying in this scenario is that he does not believe the fingerprints are sufficient evidence. I hope we can all agree (although perhaps you'll surprise me on this, too) that if the detective honestly thinks the fingerprints aren't good evidence, he'll stick to his convictions and try to explain his logic - even if a bunch of other detectives try to shame the first detective into backing down from his convictions by accusing him of various unsavory things.

Ultimately I don't think Zombie's interpretation of Ecoscience is justified by the text, and thus it's not sufficient evidence for saying what he says about Holdren. I've given my textual reasons for thinking this (in the post) and secondarily, I've given some contextual reasons why I think my interpretation is just as reasonable, if not more so, than Zombie's (in the comments). That's really all I can do. I've said repeatedly that I'm not going to be baited into a debate on Holdren's current political positions. Even more importantly, I'm not going to let a random stranger's accusations about my motives or politics intimidate me into signing off on evidence that does not convince me. Perhaps I misunderstand Zombie, but that seems to be precisely what he's suggesting in his last comment - that since he's got thousands of readers (congratulations) I'd better know what's good for me and just shut up. Too bad. I was raised to stick to my convictions and speak the truth as I see it, and that's exactly what I've done and continue to do.

"A robber points a gun at someone, and says, "Hands up! This is a robbery! Give me all your money!" Victim: "Or...what?" Robber: "What do you mean, 'Or what?' ? Give me all your goddamn money!" Victim: "Why?" Robber:" 'Why?' I'll tell you why -- I'll shoot you otherwise, that's why!""

Zombie, I can't work with your scenario, because the authors of Ecoscience were not placing anyone in danger by writing a textbook. The textbook is not a gun. The authors thought overpopulation was the danger - a danger they were trying to warn against. So it doesn't seem to make much sense to say the authors of a textbook were like the robber.

If I give your scenario my best shot, I'd say the authors were like a passer-by who believes that you are about to be robbed, and while trying to stop you from going down the dark alley toward the robber, harasses you by suggesting all sorts of horrible scenarios that could happen to you if you persist. You may find this passer-by to be offensive and unwelcome - especially if he says that if you and others keep insisting on going down the alley, there is a legal basis for the police to place you under house arrest. You may justifiably resent the implication that the police have the right to arrest you for your own protection - especially if there is no robber in the alley after all, in which case you will be downright irate. But if all the passer-by is doing is discussing your detention, and he has no power to actually detain you (much less rob you) he's hardly harming you. Now, if the police are convinced by his argument to detain you, you should by all means take it up with them and sue the city's pants off so they are forced to justify their actions. (Note: I do *not* think this is a valid analogy, but it's the best I can make out of your scenario).

Ah. So Holdren is a good science advisor because he was not really advocating genocide as a means of population control. I get it now. Just one quibble: "The Population Bomb" is arguably among the worst science books ever written, with about as much credibility as perpetual motion and cold fusion.

None, repeat: NONE!, of the dire predictions of this stupid book came true. If it was meant as a textbook, it would have been beneficial to at least have had it get some scientific facts right. However, no effort was made to do that at all. The book is pure advocacy -- control population growth, or civilization will end by the year 2000! Well, population growth was not appreciably controlled and we are still here, living rather comfortable lives at that.

So, at worst Holdren is a diehard advocate of human eugenics, perhaps even human extinction. At best, he is an idiot spouting unproven quack theories as "science." How does this make him a good science advisor?

"So Holdren is a good science advisor because he was not really advocating genocide as a means of population control."

1. Who said Holdren is a good science advisor? I never said that anywhere in the post - it wasn't a post about Holdren's qualities as a science advisor.

"The Population Bomb" is arguably among the worst science books ever written. . . If it was meant as a textbook, it would have been beneficial to at least have had it get some scientific facts right."

2. Uh, that's nice. But this post is not about The Population Bomb, which was (A) not a textbook, and (B) was written by Paul Ehrlich, not Holdren. The post is about Ecoscience, a textbook on which both Ehrlich and Holdren were authors.

3. I made both point (1) and point (2) over and over in the comments above this one, which you clearly haven't bothered to read.

Seriously, it's both funny and sad to observe how most of the comments on this post are so completely out of touch with both the facts AND the content of the post. It's generally helpful, if you want to successfully argue with someone, to actually *read* what they've written - which is exactly what this post was about in the first place. But I suppose that irony is lost on the majority of the anti-Holdren commenters here, who just want a venue to froth at the mouth. Very sad indeed.

Many thanks to Snopes for excusing Holdren's writings about government control of population by using compulsory abortion. Are you kidding me? Where in the Constitution is that power given to government? Americans need to reclaim control of their country and their lives. The Founding Fathers of our country were committed to LIMITED government and the preservation of liberty and individual freedom...NOT THE OTHER WAY AROUND.

It was a "possiblity" in the man's mind. That's evidence enough for me. Besides, show me in the Constitution where it would allow such policies to infringe upon my human rights in such a way that the government could MAKE me abort my unborn child. People need to go back and study what this country was founded on, because apparently, the left-winged liberals have sorely forgotten.

You F'n lefty sgaf and obsel traitors to America. Go kcuf yourselves!!!! There will be a day very soon were you'll have no where to run to. F'n scum!

Holdren is of the same environmental elitists who would like nothing more than to rid the planet of people who don't believe as they do. Yet many of these elitists leave a carbon footprint the size of King Kong.I think the Average common sense American does everything in their limited ability to be good steward's of the planet.Most of use don't cry at the trunk of a dead tree, or hammer plywood and 3mil plastic into a living tree to roost for over a year.Call me irresponsible.

This post is now gaining on a year old and there are still right-wing nut jobs foaming at the mouth, convinced that the clearly, demonstrably false information they have been fed is the gospel truth.

It is very much analogous to the health-care debate where the teabaggers howled over "death panels" and the like; berefit of critical thinking skills, they just accept what their leadership tells them and launch into outrage.

You truly cannot fix stupid...