A letter to Nature

Here is a letter I have just sent to Nature.

You have done a disservice to your readers with Professor Juma's review of Brian Arthur's book in Nature 499, 150–153 (11 July 2013). The Nature of Technology is risible twaddle, and should not have been promoted in Nature.

The review states: "This is an antidote to pessimism that belongs with the works of Joseph Schumpeter, Thomas Kuhn and Ilya Prigogine. It has universal appeal as a source of insight into how creativity can solve our most pressing economic, social and environmental challenges."

A more thoroughly misleading book review can hardly be imagined.  In fact, the book discusses none of the world's economic, social and environmental challenges, and has nothing of value to say on *any* topic. Placing this author on a par with Thomas Kuhn is a very bad joke.

You owe it to your readers to do at least minimal checking of the appropriateness of the books you review, and the basic honesty of the your reviewers.

Let's put tobacco and terrorism in perspective

According to the CDC (Centers for disease control and prevention):

"More deaths are caused each year by tobacco use than by all deaths from human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), illegal drug use, alcohol use, motor vehicle injuries, suicides, and murders combined."

And the big bugaboo, terrorism, doesn't make any part of this list.

Wow: the history of the D-Wave quantum computer

This video has totally changed my perception of the state of quantum computing:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ptuFckypqzE

For those who say they have nothing to fear from government spying...

 One feeble excuse some people give for condoning massive spying is, "I have nothing to hide."

Does that include your social security number, your credit card numbers, and your bank account numbers?  How about all your passwords?  Aye you sure government doesn't know them all?

There are over 1 million people in the US with top-secret security clearances.  How confident are you that all of them are to be trusted?

Water in the Anthropocene

A brief, beautiful overview of worldwide water shortages.

https://vimeo.com/66087863#

Privacy soooo important for aparachiks, not so much for citizens

Change we can believe in?  Hahahahahahaha.

Reducing population without war, famine and disease

The following is a copy of an email I have just sent to Albert A. Bartlett.

I have enjoyed immensely your lecture about the exponential function.  Your web site states you have given this lecture 1600 times.  This is an incalculable contribution to the world.

The version I saw was a YouTube video that you gave perhaps 15 or 20 years ago: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pb3JI8F9LQQ&list=SP6A1FD147A45EF50D&feature=plpp_play_all

At the end of the video, you asked for corrections for any calculations that might be in error.  I only know of one such--your discussion of population in that lecture is misleading.  Perhaps you have already corrected it :-)

At about the 9 minute mark of part 2 you said the following: "I have to realize that anything that just lowers the death rate makes the problem worse." Consequently, you say that the items on the left hand side of the Table of Options (shown , Medicine, Public Health, Sanitation and Peace "makes the problem worse".

While strictly true (almost by definition), nevertheless your statement is highly misleading.  Perhaps even tragically misleading.  Indeed, Medicine, Public Health, Sanitation and Peace do not just lower the death rate.  They also tend (in the long run) to lower the birth rate even more!  Indeed, disease, famine and war typically tend to increase population.  The best (perhaps the only) way to control population is the increase the well-being of mothers and infants.

This was the message of the late, great James Grant of UNICEF.  Imo, every person who talks about population issues really must understand this counter-intuitive fact if they are to avoid uttering nonsense.

To see the truth of Grant's assertion, it pays to study very closely the statistics at the back of every edition of UNICEF's State of the World's Children reports.  The 2013 report is at http://www.unicef.org/sowc2013/files/SWCR2013_ENG_Lo_res_24_Apr_2013.pdf

As you will see, as death rates decline, birth rates decline more.  This is why many countries in the world have total fertility rates below the replacement rate.

The correlation between U-5 mortality rates and total fertility rates holds true both "horizontally" and "vertically".  That is, the correlation holds at any particular time when comparing different countries.  Countries with lower U-5 mortality rates have lower fertility rates.  But the correlation also holds in any single country over time.  As death rates decline, fertility rates decline even more, in any country you choose to study.

Although correlation does not necessarily imply causation, it is fairly easy to see what is leading to reduced fertility rates.  As death rates decline, there is no need for mothers to raise "extra" children to replace those expected to be lost to disease, wars and famines.

There are, of course, other factors at work.  I highly recommend this report: http://www.un.org/esa/population/publications/longrange2/WorldPop2300final.pdf There are many interesting things in the report.  To highlight a few.

1.  You will not be surprised to learn that seemingly minor changes in projected fertility rates have huge consequences when "multiplied" over many years.  In a sense, this report merely illustrates the properties of the exponential function.

2. The essay in part 2 of the report are fascinating.  Population experts can interesting and important things despite massive uncertainties.

Again, many thanks for the enormous contributions you have made to the world.  I trust you will come to agree that the best way to reduce world population is to reduce the death rates among infants and children everywhere.