ROBERTC.COOK 73 



tendency to worship the scientist as a modern medicine man and thus 

 to ignore a great deal of the total ecosystem. 



The public seems eager to accept this myth. This is dangerous and 

 I warn against it strongly. Any notion that the laboratory smock has 

 supernatural properties is an illusion. 



Dr. Nolan's evocation of Dr. Edward Teller to debunk the current 

 population crisis is a case in point. Dr. Teller is unquestionably a 

 world authority in his specialized field of thermo-nuclear physics. But 

 distinction in one area in no sense qualifies a person as competent in 

 demography or economics. To think that it does is to play the game 

 of the medicine man of science very dangerously. 



In terms of limited areas of the earth's surface — and for very spe- 

 cial reasons — Malthus guessed wrong, at least in the short term. The 

 people of northern and western Europe and their descendants else- 

 where, nourished, as Edmund Burke remarked, "from the full breast 

 of the exuberance of the New World," have multiplied their numbers 

 and their affluence during two profligate centuries of grace. But now 

 the exuberance of a very rich continent has begun to dry up. It is 

 hard to say just how this will affect the way people within the United 

 States will live during the next few decades. Demographers have 

 learned since the 1930's that population growth in this country is 

 definitely modulated by the level of economic activity, which is gen- 

 erally measured for purposes of calculation as gross national product, 

 or GNP. If the present unemployment trend continues and we have 

 four or five million unemployed, the birth rate of the United States 

 will undoubtedly decline quite sharply. I am sure that this is one 

 demographic prediction that will be realized. 



We cannot predict what the GNP is going to be next year or the 

 year after. So we cannot predict with too much confidence what will 

 happen to the population growth in the United States. Apparently if 

 we can maintain the fantastic level of prosperity which, until recently, 

 has existed since the war, the birth rate very likely will remain at a 

 high level. 



But in underdeveloped countries today where population increases 

 are rapid, the rise is not due to any changes in the birth rate. In under- 

 developed countries with a low level of education, the birth rate is 

 pushing close to the physiological maximum. It is not tied to the eco- 



