Towards the new sciences of geology and evolution

With the explosion of science done in the 18th century (see timelines from the last lecture), we are now well on our way of implicitly asserting that "science" is the solution to all of our problems:

An issue we will be concerning ourselves with in this last part of the course is whether or not we are sufficiently intelligent to be able to effectively "manage" this potential solution.

Important Scientific Milestones in the Early Part of the 19th century

• Most of this is Chemistry

• However, in 1820, a very important accidently discovery by Oersted paved the way to rapid developments in physics.
  

At the beginning of the 19th century, it became recognized that human population growth, may, in fact, be in an unmanageable state.

Thomas Malthus (1766-1834) was an English clergyman, whose writings on population growth had a strong influence on the theory of evolution by natural selection developed by Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace.

In An Essay on the Principle of Population (1797), Malthus observed that most organisms produce far more offspring than can possibly survive.

Historical Estimates of World Population (accurate to 10--20%)

• 1000 AD 0.25 Billion
• 1100 AD 0.30
• 1200 AD 0.36
• 1250 AD 0.40
• 1300 AD 0.36 (three cheers for war and disease!)
• 1350 AD 0.44
• 1400 AD 0.35
• 1500 AD 0.43
• 1600 AD 0.55
• 1650 AD 0.47
  

  So during this period of 650 years the world population was stable and fluctuated around a mean value of about 400 million.

  Is this the "natural" carrying capacity of the planet?

  

  1700 AD 0.60

  1750 AD 0.63

  1800 AD 0.82

  1850 AD 1.13

  Doubling time is approximately 150 years. Some scientists at the time began to express concern (e.g. Malthus )

  1900 AD 1.55

  1910 AD 1.75

  1920 AD 1.86

  1930 AD 2.07

  1940 AD 2.30

  1950 AD 2.55

  2000 AD 6.50

Since 1900 the population of the world has grown by a factor of 4 (2 doubling times).