Malthusian Memes - An Exponentialist View

Introduction

The inspiration for this article is Richard Dawkins' seminal work, Viruses of the Mind, which considers the infectious nature of the competing memeplexes of established religions. This essay is intended to extend Richard Dawkins' analogy of infectious religious memes to infectious Malthusian memes. Also, as noted by Dawkins, memes evolve in a way similar to genes. I will therefore examine some of the changes in the Malthusian memeplex over time.

Although Malthus was also famous as a political scientist and an economist, I will limit the scope of this article to Malthus' Principle of Population memeplex. This essay will therefore consider the success and failure of Malthusian memes over the last couple of centuries. Perhaps to the two most significant memeplexes enthusiastically infused with Malthusian memes (at least initially) were the deadly rivals of natural theology and evolutionary theory. I will show that, ironically, although Malthus favoured natural theology his influence today is much stronger in evolutionary theory.

You can also read through the articles available from my Famous Exponentialists page for more on the influence of Malthusian memes. For more on actual viral replication see Viral Replication - An Exponentialist View.

Malthus

The Reverend Thomas Robert Malthus, in his Essay On The Principle Of Population (1798), was the first to propose that all populations of all species tend towards exponential growth and thus outstrip the available food supply (which Malthus argued grew at a linear rate). Having studied as a mathematician at Jesus College Cambridge before entering the clergy in 1788, it was probably at Cambridge that he first became infected with the memes of geometric growth (now called exponential growth) and arithmetic growth (now called linear growth). As Malthus noted,

Here is Malthus (1798) on the evolution and differential replication of human memes (my bolding):

"Intellect rises from a speck, continues in vigour only for a certain period, and will not, perhaps, admit, while on earth, of above a certain number of impressions. These impressions may, indeed, be infinitely modified, and from these various modifications, added probably to a difference in the susceptibility of the original germs, arise the endless diversity of character that we see in the world; but reason and experience seem both to assure us, that the capacity of individual minds does not increase in proportion to the mass of existing knowledge. The finest minds seem to be formed rather by efforts at original thinking, by endeavours to form new combinations, and to discover new truths, than by passively receiving the impressions of other men's ideas."

See Malthus - An Exponentialist View, and Malthus and Evolution for more.

Natural Theology

Being a man of the cloth, Malthus was at pains to present his Principle of Population memeplex as supporting another infectious idea, namely that of Natural Theology. Indeed, the last two chapters of Malthus' essay (first edition) were largely a work of Natural Theology anyway. Natural Theology was a failed attempt to "prove" the existence of God through scientific argument and evidence.

Having published the first edition of the essay anonymously in 1798, by 1826 Malthus went on to publish another five editions of his work under his own name and A Summary View in 1830. The second edition is considered the most significant revision, and the whole thing was really quite infectious. Thus, despite much unwarranted personal vilification against Malthus, the Malthusian Principle of Population memeplex has continued to mutate and spread like some virulent epidemic over the last two centuries.

Initially, Malthusian memes were enthusiastically embraced by those who propagated the memes of natural theology, such as Archdeacon William Paley. Here is Paley (Natural Theology, 1802) effectively restating Malthusian memes from Malthus' 1798 work:

"The order of generation proceeds by something like a geometrical progression. The increase of provision, under circumstances even the most advantageous, can only assume the form of an arithmetic series. Whence it follows, that the population will always overtake the provision, will pass beyond the line of plenty, and will continue to increase till checked by the difficulty of procuring subsistence (Note: See a statement of this subject, in a late treatise upon population.)"

Paley's Natural Theology proved to be a popular memeplex and went through 12 very editions between 1802 and 1809. Paley's infamous Watchmaker meme was famously destroyed by Richard Dawkins in The Blind Watchmaker (1986). The memeplex of natural theology, which once reigned supreme, has slowly and gradually vanished. It has gone extinct or it has mutated into modern forms such as Creationism, or Intelligent Design.

Evolution - Alfred Wallace and Charles Darwin

As noted by Wallace in his autobiography, it is indeed a "most interesting coincidence" that both he and Darwin were independently led to the theory of evolution after reading Malthus on population. After all, Malthus believed in creation, not evolution.

Yet Wallace understood the significance of the Malthusian memeplex to his own evolution memeplex, though it took years between separate readings of Malthus' essay before it lead him to conceive of his own version of the theory of evolution and approach Darwin with his paper (My Life, Wallace, 1905):

"...the most important book I read was Malthus' Principle Of Population...It was the first work I had yet read treating any of the problems of philosophical biology, and its main principles remained with me as a permanent possession, and twenty years later gave me the sought-after clue to the effective agent in the evolution of organic species."

See Wallace - An Exponentialist View for more.

Darwin called Malthus "that great philosopher" (Letter to J.D. Hooker 5th June, 1860), and had nothing but the highest regard for Malthus. I regard Darwin as Malthus' bulldog (just as Thomas Henry Huxley was Darwin's bulldog). Darwin also understood the significance of Malthus, and considered those that didn’t to be "incapable of reason" (Letter to C. Lyell, 6th June, 1860).

Darwin, again thanks to Malthus, reached very similar initial conclusions regarding evolution as Wallace.

However, it is Darwin who is remembered as the man who most clearly explained the principle of Natural Selection. Thus, over time, the memeplex of Wallace was subsumed and absorbed by the rival and more virulent Darwinian evolution memeplex. In fact, when Wallace published his book on evolutionary theory - thirty years after Darwin's The Origin Of Species (1859) - it was called Darwinism (1889)- surely an open admission of the stronger influence of the Darwinian memeplex. Herbert Spencer later added to the arsenal of memes supporting evolution by inventing the meme the survival of the fittest.

Darwin had once read Paley's Natural Theology, and had initially been impressed. However, upon reading Malthus, Darwin's regard for Paley's Natural Theology declined and his regard for Malthus grew. On a personal level, the Creationist virus in Darwin's brain was gradually defeated in a contest with his own meme Natural Selection. Here Darwin reflects on the survival of the fittest struggle of competing memes, and makes passing comment on the contemporary misunderstanding of the Malthusian memeplex:

Darwin to A.R. Wallace, 5th July 1866 (Letter 191):

"The term Natural Selection has now been so largely used abroad and at home, that I doubt whether it could be given up, and with all its faults I should be sorry to see the attempt made. Whether it will be rejected must now depend "on the survival of the fittest." As in time the term must grow intelligible the objections to its use will grow weaker and weaker. I doubt whether the use of any term would have made the subject intelligible to some minds, clear as it is to others; for do we not see even to the present day Malthus on Population absurdly misunderstood? This reflection about Malthus has often comforted me when I have been vexed at the misstatement of my views."

Having published several eloquent works supporting his evolution memeplex still did not turn the Darwinian viral infection rate from an epidemic into a pandemic. Yet over time, this particular viral infection of the mind became known as Darwinism. Those infected stand a good chance of having their Creationist views eroded completely and painlessly away.  

See Darwin - An Exponentialist View and Darwin on Malthus for more.

Neo-Malthusians

Malthusian memes became Neo-Malthusian memes in the hands of pro-contraception lobbyists such as Francis Place (Proofs on the Principle of Population, 1822). This would have irked Malthus, as he was opposed to contraception. However, it is proof that memes both mutate and evolve, and perversely take on a life of their own (unintended by their creator).

Communism & Catholicism

Not all Malthusian infections took. Some populations seemed inoculated by more powerful memes such as Communism or Catholicism.

Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels detested Malthus and his ideas. Communists everywhere condemned Malthus and his theory, largely due his apparent coldness of heart to the suffering of poor. For example another early and distinguished convert was British Prime Minister William Pitt The Younger, who was so influenced by Malthusian memes that his government produced the much hated (at least by socialists) Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834.

Communists routinely asserted that Communism could both care for the poor and support any amount of population growth. It made no difference, as the natural law explained by Malthus applied equally well to atheists, communists, or Creationists. Famine was the result, and it was the poor who suffered most (just as Malthus had predicted). In the end, even Communists had to admit they were wrong, and prudent population control was quietly introduced. Thus, Marx and Engels were proven wrong in their opposition to the Malthusian Principle of Population meme.

(this section includes text directly taken from one of my contributions to the Wikipedia article on Malthus - as of 22 Feb 2006)

 The Catholic Encyclopedia is highly critical of Malthus, claiming that the whole theory was pre-empted in 1790 by "Gianmaria Ortes", a Venetian friar, in a work entitled, "Reflessioni sulla populazione per rapporto all' economia nazionale." The Catholic Encyclopaedia lists those Catholic economists that reject Malthusian theory:

Aside from a section of the Socialists, the most important group of writers rejecting the Malthusian theory have been Catholic economists, such as Liberatore, Devas, Pesch, Antoine.

The Catholic Encyclopaedia argues that "...he contributed absolutely nothing of value to human knowledge or welfare." and dismisses fears of overpopulation proposing "...that the proper remedies were to be sought in better social and industrial arrangements, a better distribution of wealth, and improved moral and religious education.".

Lysenkoism

Curiously, the dichotomy for Communists was that on the one hand they embraced Darwinism whilst on the other hand they rejected Malthusian thinking. It was a dichotomy because Darwinism - and population thinking in particular (Mayr, 2001) - were founded on Malthusian thinking. No wonder then that Trofim Lysenko came up with the seriously scientifically flawed Lysenkoism, and no wonder that the Soviet regime supported and spread this rival memeplex and suppressed, imprisoned or killed those Soviet scientists that supported genetics. Today, the meme Lysenkoism survives not in its original form, but as a sad and pathetic metaphor for a meme or memeplex that is favoured for ideological reasons despite its failure to survive scrutiny through the scientific method.

Intelligent Design

A modern day Lysenkoism is Intelligent Design (effectively a "born-again" Natural Theology). According to this scientifically bankrupt theory, some things are so irreducibly complex that it cannot be conceived as to how they could evolve - ipso facto, the modern evolutionary synthesis is deeply flawed or altogether wrong. Thus, quod erat demonstrandum, (some sort of) God exists. At least, that's what ID proponents would like you to believe.

Gregor Mendel

As a monk, Mendel spent a great deal of time studying generations of peas. He’d probably never heard of Malthus, and wasn’t overly interested in population dynamics. Mendel had discovered the basic principles of heredity, but went to his grave before the significance of his own very powerful memeplex became established in other human minds. On rediscovering Mendelism (as it became known), the world at first saw an idea that competed with Darwinism. Instead, thanks to many evolutionists over the years, it transpired that heredity and genetics reinforced Darwinism. The modern synthesis of evolutionary theory had been born. 

Now, the infection of evolutionary theory would spread more virulently than ever. It might be a theory in name, but many evolutionists now regarded it as fact (proven beyond all reasonable doubt). However, despite Darwin's obvious high regard for the Malthusian memeplex as the foundation of his own theory, not all evolutionists shared that view. For example, Ronald Fisher, John Maynard Smith and Elliot Sober have all marginalised the Malthusian contribution to modern evolutionary theory. As recently as 2001 some, like Ernst Mayr, continued  to insist that population thinking was the key to the modern evolutionary memeplex and generously credited Malthus with major contributions (whilst at the same time crediting Darwin - not Malthus - with introducing population thinking to the evolutionary memeplex). 

First Principle of Population Dynamics

The Malthusian Growth Model is widely regarded as the first principle of population dynamics (see references below). This claim usually assumes that Malthus was fixated on a constant rate of exponential growth. However, as argued frequently on this Exponentialist web site, I believe Malthus recognised that growth rates vary and yet population growth was still more like exponential growth than arithmetic (or linear) growth. Refer Population Growth Models and Turchin - An Exponentialist View for more.

Some go further than claiming the Malthusian Growth Model as the first principle of population dynamics and argue that Malthus was the founder of the field of demography (Founder Of Modern Demography, Malthus - William Peterson, 1979, 1999).

False Prophet of Doom?

The controversy over whether or not Malthusian population memes are right or wrong continues to rage (for proof, Google Is Malthus Right, or Google Is Malthus Wrong). For many, Malthus has long been regarded as a false prophet of doom. From The Doomsday Syndrome - John Maddox Launches An Attack On Pessimism (John Maddox, 1972):

"Malthus began by ignoring the evidence even then available that human populations can regulate their fertility without the help of external catastrophe, with the result that he became a prophet - a false prophet as it turned out - of doom. He finished on firmer ground, but with an argument of much less awesome significance. Who needs to be alarmed if disaster can be avoided by fertility restraint of a kind even then widespread?"

However, Malthus did not simply prophesise future disaster. Rather, Malthus claimed that:

"...this constantly subsisting cause of periodical misery has existed ever since we have had any histories of mankind, does exist at present, and will for ever continue to exist, unless some decided change takes place in the physical constitution of our nature." 

Thus the meme of a Malthusian Catastrophe on Wikipedia is a flawed representation of what Malthus actually said. Malthus did not predict disaster - Malthus argued that war, pestilence and above all famine have always been, are now, and always will be positive checks on human population.

See Paul R. Ehrlich and the Prophets of Doom - An Exponentialist View for more.

K. Eric Drexler

Nanotechnologist and space advocate K. Eric Drexler seems to be one of the few people today whose work with molecular nanotechnology assemblers naturally lead him to understand and appreciate the essential truth of Malthusian memes as deeply as Darwin (Drexler, 1986):

In a sense, opening space will burst our limits to growth, since we know of no end to the universe. Nevertheless, Malthus was essentially right."

See Drexler - An Exponentialist View,  Exponential Assembly - An Exponentialist View, and Grey Goo - An Exponentialist View for more.

Albert Bartlett

Retired physics professor, Albert A. Bartlett, is one of today's strongest proponents of the Malthusian memeplex. He has lectured more than 1,500 times on Arithmetic, Population, and Energy, infecting minds everywhere.

Bartlett (1998) states that:

 "The greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function."

I fully agree. However, his argument is founded on the assumption that populations grow exponentially (effectively, fixed rate compound interest). They don't, and so his opponents can easily dismiss Bartlett's concerns (just as they did with Paul R. Ehrlich).

Unfortunately for everyone Bartlett (like Malthus) is basically correct, but not in the way Professor Bartlett assumes. Populations do not grow exponentially (at a constant rate), but via variable rate compound interest. Variable rate compound interest is fully comparable to fixed rate compound interest. So much so, in fact, that we may need to redefine what exponential growth really means. 

Nonetheless Bartlett's warnings, like Malthus', are fundamentally correct. The Earth cannot sustain positive rates of variable rate compound interest of human populations.

See Bartlett - An Exponentialist View for more.

Richard Dawkins

Evolutionists such as Richard Dawkins, without once ever mentioning the Malthusian population memeplex (or even the name Malthus), are just as ardent as Bartlett in their belief that populations grow exponentially (sort of) and that Earth cannot sustain continued positive rates of human population growth. This is Dawkins in Malthusian style on overpopulation (The Selfish Gene, 1976, 1989):

P.110 "Mankind is having too many children. Population size depends upon four things: births, deaths, immigrations and emigrations. Taking the world population as a whole, immigrations and emigrations do not occur, and we are left with births and deaths. So long as the average number of children per couple is larger than two surviving to reproduce, the numbers of babies born will tend to increase over the years at an ever-accelerating rate. In each generation the population, instead of going up by a fixed amount, increases by something more like a fixed proportion of the size that it has already reached. Since this size is itself getting bigger, the size of the increment gets bigger. If this kind of growth was allowed to go on unchecked, a population would reach astronomical proportions surprisingly quickly."

I suspect, but cannot know for certain, that it is Dawkins' atheism that has blinded him to the true significance of the Malthusian memeplex. This is a pity as I believe that Malthus deserves to be brought back in from the cold, and Dawkins is just the man that could do it.

See Dawkins - An Exponentialist View for more.

The Differential Replication of Religions in Australia

Continuing Dawkins' view of religions as mental viruses, the following table shows the differential replication of the major religious and secular affiliations in Australia over time:

In 1901 the Australian population numbered 3,773.8 millions. By 2001 that had become 18,769.2 millions. Taking percentages as approximate indicators of the differential replication of religious memeplexes, we can see the gradual decline of Christianity in Australia (with the exception of Catholicism) and the rise of both secular (atheist, agnostic, Humanist and rationalist beliefs) and non-Christian theistic beliefs.

One intriguing contributing factor is highlighted by the following statement by the Australian Bureau of Statistics:

"In 1971 the instruction 'if no religion, write none' was introduced. This saw a seven-fold increase from the previous census year in the percentage of persons stating they had no religion."

This at last allowed the secularists the freedom to express their beliefs.

Conclusion

Michael Hart, in his book The 100  - A Ranking Of The Most Influential Persons In History (1978,1992), ranks Malthus at number 80. I do agree that Malthus is one of the most influential people in history, but I would probably rank Malthus even higher based on his Principle of Population memeplex alone.

Malthusian memes were so influential that it was possible for two rival memeplexes - Natural Theology and Natural Selection - to incorporate Malthusian arguments at the same time! Despite Malthus' deep religious convictions, Malthusian memes inspired modern family planning which now act as an additional, humane and effective check on population increase. Malthus continues to be relevant today, even in futuristic fields such as nanotechnology.

David A. Coutts

References

Does population ecology have general laws?, Peter Turchin, 2001

Complex Population Dynamics, Peter Turchin, 2003

The Galilean turn in population ecology Mark Colyvan and Lev R. Ginzburg, 2003

On principles, laws and theory of population ecology, Professor of Entomology, Alan Berryman, Washington State University, 2003

Laws Of Population Ecology, Dr. Paul D. Haemig, 2005