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Why are ecologists and environmentalists so feared and hated? This is because in part what they have to say is new to the general public, and the new is always alarming.

Garrett Hardin

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Garrett Hardin
Age: 88 †
Born: 1915
Born: April 21
Died: 2003
Died: September 14
Biologist
Demographer
Ecologist
Statistician
University Teacher
Dallas
Texas
Garrett James Hardin
Garrett J. Hardin
Feared
Hated
Environmental
General
Public
Ecologists
Part
Environmentalists
Always
Alarming
Environmentalist

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Incommensurables cannot be compared.
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We see only what we have names for.
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In a competitive world of limited resources, total freedom of individual action is intolerable
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Fundamentalists are panicked by the apparent disintegration of the family, the disappearance of certainty and the decay of morality. Fear leads them to ask, if we cannot trust the Bible, what can we trust?
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The optimum population is, then, less than the maximum.
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A finite world can support only a finite population therefore, population growth must eventually equal zero.
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To say that we mutually agree to coercion is not to say that we are required to enjoy it, or even to pretend we enjoy it.
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The god who is reputed to have created fleas to keep dogs from moping over their situation must also have created fundamentalists to keep rationalists from getting flabby. Let us be duly thankful for out blessings.
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Religious reasons, which is no reason. I notice Skeptic had a review of Dennett's book, Darwin's Dangerous Idea. Religious reasons amount to what Dennett terms skyhooks. Do you believe in skyhooks? I don't.
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In a finite world this means that the per capita share of the world's goods must steadily decrease.
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But it is no good using the tongs of reason to pull the Fundamentalists' chestnuts out of the fire of contradiction. Their real troubles lie elsewhere.
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Numeracy: 1. The art of putting numbers to things, that is, assigning amounts to variables in order that practical decisions may be reach. 2. That aspect of education (beyond mere literacy) which takes account of quantitative aspects of reality.
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Indeed, our particular concept of private property, which deters us from exhausting the positive resources of the earth, favors pollution.
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Continuity is at the heart of conservatism: ecology serves that heart.
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(Technology reliability) x (Human reliability) = (System reliability)
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Of course, a positive growth rate might be taken as evidence that a population is below its optimum.
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Education can counteract the natural tendency to do the wrong thing, but the inexorable succession of generations requires that the basis for this knowledge be constantly refreshed.
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The greatest folly is to accept expert statements uncritically. At the very least, we should always seek another opinion.
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A coldly rationalist individualist can deny that he has any obligation to make sacrifices for the future.
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But as population became denser, the natural chemical and biological recycling processes became overloaded, calling for a redefinition of property rights.
Garrett Hardin