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Episode 508: A Bet On The Future Of Humanity

James Cridland
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Note: This episode originally ran in 2014.

A famous biologist, Paul Ehrlich, predicts that overpopulation will lead to global catastrophe. He writes a bestselling book — The Population Bomb — and goes on the Tonight Show to make his case.

An economist, Julian Simon, disagrees. He thinks Ehrlich isn't accounting for how clever people can be, and how shortages can lead to new, more efficient ways of doing things.

So Simon challenges Ehrlich to a very public, very acrimonious, decade-long bet. On today's show: The story of that bet, and what it tells us about the future of humanity.

For more, see The Bet, by Yale historian Paul Sabin. We talk to Sabin on today's show.

Music: "Smoke and Mirrors," "Get It Get It" and "Too Much Bling."

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Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

Alex Blumberg is a contributing editor for NPR's Planet Money. He is also a producer for the public radio program This American Life, and an adjunct professor of journalism at Columbia University. He has done radio documentaries on the U.S. Navy, people who do impersonations of their mothers and teenage Steve Forbes supporters. He won first place at the 2002 Third Coast International Audio Festival for his story "Yes, There is a Baby." His story on clinical medical ethicists won the 1999 Public Radio News Directors Incorporated (PRNDI) award for best radio documentary.
David Kestenbaum is a correspondent for NPR, covering science, energy issues and, most recently, the global economy for NPR's multimedia project Planet Money. David has been a science correspondent for NPR since 1999. He came to journalism the usual way — by getting a Ph.D. in physics first.