THE CONVERSATION — In 1960, Science, one of the world’s leading science journals, published an article with an unambiguous title: Doomsday: Friday, 13 November, A.D. 2026. It predicted that on this future date the human population would approach infinity and effectively annihilate itself.
The outlandishness of the claim landed the article widespread public attention. More surprisingly — because its underlying research and math seemed sound — it also received careful and sustained scientific attention.
The authors — Heinz von Foerster, an Austrian-American professor and cybernetics expert and two of his students, Patricia M. Mora and Lawrence W. Amiot — argued that human populations are exceptional and might grow beyond an exponential rate, at an ever-increasing one.
“Our great-great-grandchildren will not starve,” they argued. “They will be squeezed to death.”
The article was regularly cited, and its predictions appeared remarkably accurate — until around 1993, halfway to the predicted “Doomsday,” when the global population began falling behind its forecasts.
Today, the global birth rate is slightly less than half what it was in 1960. Hopefully, we will all wake up on 13 November to an ordinary day. Nonetheless, this article remains exemplary, for blending rigorous science with the art of stagecraft to staggering effect.
Unique human capacities
The mid-20th century saw increasing societal concern about global population growth and its potential to lead to resource scarcity and geopolitical conflict. Underlying much of this concern was implicit or explicit acceptance of the Malthusian idea that whereas population has the potential to grow exponentially, it is kept constantly under check by its capacity to feed itself.
In their article, however, von Foerster and his co-authors argued that as far as populations go, humans may be exceptional.
Given our capacity to communicate and form “coalitions” that help us resolve problems, rising population density might simply mean more opportunities for collaboration, so that our numbers might grow not only beyond an exponential rate but at an ever-increasing one.
They then used 24 estimates of the world population stretching across the past 2,000 years to show that human numbers have in fact continually outpaced expectations. All this was presented in calm, scientific prose and aided by dense mathematical equations.
‘Squeezed to death’
Von Foerster and his co-authors then projected these historical figures into the future, calculating that thanks to ever-increasing growth, in the year 2026 our numbers would near infinity.
Thankfully, the same capacity for collaboration that assisted our species’ development throughout history could now avert this catastrophe. Since we are unlikely to want to reduce our life spans, they concluded, we should work together to reduce the global birth rate by half.
This publication caused an immediate stir. There were stories in Time and The New York Times. It became the subject of a series of Pogo comic strips and many commentators took the article as strictly a tongue-in-cheek comment on population fears.
A population explosion
Rather than the story dying out, a funny thing happened. When Science published letters to the editor from mathematicians and demographers attacking von Foerster and his colleagues’ work — calling it “ridiculous” and “manifestly absurd” — the authors responded with spirited defences that doubled down on the underlying math and its conclusions.
Throughout the 1960s through to the 1980s, the “Doomsday” equation became regularly cited — usually at face value — in textbooks on genetics, ecology and demography.
It appeared in stranger places, too. In a 1963 Canadian Parliamentary committee, for example, a witness from the chemical industry prominently cited it as reason chemical pesticides were required: to feed the approaching population explosion. In a 1971 U.S. Supreme Court abortion case leading up to Roe v. Wade, it was cited as why there was no compelling reason for the government to favour increased population.
The Doomsday idea persisted in part because its predictions for future populations turned out to be highly accurate — at least for a while. Its core equation yielded projections that were better than those of most demographers throughout the 1970s and 1980s.
Only around 1993 did that accuracy begin to falter and the global population began falling behind the forecasts — because the world began to do what von Foerster and his colleagues recommended it do. Today, the global birth rate is slightly less than half the 1960 rate.
Science and stagecraft
We will probably not all wake up on Friday, Nov. 13 “squeezed to death.” But before simply moving on — prepping for the next doomsday scenario — it is worth asking what we can learn from this one.
For me, the lesson is in how we present our beliefs to the world. Heinz von Foerster was, at one point in his life, a stage magician. Borrowing the classic language of stagecraft, an effective illusion relies on three parts: the setup, the extraordinary turn and the final reveal that returns the situation to normal.
Von Foerster and his co-authors’ article gained attention because it was an ordinary scientific article wrapped in an extraordinary title and conclusion. It retained significance because it was firmly grounded in research and argument.
To draw the world’s attention to a serious matter by way of absurdity — that’s a good trick.
The Conversation
Author
Professor, History, Western University
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