Garrett Hardin
Garrett Hardin
Garrett James Hardinwas an American ecologist and philosopher who warned of the dangers of overpopulation. His exposition of the tragedy of the commons, in a famous 1968 paper in Science, called attention to "the damage that innocent actions by individuals can inflict on the environment". He is also known for Hardin's First Law of Human Ecology: "You cannot do only one thing", which "modestly implies that there is at least one unwanted consequence"...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionEnvironmentalist
Date of Birth21 April 1915
CountryUnited States of America
In the specific case of abortion, the matter is particularly easy in that no woman wants a late abortion. Once abortion was made legal, the age of the aborted fetus went down. The slope slipped in the other direction. If we legalize RU-486 and other similar new drugs, the age will fall to one week or less and start approaching zero. The slippery slope will slide in the other direction. The only reason we have late abortions is because we make early abortion difficult.
Ecological differentiation is the necessary condition for coexistence.
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.
The morality of an act is a function of the state of the system at the time it is performed.
It takes five years for a willing person's mind to change. Have patience with yourself and others when treading in an area protected by a taboo.
We can't cure a shortage by increasing the supply.
The essence of dramatic tragedy is not unhappiness. It resides in the solemnity of the remorseless working of things.
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.
What features of your daily life do you expect to be improved by a further increase in population?
The only thing we can really count on in this uncertain world is human unreliability itself.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights describes the family as the natural and fundamental unit of society. It follows that any choice and decision with regard to the size of the family must irrevocably rest with the family itself, and cannot be made by anyone else.
The exquisite sight, sound, and smell of wilderness is many times more powerful if it is earned through physical achievement, if it comes at the end of a long and fatiguing trip for which vigorous good health is necessary. Practically speaking, this means that no one should be able to enter a wilderness by mechanical means.
A finite world can support only a finite population; therefore, population growth must eventually equal zero.
We see only what we have names for.