Julian Simon's Major Logical Fallacies: A Guide to Faulty Economic Reasoning

Julian Simon's Major Logical Fallacies:
A Guide to Faulty Economic Reasoning
...............by Chris H. Lewis, Ph.D. CU-Boulder

Just because life in the U.S. has gotten better in the
past 150 years does not mean it will automatically continue to get better in the next 150 years. We cannot simply predict the future based on the immediate past.
Just because air, water, and chemical pollution has decreased in the United States in the last 40 years doesn't mean that pollution throughout the world will also decrease in the next 40 years. We can't compare conditions in the United States with very different economic, social, and political conditions
in other countries.
Just because increases in income in the United States led to decreasing pollution and tougher environmental standards in the last 40 years does not prove that increases in incomes in other countries over the next 40 years will also "cause"
decreasing pollution and tougher environmental standards.
Just because we can't measure the total supply of oil, coal, or natural gas on the Earth doesn't mean that that supply is "non-finite." Just because you can't affectively measure something doesn't mean it is therefore "infinite".
Just because we can substitute one energy source for another, such as oil for whale oil, doesn't mean that the supply of energy is infinite. To say that the sun will live 7 billion years and therefore we have a constant supply of energy is naive. The larger question is whether our energy sources come in forms that are economical to use and don't have a negative impact on the global environment.
Just because total food production in the world increased over the last 40 years does not mean that total food production will continue to increase over the next 40 years. The production of food is dependent on the health of the larger environment and larger environmental and weather factors that cannot be easily predicted or controlled.
Just because the price of major commodities has tended to decrease in the last 50 years does not mean that commodity prices will continue to decrease in the next 50 years. The availibility of commodities depends on the number of people needing them, their efficient use, and our ability to recycle them.
The immediate future will not necessarilly be like the immediate past because as modern industrial civilization grows it changes the environmental, economic, and physical context upon which such
growth and development occurs. It is easier to supply energy to 2 billion people than it will be to supply energy to 10 billion people.
The immediate future will not necessarily be like the immediate past because increasing economic and population growth has increased "the scale of negative human impact" on the global environment.
Not only has the global scale of this negative impact increased so to is the "accelerating rate of global destruction" of vital ecosystems increasing.
Just because people in the developed world have seen their standards of living increase, pollution decrease, and environmental quality improve in the last 50 years does not mean that this will "necessarily" automatically continue in the next 50 years.
Just because the United States has become developed, wealthy, and Americans have increasing lifespans does not mean that people in Mexico,
Brazil, or Indonesia will become developed. In fact,
the continued economic development of the United States could be the cause of increasing poverty, hunger, and environmental destruction in the
"under-developed world."
Our ability to protect our air, water, and vital ecosystems will not necessarily continue to increase in the next 50 years at the same rate as it increased over the last 50 years. Increasing size of our total populations and the increasing demands of each individual in these populations for more material consumption makes its more and more difficult for us to protect our air, water, and vital ecosystems.
Just because sources of energy and raw materials can be "substituted indefinitely" so that we will never run out of energy and resources does not
mean that we can continue to increase our consumption of energy and raw materials. Because of "entropy" and pollution, and environmental destruction our use of energy and raw materials is limited by the ability of the global environment to absorb the waste and pollution this use causes and the human ability to limit the negative consequences of such use on the environment and human societies.
Just because technology and science have helped developed countries in the last 50 years to limit
their negative impact on the global environment does not mean that technology and science will continue to enable us to reduce the total human impact on the global environment. The increasing size of the total human population, increasing material demands by that population, and increasing
collapse of vital ecosystems worldwide makes it harder and harder more modern science and technology to limit negative human impacts.
Just because food and energy prices have on average declined over the last 50 years does not mean they will continue to decline in the next 50 years. The price of food and energy does not measure the larger negative impact on the Earth that humans cause in acquiring more of each. The market hasn't proven to be a reliable measure of the larger cost of human impact on the global environment.
Just because we cannot measure the total number of species on the Earth does not mean we can't make reasonable scientific estimates of rates of global species extinction. Science uses sampling and mathematical modeling to estimate from small samples to the rates of extinction for the entire Earth.
The increasing rate of global species extinction matters, even though many of the individual species becoming extinct seem to be non-essential --such as the snail darter. The health and functioning of vital ecosystems defends on massive communities of species, who together help these
ecosystems to remain healthy and protect themselves from environmental perturbances such as drought, floods, and disease.
Because we can't determine the relative value of any one species in an ecosystem does not mean we can decide that its extinction would not have a long-term negative impact on a vital ecosystem. In many cases, what we see is that many species interact in these ecosystems and are co-dependent on each other; thus, the extinction of one of two "keystone species" could cause the extinction of a large number other of other species.
Just because an individual is often a benefit, or a positive good, to his or her society does not necessarily mean that the more total individuals the better off society is. The impact of each individual is a function of their larger impact on their local environments, the sheer size of the total number of individuals in that environment, and the environmental destruction and waste their consumption creates.
Just because the human population has grown from 1 billion to 6.5 billion in the last 150 years and our wealth and quality of life has greatly increased in the last 150 years that it was the growth of population that caused this increase in wealth and quality of life. In fact, because of the increasing size and scale of human impact on the Earth, increasing population may now be a negative factor, increasing poverty and decreasing our quality of life.
Just because the developed world has witnessed increasing life expectancy in the last 100 years does not mean that the global environment is increasingly less polluted and more protected. In fact, increasing life expectancy could cause individuals to consume more total goods and therefore cause them to cause more total pollution and undermine more vital ecosystems.
We cannot use the market cost of resources or energy, increasing life expectancy, or the quality of life and the health of the environment in the developed world to draw conclusions about the health of the global environment. In fact, increasing life expectancy, quality of life, and the health of the environment in the developed world could be the cause of declining health, quality of life, and deteriorating ecosystems in the under-developed world.
We cannot simply compare the developed world with the under-developed world. We cannot assume that the under-developed world will grow and become just like the developed world. The developed and under-developed worlds are just too different in terms of total population, total wealth, local environments, technological competance, and good goverance to make easy comparisons.
We cannot simply use past trends, often selected over arbitrary time periods, to make larger predictions about the future. We know that with development the population size, wealth, quality of life, and environmental quality change. We must then base our predictions on these changing conditions, which by definition aren't the same conditions that we experienced in the past.
Just because technology and science has enabled us to grow more food on less land in the last 100 years does not mean that we will continue to be able to grow more food on less land. There are many other factors that also influence this. Short- and long-term climate changes, number and variety of diseases and insect pests, the quality of the soil and water, and the impact of various technologies used together.
Just because genetic engineering has enabled us to grow more food on less land does not mean that this will continue to be the case. Cross-breeing and inter-species breeding across Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) could cause the rapid collapse of various food crops. Just because the use of GMOs has had a positive impact in the past does not mean that their use will continue to have a positive impact.
Just because with increasing wealth and development in the developed world population growth has declined does not mean that population growth in the under-developed world will also decrease with increasing wealth and development. For Simon, the more wealth we have, the more people we can have. But what happens when the total size of the population and total wealth reaches an unsustainble level?
Just because economic growth increased in the developed world in the last 150 years does not mean that economic growth will continue to increase in the next 150 years. Increasing economic growth on a global scale could cause increasing destruction of the global environment and its ability to absorb waste, which would act as a brake on that economic growth.
Human understanding and ingenuity is not infinite. Advances in science, technology, and human mastery can cause both negative and positive results. For example, the creation of the hydrogen bomb or a hybrid Ebola-Cold virus could cause the death of billions of people. The success of science and technology depends on how it is used and the precautions we take against it harming us.
You can't simply extrapolate past economic growth, advances in science and technology, and growth in the quality of life into the future. You must determine the impact of such economic growth, advances in science and technology, and the growth in the quality of life on different populations.
In animal populations, growth usually proves to be self-limiting as populations grows past the ability of its local environment to support it.
Instead of simply projecting past growth trends we need to ask where these trends and conditions are taking us and whether such a future is one that we would all want. Human societies have choice and can determine what their futures will be. Our lives and future are not necessarily determined by past trends.
Simon and economists tend to assume that economic growth and increasing individual wealth
is an unmitigated good. But what if the sheer global size and global impact of this economic growth reaches a point where it creates negative feedback loops that make continued growth an increasing threat to the survival of modern industrial civilization.
Simon assumes that because people work hard, use their heads, and want to create a better life and future that they will necessarily succeed. There are plenty of examples of past human societies that have collapsed despite the best efforts of their people. Just because our global industrial civilization has been able to sustain global economic growth rates until now does not mean that it will be able to continue to do so.
Just because people can earn profits by solving problems does not mean that the profit-motive will necessarily save global industrial civilization from its problems. The profit-motive can also cause people to take actions that will make these problems worse. The larger issue is how can society harness the profit-motive to create more good than harm.
Simon believes that because one human life is good that an infinite growth in human lives must also be good. It isn't the number of individual human beings but how each society uses these individuals to improve the quality of their collective lives and environment. Some cultures are better at creating
healthy societies and environments for more people.
We can not assume that the future will be just like the past. We must analyze current problems and trends and determine where we are actually going. If Global Warming does increase the global temperature 6 to 7 degrees in the next 100 years, it will fundamentally change the conditions of our environments, societies, and lives.
We must recognize the complex behavior of "complex, dynamic systems." The increasing scale, rate, and complexity of human interaction with the global environment makes it increasingly difficult for us to understand and predict the future.
Instead of assuming that total economic growth is necessarily good for everyone, we need to analyze the impact of that growth on different levels of society and the local and global environments.
Just because we can't prove that life in the future will be poorer, more polluted, more violent, and less secure does not necessarily prove that it won't be.
The future is still yet unknown. The choices we make today will help determine our future tomorrow.
Just because we have been successful in solving our problems in the past does not mean we will be equally successful at solving our problems in the future. The real challenge for humanity is not to predict a rosy future but create a sustainable global society that provides a high quality of life, a healthy environment, and protects the rights of future generations. The future is not in trends but in our "hearts, souls, wills, and faith."