[lotrfan55345]

Published in CELL! I'll try to find a full version soon. Academia has been churning out lots of PO-related articles in prestigious journals in the past year.

Two interacting forces influence all populations: the Malthusian dynamic of exponential growth until resource limits are reached, and the Darwinian dynamic of innovation and adaptation to circumvent these limits through biological and/or cultural evolution. The specific manifestations of these forces in modern human society provide an important context for determining how humans can establish a sustainable relationship with the finite Earth.

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/ar ... 471200300X

[Tanada]

In the past 125,000 years or so Homo Sapiens population has followed a Sigmoid function with exponential growth whenever a new territory was exploited or a new energy resource added. Look at USA census records from 1790 to 1890 before steam power had much impact on agriculture. The USA went from about 4 Million in 1790 to 63 Million in 1890. Granted the geographic area controlled grew enormously but the population density allowed by farming and ranching vs hunter gatherer and spot agriculture was the main difference. When things were starting to slow down mechanized agriculture was invented, when that boost started to slow down petrochemical fertilizers and phosphorus caused the green revolution. We have never gotten back into a steady state population situation since about 1500 because we kept finding new resources to exploit. Until now.

[ralfy]

From what I know, Darwin referred to natural selection, for which the environment limits the organism, but mutation allows the species to survive. Given that, I am guessing that he referred generally to various plants and animals and did not ignore human innovation for obvious reasons.

Malthus did not consider advances in technology that would allow human beings to go beyond the limits of the environment, but given the main premises of this forum, he is in the end right.