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Will he usher in a reign of futarchy?
Dr. Holdren, now a physicist at Harvard, was one of the experts in natural resources whom Paul Ehrlich enlisted in his famous bet against the economist Julian Simon during the "energy crisis" of the 1980s. Dr. Simon, who disagreed with environmentalists' predictions of a new "age of scarcity" of natural resources, offered to bet that any natural resource would be cheaper at any date in the future. Dr. Ehrlich accepted the challenge and asked Dr. Holdren, then the co-director of the graduate program in energy and resources at the University of California, Berkeley, and another Berkeley professor, John Harte, for help in choosing which resources would become scarce.
He's been named as Obama's chief science advisor. Here is more information. Read this too. I was disconcerted to see the close connections between Holdren and Ehrlich.
Posted by Tyler Cowen on December 23, 2008 at 07:06 AM in Political Science | Permalink
Comments
Is it me, or is anyone else put off by John Holdgren's previous experience in choosing which resources are to become scarce?
Does anyone suppose that's what Obama considers to be his primary qualification for the post?
Posted by: Ironman at Dec 23, 2008 9:32:05 AM
Well the former chairman of Goldman is now treasury secretary; his minion Kashkari is running TARP. Larry Summers was with D.E. Shaw. Rubin was with Citigroup. Given the mess we're in now and the fact that these people are all in positions of influence in forming economic policy, one can only assume that spectacular failure in a field is good experience. With that in mind, welcome aboard Dr. Holdren!
p.s. at least the only person who lost money on his previous bet was Paul Ehrlich.
Posted by: ramster at Dec 23, 2008 9:55:55 AM
It's wrong thinking for sure. Julian Simon was a very smart man and should have proven to everyone that what always wins over time is human ingenuity and something as basic as the inflation adjusted price of metal is no match.
Here is a writeup on it (.pdf)
http://www.research2zero.com/reports/R2MonthlyMarch2007.pdf
Posted by: Kris Tuttle at Dec 23, 2008 10:05:48 AM
Libertarians love to repeat this propaganda about Julian Simon's bet.
However, if you look at prices SINCE the end of the bet (and nothing in Simon's cornucopian theories says the trend shouldn't continue), you will see that Simon has fared very poorly since then.
(See: http://biolaw.blogspot.com/2008/03/ehrlich-simon-bet-update.html
Looking at the wikipedia article on the bet, it looks as if Simon was just plain lucky to have started at a peak of prices, and that random walking just happened to make him win then.
I'd say that history has proven Simon wrong, even if he did win the bet.
Posted by: Mike Huben at Dec 23, 2008 10:05:53 AM
It looks like your link is from March. It looks to me like today, Simon would win most or all of those bets again. Doesn't your link add icing to Simon's cake? Every 20 years or so there is a boom in commodities, which most people will internalize as the true state of affairs. So Simon will win the bet 95% of the time, but the other 5% will be so startling to the public psyche that it will still win public opinion to the fear mongers.
Posted by: kebko at Dec 23, 2008 10:30:09 AM
kebko,
Every 60-70 years or so it seems there is a "worst global downturn in living memory" (Panic of 1873, Great Depression, today's crisis). Are you internalizing right now as the true state of affairs? What's special about right now, as opposed to six months ago, that makes it the natural finish line?
Human ingenuity can cope with normal rates of inflation. It remains to be seen whether it can cope with decades-long trends of rising Chinese and Indian consumption, or a dollar crisis and the sharply elevated rates of inflation that current Fed policies seem likely to bring about.
In the very long term, though, Simon is likely to be partly right. Prices of most metals and nearly all non-energy and non-food commodities will collapse as the 21st century version of suburbanization plays itself out. By analogy with the 20th century, where downtowns of US cities atrophied as population and investment shifted to the suburbs, the 21st century will see a long-term shift away from atoms, physical infrastructure, shipping and transportation; and towards electrons, online infrastructure, virtual worlds, and the attention economy.
Posted by: at Dec 23, 2008 11:20:47 AM
Tyler:
Was Holdren chosen for anything other than social proof? How could we tell?
Futarchy would probably be better than "expertise" in this case, since - can we just put a permanent link to Robin Hanson around here somewhere? I mean, this HT came from you! - Experts Are For Certainty, rarely for info.
Science Politics Isn't About Science Policy.
Posted by: StreetWalker at Dec 23, 2008 11:29:51 AM
I have no dog in this fight, ideologically speaking, but it strikes me that while Simon may have been right so far, who's to say he will be proven right 50 or a 100 years from now? If the current economic crisis proves anything, it's the folly of projecting past trends indefinitely into the future. Remember the Great Moderation?
Posted by: Phil P at Dec 23, 2008 11:30:21 AM
First off, isn't it Ehrlich who claimed that commodity prices will rise because of mass shortages due to population explosions. Didn't he predict hundreds of people wil die from starvation in the 70's and 80's? And didn't he choose both the commodities and the time frame over which the bet will take place? With Holdren's help, of course. So your point about commodities exhibiting random-walk like behavior actually debunk Holdren and Ehrlich who were the ones who posited the scientific theory that the world will run out of resources. Oh, and by the way, could someone actually mention Holdren's major SCIENTIFIC rather than advocacy contribution?
Posted by: Gene2 at Dec 23, 2008 11:40:54 AM
By hundreds, I meant hundreds of millions above.
Posted by: Gene2 at Dec 23, 2008 11:41:50 AM
By hundreds, I meant hundreds of millions.
Posted by: Gene2 at Dec 23, 2008 11:42:44 AM
Read Matt Simmons on The Limits to Growth. His conclusion: surprisingly prescient. Matt Simmons was a Bush2000 Range ie a key fundraiser.
On the Population Bomb, 2 things happened:
- *so far* world food production did better than expected (the Green Revolution). Note we've never been able to repeat the Green Revolution outside of a very limited set of climates and societies (basically rice growing cultures in SE Asia)
- world population growth has been lower than expected, because of a stunning drop in fertility in the worlds' 2 most populous countries: India and China. TFR in both cases declined from over 6 to 1.7 or so in China and 3.1 in India
The result is the world is on track for 10-12 billion people not for 18 billion.
So what you could say was that Ehrlich got wrong was that the human race would respond to his critique and take very strong action. To wit, probably the largest, fastest voluntary fall in human fertility ever experienced.
The warning on global warming is not a 'Limits to Growth' argument. It is a Rachel Carson argument: if you do not stop doing this, emitting this pollutant into the atmosphere, very serious, and unpredictable, consequences may wmerge. At high enough concentrations, will emerge.
And it's pretty clear that the Chinese government in particular responded very strongly to warnings of overpopualtion.
Tierney quotes the Competitive Enterprise Institute: a 'think tank' specifically created to deny global warming. Citing Lomborg, who plays fast and loose with science and with economics, is just not a good critique.
Posted by: valuethinker at Dec 23, 2008 11:44:14 AM
Didn't Asimov once calculate that the ultimate limiting resource to human life on the planet was potassium?
Posted by: Al Abbott at Dec 23, 2008 12:03:00 PM
A pox on all the philosopher kings and all the born and bred American dopes who believe them.
Posted by: at Dec 23, 2008 12:18:31 PM
Malthusian = Erlichian
Posted by: at Dec 23, 2008 12:20:53 PM
It's a battle of two self-fulfilling prophecies, which is why letting the Mathusians into power is a disaster waiting to happen.
Posted by: 8 at Dec 23, 2008 12:35:24 PM
Malthusian = Erlichian
Of course we know know drivel is completely recyclable.
Posted by: Phil at Dec 23, 2008 12:49:29 PM
The most amazing thing about the whole thing is how the media is calling him a Harvard Physicist. He is no such thing. He is a faculty member at the Kennedy School of Government who happens to have a PhD. in plasma physics. Here is the list of the Harvard Physics faculty. He is nowhere to be found:
http://www.physics.harvard.edu/people/faculty.html
While strictly speaking, he is a physicist who teaches at Harvard, the term "Harvard Physicist" is clearly used to lend him scientific street cred, giving people the impression that he is a member of the Harvard physics department. Again, what major scientific contributions has the man made?
Posted by: Gene2 at Dec 23, 2008 1:22:30 PM
Phil P
Is the theory of "Great Moderation" a projection of "past trends indefinitely into the future" or is it the opposite (past trends are over and a new paradigm has arrived)?
Posted by: Bababooey at Dec 23, 2008 2:33:58 PM
@Mike Huben
@Mike Huben
I think that you are misreading Simon. Simon talks of effective use of resources. E.g. gasoline may cost more but since the cars are more efficient gasoline for to driving a given distance at a given speed and given level of comfort the cost of what we buy gasoline for has fallen.
@valuethinker
Simon also said that population does not always grow exponentially.
Lots of Simons writing is free online.
Posted by: floccina at Dec 23, 2008 3:14:39 PM
Mike Huben, you picked a local maxima to prove your point. Haven't you noticed the rapid deflating of the commodity bubble? Simon was right.
Posted by: oh, huben at Dec 23, 2008 6:28:46 PM
Helium!
Helium is an incredibly precious research. Necessary for most branches of science, rocket ships, etc. The physical properties of helium, specifically the low, low temperature at which it becomes liquid are impossible to reproduce. Helium is also practically impossible to make. There is a serious helium shortage, which has (in some disciplines) the limiting factor on how much scientific research can be produced.
Posted by: Linkt at Dec 23, 2008 7:09:20 PM
Oh, for heaven's sakes. Have you looked at the prices of metals lately?
If instead of 1980 to 1990, Ehrlich and Simon had wagered for 1980 to 2005, Ehrlich would have won the bet.
And by a good margin in 2007. We'll see about 2008-9. The only reason he lost for 1990 was not "innovation." It was low prices for oil and coal which made it economical to process low grade ores. Oil prices went back up, and now metal prices are up.
Posted by: Omri at Dec 23, 2008 7:25:38 PM
Omri,
Your hypothesis is contradicted by the facts. There is no meaningful correlation over the past 30 years between oil prices and commodity metal prices. And based on USGS data, your claim that Ehrlich would have won the bet if the timeframe had been 1980 to 2005 is also false.
Posted by: seacrest at Dec 23, 2008 8:48:36 PM
Uh, based on actual market prices for metals, corrected for inflation, Ehrlich would have won the bet.
Posted by: Omri at Dec 23, 2008 10:56:09 PM
