The eco-fascist face of population control

Source: United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, World Population Prospects (2010)

The population debate in developed nations is a furphy but in Africa, population is still rising at an alarming rate. The fertility rate is on average five children per female. In Australia it is less than replacement at 1.9 per female.

One of the main problems with the anti-people theory is that like a drunk, looking for his lost keys, they look where it’s brightest – in their backyard. They lost the key to this argument by concentrating on Australia and not Africa. But it’s hard to grab power in Australia by campaigning for population control in Namibia.

Australia’s current population is about the size of New York City and will grow to the approximate current size of Mexico City by 2050. Australia’s population would be below replacement if it were not for immigration. What we have in Australia – and especially in Sydney and Melbourne – is an urban design problem – not a population problem - but that’s another story.

Polls versus truth

The anti-people clique love news polls. They cite them frequently. What exactly does it mean when it is reported that 61.3 percent of people are in favour of population control? They are in favour of population control if it happens to someone else.

Q1. Are you in favour of population control if we sterilize immigrants from non-Anglo Saxon countries? You bet.

Q2. Should we select females under 30 by lottery who earn less that $35,000 a year for sterilisation? That would fix the single mothers defrauding welfare.

Q3. How about something less dramatic? Are you in favour of an educational voucher system for people under 30 who would be entitled to free university education as long as they only have one child? Sounds great.

How about we start with you. Back off!

Schoolteachers and university lecturers get these arguments all of the time. They are called argumentum ad populum. They are appeals on probabilistic terms so that for example, if 61 per cent of a population answer A to a question where the answer is unknown, is it reasonable to assume that the answer is indeed A? No. It is logically fallacious because the mere fact that a belief is widely held is not a guarantee that the belief is correct. The methodology of polls is fascinating area, too large to cover here.