Perpetual Growth: The Next Dragon Facing Biology Teachers

Abstract

write this article within a tradition established by Theodosius Dobzhansky. In 1973 he told National Association of Biology Teachers that, in biology makes sense except in light of evolution. The vast majority of biologists agree with Dobzhansky. He reminded us that evolution through natural selection was so all-encompassing a process that biologists should not, merely for sake of momentary peace, draw back from defending Darwin's vision. The principal opponents to evolution have been members of certain religions. The objectors have been only a small fraction of total religious population, but they have been very vocal. Their indignant outcries have now dropped to a low level of decibels. Still, in many communities, it takes considerable courage to be a good biology teacher. Now on horizon is another conflict that is also, in a deep sense, a religious one. This is conflict over The idea of perpetual growth is embraced with religious fervor by mainstream economists and other worshipers of Progress-the material sort of progress, that is. Two decades ago Walter Heller, then chairman of President's Council of Economic Advisers, said, I cannot conceive a successful economy without growth. This was, and is, majority opinion of economists. In same category is an aphorism of one of Rothschilds who said that, Compound interest is eighth wonder of world. He implied that exponential growth of money-at-interest creates actual physical wealth. This belief is defended with religious fervor by most economists, despite fact that physicist Frederick Soddy showed that money-at-interest creates only a negotiable demand on wealth, not wealth itself. On paper, a bank account can be made to grow forever, without limit. But does this mean that material wealth also grows without limit? Not so, said Aristotle, because Money is sterile. Two thousand years later we are prisoners of an economic system built on assumption that money is limitlessly fertile. Fortunately a few economists are calling for a revitalization of Aristotlelianl insight, notably Kenneth E. Boulding and Herman E. Daly. Professor Boulding has remarked that, Anyone who believes exponential growth can go on forever in a finite world is either a madman or an economist. Boulding has earned right to be blunt: He is an eminent enough economist to have served a term as president of American Economics Association. Most economists probably wish he had not given voice to so harsh a home truth, but his view is gaining support in profession. Our students are society's next generation-in-power. We owe it to them, to society at large, and to posterity to help students build their expectations on a realistic basis. Exponential growth needs to be seen as a severely time-limited process, for which costs must be paid. Growth is ultimately limited by environment, a truth that ecologists encapsulate in concept of capacity. This concept is an absolute necessity for honest ecological accounting; yet several economists have, with little contradiction by their fellows, called it a concept. To make such an assertion is as bizarre as if an accountant were to say that balancing books is a meaningless procedure. In evaluating annual report of a business concern one looks for the bottom line. Carrying capacity is bottom line of ecological accounting. Like laws of thermodynamics, carrying capacity is part of conservative structure of science. We need to uncover reasons for strange reluctance of economists to admit this form of conservatism into their discipline. A society that pays attention to economists needs economists who pay attention to reality. We will gain in perspective, as well as in humility, if we keep in mind that conservation principles come down to us from classical Greece. They were first explicitly recognized by Epicurus back in 3rd century B.C. The language quoted below is a far cry from sound bites of present-day television, but ancient Greeks did not labor under our curse of an Nothing material can be ei-