Julian Lincoln Simon
Encyclopedia
Julian Lincoln Simon (February 12, 1932 – February 8, 1998) was a professor
of business administration at the University of Maryland
and a Senior Fellow at the Cato Institute
at the time of his death, after previously serving as a longtime business professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
.
Simon wrote many books and articles, mostly on economic
subjects. He is best known for his work on population
, natural resource
s, and immigration
. His work covers cornucopian
views on lasting economic benefits from natural resources and continuous population growth, even despite limited or finite physical resources, empowered by human ingenuity, substitutes, and technological progress
. His works are also cited by libertarians
against government regulation. He died at the age of 65 of a heart attack in Chevy Chase, Maryland
.
He is also known for the famous Simon–Ehrlich wager, a bet he made with ecologist Paul R. Ehrlich
. Ehrlich bet that the prices for five metals would increase over a decade, while Simon took the opposite stance. Simon won the bet, as the prices for the metals sharply declined during that decade.
, raw-material scarcity and resource consumption. Simon argues that our notions of increasing resource-scarcity ignore the long-term declines in wage-adjusted raw material prices. Viewed economically, he argues, increasing wealth and technology make more resources available; although supplies may be limited physically they may be viewed as economically indefinite as old resources are recycled and new alternatives are assumed to be developed by the market. Simon challenged the notion of an impending Malthusian catastrophe
—that an increase in population has negative economic consequences; that population is a drain on natural resources; and that we stand at risk of running out of resources through over-consumption
. Simon argues that population is the solution to resource scarcities and environmental problems, since people and markets innovate. His ideas were praised by Nobel Laureate economists Friedrich Hayek
and Milton Friedman
, the latter in a 1998 foreword to The Ultimate Resource II, but they have also attracted critics such as Paul R. Ehrlich
and Albert Bartlett
.
Simon examined different raw materials, especially metals and their prices in historical times. He assumed that besides temporary shortfalls, in the long run prices for raw materials remain at similar levels or even decrease. E.g. aluminium was never as expensive as before 1886 and steel used for medieval armor carried a much higher price tag in current dollars than any modern parallel.
His 1984 book The Resourceful Earth (co-edited by Herman Kahn
), is a similar criticism of the conventional wisdom
on population growth and resource consumption and a direct response to the Global 2000
report. For example, it predicted that "There is no compelling reason to believe that world oil prices will rise in the coming decades. In fact, prices may well fall below current levels". With respect to oil, the price in 2008 reached the $100 peak it reached (inflation adjusted) before 1880. In line with Simons predictions it had fallen after the 1970s oil shortages to comparably low levels in the 1980s and should do so in the future again.
Simon was skeptical, in 1994, of claims that human activity caused global environmental damage, notably in relation to CFCs, ozone depletion
and climate change
, the latter primarily because of the perceived rapid switch from fears of global cooling
and a new ice age
(in the mid 1970s) to the later fears of global warming
. Simon also listed numerous claims about severe environmental damage and health dangers from pollution as "definitely disproved". These included claims about lead pollution
& IQ, DDT
, PCBs, malathion
, Agent Orange
, asbestos
, and the chemical contamination at Love Canal
.
.
An article entitled "The Doomslayer" profiling Julian Simon in Wired
magazine inspired Bjørn Lomborg
to write the book The Skeptical Environmentalist
.
Simon was also the first to suggest that airline
s should provide rewards for travelers to give up their seats on overbooked flights, rather than arbitrarily taking random passengers off the plane (a practice known as "bumping"). Although the airline industry initially rejected it, his plan was later implemented with resounding success, as recounted by Milton Friedman in the foreword to The Ultimate Resource II. Economist James Heins said in 2009 that the practice had added $100 billion to the United States economy in the last 30 years. Simon gave away his idea to federal de-regulators and never received any personal profit from his solution.
Although not all of Simon's arguments were universally accepted, they contributed to a shift in opinion in the literature on demographic economics
from a strongly Malthusian negative view of population growth to a more neutral view. More recent theoretical developments, based on the ideas of the demographic dividend
and demographic window
, have contributed to another shift this time away from the debate viewing population growth as either good or bad.
Simon wrote a memoir, A Life Against the Grain, which was published by his wife after his death.
of metal
s a decade
later; Simon had been challenging environmental scientists to the bet for some time. Ehrlich, John Harte and John Holdren
selected a basket of five metals that they thought would rise in price with increasing scarcity and depletion.
Simon won the bet, with all five metals dropping in price. Supporters of Ehrlich's position suggest that much of this price drop came because of an oil
spike driving prices up in 1980 and a recession
driving prices down in 1990, pointing out that the price of the basket of metals actually rose from 1950 to 1975. They also suggest that Ehrlich did not consider the prices of these metals to be critical indicators, and that Ehrlich took the bet with great reluctance. On the other hand, Ehrlich selected the metals to be used himself, and at the time of the bet called it an "astonishing offer" that he was accepting "before other greedy people jump in," hardly suggesting reluctance.
The total supply in none of these metals increased during this time, but prices declined for a variety of reasons:
In all of these cases, better technology allowed for either more efficient use of existing resources, or substitution with a more abundant and less expensive resource, as Simon predicted.
. Ehrlich offered Simon a set of 15 metrics over 10 years, victor to be determined by scientists chosen by the president of the National Academy of Sciences
in 2005. There was no meeting of minds, because Simon felt that too many of the metrics measured attributes of the world not directly related to human welfare, e.g. the amount of nitrous oxide
in the atmosphere
. For such indirect, supposedly bad indicators to be considered "bad", they would ultimately have to have some measurable detrimental effect on actual human welfare. Ehrlich refused to leave out measures considered by Simon to be trivial.
Simon summarized the bet with the following analogy:
"Let me characterize their [Ehrlich and Schneider's] offer as follows. I predict, and this is for real, that the average performances in the next Olympics will be better than those in the last Olympics. On average, the performances have gotten better, Olympics to Olympics, for a variety of reasons. What Ehrlich and others say is that they don't want to bet on athletic performances, they want to bet on the conditions of the track, or the weather, or the officials, or any other such indirect measure."
School of Forestry. The Simon / South wager concerned timber prices. Consistent with his cornucopian
analysis of this issue in The Ultimate Resource, Simon wagered that at the end of a five-year term the consumer price of pine timber would have decreased; South wagered that it would increase. Before five years had elapsed, Simon saw that market and extra-market forces were driving up the price of timber, and he paid Professor South $1,000. Simon died before the agreed-upon date of the end of the bet, by which time timber prices had risen further.
Simon's reasoning for his early exit out of the bet was due to "the far-reaching quantity and price effects of logging restrictions in the Pacific-northwest." He believed this counted as interference from the Canadian government, which rendered the bet worthless according to his economic principles. Simon's bet only considered the possibility of prices being driven up by South Carolina's government; he did not believe anything worthwhile was shown when Canadian import restrictions drove the prices up.
established the annual Julian L. Simon Lecture to honor Simon's work in population economics. The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
held a symposium discussing Simon's work on April 24, 2002. The university also established the Julian Simon Memorial Faculty Scholar Endowment to fund an associate faculty member in the business school. India's Liberty Institute also holds a Julian Simon Memorial Lecture. The Competitive Enterprise Institute
gives the Julian Simon Memorial Award annually to an economist in the vein of Simon; the first recipient was Stephen Moore, who had served as a research fellow under Simon in the 1980s.
. Simon suffered from a long time depression, which allowed him to work only a few productive hours in a day. He also studied psychology of depression and wrote a book on overcoming it. One of his theses was, that when you feel inferior and failed, you should just mentally force yourself to stop the comparisons between yourself and other people.
Professor
A professor is a scholarly teacher; the precise meaning of the term varies by country. Literally, professor derives from Latin as a "person who professes" being usually an expert in arts or sciences; a teacher of high rank...
of business administration at the University of Maryland
University of Maryland, College Park
The University of Maryland, College Park is a top-ranked public research university located in the city of College Park in Prince George's County, Maryland, just outside Washington, D.C...
and a Senior Fellow at the Cato Institute
Cato Institute
The Cato Institute is a libertarian think tank headquartered in Washington, D.C. It was founded in 1977 by Edward H. Crane, who remains president and CEO, and Charles Koch, chairman of the board and chief executive officer of the conglomerate Koch Industries, Inc., the largest privately held...
at the time of his death, after previously serving as a longtime business professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
The University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign is a large public research-intensive university in the state of Illinois, United States. It is the flagship campus of the University of Illinois system...
.
Simon wrote many books and articles, mostly on economic
Economics
Economics is the social science that analyzes the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services. The term economics comes from the Ancient Greek from + , hence "rules of the house"...
subjects. He is best known for his work on population
Population
A population is all the organisms that both belong to the same group or species and live in the same geographical area. The area that is used to define a sexual population is such that inter-breeding is possible between any pair within the area and more probable than cross-breeding with individuals...
, natural resource
Natural resource
Natural resources occur naturally within environments that exist relatively undisturbed by mankind, in a natural form. A natural resource is often characterized by amounts of biodiversity and geodiversity existent in various ecosystems....
s, and immigration
Immigration
Immigration is the act of foreigners passing or coming into a country for the purpose of permanent residence...
. His work covers cornucopian
Cornucopian
A cornucopian is a futurist who believes that continued progress and provision of material items for mankind can be met by similarly continued advances in technology...
views on lasting economic benefits from natural resources and continuous population growth, even despite limited or finite physical resources, empowered by human ingenuity, substitutes, and technological progress
History of technology
The history of technology is the history of the invention of tools and techniques, and is similar in many ways to the history of humanity. Background knowledge has enabled people to create new things, and conversely, many scientific endeavors have become possible through technologies which assist...
. His works are also cited by libertarians
Libertarianism
Libertarianism, in the strictest sense, is the political philosophy that holds individual liberty as the basic moral principle of society. In the broadest sense, it is any political philosophy which approximates this view...
against government regulation. He died at the age of 65 of a heart attack in Chevy Chase, Maryland
Chevy Chase, Maryland
Chevy Chase is the name of both a town and an unincorporated census-designated place in Montgomery County, Maryland. In addition, a number of villages in the same area of Montgomery County include "Chevy Chase" in their names...
.
He is also known for the famous Simon–Ehrlich wager, a bet he made with ecologist Paul R. Ehrlich
Paul R. Ehrlich
Paul Ralph Ehrlich is an American biologist and educator who is the Bing Professor of Population Studies in the department of Biological Sciences at Stanford University and president of Stanford's Center for Conservation Biology. By training he is an entomologist specializing in Lepidoptera , but...
. Ehrlich bet that the prices for five metals would increase over a decade, while Simon took the opposite stance. Simon won the bet, as the prices for the metals sharply declined during that decade.
Theory
Simon's 1981 book The Ultimate Resource is a criticism of what was then the conventional wisdom on population growthPopulation growth
Population growth is the change in a population over time, and can be quantified as the change in the number of individuals of any species in a population using "per unit time" for measurement....
, raw-material scarcity and resource consumption. Simon argues that our notions of increasing resource-scarcity ignore the long-term declines in wage-adjusted raw material prices. Viewed economically, he argues, increasing wealth and technology make more resources available; although supplies may be limited physically they may be viewed as economically indefinite as old resources are recycled and new alternatives are assumed to be developed by the market. Simon challenged the notion of an impending Malthusian catastrophe
Malthusian catastrophe
A Malthusian catastrophe was originally foreseen to be a forced return to subsistence-level conditions once population growth had outpaced agricultural production...
—that an increase in population has negative economic consequences; that population is a drain on natural resources; and that we stand at risk of running out of resources through over-consumption
Over-consumption
Over-consumption is a situation where resource-use has outpaced the sustainable capacity of the ecosystem. A prolonged pattern of overconsumption leads to inevitable environmental degradation and the eventual loss of resource bases...
. Simon argues that population is the solution to resource scarcities and environmental problems, since people and markets innovate. His ideas were praised by Nobel Laureate economists Friedrich Hayek
Friedrich Hayek
Friedrich August Hayek CH , born in Austria-Hungary as Friedrich August von Hayek, was an economist and philosopher best known for his defense of classical liberalism and free-market capitalism against socialist and collectivist thought...
and Milton Friedman
Milton Friedman
Milton Friedman was an American economist, statistician, academic, and author who taught at the University of Chicago for more than three decades...
, the latter in a 1998 foreword to The Ultimate Resource II, but they have also attracted critics such as Paul R. Ehrlich
Paul R. Ehrlich
Paul Ralph Ehrlich is an American biologist and educator who is the Bing Professor of Population Studies in the department of Biological Sciences at Stanford University and president of Stanford's Center for Conservation Biology. By training he is an entomologist specializing in Lepidoptera , but...
and Albert Bartlett
Albert Bartlett
Albert Allen Bartlett is an emeritus Professor of Physics at the University of Colorado at Boulder, USA. Professor Bartlett has lectured over 1,600 times since September, 1969 on Arithmetic, Population, and Energy...
.
Simon examined different raw materials, especially metals and their prices in historical times. He assumed that besides temporary shortfalls, in the long run prices for raw materials remain at similar levels or even decrease. E.g. aluminium was never as expensive as before 1886 and steel used for medieval armor carried a much higher price tag in current dollars than any modern parallel.
Herman Kahn
Herman Kahn was one of the preeminent futurists of the latter third of the twentieth century. In the early 1970s he predicted the rise of Japan as a major world power. He was a founder of the Hudson Institute think tank and originally came to prominence as a military strategist and systems...
), is a similar criticism of the conventional wisdom
Conventional wisdom
Conventional wisdom is a term used to describe ideas or explanations that are generally accepted as true by the public or by experts in a field. Such ideas or explanations, though widely held, are unexamined. Unqualified societal discourse preserves the status quo. It codifies existing social...
on population growth and resource consumption and a direct response to the Global 2000
The Global 2000 Report to the President
The Global 2000 Report to the President was released in 1980 by the Council on Environmental Quality and the United States Department of State. It was commissioned by President Jimmy Carter on May 23, 1977, and was directed by Gerald O. Barney. It was based on data collected by different institutions...
report. For example, it predicted that "There is no compelling reason to believe that world oil prices will rise in the coming decades. In fact, prices may well fall below current levels". With respect to oil, the price in 2008 reached the $100 peak it reached (inflation adjusted) before 1880. In line with Simons predictions it had fallen after the 1970s oil shortages to comparably low levels in the 1980s and should do so in the future again.
Simon was skeptical, in 1994, of claims that human activity caused global environmental damage, notably in relation to CFCs, ozone depletion
Ozone depletion
Ozone depletion describes two distinct but related phenomena observed since the late 1970s: a steady decline of about 4% per decade in the total volume of ozone in Earth's stratosphere , and a much larger springtime decrease in stratospheric ozone over Earth's polar regions. The latter phenomenon...
and climate change
Climate change
Climate change is a significant and lasting change in the statistical distribution of weather patterns over periods ranging from decades to millions of years. It may be a change in average weather conditions or the distribution of events around that average...
, the latter primarily because of the perceived rapid switch from fears of global cooling
Global cooling
Global cooling was a conjecture during the 1970s of imminent cooling of the Earth's surface and atmosphere along with a posited commencement of glaciation...
and a new ice age
Ice age
An ice age or, more precisely, glacial age, is a generic geological period of long-term reduction in the temperature of the Earth's surface and atmosphere, resulting in the presence or expansion of continental ice sheets, polar ice sheets and alpine glaciers...
(in the mid 1970s) to the later fears of global warming
Global warming
Global warming refers to the rising average temperature of Earth's atmosphere and oceans and its projected continuation. In the last 100 years, Earth's average surface temperature increased by about with about two thirds of the increase occurring over just the last three decades...
. Simon also listed numerous claims about severe environmental damage and health dangers from pollution as "definitely disproved". These included claims about lead pollution
Lead poisoning
Lead poisoning is a medical condition caused by increased levels of the heavy metal lead in the body. Lead interferes with a variety of body processes and is toxic to many organs and tissues including the heart, bones, intestines, kidneys, and reproductive and nervous systems...
& IQ, DDT
DDT
DDT is one of the most well-known synthetic insecticides. It is a chemical with a long, unique, and controversial history....
, PCBs, malathion
Malathion
Malathion is an organophosphate parasympathomimetic which binds irreversibly to cholinesterase. Malathion is an insecticide of relatively low human toxicity, however one recent study has shown that children with higher levels of organophosphate pesticide metabolites in their urine are more likely...
, Agent Orange
Agent Orange
Agent Orange is the code name for one of the herbicides and defoliants used by the U.S. military as part of its herbicidal warfare program, Operation Ranch Hand, during the Vietnam War from 1961 to 1971. Vietnam estimates 400,000 people were killed or maimed, and 500,000 children born with birth...
, asbestos
Asbestos
Asbestos is a set of six naturally occurring silicate minerals used commercially for their desirable physical properties. They all have in common their eponymous, asbestiform habit: long, thin fibrous crystals...
, and the chemical contamination at Love Canal
Love Canal
Love Canal was a neighborhood in Niagara Falls, New York, located in the white collar LaSalle section of the city. It officially covers 36 square blocks in the far southeastern corner of the city, along 99th Street and Read Avenue...
.
Influence
Simon was one of the founders of free-market environmentalismFree-market environmentalism
Free-market environmentalism is a position that argues that the free market, property rights, and tort law provide the best tools to preserve the health and sustainability of the environment...
.
An article entitled "The Doomslayer" profiling Julian Simon in Wired
Wired (magazine)
Wired is a full-color monthly American magazine and on-line periodical, published since January 1993, that reports on how new and developing technology affects culture, the economy, and politics...
magazine inspired Bjørn Lomborg
Bjørn Lomborg
Bjørn Lomborg is a Danish author, academic, and environmental writer. He is an adjunct professor at the Copenhagen Business School, director of the Copenhagen Consensus Centre and a former director of the Environmental Assessment Institute in Copenhagen...
to write the book The Skeptical Environmentalist
The Skeptical Environmentalist
The Skeptical Environmentalist: Measuring the Real State of the World is a book by Danish environmentalist author Bjørn Lomborg, controversial for its claims that overpopulation, declining energy resources, deforestation, species loss, water shortages, certain aspects of global warming, and an...
.
Simon was also the first to suggest that airline
Airline
An airline provides air transport services for traveling passengers and freight. Airlines lease or own their aircraft with which to supply these services and may form partnerships or alliances with other airlines for mutual benefit...
s should provide rewards for travelers to give up their seats on overbooked flights, rather than arbitrarily taking random passengers off the plane (a practice known as "bumping"). Although the airline industry initially rejected it, his plan was later implemented with resounding success, as recounted by Milton Friedman in the foreword to The Ultimate Resource II. Economist James Heins said in 2009 that the practice had added $100 billion to the United States economy in the last 30 years. Simon gave away his idea to federal de-regulators and never received any personal profit from his solution.
Although not all of Simon's arguments were universally accepted, they contributed to a shift in opinion in the literature on demographic economics
Demographic economics
Demographic economics or population economics is the application of economics to demography, the study of human populations, including size, growth, density, distribution, and vital statistics.Analysis includes economic determinants and consequences of:...
from a strongly Malthusian negative view of population growth to a more neutral view. More recent theoretical developments, based on the ideas of the demographic dividend
Demographic dividend
The demographic dividend is a rise in the rate of economic growth due to a rising share of working age people in a population. This usually occurs late in the demographic transition when the fertility rate falls and the youth dependency rate declines. During this demographic window of opportunity,...
and demographic window
Demographic window
Demographic window is defined to be that period of time in a nation's demographic evolution when the proportion of population of working age group is particularly prominent. This occurs when the demographic architecture of a population becomes younger and the percentage of people able to work...
, have contributed to another shift this time away from the debate viewing population growth as either good or bad.
Simon wrote a memoir, A Life Against the Grain, which was published by his wife after his death.
Paul R. Ehrlich – first wager
Simon challenged Paul Ehrlich to a wager in 1980 over the pricePrice
-Definition:In ordinary usage, price is the quantity of payment or compensation given by one party to another in return for goods or services.In modern economies, prices are generally expressed in units of some form of currency...
of metal
Metal
A metal , is an element, compound, or alloy that is a good conductor of both electricity and heat. Metals are usually malleable and shiny, that is they reflect most of incident light...
s a decade
Decade
A decade is a period of 10 years. The word is derived from the Ancient Greek dekas which means ten. This etymology is sometime confused with the Latin decas and dies , which is not correct....
later; Simon had been challenging environmental scientists to the bet for some time. Ehrlich, John Harte and John Holdren
John Holdren
John Paul Holdren is advisor to President Barack Obama for Science and Technology, Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, and Co-Chair of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology...
selected a basket of five metals that they thought would rise in price with increasing scarcity and depletion.
Simon won the bet, with all five metals dropping in price. Supporters of Ehrlich's position suggest that much of this price drop came because of an oil
Petroleum
Petroleum or crude oil is a naturally occurring, flammable liquid consisting of a complex mixture of hydrocarbons of various molecular weights and other liquid organic compounds, that are found in geologic formations beneath the Earth's surface. Petroleum is recovered mostly through oil drilling...
spike driving prices up in 1980 and a recession
Recession
In economics, a recession is a business cycle contraction, a general slowdown in economic activity. During recessions, many macroeconomic indicators vary in a similar way...
driving prices down in 1990, pointing out that the price of the basket of metals actually rose from 1950 to 1975. They also suggest that Ehrlich did not consider the prices of these metals to be critical indicators, and that Ehrlich took the bet with great reluctance. On the other hand, Ehrlich selected the metals to be used himself, and at the time of the bet called it an "astonishing offer" that he was accepting "before other greedy people jump in," hardly suggesting reluctance.
The total supply in none of these metals increased during this time, but prices declined for a variety of reasons:
- The price of tinTinTin is a chemical element with the symbol Sn and atomic number 50. It is a main group metal in group 14 of the periodic table. Tin shows chemical similarity to both neighboring group 14 elements, germanium and lead and has two possible oxidation states, +2 and the slightly more stable +4...
went down because of an increased use of aluminiumAluminiumAluminium or aluminum is a silvery white member of the boron group of chemical elements. It has the symbol Al, and its atomic number is 13. It is not soluble in water under normal circumstances....
, a much more abundant, useful and inexpensive material. - Better mining technologies allowed for the discovery of vast nickelNickelNickel is a chemical element with the chemical symbol Ni and atomic number 28. It is a silvery-white lustrous metal with a slight golden tinge. Nickel belongs to the transition metals and is hard and ductile...
lodeLodeIn geology, a lode is a deposit of metalliferous ore that fills or is embedded in a fissure in a rock formation or a vein of ore that is deposited or embedded between layers of rock....
s, which ended the near monopolyMonopolyA monopoly exists when a specific person or enterprise is the only supplier of a particular commodity...
that was enjoyed on the market. - TungstenTungstenTungsten , also known as wolfram , is a chemical element with the chemical symbol W and atomic number 74.A hard, rare metal under standard conditions when uncombined, tungsten is found naturally on Earth only in chemical compounds. It was identified as a new element in 1781, and first isolated as...
fell due to the rise of the use of ceramicCeramicA ceramic is an inorganic, nonmetallic solid prepared by the action of heat and subsequent cooling. Ceramic materials may have a crystalline or partly crystalline structure, or may be amorphous...
s in cookware. - The price of chromiumChromiumChromium is a chemical element which has the symbol Cr and atomic number 24. It is the first element in Group 6. It is a steely-gray, lustrous, hard metal that takes a high polish and has a high melting point. It is also odorless, tasteless, and malleable...
fell due to better smelting techniques. - The price of copperCopperCopper is a chemical element with the symbol Cu and atomic number 29. It is a ductile metal with very high thermal and electrical conductivity. Pure copper is soft and malleable; an exposed surface has a reddish-orange tarnish...
began to fall due to the invention of fiber optic cable (which is derived from sandSandSand is a naturally occurring granular material composed of finely divided rock and mineral particles.The composition of sand is highly variable, depending on the local rock sources and conditions, but the most common constituent of sand in inland continental settings and non-tropical coastal...
), which serves a number of the functions once reserved only for copper wire.
In all of these cases, better technology allowed for either more efficient use of existing resources, or substitution with a more abundant and less expensive resource, as Simon predicted.
Paul R. Ehrlich – proposed second wager
In 1995, Simon issued a challenge for a second bet. Ehrlich declined, and proposed instead that they bet on a metric for human welfareQuality of life
The term quality of life is used to evaluate the general well-being of individuals and societies. The term is used in a wide range of contexts, including the fields of international development, healthcare, and politics. Quality of life should not be confused with the concept of standard of...
. Ehrlich offered Simon a set of 15 metrics over 10 years, victor to be determined by scientists chosen by the president of the National Academy of Sciences
United States National Academy of Sciences
The National Academy of Sciences is a corporation in the United States whose members serve pro bono as "advisers to the nation on science, engineering, and medicine." As a national academy, new members of the organization are elected annually by current members, based on their distinguished and...
in 2005. There was no meeting of minds, because Simon felt that too many of the metrics measured attributes of the world not directly related to human welfare, e.g. the amount of nitrous oxide
Nitrous oxide
Nitrous oxide, commonly known as laughing gas or sweet air, is a chemical compound with the formula . It is an oxide of nitrogen. At room temperature, it is a colorless non-flammable gas, with a slightly sweet odor and taste. It is used in surgery and dentistry for its anesthetic and analgesic...
in the atmosphere
Earth's atmosphere
The atmosphere of Earth is a layer of gases surrounding the planet Earth that is retained by Earth's gravity. The atmosphere protects life on Earth by absorbing ultraviolet solar radiation, warming the surface through heat retention , and reducing temperature extremes between day and night...
. For such indirect, supposedly bad indicators to be considered "bad", they would ultimately have to have some measurable detrimental effect on actual human welfare. Ehrlich refused to leave out measures considered by Simon to be trivial.
Simon summarized the bet with the following analogy:
"Let me characterize their [Ehrlich and Schneider's] offer as follows. I predict, and this is for real, that the average performances in the next Olympics will be better than those in the last Olympics. On average, the performances have gotten better, Olympics to Olympics, for a variety of reasons. What Ehrlich and others say is that they don't want to bet on athletic performances, they want to bet on the conditions of the track, or the weather, or the officials, or any other such indirect measure."
David South
The same year as his second challenge to Ehrlich, Simon also began a wager with David South, professor of the Auburn UniversityAuburn University
Auburn University is a public university located in Auburn, Alabama, United States. With more than 25,000 students and 1,200 faculty members, it is one of the largest universities in the state. Auburn was chartered on February 7, 1856, as the East Alabama Male College, a private liberal arts...
School of Forestry. The Simon / South wager concerned timber prices. Consistent with his cornucopian
Cornucopian
A cornucopian is a futurist who believes that continued progress and provision of material items for mankind can be met by similarly continued advances in technology...
analysis of this issue in The Ultimate Resource, Simon wagered that at the end of a five-year term the consumer price of pine timber would have decreased; South wagered that it would increase. Before five years had elapsed, Simon saw that market and extra-market forces were driving up the price of timber, and he paid Professor South $1,000. Simon died before the agreed-upon date of the end of the bet, by which time timber prices had risen further.
Simon's reasoning for his early exit out of the bet was due to "the far-reaching quantity and price effects of logging restrictions in the Pacific-northwest." He believed this counted as interference from the Canadian government, which rendered the bet worthless according to his economic principles. Simon's bet only considered the possibility of prices being driven up by South Carolina's government; he did not believe anything worthwhile was shown when Canadian import restrictions drove the prices up.
Legacy
The Institute for the Study of LaborInstitute for the Study of Labor
The Institute for the Study of Labor is a private, independent economic research institute. It was founded under the legal form of a limited liability company. Its German name is Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit hence the abbreviation IZA...
established the annual Julian L. Simon Lecture to honor Simon's work in population economics. The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
The University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign is a large public research-intensive university in the state of Illinois, United States. It is the flagship campus of the University of Illinois system...
held a symposium discussing Simon's work on April 24, 2002. The university also established the Julian Simon Memorial Faculty Scholar Endowment to fund an associate faculty member in the business school. India's Liberty Institute also holds a Julian Simon Memorial Lecture. The Competitive Enterprise Institute
Competitive Enterprise Institute
The Competitive Enterprise Institute is a non-profit think tank founded on March 9, 1984 in Washington, D.C. by lobbyist Fred L. Smith, Jr to advance economic liberty and fight over-regulation by big government...
gives the Julian Simon Memorial Award annually to an economist in the vein of Simon; the first recipient was Stephen Moore, who had served as a research fellow under Simon in the 1980s.
Personal life
Simon was married to Rita James Simon, who was also a longtime member of the faculty at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and later became a public affairs professor at American UniversityAmerican University
American University is a private, Methodist, liberal arts, and research university in Washington, D.C. The university was chartered by an Act of Congress on December 5, 1892 as "The American University", which was approved by President Benjamin Harrison on February 24, 1893...
. Simon suffered from a long time depression, which allowed him to work only a few productive hours in a day. He also studied psychology of depression and wrote a book on overcoming it. One of his theses was, that when you feel inferior and failed, you should just mentally force yourself to stop the comparisons between yourself and other people.
Education
- BA, Harvard UniversityHarvard UniversityHarvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...
, experimental psychologyExperimental psychologyExperimental psychology is a methodological approach, rather than a subject, and encompasses varied fields within psychology. Experimental psychologists have traditionally conducted research, published articles, and taught classes on neuroscience, developmental psychology, sensation, perception,...
, 1953 - Approximately four graduate courses in experimental psychology, Harvard, 1953
- MBA, University of ChicagoUniversity of ChicagoThe University of Chicago is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois, USA. It was founded by the American Baptist Education Society with a donation from oil magnate and philanthropist John D. Rockefeller and incorporated in 1890...
, 1959 - PhDDoctor of PhilosophyDoctor of Philosophy, abbreviated as Ph.D., PhD, D.Phil., or DPhil , in English-speaking countries, is a postgraduate academic degree awarded by universities...
, University of Chicago, business economics, 1961
Books
- The Ultimate Resource II (1996), ISBN 0-691-00381-5
- The Resourceful Earth: A Response to "Global 2000" (1984), ISBN 0-631-13467-0, Julian Simon & Herman KahnHerman KahnHerman Kahn was one of the preeminent futurists of the latter third of the twentieth century. In the early 1970s he predicted the rise of Japan as a major world power. He was a founder of the Hudson Institute think tank and originally came to prominence as a military strategist and systems...
, eds - The Economic Consequences of Immigration into the United States
- Effort, Opportunity, and Wealth: Some Economics of the Human Spirit
- Good Mood: The New Psychology of Overcoming Depression ISBN 0-8126-9098-2 (Forewords by Albert Ellis and Kenneth ColbyKenneth ColbyKenneth Mark Colby, M.D. was an American psychiatrist dedicated to the theory and application of computer science and artificial intelligence to psychiatry. Colby was a pioneer in the development of computer technology as a tool to try to understand cognitive functions and to assist both patients...
) - The Hoodwinking of a Nation ISBN 1-56000-434-7 (hard), ISBN 1-4128-0593-7 (soft)
- A Life Against the Grain: The Autobiography of an Unconventional Economist ISBN 0-7658-0532-4
- Scarcity or Abundance? A Debate on the Environment (1994), (with Norman MyersNorman MyersNorman Myers BA PhD , is a British environmentalist specialisting in biodiversity. He is an influential figure among policy and institutional circles, although much of his more prominent work - such as on environmental refugees' - is widely viewed as lacking academic credibility...
), ISBN 0-393-03590-5 - The Philosophy and Practice of Resampling Statistics
- Basic research methods in social sciences: The art of empirical investigation, ISBN 0-394-32049-2
- Resampling: A Better Way to Teach (and Do) Statistics (with Peter C. Bruce)
- The Science and Art of Thinking Well in Science, Business, the Arts, and Love
- Economics of Population: Key Modern Writings, ISBN 1-85278-765-1
- The State of Humanity, ISBN 1-55786-585-X
- It's Getting Better All the Time : 100 Greatest Trends of the Last 100 Years by Stephen Moore, Julian Lincoln Simon ISBN 1-882577-97-3 manuscript finished posthumously by Stephen Moore
External links
- Writings by Julian L. Simon Available on WWW
- Liberty Institute First Annual Julian L. Simon Memorial Lecture
- The Simon Market in Science Claims
- Julian Simon's Bet With Paul Ehrlich
- Julian Simon's bet with David South
- Julian Simon Remembered It's A Wonderful Life
- FMN and Heartland: Remembering Julian Simon
- Reason Magazine: David Foreman vs. the Cornucopians
- MIT Technology Review: Environmental Heresies
- The Julian L. Simon Memorial Award
- MercatorNet: Population