Tag Archives: progress

The One Minute Case For Technology

What is technology? Technology is the sum of material entities created by the application of mental and physical effort to nature in order to achieve some value. Technological progress is made possible by engineering, the field which applies scientific knowledge to solve practical problems by developing and applying new tools, machines, materials and processes. The …

June 1, 2007 – 6:35 pm | By David Veksler | Posted in Economics, Science | Tagged , , | Comments (1)

The One Minute Case For Science

Science is an epistemological method Science is the field which applies reason to the study of nature. Science is necessary because knowledge of how nature works is not self-evident, but requires a systematic method to collect evidence and correctly interpret it. Science is different in degree from informal empirical methods such as “trial and error” …

May 31, 2007 – 10:58 pm | By David Veksler | Posted in Science | Tagged , , , | Comments (2)

The One Minute Case Against Malthusianism

The origin of apocalyptic overpopulation theory In his 1798 Essay on the Principle of Population, Thomas Malthus argued that the growth in the food supply is linear, whereas the growth in the population rate is exponential. Whenever the population exceeds the food supply, social turmoil erupts until drastic checks such as famines, wars, and epidemics …

May 26, 2007 – 5:56 pm | By David Veksler | Posted in Economics, Environment | Tagged , | Comments (1)