For decades, right-wing commentators have heaped abuse on Paul Ehrlich. He has been derided as a “stupendously bad prophet” by the Wall Street Journal, “always wrong” by Investor’s Business Daily, a “doom-monger” by the Hoover Institution.
When I repeat some of these characterizations to Ehrlich over lunch at a Palo Alto cafe, he laughs. “I don’t give a shit what people like Ann Coulter think of me,” he says. The opinions that ...
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The brownlash has succeeded in distracting the public from scientifically derived conclusions, Ehrlich says. “People in the media often think that if two scientists disagree, the truth has to lie in the middle. But look at the history of science—that’s almost never the case.” Ptolemy and Copernicus were not both a little right. A lifetime of stretching for leaves does not make for a long neck. In retrospect, Ehrlich contends, today’s arguments over the state of the environment will seem equally wrongheaded.
The use of false dichotomies is endemic in the mainstream media and the right-wing-nut press.