I've been reading a bit on the issue of population and family planning, related to the recent event of putting humans in the London Zoo, so that humans could be viewed in their "natural habitat". Isn't the natural habitat actually that of the sidewalk outside the cage, however? I mean, how many people are naturally "in the zoo", rather than going "to the zoo"? So, the curator of the zoo is actually just putting his prejudicial point of view, that of humans being just another ape, and being "a plague species", on full display.
And I've noticed that phrase, "a plague species", or something similar used by a lot of spokespersons in the radical environmental and Deep Ecology movements. While lip service is made to the "inherent worth" (see #1 in the Deep Ecology platform here) of human beings, they are not treated as a rational, reasoning individual, but rather as a resource-consuming animal. Indeed, human overpopulation is treated as a threat to the well-being of other species with no justification whatsoever, just an ipso facto assumption by the platform's author.
Here's what I currently think on the subject, which I'll fill in with more posts later: There is no overpopulation crisis. The dire predictions of The Population Bomb never came true and never will as they are based on an erroneous belief, that humans cannot think and act rationally in their own self-interest. While there is a (unrealized and unknown) limit to how many people we can feed, our resourcefulness and productivity have served us so far and will continue to for a long time to come. With declining fertility rates now the norm, it is likely that whatever real crises threatened by population growth have already been answered, possibly being replaced by problems with a population implosion. A much better predictor of how much food people have to eat is to consider what type of government they live under. People who live in free countries are much better off than those who live under tyranny. Efforts by governments to implement family planning programs, where family sizes are regulated by law, are not compatible with respecting the unalienable human rights of life and liberty.
UPDATED Wednesday evening:
Related links to the London Zoo story:
The original news item
Excerpt:
The "human zoo" shows eight humans prancing around wearing nothing more than fig leaves to cover their intimate areas. The exhibition’s intent is to show the basic nature of human beings and their impact on the animal kingdom."We have set up the exhibit to highlight the spread of man as a plague species and to communication [sic] the importance of man’s place in the planet’s ecosystem," the zoo said.
Then there's that misanthropic "plague species" reference which makes me cringe every time I hear it. Here's a clue why: I wouldn't want to be alone with a dog in a burning building if this guy was the fireman responsible for saving my life. There are times when it is responsible to put human beings first, and calling humans a "plague species" doesn't lead me to believe this person is aware of them.
And that last statement, "to communication the importance of man’s place in the planet’s ecosystem" - what's that supposed to mean (even ignoring the bad grammar)? showing the importance of man's place in the ecosystem by removing them from any contact with science and technology? Rubbish! Man's place in the planet's ecosystem is established, for good or for ill by our use of science and technology. What the zoo is actually doing by putting these people in a cage is denying the importance of man's place in the planet's ecosystem.
Other links:
Commentary by Debra Saunders
Commentary from LifeSiteNews.com (quotes G.K. Chesterton!)