Whether their views are right or wrong on a particular issue, the scientific community has taken on a partly theological character, with top scientists achieving something of the role of supreme clerics. This approach ignores the reality that widely held “truths” are often found to be, if not untrue, significantly flawed. The numerous assumptions made by prominent academics, such as the MIT team behind the 1972 Limits to Growth study, turned out to be far off- base, as new technologies both made more resources available and increased the efficiency of their use. Similarly the bold predictions of mass starvation due to overpopulation made by the then celebrated Paul Ehrlich in the late 1960s also provided remarkably inaccurate. His call for draconian birth control, including the introduction of sterilants into the water supply, fortunately never was applied.
From The New Class Conflict [1] by Joel Kotkin