Rhetoric and slogans have a habit of straying from reality, which is usually more complex. Writing in Quillette, John McWhorter examines American crime statistics. He concludes that the claim the police regularly kill black people under circumstances in which white people would be merely disciplined is a misperception.
At Least He Paid his Losing Bet
Paul Ehrlich, author of the spectacularly incorrect 1968 best-seller The Population Bomb, recently died at 93. Despite his longevity, Ronald Bailey points out in Reason, Ehrlich did not live to see even one of his numerous apocalyptic predictions come true. The world’s population certainly grew, but not merely larger, richer and fatter too. Most famously, Ehrlich once bet economist Julian Simon that the world was approaching economic collapse – but in 1990 had to mail Simon a cheque.
