By Selwyn Duke
Would you take investment advice from a broker whose stock picks had been consistently wrong for almost six decades straight? “News” show 60 Minutes just might — that is, if the guest they chose to present as master prognosticator-prophet of doom this past Sunday is any indication. And the world’s second richest man, Elon Musk, certainly took notice.
“If I were a gambler, I would take even money that England will not exist in the year 2000.” So said biologist Paul Ehrlich, Bing Professor Emeritus of Population Studies of the Department of Biology of Stanford University and President of Stanford’s Center for Conservation Biology, decades ago.
Yet if Ehrlich were a gambler, he’d also be broke. In fact, he did lose a bet, a 1980, $1,000 wager with economist Julian Simon on whether the price of five precious metals would increase due to scarcity (Ehrlich’s prediction) or decrease/hold steady over the next decade.
But nothing was safer to bet on than the steadiness of Ehrlich’s bad prophet-of-doom prognostications.
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