I recently started reading Philip E. Tetlock's Expert Political Judgment[0] and Ehrlich gets namechecked pretty early in it. For me, this article proved timely.

I recently started reading Philip E. Tetlock's Expert Political Judgment[0] and Ehrlich gets namechecked pretty early in it. For me, this article proved timely. Ehrlich gets credit in my book for making concrete falsifiable predictions and acknowledging some are wrong. He follows a classic pattern identified by Tetlock in claiming his major error was a matter of timing. My questions: 1. To what extent did his efforts help forestall the catastrophe he predicted? Any at all? In the article, his efforts are cited as having a significant impact on Indian family planning policies. Any way to measure the impact on the population numbers? 2. Was anybody citing Borlaug and the Green Revolution at the time he made his prediction? Was the Green Revolution complete at that time or its impacts a foregone conclusion? If not, how much more probable might his predictions have been absent this revolution? (I guess question hints at another excuse-making Tetlock pattern: the historical counter-factual or "I just got unlucky!") [0] http://www.amazon.com/Expert-Political-Judgment-Good-Know/dp/0691128715 http://www.amazon.com/Expert-Political-Judgment-Good-Know/dp...