American biologist brutally mocked for his 'doomsday' theory; Elon Musk joins bandwagon

Paul R Ehrlich is facing ire from almost every community concerning humanity for his statements on mass extinction of the human race. In his recent appearance on CBS' '60 Minutes', the Stanford University biologist claimed that the rate of human extinction is getting higher and that "humanity is not sustainable".

Once the interview was aired, it provoked Twitter users as well as several experts questioned the biologist and highlighted how his predictions have been wrong for decades and a merciless mockery followed. 

What did Paul R Ehrlich say?

During the interview, Ehrlich said that he is 'alarmed' of the growing population because there are "too many people" and "too much consumption". He is famous for his doomsday book titled 'The Population Bomb' which was published in 1968 and talks about how nature would collapse and humanity would suffer. "To maintain our lifestyle for the entire planet, you'd need five more Earths. Not clear where they're gonna come from,'' he said per CBS News. 

Ehrlich's predictions, however, turned out to be completely wrong as instead of his prophecy of widespread famine in the book, the world saw unprecedented improvement in agriculture with green revolutions around the world. The biologist also claimed that "the rate of extinction is extraordinarily high and getting higher all the time."

He even said in the interview that 10 to 20 million people are losing their lives to starvation and that this would "inevitably increase". American author, Michael Shellenberger, however, fact-checked him that life expectancy has rather increased by 10-20 years around the world including in Africa and Asia.

Elon Musk, Jordan Peterson denounce Ehrlich's theories

Experts like Canadian Psychologist Jordan Peterson and Twitter CEO Elon Musk responded to the viral interview saying this is just another failed prediction of Ehrlich. "Ehrlich is mad as a hatter. He is someone who regards humanity as bad in and of itself – anti-human to the core," Musk tweeted.

"Paul Ehrlich has been famously wrong about everything he has predicted for six decades," wrote Peterson in a tweet. The rising criticism finally provoked Ehrlich to respond in his defence. "60 Minutes extinction story has brought the usual right-wing out in force. If I'm always wrong so is science, since my work is always peer-reviewed, including the POPULATION BOMB and I've gotten virtually every scientific honor. Sure I've made some mistakes, but no basic ones," the biologist tweeted.

Image: Twitter, AP