EclecticLip

There was a cute article in Scientific American recently, noting that modern economic theory was built by adapting equations from 19th-century physics. Equations which have since been shown to be inadequate at describing reality. And while physicists have moved on… economists haven’t. On the topic of science vs economics, biologist Paul Ehrlich and economist Julian Simon in 1980 famously bet whether the prices of certain natural resources (chromium, copper, nickel, tin, tungsten) would be higher in 1980 than 1990. This is commonly cited by economists to explain, basically, why they’re smarter than scientists.
Ehrlich lost, and based on the chart of prices in Wikipedia, would’ve likely lost a follow-up bet of 1990-2000. But he’d've won the 1960-1970 and 1970-1980 bets, and the way things are going, would probably win the 2000-2010 bet also.
Simon’s also (in)famous for having once said that the earth could support an ever-growing population for the next seven billion years, a charming exercise of extrapolation which will presumably involve moving the planet into a Mars orbit six billion years from now, when the sun becomes a red giant.
We’ve done well for ourselves, we humans; hey, it only took us fifty thousand generations from fire to the atomic bomb. But seven billion years is a long, long time — apart from cockroaches and kudzu, I wouldn’t place bets on the survival of any of today’s life-forms. To put seven billion years in perspective, it’ll only take 250 million years for the continents to reunite again. And for me to pay off my mortgage!
Given how carried away Mr. Simon got with his little extrapolation, I wonder if he ever invested. As the rest of us know, “past performance is not indicative of future returns”!