Science: Too Many People?

From ten miles up, the world appears unpopulated. Nevertheless, a small proportion of the world's surface is well peopled, and that population, in its tentative, human way, is still growing. Last week a man who has spent a lot of time on the subject—Warren Simpson Thompson of Miami University, Oxford, Ohio—broached some cautious but implicitly staggering facts (Plenty of People; Jacques Cattell Press; $2.50).-Some of them:

The nations of northern and western Europe and of North America, chiefly industrial, grew fast in the past century, from 115 million in 1800 to 435 million...

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