The Population Zombie Strikes Again: Guest Column
Overpopulation fears keep returning, despite failed predictions and devastating consequences.
A group of scientists are, once again, predicting imminent disaster because of overpopulation. “It might sound like the evil plan of a nefarious villain,” a recent Daily Mail, article read, “but scientists now say that we need to halve Earth’s population to save the planet.” The researchers have even offered “non-coercive measures” to lower the global population to four billion by the year 2200. Of course, that includes “providing women in low–income countries with family planning services.” Their plan, according to The Daily Mail, is similar to that of Marvel villain Thanos, who thought he could eliminate suffering by eliminating half the human race.
Rather than seeing people as incredible resources of creativity and ingenuity, Thanos and these scientists assume that more people means less food and less wealth. Like a zombie that keeps coming back no matter how many times it’s killed, this thinking is a rehash of the flawed work of Paul Erlich. His 1968 book, The Population Bomb, which predicted global starvation and utter economic collapse if the population at that time didn’t stop growing, is perhaps the best example in recent memory that “ideas have consequences” and that bad ideas have victims.
In fact, as an obituary to Ehrlich admitted, his ideas “encouraged mass sterilization program[s] in India and the one-child policy in China and influenced how children everywhere were viewed and valued.” His predictions were, as Chuck Colson noted in 2001, spectacularly wrong.
[A]lmost none of the dire predictions associated with what Ehrlich called “The Population Bomb” came to pass. That’s because the doomsayers didn’t understand what it really means to be human. Ehrlich’s was only the most dramatic expression of a worldview that saw reducing birth rates as the key to not only humanity’s, but the entire planet’s fate. In this view, people were akin to parasites. They consumed resources and gave little, if anything, back. Population had to be contained both for our sake and for the sake of the earth.
In fact, since Ehrlich’s ideas became mainstream, the world population has more than doubled, from 3.8 billion people in 1972 to an estimated 8.3 billion today. Yet, instead of mass starvations and increased conflicts over resources, crop yields have increased dramatically and global rates of undernourishment and starvation has been reduced by more than half.
Humans are simply not the virus that Ehrlich, Thanos, and these scientist claim. Yes, we do create a mess of problems, but we are also innovators of additional resources and new solutions. That, of course, makes sense if the Biblical story of reality is true and the naturalistic one is not. If we really were made co-creators by the One who created all things, humans are not just consumers but producers who are tasked with cultivating the creation.
In contrast, population scare warnings have very real victims—tens of millions, in fact. In just the last 50 years, over 60 million Americans have been killed through abortion, and among what has driven the practice is the fear of bringing a child into a dying world. In China, where the myth of the population bomb led to the horrific one-child policy, some 300 million babies were slaughtered, many against the will of their mothers.
Instead of saving the planet, vain ideas of population control have left the nations of the world with a birth dearth. Russia, China, and Japan are notably struggling to maintain their numbers even as their older population phases out of the workforce. The same is happening in the U.S.
Zombie ideas of overpopulation and human pestilence gets humanity tragically wrong and misunderstands the created world. Had Ehrlich’s claims remained in his books, the damage would have been minimal. But his ideas, as they tend to do, grew feet and walked into the real world of image bearers. They wreaked havoc. It’s long past time for this zombie to stay dead.
Copyright 2026 by the Colson Center for Christian Worldview. Reprinted from BreakPoint.org with permission.
What Americans Really Believe about What’s Best for Children: Guest Column
As a recent Substack post from children’s rights advocacy group Them Before Us accurately summarized, the decision issued eleven years ago in Obergefell v. Hodges “did more than mandate marriage licenses for same-sex couples.”
It redefined marriage in law, and redefining marriage redefines parenthood. Once husbands and wives became optional in marriage, mothers and fathers became optional in parenthood, eroding the right every child has to their own mother and father.
Thus, the Obergefell decision marked a further stage in the evolution of one of the core ideas of the sexual revolution: that men and women are interchangeable, not only in rights but also in social roles and even in reality itself. A legal decision of this magnitude inevitably shapes the cultural imagination, defining down the essential differences between men and women, husbands and wives, and mothers and fathers as mere cultural constructs. And ever since, we’ve been served the narrative that the social innovation of same-sex “marriage” is settled, both in culture and in law.
But what if it isn’t?
A new poll conducted by The Decision Co., of 1200 conservative and moderate likely voters, found that a significant majority believe, “children matter, mothers matter, fathers matter, and children’s needs should come before adult desires.” According to the data, the narrative that even social and political conservatives want same-sex “marriage” and consider it “settled law” is unsubstantiated conjecture.
As Josh Hammer, Senior Editor-at-Large at Newsweek and host of The Josh Hammer Show, said:
“This poll exposes the growing disconnect between elite cultural narratives and the convictions of conservative and moderate voters. Despite years of messaging from the media, academia, and corporate America, these voters continue to affirm a fundamental belief: whenever possible, children should be raised by and connected to both their mother and father. At a time when the center-right is often portrayed as fractured, this survey reveals remarkable unity around a principle that should never have become controversial: the rights and needs of children deserve to come before adult desires.”
Among the findings from this survey,
- 96% of these voters say it is important for a child to be raised with both an involved mother and an involved father.
- 82% of those surveyed agree that no child should be deliberately denied a mother or a father.
- 78% agree that when a child’s needs conflict with an adult’s desires, the child’s needs should come first.
- 66% reject the claim that being raised by same-sex parents is no different for a child than being raised by an adoptive mother and father.
- 63% of those surveyed agree that children are harmed when they lose their mother or father to be raised in a same-sex household.
For the record, the best social science data supports the views that these voters have. While direct comparison studies between children raised by married mothers and fathers and those acquired by same-sex couples are often plagued by poor methodology, self-selective sample groups, and ideological bias, two social science findings are overwhelmingly clear. First, children raised in homes by biological, married mothers and fathers have a distinct advantage. And second, mothers and fathers parent differently, and those differences matter greatly.
Interestingly, church attendance is a major differentiator for what people believe about marriage, children, and parenting. “Among voters who attend church regularly, 72% agree that every child should be legally recognized as having a mother and father, but so do 43% of those who never attend church at all.” On one hand, the gap is sizeable. On the other hand, a significant portion of the population currently holds a counter-cultural view about children.
Of course, a lesson to be learned from over 50 years of pro-life activism, is that people do not always connect their beliefs with the implications of those beliefs. Often, consistency is disrupted by a population taught that moral beliefs must be kept personal and private and should be outweighed by a commitment to “tolerance” and “accepting everyone.” Here too, the heaviest work to be done by those of us hoping to protect children is worldview work.
But there’s another lesson to be learned from those who have fought so hard for so long to make abortion not merely illegal but also unthinkable. The Supreme Court cannot settle an issue that is so far upstream of its jurisdiction. Obergefell is not the first or only time the Court has gotten an important decision wrong.
Like in the past, the moral failure of Obergefell is an expression of bad anthropology. And, like the past, this is no theoretical mess we are in. For children everywhere, it’s personal. We owe it to them to tell the truth, oppose the lies, and convince as many people as we can.
Learn more about the study and how you can join the Greater Than Campaign at greaterthancampaign.com.
Copyright 2026 by the Colson Center for Christian Worldview. Reprinted from BreakPoint.org with permission.