Talk:Alexander King (scientist)

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Controversial remark attributed to King[edit]

Someone just quoted the following to me, on a blog, apparently said by Alexander King, founder of the Club Of Rome:

"In Guyana, within two years DDT had almost eliminated malaria, so my chief quarrel with it in hindsight, is that it has greatly added to the human population problem"

So I went searching to find out if the quote was genuine, or not and here on Wikipedia the quote isn't mentioned at all. If King said the remark, then I believe it to be an important enough quote to be included in Alexander King's Wikipedia entry.

Google books has a book called "Standard handbook of environmental science, health, and technology" by Jay H. Lehr & Janet K. Lehr. http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=w0wa4b9CGkcC&pg=RA3-PA18&lpg=RA3-PA18&dq=In+Guyana,+within+two+years+DDT+had+almost+eliminated+malaria&source=bl&ots=-XHthEUhvZ&sig=HN5CjmatpB-C9Qj_Oj08071WUws&hl=en&ei=FHPUTJ65OIyOjAf0rsXJCQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2&ved=0CBkQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=In%20Guyana%2C%20within%20two%20years%20DDT%20had%20almost%20eliminated%20malaria&f=false

This book has the quote and attributes it to Alexander King.

If you search the web for the quote, you'll see that it's being used almost exclusively by those who want to infer that the environmental movement's real motive is to reduce the world's population. So it's important to find out if the quote is genuine and what context it was a part of. A lot of the search results mention the source of the quote as being a "biographical essay" by Alexander King in 1990. I can't find a link to an essay by Alexander King in which he says what he is quoted as saying. I can find lots of similarly-worded "The reason was stated bluntly by Alexander King, founder of the Malthusian Club of Rome, who wrote in a biographical essay in 1990....". But if the original is quoting King unfairly or inaccurately, then everyone else is merely passing that error around the world.

Does anyone know which essay the quote comes from? If it is a genuine quote, then it should be added to the article. But what if he has been incorrectly quoted? Should Wikipedia debunk incorrect quotes? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Theresonator (talk • contribs) 21:59, 5 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I can perhaps add something to this debate. Although I have no knowledge of an autobiographical essay, I did produce Alexander's autobiography, Let the Cat Turn Round for his publishers, and having searched the text which I still have on file, this quote does not appear. However, the following quote does, and could be the genesis of this made-up quote, doubtless done by those wishing to discredit environmentalists. 'On reflection I felt rather disturbed by the Guyana incident. By this time,’Silent Spring’ had appeared and DDT was beginning to be seen as an environmental danger as possibly finding its way into the food chain yet, here had I inadvertently helped to bring into the world many people likely to have lives of poverty and misery.' Which illustrates how things can be distorted if people have an agenda. His sympathies are clearly with those 'likely to have lives of poverty and misery'. On balance, I think if there was an essay, it would be in existance still and findable. While invented quotes like this can run and run. There are plenty of idiots on youtube who think the Club of Rome was the precursor to the Illuminati, and Limits to Growth was intended to reduce the human population... so anything's possible. My vote is on it being a trumped up misquote. BY the way, my small edit at the bottom of this article was because the link went to Alexander, King of the Hellenes, NOT the right King! I put his publisher's address instead, although Amazon might have been a better link. <Peter Simmons> peter@passwordpublish.co.uk