Paul Ralph Ehrlich – American biologist

He is the Bing Professor of Population Studies at the Department of Biological Sciences at Stanford University. Paul R. Ehrlich (born May 29, 1932) is best known as scientist and writer who sounding a warning call over human population during 1960s.

Ehrlich was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where his father was a salesman and his mother taught high school Latin.

Ehrlich earned his BA in zoology from the University of Pennsylvania in 1953 then moved to the University of Kansas, where he received his MA in 1955 and PhD in 1957, both in zoology. Two years later, Ehrlich joined the faculty at Stanford University and became a professor of biology in 19966, and Bing Professor eleven years later.

His academic interests were initially in the field of entomology, but the has also become interested in the field of population growth. In 1968 he published the Population Bomb, drawing attention to the coming crisis when there would not be enough food to feed the world’s growing population. In his book Ehrlich suggested that the human population worldwide is growing larger than Ehrlich ability to support it with food resources.

Ehrlich predicts that if this trend continues over-population will result in large scale famine and epidemics of disease.

In 1990 Ehrlich, in collaboration with his wife Anne, followed with an update titled The Population Explosion, reflecting their view that the bomb they worried about in 1968 had detonated in the meantime.
Paul Ralph Ehrlich – American biologist