Robert Zubrin on the Scourge of Antihumanism

Robert Zubrin, prolific author and president of Pioneer Astronautics and the Mars Society, most recently wrote Merchants of Despair: Radical Environmentalists, Criminal Pseudo-Scientists, and the Fatal Cult of Antihumanism (Encounter Books, 2012). I recently interviewed Mr. Zubrin about his latest book and his other projects. Although I disagree with some of Mr. Zubrin’s conclusions, I greatly appreciate his exposé of the antihumanist movement and his work toward the exploration and development of space. —Ari Armstrong

Ari Armstrong: Your book Merchants of Despair, about the history and ideology of antihumanism in its many forms, was quite an ambitious undertaking. What prompted you to write it?

Robert Zubrin: I’ve been working on this book for more than thirty years, over which period I’ve seen time and again how important innovations that could advance the human condition have been repeatedly blocked.

Take nuclear power, for example, which is the field of my university degree. In the 1970s, the antihumanists argued that economic growth must stop because fossil fuels are too polluting, and, besides, we are running out of them. We responded that we have enough nuclear fuel to last for millions of years, and it produces no smoke. They weren’t interested, and, in fact, they became increasingly militant in their view that nuclear energy must be ruled out.

Antihumanists also said that population must be limited because there isn’t enough food, although militantly opposing the development or even deployment of higher yielding and more nutritious crops.

In every area it became clear that the antihumanists wanted the problem, not the solution, and ultimately the question had to be asked: Why? As I delved into the matter, it became clear that there was a longer history to all this, and an ideology, which conceived of humans as destroyers, rather than creators, and which therefore justified all forms of oppression and tyranny.

If humans are fundamentally destroyers, or, what amounts to the same thing, only “consumers” of natural resources, then their numbers, activities, and liberties must be severely constrained, and someone must be empowered to do the constraining. If, on the other hand, humans are fundamentally creators, then their freedom must be protected at all costs, because freedom is essential to the exercise of creativity.

AA: You make the case that larger populations have economic advantages, and the evidence overwhelmingly supports you. Yet population size does not automatically equate to prosperity. What in your view are the basic cultural norms and governmental institutions required to maintain prosperity?

RZ: What is needed is freedom, including political freedom, inventive freedom, and commercial freedom. Free people can never run out of resources, because free human beings are resourceful.

AA: You point out that what’s distinctive about humans is that we pass along ideas, not just genes. We think; we use reason. In your view, why has this basic truth been so widely ignored or downplayed—ironically—by so many ideologies?

RZ: If you understand that you can inherit positive adaptive traits—such as new technologies—not just from your kin, but from everyone, then the pseudo-rational basis justifying the murder or looting of other peoples or races evaporates.

Would-be oppressors don’t appreciate the implications of such arguments. Would-be oppressors prefer to rationalize their actions by the putative “inconvenient truth” that there isn’t enough to go around. As a result, ideologues offering their services in promoting the antihumanist ideology have never lacked for sponsors.

AA: You argue that Thomas Malthus and Charles Darwin, in inappropriately applying the doctrine of the “survival of the fittest” to humanity, set the stage for such antihumanist movements as eugenics. Yet on his Web page, Elliot Temple has criticized your treatment of Malthus, arguing that you take him out of context. Likewise, Robert Bannister, in his book Social Darwinism, suggests that Darwin put considerable distance between himself and the ideas behind the eugenics movement. How do you respond to the argument that we should give Malthus—and especially Darwin—a more sympathetic reading than you do?

RZ: Those critiques are absurd. Neither Malthus nor Darwin was an idiot; each knew full well how his ideas would be read, and put into action, by men of action. When someone purports to prove that the starvation of the poor is simply a result of their uncontrolled multiplication, this view has consequences when put into action. When someone promotes a pseudoscientific theory that claims humanity progresses by superior nations exterminating inferior nations, this view has consequences, too. Ideas have consequences. Both Malthus and Darwin knew that, and they should be held responsible for the consequences of their ideas.

AA: Much of the cultural debate seems to be between the antiscientific religionists, who oppose the theory of evolution, and the pseudoscientific, Malthusian leftists, who want to seriously diminish human industry and reduce human population. What advice do you have for fostering a pro-human, pro-science movement?

RZ: We must lay out a scientific refutation of Malthusianism and Darwinism as applied to human social evolution, as I do in my book.

With respect to Malthusianism, the argument is straightforward. Malthusianism is simply counterfactual; as the world’s population has increased, human well-being has increased; and if we look back to the past, when the population was lower, we see that people were poorer, not richer. The reasons why are more subtle, but I lay them out.

With respect to human social evolution, the factual failure of Darwinism can also be seen by examples such as the Mongols, who transitioned from being obscure nomads (i.e., an “inferior” race) to world conquerors (a “superior” race) and back again, without any substantial change in their biology.

More generally, social evolutionary Darwinism can be refuted by noting the following facts:

1. Unlike animals, humans can inherit acquired traits (i.e., knowledge and technologies).

2. Not only that, humans can inherit acquired traits from those they are not related to.

3. Furthermore, these useful, acquired traits, such as new technologies, are produced by thoughtful human effort during life, not by random variation and culling by death.

4. Therefore, the more other people there are, and the better off they are, the more inventions they will create, and the better off everyone will be (assuming people retain sufficient liberty to create and produce).

Where Darwinism would pose a world of war of all against all, a true scientific understanding of human social evolution would show that the advance of humanity is fundamentally a cooperative endeavor.

Those who oppose class oppression and race war, and who prefer truth to hate, should be encouraged to understand that they need to reject the social theories of Malthus and Darwin. Furthermore, those who would like to be free to use their creativity to advance humanity should be encouraged to understand that they must reject theories that demand that they stop creating and producing.

AA: You concede that the climate has been warming somewhat, that CO₂ levels have been increasing, that humans are probably responsible for that increase, and that it’s reasonable to find some connection between the warming and the CO₂ levels. Yet you argue that the resulting “problems” are not very significant. Others, however, including one of your Amazon reviewers, Christopher Paul Winter, claim that your “sources . . . on climate science have been thoroughly debunked.” Can you offer any guidance to the layperson trying to navigate the overwhelming number of claims and counterclaims, statistics and interpretations regarding this complicated matter?

RZ: Winter’s critique is silly, because those he cites largely base their positions on denying that global warming is occurring, which I do not. Moreover, I’m all for global warming, because it lengthens the growing season and increases global rainfall. And CO₂ enrichment of the atmosphere accelerates plant growth. These are undeniable and very significant benefits.

The real issue is why are some people demanding that oppressive economic policies be enacted in order to stop humanity from making the earth a more fertile planet. The answer can only be that they wish to enact oppressive economic policies, and do not care how absurd the pretext is for pursuing them.

AA: What do you see as the relative dangers posed by global warming versus the threats to our capacity to produce the energy driving our industrial economy?

RZ: There is no threat of global warming. The climate is always changing, and warming periods are the beneficial ones. Regarding energy, the threat comes not from a lack of resources, but from those who are preventing people from using their resources. Regarding population, the threat comes not from overpopulation, but from those who want to limit or destroy populations.

AA: I’ve sometimes thought that an important marker will be when the off-planet population surpasses the population on earth. What major milestones do you foresee in humanity’s future (barring a great catastrophe)?

RZ: I look forward to the following milestones:

1. The development of the first human societies on other worlds.

2. The development of controlled fusion.

3. The terraforming of Mars.

4. The development of interstellar flight.

5. The final burial of antihumanism.

AA: Would you say a few words about your basic case for settling Mars, and why you are or have been enthusiastic about the prospect?

RZ: There are two ways to answer that.

The narrower answer is that Mars is the closest planet that has all the resources for life—and, therefore, for technological civilization. It is within our reach. From a technical point of view, we are much closer today to being able to send humans to Mars than we were to sending men to the moon in 1961, and we made it to the moon eight years from then.

For us not to attempt Mars exploration would mean we have become less than the kind of people we used to be, and that is something we can’t afford. In short, the space program needs a goal, and Mars should be it. Mars is where the science is, it’s where the challenge is, and it’s where the future is. If we open Mars to human settlement in our time, then two hundred years from now there will be new branches of human civilization on Mars, spreading from there out into space, and nothing going on in the world today will matter as much to them as our efforts now to make that possible. So we should take on that challenge.

The broader answer goes to what we have been discussing. Is the human prospect finite or infinite? If we accept finitude, the antihumanists will gain a powerful point in making their case. As leading antihumanists John Holdren and Paul Ehrlich put it in their book Global Ecology, “When a population of organisms grows in a finite environment, sooner or later it will encounter a resource limit. This phenomenon, described by ecologists as reaching the ‘carrying capacity’ of the environment, applies to bacteria on a culture dish, to fruit flies in a jar of agar, and to buffalo on a prairie. It must also apply to man on this finite planet.”

That’s an argument we need to subvert. Opening space is the way to do it.

AA: What are your thoughts on the modern private (or semiprivate) space race?

RZ: It’s a very positive development. By creating entrepreneurial (or semi-entrepreneurial) space companies that have their own skin in the game, people such as Elon Musk are creating space systems at about an order of magnitude lower cost than had been previously considered the norm. That said, even though they offer the prospect of lower costs, someone still has to pay the bills. So we will need to have a government space program for some time to come.

AA: What are your current and future projects? And where can our readers keep up with your work?

RZ: My companies are working on both space and energy projects, with contracts from both NASA and private sources (see www.pioneerastro.com). I’m also actively spearheading the work of the Mars Society (www.marssociety.org), and I frequently write for National Review, Pajamas Media, and other Internet publications. I’ve also begun working on another book, about the American contribution to human progress. America, you know, is the ultimate nemesis of the Merchants of Despair. My new book will make clear why.

About Ari Armstrong

Ari Armstrong blogs at AriArmstrong.com, and he has written for publications including the Denver Post and Complete Colorado. He is the author of Values of Harry Potter: Lessons for Muggles, a book exploring the heroic fight for life-promoting values in the Potter novels.

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