Healing the Planet.

Paul and Anne Ehrlich should be sent to a basic course on journalistic ethics before writing another book. Unethical writers can hardly be trusted as ethical scientists. By page four the famous Ehrlichs are dismissing all of their critics as people who say, "keep on having lots of kids and encourage each one to consume more and more; Science (with a Capital S) will save us from any untoward consequences of that behavior." Trashing your critics, unfortunately, has become an accepted substitute for debate.

One of Paul Ehrlich's most prominent and successful critics, University of Maryland economist Julian Simon, is mentioned only twice and dismissed as "a specialist in mail-order marketing." By these lights, we might dismiss Paul as a butterfly watcher and Anne as a research assistant.

In Healing the Earth, the Ehrlichs once again smother the familiar problems of global warming, ozone depletion, air pollution, and soil erosion with rhetoric more appropriate to science fiction than science. All problems are reducible to "too many people demanding too much from the planet."

The authors also bluntly advocate having social studies teachers "point out why rich nations must be considered overpopulated." This program for education by propaganda comes on the heels of the Ehrlichs' 1990 proclamation that "happy successful families in classroom stories and films should never be shown with more than two children."

Plenty of environmental problems come along with growth (and more without it), and scientists need to influence politics. But scientists who are predisposed to junk information have forfeited their credibility as both scientists and writers.