One would think that such information would’ve been uncovered by the exalted New York Times or MSNBC within two days of Holdren’s having been picked, but noooo.
It took a blogger by the name of zombietime. Go figure.
http://zombietime.com/john_holdren
Screenshots of Holdren’s book (and purported retraction of those views) appear there.

You quote arguments which have already been proved invalid. Would it not be wiser to do some research. If Benjamin Netanyahu chaired the Durban 2001 conference he would have been labeled as antisemitic as anyone else who would have chaired it and Holdren discussed the enforcement of population control but has never recommended it.
You are in a good position for lashon harah.

Re Holdren, puh-leez. Lashon harah? Imagine that he had written a textbook thoughtfully weighing the benefits of finishing up what Hitler began with his war on the Jews. Even if he ultimately declined to call for a second Holocaust, would that not make him absolutely terrifying as a science and technology advertiser serving the President of the United States?

Holdren is a disturbing pick; not because he is actually going to start forcibly sterilizing people or anything like that. He is not advocating that such things be done, and he wasn’t advocating that they be done then. His and Ehrlich’s argument was that if things continued the way they appeared to be going, such choices would be necessary.
But even without distorting what he said in the 70s, he’s a disturbing pick because he accepted Ehrlich’s doom-mongering uncritically. (I know a lot of people who still accept it uncritically.) They projected trends into the future without thinking about them. They didn’t think about what technology and culture might do to mitigate the situation.
If five people are starving in a lifeboat in the middle of the ocean, and one dies, the other four may well make the decision to eat him. The rest of us may shudder at cannibalism, but it is hard to condemn people in this situation.
However, Holdren was seriously talking about the possibility of resorting to cannibalism before the boat even left the dock. I’m not taking him fishing with me.

David, you have just discussed the benefits of finishing up what Hitler began. Should I label you as a Natzi?

People who “contribute to social deterioration” (i.e. undesirables) “can be required by law to exercise reproductive responsibility” — in other words, be compelled to have abortions or be sterilized.
Incidentally, creationists such as William Tinkle made this argument in the 20th century as well, in Tinkle’s case as late as 1967 when he was secretary of the Creation Research Society (contemporaneously with Henry Morris and Duane Gish), in his book “Heredity: A Study in Science and the Bible”.
There was a lot of it going around, sad to say.

David, remember how upset you got when Sharlet mischaracterized what you said about your “ancient conversion rite”? But you have a license to do it to other people, of course.

Actually, according to the Talmud and commentaries Abraham was far not perfect. Even Moses wasn’t perfect.

I agree with both David and Gabriel that Holdren is indeed a disturbing pick; and I think Gabriel’s explanation of why this is so is good.
Having said that, I am a little interested in where this post is leading. Are we looking at government appointees who might be disturbing because of positions they espouse or worldviews they express? Or are we indulging in a subtle bit of Obama-bashing “Look at the awful people he’s appointing to office!” The Bush Administration was a fiasco in terms of appointees who gutted departments and refused to acknowledge well-established scientific principles regarding many contemporary issues. Denial of global warming, the effects of pollution, the impact on various species (“hey, polar bears are doing great!) etc. were endemic. Remember even his own appointee to the EPA, Christine Todd Whitman resigned over the way things were being done.
Now, my point is not to bash Bush. My point is that a title such like the one this thread has seems more motivated by politics than by a legitimate look at the appointees. Unless one believes that a President is systematically appointing science people with nefarious or dangerous ideas (and if David thinks this is the case, he should be explicit about it), one should emphasize the appointees, not the one making the appointment. I would hope that David would look as critically at the appointees of a Republican.

Turmarion:Having said that, I am a little interested in where this post is leading.
Darwin = Hitler. That’s where it’s leading. David was reading Michael Egnor:
If you want to understand the social and political implications of the atheist/materialist worldview, you need look no further than the science blogsphere’s reaction to the appointments of Francis Collins to head the NIH and John Holdren as President Obama’s science advisor.
That is where David is ALWAYS trying to take you. DI has lost in the scientific arena and lost in court battle, so now they are concentrating on “worldview implications”.
You might think that people who belong to religions which have holy books that take slavery for granted might be cautious about throwing around those kinds of smears, but you’d be wrong.
Turmarion, you and I agree about science, but not, most likely, about policy. While global warming is definitely something to be concerned about, there is a great deal of legitimate ground for debate on what, if anything, should be done about it.
Blowing hundreds of millions of dollars on windmills, for example, is certainly a terrible idea for any number of reasons, none of which are predicated on denying the role of carbon dioxide in climate.
So, just be careful with the word “anit-science”.

Gabriel, I’d be the first to agree that there needs to be much discussion and legitimate debate on global warming. I’m rather skeptical about windmills, myself, and I’m not sure what the right approach is. My only point was that many on the right and in the Bush Administration were and are skeptical to the point of denial, or tried to close down the legitimate debate and discussion by implying (or occasionally saying) that the science was in question and/or that it was all just a plot of liberal scientists to get greater governmental regulation in place. Having said that, I agree with your take on this post.

My only point was that many on the right and in the Bush Administration were and are skeptical to the point of denial, or tried to close down the legitimate debate and discussion by implying (or occasionally saying) that the science was in question and/or that it was all just a plot of liberal scientists to get greater governmental regulation in place.
First, this generalization is so broad and qualified that it doesn’t say anything.
Second, THIS is what you actually said:
The Bush Administration was a fiasco in terms of appointees who gutted departments and refused to acknowledge well-established scientific principles regarding many contemporary issues.
A lot of bases are being stolen here, I think.
I get pretty mad when I see people on the right misrepresenting science, whether it’s evolution or global warming. I WANT to support many of the same things the right supports and sometimes they make it hard for me. I was incensed when they ridiculed Steven Chu for his suggestion that roofs be painted white. FINALLY someone comes up with a solution that will a) WORK and b) NOT require massive state intervention in the economy and c) can be easily undone if climate changes in ways we don’t expect. The right should have been falling all over itself to get behind that. Instead they mocked him, because they were too ignorant to understand what he was talking about.
I did my bit, wrote comments at all the conservative/libertarian blogs I visit, sent emails to bloggers and journalists, trying to get a bit of blackbody physics into people’s heads, but it was no use.
But trust me, the right has no monopoly on hostility to or ignorance of science. On the right you find creationists. On the left you find people who SAY they believe in evolution, but it must have mysteriously stopped 100,000 years ago because all races and all genders cannot have any meaningful hereditary or cognitive differences; or think we can solve our environmental problems with worthless solutions like windmills, or global poverty; or people like Ehrlich, for that matter.
There was one website I saw about five years ago that would tell you how many Earths it would take for everyone to live the way you do. If you answered the questions as though you were a stylite you might get an answer of 1.
I emailed them, pointing out that one hunter-gatherer requires acres of land to support him, and calculated the number of Earths required to support six billion of them, and invited them to update the assumptions of their philosophy accordingly, but I never received a reply. (If the entire land are of the Earth could support hunter-gatherers as well as the Pacific Northwest did, the answer is about 3.)
Very few people understand any science at all; but everyone wants the prestige of being “scientific”. So science gets used as a political football; with, I am sorry to say, the assistance of scientists who are unable to conquer their innate human desire for power over others.

Gabriel: I’d pretty much agree with you. I guess there are two factors: One, it seems to me the right-wing noise machine (Limbaugh and co.) and the ID people make more scientifically illiterate noise, or the noise they make is more disseminated, than what one hears on the left. As I live in a very Red state, maybe my sample’s skewed because that’s what I hear more of (as opposed to hypothetically living in, say, Berkley).
Two, even if the science is impeccable, all it does is say “X is.” When you get to saying what should be done (“X ought to be“), you’re no longer in the realm of science, but of ethics, philosophy, religion, and politics. Agreement on the facts is just the beginning, and in some ways the easiest part of solving problems. For example, most people across the spectrum agree that our healthcare system must be fixed; but even agreeing on that, they may differ enormously on the merits of market-based vs. government-managed systems. Science gives necessary information for answering political questions, but cannot, alas, answer them in and of itself.
I would probably be far less supportive of the Right and its methods than you are, but that’s a matter of politics and other considerations that aren’t scientific. However, you’re also right that some of the good ideas (such as Chu’s regarding roofs) should be supported by the Right, but oddly aren’t. You’re also right that there’s not much scientific literacy out there on either side, and that science all too often gets used as a political football. Perhaps that’s what I was trying to say: that it seems to me that the Right has been doing this more of late. Maybe you’d disagree with me on that, and heck, maybe I’m wrong. Wouldn’t be the first time. As you said though, both sides do it and no doubt our political commitments and philosophies affect our perception of it.
Anyway, I heartily agree that all of us need to try to keep good science in, bad science out, and to try to get the science straight and not use it for political ends far removed from the situation as it is.

I have only one word for the proposed population control: horrible. The second would be infamous.
Marianne

Marianne:I have only one word for the proposed population control: horrible. The second would be infamous.
Then aren’t you lucky that Holdren isn’t proposing it? It’s just another smear from David.