This article is part of Upstream, The Daily Wire’s new home for culture and lifestyle. Real human insight and human stories — from our featured writers to you. *** In 1980, the free market economist Julian Simon made a bet with environmentalist Paul Ehrlich. The author of “The Population Bomb,” Ehrlich believed population growth would doom humanity. Simon believed the opposite — and he was proven right. After Ehrlich’s death, Julian’s son David reflects on the bet and the far-reaching effects of the disproven claim that Ehrlich never recanted. The first sentence of Paul Ehrlich’s mega-bestseller, “The Population Bomb,” made him famous: “The battle to feed all of humanity is over. In the 1970s and 1980s hundreds of millions of people will starve to death in spite of any crash programs embarked upon now.” Ehrlich, who died last week at age 93, never recanted and refused to come to terms with the evisceration of his doomsday prediction. Since 1970, the world’s population has more than doubled, growing from 3.7 billion to 8 billion. Yet only nations with socialist command and control economies such as mid-1980s Ethiopia and more recently North Korea have experienced mass starvation. The University of Oxford’s Our World in Data reports that worldwide famine deaths per 100,000 people have fallen by over 98%, from 990 in the 1960 decade to 13 in the 2020 decade. The vast reduction in famine deaths, moreover, has been accompanied by a deep reduction in worldwide extreme poverty. Another Our World in Data report shows that from 1970 through 2015, the share of the world’s population living in extreme poverty shrunk from almost 48% to less than 10%. Ehrlich, however, never cared about scientific facts. In 2023, for example, he insisted that “humanity is not sustainable.” Ehrlich’s predictions were not merely scientific misconduct. They had deadly consequences. They convinced repressive foreign governments in China, India, Africa, and Central America to pursue horrendous population control programs that included forced abortions and sterilizations. China’s notorious one-child policy was the most gruesome, resulting in millions of sex-selection abortions and infanticides. Stanford University, Ehrlich’s employer, never disciplined him for his scientific misdeeds. Ehrlich did, however, suffer public humiliation: He famously lost his bet with my father, the late economist Julian Simon, regarding Ehrlich’s related claim that population growth would lead to shortages of natural resources and resulting higher prices for them. In 1980, Simon — who devoted most of his professional life to amassing a vast array of scientific data showing that population growth is beneficial — wanted publicly to puncture Ehrlich’s claims of impending global doom. Simon offered Ehrlich and his partners, Harvard University scientist John Holdren and University of California-Berkeley ecologist John Harte, a $1,000 bet. Ehrlich and his partners could choose a group of raw materials that they expected to rise in price because of population growth over a time period of their choosing. If the total inflation-adjusted price of raw materials went up over the time period, they would win. If the price went down, they would lose. Ehrlich and his partners selected 10 years and copper, chromium, nickel, tin, and tungsten. By 1990, the total inflation-adjusted price of these metals was 36% lower. Ehrlich sent Simon a check for $576.07 to reflect the inflation-adjusted decrease in prices, and the New York Times Magazine featured the story of the bet on its cover. When Simon offered to make a bigger bet, Ehrlich declined. In addition to proving that Ehrlich’s theory was wrong, the bet also gave Simon an opportunity to highlight the comprehensive scientific data that show that population growth, particularly combined with human freedom, creates prosperity, increases longevity, makes people healthier, produces a cleaner environment, and generally makes life better on earth. People, as Simon explained, are the “ultimate resource.” They are not just mouths to feed. They have hands to work and produce and, more importantly, minds that create the innovation that drives economic growth. Paul Romer, a Nobel Prize winner for his work on economic growth, put it this way: “The virtuous circle between population and ideas accounts for the acceleration of growth.” As Simon explained, population growth in the short term can cause problems: more traffic, crowded schools and hospitals, and stretched family and government budgets. But over time, population growth pushes people to find solutions through innovation that expand the economy, increase prosperity, lengthen our lives, and improve our health and environment. The most beneficial form of population growth (along with increased skilled immigration) is more traditional nuclear families having and raising more children. The data show that children raised by married couples have far better outcomes. A July 2020 U.S. Congress Joint Economic Committee report summarizes research that shows that children not raised in homes with married parents are more likely “to experience physical, emotional or sexual abuse,” have worse health, exhibit more aggression, “engage in delinquent behavior,” have lower educational achievement, earn less as adults, and “live in poverty.” Ehrlich’s death provides hope that the war against population growth will now end — and that society instead will wholeheartedly shift to encouraging more people to marry and raise more children. *** David M. Simon is a senior fellow with Unleash Prosperity and a lawyer in Chicago. The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

An Illinois congresswoman wants to address a hidden danger to the American public tied to the spike in abortions facilitated by the fatal drug mifepristone. Rep. Mary Miller (R-IL) introduced a proposal on Tuesday that would make it illegal to take an abortion pill “without the physical presence of a healthcare provider” and prevent the remains of unborn children from being flushed into the public water system. The aftermath of the fatal procedure could be harming the American public, Miller said. “The murder-for-profit abortion industry has completely ignored the dangerous and unethical disposal of pre-born baby remains and toxic chemical waste produced by abortion pills,” Miller told The Daily Wire. “I introduced the Clean Water for All Life Act to put an end to their reckless and inhumane practices.” Miller’s legislation comes as abortions through mifepristone have become the most common means to end an unborn child’s life. Mifepristone works by starving an unborn child of the nutrients it needs to survive. Thanks to regulations introduced by the Biden administration, mifepristone can be shipped through the mail without an in-person doctor’s visit. Pro-life advocates have blamed this regulation for the tens of thousands of abortions in states where medication abortion is technically against the law. In addition to requiring the presence of a doctor, Miller’s legislation would mandate that a woman have a physical examination before getting an abortion pill and that the unborn baby would not be flushed down the toilet. Doctors who violate the proposal could be sentenced to up to five years in prison and fined up to $50,000. The organization Students for Life of America, which supports the bill, estimates that some 50 tons of chemical waste and human remains are flushed into America’s water systems every year due to abortions. They say the chemicals from the pills could lead to health problems for all Americans. According to Miller’s office, this could include immune and nervous system disturbances, infertility, increased cancer risk, moodiness, hormone imbalances in women, and decreased testosterone in men. “The loss of human life from Chemical Abortion Pills every day sickens so many Americans, but very little thought is given to what happens after a Chemical Abortion,” Students for Life of America President Kristan Hawkins said. “Babies deserve better, and many of us are being exposed to abortion water pollution in our drinking water.” Women who took the abortion pill have spoken out about the horrific experience of having well-developed babies expelled from their bodies. Last week, a woman named Elizabeth Gillete said the baby she aborted had recognizable eyes and limbs. “That was so different from the double period and the extra clotting that they told me that I would experience,” she said. “And in that moment, I had to decide if I was going to throw my child in the trash or flush my child down the toilet, and I chose to flush him into a septic tank.” Miller’s legislation is backed by Republican Reps Michael Cloud (Texas), Pat Harrigan (North Carolina), Sheri Biggs (South Carolina), Paul Gosar (Arizona), Diana Harshbarger (Tennessee), John McGuire (Virginia), Greg Steube (Florida), and Tim Burchett (Tennessee). Pro-life advocates have urged the Food and Drug Administration to reimpose the in-person requirement for the abortion pill.

James Talarico is having a moment. The Texas state representative and Democratic Senate candidate has gone viral more times than most politicians manage to in a full career, partly because he’s young and articulate, and partly because he does something unusual for a Democrat: he talks about Jesus. A lot. He quotes Scripture on the House floor. Joe Rogan told him to run for president. The political media has decided Talarico represents something new: a Democrat who can finally speak Christian and counter their secular reputation. I want to take that claim seriously because I think it deserves a serious answer. And the serious answer is: no, he doesn’t. James Talarico simply stands for an old form of religious progressivism that is more interested in achieving progressive outcomes than holding sincerely to the Christian faith. The question isn’t whether Talarico is personally sincere. I have no reason to doubt that he is. The question is whether his Christianity is doing any actual work in his politics and whether it functions as a theological foundation or is merely a rhetorical costume. When you look closely, the answer is pretty clearly the latter — Talarico’s Christianity is a Trojan horse with a progressive interior and a Christian exterior. There is no progressive policy that Talarico’s Christianity hasn’t made peace with. Talarico supports abortion access, transgender ideology, expansive redistribution, and a vision of government robust enough to accomplish the full progressive policy agenda. He opposes the Ten Commandments in public schools and has described God as “nonbinary.” He attends a PCUSA church whose congregants celebrate being free from “dusty old creeds and dogma.” Now, here’s what’s interesting: you could arrive at every single one of those positions through standard secular progressive reasoning: appeals to autonomy, identity, equity, and the expansion of the administrative state. You don’t need the Bible to get there. You don’t need the atoning work of Jesus. Christianity is merely decorative. It’s a rhetorical add-on bolted onto a political program that was already fully assembled before Scripture even entered the room. Here is what I mean when I say progressive Christianity wears Christianity as a skin suit. The framework is secular progressivism: identity politics, abortion, sexual revolutionary politics, and redistributionist economics. Christian language gets stitched over the top of it to make the whole thing look familiar to voters who grew up in church. It is smarmy and syrupy in its appeals to the “brotherhood of man and the fatherhood of God.” But the theological content has been hollowed out and replaced. What remains is a set of emotional associations strangely redolent with progressivism (funny how that happens, isn’t it?), and it goes something like this: Jesus loved people, therefore expand Medicaid; the prophets cared for the poor, therefore raise the marginal tax rate; love your neighbor, therefore no borders. The assertions don’t hold up when the Bible is used responsibly, but they feel right to people who want the warmth and consolation of faith without the theological demands that counter progressive orthodoxy. But oddly, none of this actually works in the long run for the people who employ it. Liberals don’t need Christianity to reach the conclusions Talarico is reaching. They already have a fully operational secular moral vocabulary — rights, autonomy, justice, and equity — that gets them to the same place. So why bother with the theological window dressing? The answer is purely electoral. Democrats have been hemorrhaging religious voters for a generation, and they’re looking for a way to stop the bleeding. Talarico is the proposed solution. But the solution has a structural problem, and sociology is rather clear about it. Liberal theological commitments corrode religious belief across generations. This isn’t a conservative talking point; it’s one of the better-documented findings in the sociology of religion. Churches that accommodate the surrounding culture’s moral assumptions tend to empty out within two or three generations. The children of progressive Christians disproportionately become religiously unaffiliated. Why? Because if Christianity is just a more emotional version of what MSNBC already told you, you don’t need to get up on Sunday morning to hear it. You do not have to tithe; you do not have to bear social scorn for holding to supposedly outmoded dogmas “on the wrong side of history.” Theological substance — creation, fall, redemption, resurrection, judgment, human dignity, sexual ethics, and the exclusive claims of Jesus Christ — is precisely what makes Christianity worth believing. Strip that away in the name of openness, and you’ve kept the brand while destroying the product. That Talarico is having a moment should surprise no one. Previous generations of religious progressives had their moment, too, and in time, it all ends the same way: churches mutating into art museums and social justice clubs. What Talarico and the progressive Christian project are doing is trying to make the Democratic Party look religion-friendly while simultaneously denying religion its actual substance. This betrays what Christianity really is by transforming it into progressive sentiment. Orthodox Christians won’t be persuaded, because they can see the theology has been replaced. Secular progressives don’t need Christianity anyway, so the whole performance ends up as a media-fueled vanity project to bolster progressive politics. Talarico may mean well. But Christianity isn’t a political tool. It’s a truth claim about reality at odds with the progressivism of his “Christianity.” * * * Andrew T. Walker serves as Associate Professor of Christian Ethics and Public Theology at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and is a Fellow with the Ethics and Public Policy Center. You can follow him on X: @AndrewTWalker. The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

Recent polling and national defense surveys underscore a period of robust Republican alignment with President Trump’s more assertive foreign policy, particularly regarding military action in Iran. Data from CNN analyst Harry Enten highlights a near-unanimous consensus within the GOP base, revealing that 89% of MAGA voters approve of the current war against Iran, while only a marginal 9% express disagreement. “The MAGA base really likes the U.S. military action in Iran,” Enter pointed out. “Take a look here. Okay, MAGA GOP on the U.S. military action in Iran. Look at this. Nearly nine in 10, 89 percent approve of the U.S. military action in Iran. That is the MAGA GOP base. Just nine percent disapprove of it. This is tremendously popular among the Republican base. … This war is very popular among the GOP base.” This overwhelming support suggests that the administration’s “peace through strength” approach has resonated deeply with its core constituency. This specific support for the war in Iran mirrors broader trends captured in the 2025 Ronald Reagan Institute’s National Defense Survey. The study found that Americans—and MAGA Republicans in particular—are increasingly embracing global leadership and military superiority. A record 79% of MAGA voters believed the U.S. should take the lead in international affairs, a figure significantly higher than that of their Democratic counterparts. Furthermore, 87% of Americans overall believed it is vital for the U.S. to maintain the world’s most powerful military, with 71% agreeing that global peace is most likely when American strength is unrivaled. The survey also reveals a GOP base that is prepared for sustained conflict and expansion. Nearly two-thirds of respondents believe the military should be sized to win two wars simultaneously, while a majority now supports using military force against drug traffickers in Latin America. Whether it is the 89% approval for the Iranian conflict or the 77% support for defending Taiwan, the data confirm that the Republican Party is solidly behind an era of proactive, well-funded military engagement under the Trump administration.

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani used a St. Patrick’s Day event to complain about “genocide” in Gaza, arguing that the Irish and Palestinians could relate over their shared histories marked by oppression. Mamdani joined former Irish President Mary Robinson at a breakfast honoring Irish New Yorkers, and he used his remarks to praise Robinson for her support for Palestinians. Mamdani rips ‘genocide’ in Palestine during St. Patrick’s Day event https://t.co/qXhjOmqn2e pic.twitter.com/2jP4BHzOWp — New York Post (@nypost) March 17, 2026 “I say this as over the past few years, as we’ve witnessed a genocide unfold before our eyes, there has been deafening silence from so many. For those who have long cared about universal human rights and the extension of them to Palestinians, silence, however, is nothing new – for Palestinians are so often left to weep alone,” Mamdani said. “Yet former President Robinson has never been silent.” “The story of the Irish, both in Ireland and in New York City, is at one time a story of oppression, of subjugation, and of discrimination,” Mamdani said, arguing that it was “no coincidence” that the Irish would see their own history reflected in Gaza. “Who can better understand those who weep than those who have been made to weep for so long?” Robinson, who served as President of Ireland from 1990-1997, followed Mamdani’s lead, and after saying that St. Patrick’s Day was a time to celebrate Irish culture and traditions, it was also a time to remember all those who may yet be “living under the shadow of war and suffering.” “For many Irish people, these realities resonate deeply, as the mayor has said. Our own history holds memories of famine, exile and conflict. Perhaps because of that, many recognize echoes of Ireland’s past and the suffering of others today and the pain of displacement and the enduring human longing for dignity, justice, and self-determination,” she said. Mamdani referenced Irish support for a Palestinian state in his official message to New Yorkers as well. Happy St. Patrick’s Day, New York. pic.twitter.com/DPCGPlFbE2 — Mayor Zohran Kwame Mamdani (@NYCMayor) March 17, 2026