Garrett Hardin
Garrett James Hardin (April 21, 1915 – September 14, 2003) was an American ecologist and microbiologist. He focused his career on the issue of human overpopulation, and is best known for his exposition of the tragedy of the commons in a 1968 paper of the same title in Science,[1][2][3] which called attention to "the damage that innocent actions by individuals can inflict on the environment".[4] He is also known for Hardin's First Law of Human Ecology: "We can never do merely one thing. Any intrusion into nature has numerous effects, many of which are unpredictable."[5][6]: 112
Garrett Hardin
Hardin held hardline anti-immigrant positions as well as positions on eugenics and multiethnicism that have led multiple sources to label him a white nationalist. The Southern Poverty Law Center described his publications as "frank in their racism and quasi-fascist ethnonationalism".[7][8][9][10][11]
Biography[edit]
Hardin received a BS in zoology from the University of Chicago in 1936 and a PhD in microbiology from Stanford University in 1941 where his dissertation research addressed symbiosis among microorganisms.[12] Moving to the University of California, Santa Barbara in 1946, he served there as Professor of Human Ecology from 1963 until his (nominal) retirement in 1978. He was among the first members of the Society for General Systems Research.
Personal life[edit]
Participation in death-with-dignity movement and suicide[edit]
Hardin, who suffered from a heart disorder and post-polio syndrome,[26] and his wife, Jane, who suffered from Lou Gehrig's disease, were members of End-of-Life Choices, formerly known as the Hemlock Society.
Believing in individuals' choice of when to die, they killed themselves in their Santa Barbara home in September 2003, shortly after their 62nd wedding anniversary. He was 88 and she was 81.[27]
Controversies[edit]
Hardin caused controversy for his support of anti-immigrant causes during his lifetime and possible connections to the white nationalist movement. The Southern Poverty Law Center noted that Hardin served on the board of the Federation for American Immigration Reform and Social Contract Press and co-founded the anti-immigration Californians for Population Stabilization and The Environmental Fund, which according to the SPLC "served to lobby Congress for nativist and isolationist policies".[8]
In 1994, he was one of 52 signatories on "Mainstream Science on Intelligence",[28] an editorial written by Linda Gottfredson and published in the Wall Street Journal, which declared the consensus of the signing scholars on issues related to race and intelligence following the publication of the book The Bell Curve.[8]
Hardin's last book The Ostrich Factor: Our Population Myopia (1999), a warning about the threat of overpopulation to the Earth's sustainable economic future, called for coercive constraints on "unqualified reproductive rights" and argued that affirmative action is a form of racism.