Dr. Garrett Hardin: Overpopulation, Survival and Morality

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HARDIN: You could say that, although I was actually brought up all over the Midwest. You see, my father worked Or We railroads and—in the course of his job—had to move from one place to another every few years. So, on the one hand I had the sort of childhood that could make a person somewhat alienated ... that is, I never lived in an established family home. On the other hand, however, I spent every summer—during those early years—on a farm owned by my grandparents and two uncles. That experience was very important to me, as it not only provided me with the sense of a fixed, permanent place, but also gave me some appreciation of what it really means to be a farmer.

Now, I never farmed for a living myself, but I did have a number of responsibilities around my relatives' place. For instance, I was put in charge of the chicken flock—which numbered anywhere from 500 to 1,000 birds in any given summer—and I helped with the wheat harvest and so forth. I think many of the ecological concepts I've developed and expounded can be at least partially attributed to that rural experience. After all, a good farmer is—by necessity—a kind of ecologist.

PLOWBOY: When did you decide to make biology your field of study?

HARDIN: I didn't really settle upon a career as a biologist until my sophomore year at the University of Chicago. Up to that point I'd just diddled around with one subject or another, as most students do ... debating the advantages of several possible fields. But, in my second year in college, I committed myself to the study of zoology and came under the influence of Professor W.C. Allee ... who is a very important figure in American ecology, one of our true pioneers.

I would have gone on to do my graduate work with Allee, in fact but I felt the need to move to another area ... so the professor kindly lined up a position for me at Stanford. While I was at that institution, I did my doctoral studies on the ecology of protozoa.

Then, with my Ph.D. in hand, I went to work — for four years — with the Carnegie Institution ... which maintained its private Division of Plant Biology lab on the Stanford campus. I became involved with a program to research the potentials of algae as a human food source. This work occupied me from 1942 to '46 ... whenbecause of the background in population studies that I'd picked up from Allee-the algal research began to seem like a "no win" situation to me. After all, even if we did succeed in producing more food, we would-in the endonly feed more people ... which would cause the population in question to increase and, 0 effect, only make We problem worse!

PLOWBOY: So you left your position with the Division of Plant Biology?

HARDIN: Yes, because I realized that my heart wasn't in the research. And—since Stanford was short—handed at that point—I was able to get a temporary teaching job with the university. Incidentally, the "algae for food" program continued for another two years after I left ... only to be dropped when it was found to be economically impractical.

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