answersLogoWhite

0

Thomas Malthus believed that eventually, the population of the world would outgrow the amount of resources (food) we would have. Therefore we would run out of food. He developed the theory; population grows geometrically (1,2,4,8,16,32...) and resources grow arithmetically (1,2,3,4,5,6,7...). This caused him to believe that someday, we would have to many people for the amount of resources we have.

To fix this, he wanted to put certain laws into place. One of which was an IQ test, because the poor people were the ones reproducing all the time (because they had nothing else to do!). If you did not achieve a certain score (or higher) on this test, you would be sterilized and therefore couldn't have children.

This never happened of course, because of the industrial revolution... when we were able to produce more from resources. There were also several other factors contributing to why this didn't happen.

User Avatar

Wiki User

14y ago

What else can I help you with?