In August 1817, the learned men of the Linnaean Society of New England had studied their Bestiaries, ancient, illustrated volumes of all the animals. They set out from Boston for Gloucester’s high rocky shore to survey the seascape. There, they found what they were looking for. The sea serpent was a “60 to 100-foot long, black, shiny, leathery, scaly, reptilian beast with humps, large eyes, and sharp teeth.” Had they heard the local fishermen, the scientists would have dismissed claims that their sea serpent was a school of bluefin tuna.
Not too many years earlier, in 1798, the English economist, cleric, and scholar Thomas Robert Malthus published anonymously the idea that increased food production would improve the population’s well-being. However, with abundance, population growth would be geometric, while the means of subsistence increase would be…