Our research into the relative abundance of resources began when we looked at updating the famous wager between the cornucopian University of Maryland economist Julian Simon (1932–1998) and three neo-Malthusian scholars: the Stanford University biologist Paul Ehrlich; the University of California, Berkeley ecologist John Harte; and the University of California, Berkeley scientist and future director of President Barack Obama’s White House Office of Science and Technology John P. Holdren.[1] The Ehrlich group bet $200 each on five metals: chrome, copper, nickel, tin, and tungsten. Then th...