In June 1972, the Royal Society of Medicine in London organized a symposium called “Man in His Place”. An eclectic line-up of speakers appeared, including Jacob Bronowski, whose acclaimed 13-episode BBC TV series. The Rise of Manit was to be broadcast the following year. But the first person to take the podium was John Bumpass Calhoun of the US National Institute of Mental Health outside Washington DC.
Even the audience familiar with Calhoun’s work did not know what was in store, and the title of his talk – “Death squared: The explosive growth and demise of a mouse population” – did not give much away. “I shall speak largely of mice,” he began, “but my thoughts are of man, of healing, of life and its evolution.” He then described a long-term experiment he was conducting on mice living in a “Utopian Environment” he called Universe 25. Although his study subjects were rodents, Calhoun believed that his metropolis had implications for humans: this was it. a sobering account of the chaos and social collapse in an overpopulated world of humanity.
An environmentalist turned psychologist turned futurist, Calhoun became a science rock star in the 1970s. His message struck a chord at a time when the human population was expanding rapidly and overcrowding was a hot political issue. As interest in his research grew, Calhoun was courted by the great and the good, from politicians and urban planners to prison reformers and writers. He also had an audience with the Pope. Strange as it may seem, his city of rodents…
