ZAP // DALL-E-2
In the 1960s, ecologist and futurist John Calhoun built a sprawling rat metropolis that served as a mirror of society. The dystopian results have influenced the modern world for decades.
In June 1972, the Royal Society of Medicine, in London, organized a symposium entitled “Man in his place”.
The first person to go on stage was John Calhounan ecologist, psychologist and futurist, at the US National Institute of Mental Health. The title of his talk was “Death squared: The explosive growth and disappearance of a rat population.”
“I’m going to talk mostly about rats”, he began by saying, “but my thoughts are about man, about healing, about life and its evolution” – he now quotes .
Calhoun described a long-term experiment he was conducting on population dynamics involving rats who lived in a “utopian environment” which he called Universe 25.
Calhoun believed that his mice were a mirror of humanity, at a time when the human population was expanding rapidly and Overpopulation was a hot political issue.
How Universe 25 evolved
Calhoun first came to public attention in 1962, following the publication of a paper describing his study of the growth and decay of the population of rats living in an experimental barn not far from his laboratories.
Excited and alarmed by his discoveries, Calhoun established a series of rodent metropolises, including Universe 25 – a paradise for mice consisting of 16 buildings, each divided into 16 apartments, with its own power station and rooftop fountain to satisfy residents.
On July 9, 1968, four male and four female mice were placed in Universe 25. Then, for hours a day, over the course of nearly four years, Calhoun and his team recorded what was happening.
With plenty of food and water, no predators and no disease, the rats had a quick start and their number increased quickly.
After about 18 months, the population had soared to 2,200, far above what Calhoun calculated to be the ideal size. This provoked a breakdown in normal behavior, which he dubbed “behavioral sinkhole”.
Analogy with human life
As New Scientist reports, firstly, the inhabitants of Universe 25 exhibited a “pathological togetherness” – a need to be close to others, even if the consequences were negative.
Then, when the population began to fall, life degenerated into rodent hell, full of hyper-aggressive or apathetic males with no sexual desire, alongside females that showed almost no maternal care.
As life progressed, an increasing number of rats spent most of their time grooming and eating, avoiding all social interactions.
At the 1972 symposium, there were only 121 rats left in Universe 25 and the population was quickly heading towards extinction.
Calhoun believed this was a warning to humanity: If we didn’t control our own population growth and reduce overpopulation, we too could destroy ourselves.
When the last mouse in Universe 25 died, The Washington Post ran a front-page article titled “Ten Boxes of Dead Mice Could Be Us: Is modern humanity becoming a giant colony of rats?“.
The dangers of “overpopulation”
As interest in his research grew, Calhoun was courted by the great and the good, from politicians and urban planners to reformers and prison writers. He even had an audience with the Pope.
Its rodent cities would influence many quarters of society in the years to come.
In 1971, Calhoun was consulted by Washington D.C. prison authorities, and over time his work played a role in prison reform dangerously overcrowded.
Likewise, the urban planners they were considering the implications of their studies for urban development.
Calhoun died in 1995. Today, the human population is double what it was when he extrapolated his experiments on rodents to issue his dire warnings.
The social collapse he feared would happen if humanity did not take steps to stop overpopulation has not (yet) materialized, but Calhoun lived to see some of his predictions come true.
