David Deming

David Deming
Deming during testimony before the United States Senate, 2006.
Born	1954 (age 62–63) Terre Haute, Indiana, US
Fields	Geology, Hydro Geology, Political Commentary
Alma mater	Indiana University Bloomington, University of Utah
Influences	Robert Heinlein, A.E. Van Vogt

David Deming (born 1954), an American geologist and geophysicist, is an associate professor of Arts and Sciences at the University of Oklahoma in Norman. He graduated from North Central High School in Indianapolis, Indiana in 1972. He then attended Indiana University Bloomington, graduating in 1983 with a BS degree in geology, and received a Ph.D in geophysics from the University of Utah in 1988. Prior to his arrival at the University of Oklahoma in 1992, Deming held a National Research Council postdoctoral fellowship at the U.S. Geological Survey in California. From 1992 through 2003, Deming was an assistant and associate professor in the School of Geology and Geophysics at the University of Oklahoma. An outspoken and controversial professor, Deming was involved in two major disputes with the OU administration, one leading to a lawsuit. Deming is the author of more than thirty research papers and the textbook Introduction to Hydrogeology. He is an associate editor for the academic journals Petroleum Geoscience and Ground Water, and is an adjunct faculty member at two conservative think tanks, the Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs and the National Center for Policy Analysis

Deming has identified himself with the Cornucopian school of environmental thought, and has consistently criticized Malthusian theory. In 1998, he wrote "although world population has increased by more than a factor of six over the last 200 years, we are all aware that the average standard of living has risen dramatically—in direct contradiction to Malthusian theory." Deming considers the "fundamental flaw" in Malthusian theory to be that "it fails to take into account the exponential growth in resources that occurs through technological advances." He has questioned if Malthus' hypothesis is scientific, because its adherents resist empirical falsification.