I have no opinion about your broader argument (that Malthus' model is accurate with respect to his past) but the way you choose to express it simply makes no sense.
You can't use the word "prediction" if you're unwilling to make a distinction between the past and future.
Of course you can. The crucial distinction is not about actual chronology, but rather about your state of mind. The scientific method is about predicting the outcomes of experiments, natural or artificial ones. It works just as well regardless of whether the thing you are trying to predict happened in the past or is yet to happen.
Otherwise, the whole field of astronomy wouldn’t be possible, as it by its nature is all about observing the past, and building models to explain and predict other events that happened in the past. If you grant that astronomy is a scientifically sound pursuit, why is astronomy observing and testing their theories on events that happened thousands or millions year ago in another galaxy fine, but observing and testing econometric theories on events that happened hundreds or thousands years ago make no sense? How is archeology, or ancient population genetics supposed to work, if you only allow scientific method to be applied to future events?
You're making a tortured semantic argument. We were talking about whether Malthus is still relevant, whether we can still use him to make predictions. Malthus being "correct up until the 17th century" is beside the point.
You've also made bizarre arguments elsewhere in this thread. Apparently Malthus can't be proven wrong because the Earth can't support an infinite number of people. That's true, of course, but it's not a model. It's the statement of an obvious fact.
> We were talking about whether Malthus is still relevant, whether we can still use him to make predictions.
We can, and we do, just not for human population in future. Again, Malthusian models are completely standard way to model past human populations, and also animal populations.
> Apparently Malthus can't be proven wrong because the Earth can't support an infinite number of people. That's true, of course, but it's not a model. It's the statement of an obvious fact.
Yes, that's why Malthusian model is so popular: because it is obviously correct, and because its assumptions cover very wide range of observed past and future conditions. We live in pretty unique circumstances when they don't: we both had the technology grow carrying capacity faster than the population had grown, and also we had population growth slow down a lot, and then go down to shrinking regime.
I expect these trends to continue in my lifetime, and probably in the lifetime of my children -- but not forever. Instead, I believe that in around 200-300 years we will return to high-fertility regime, that will require governmental measures to curb, if we want to preserve the quality of life. However, I have much less confidence in this prediction than I do in the validity of Malthusian model.
> Yes, that's why Malthusian model is so popular: because it is obviously correct
It's not correct right now, for humans, which is what we were talking about.
> and because its assumptions cover very wide range of observed past and future conditions
Ah yes, those magical "observed future conditions".
> We live in pretty unique circumstances when they don't
There are no grounds for insisting that we "live in unique circumstances". That statement is either a tautology (like your interpretation of Malthus) or it's meaningless.
> I believe that in around 200-300 years we will return to high-fertility regime, that will require governmental measures to curb, if we want to preserve the quality of life.
I like science fiction as much as the next person but that's all this is.
