Prince William has been woefully misunderstood. His fretting about the “terrible impact” of Africa’s growing population on wildlife last week was criticised as Neo-Malthusianism of the worst sort: a misanthropic lament at there being “too many people in the world”.

But read his words closely and you’ll see it was nothing of the sort. Avoiding the hateful nostalgia of those who would rather Africa poor, empty and undeveloped, so long as carbon emissions are lower and there are enough wild animals to keep safari tourists happy, his simple point was that there are consequences to a larger population and it’s sensible to mitigate them.

If only Stephen Hawking were so reasonable. The cosmologist has taken a keen interest in the apocalypse of late, and has said that the world is in danger of “self-destructing” unless the global population stops increasing “at an alarming rate”.

Coming from a scientist, this is bizarre. As the economist Bjørn Lomborg points out, having peaked in the Sixties, the global rate of population increase is now at its lowest in 65 years and growth is likely to end altogether by the end of the century. Fine, it is now increasingly focused on Africa and the Middle East. But from Thomas Malthus to Paul Ehrlich, every previous population panic has turned out fine, with people sufficiently ingenious in everything from food production to environmental stewardship to thrive, however many of us there are.