Last June, I attended a symposium sponsored by the German Institute of Japanese Studies. Themed "Imploding Populations: Global and Local Challenges of Demographic Change," I took in presentations about health care, international and domestic migration, and life in a geriatric society.
Nothing surprising. The United Nations and our government acknowledged back in 2000 that Japan was heading for a demographic nightmare: a decreasing population, more old people than we can take care of, not enough young people to pay taxes, and economic decline.
Shocking, however, was the bad science: The presenting Japanese scientists were deliberately ignoring data fundamental to their field.