Re: Earth's Carrying Capacity

From: Pete Lynn (pete_at_peterlynnkites.com)
Date: 08/20/04 

Date: Fri, 20 Aug 2004 12:07:19 +1200

"John Schilling" <schillin@spock.usc.edu> wrote in message
news:cg2ngn$19k$1@spock.usc.edu...
>
> From the standpoint of maximizing reproductive advantage, it is
> *clearly* suboptimal to become pregnant at the rate prosperous
> and educated people chose to become pregnant. What babies are
> produced may be produced at the optimal time, but if the number of
> babies produced is zero or one per woman, as it now is in Europe,
> no optimization of the timing is going to offer a net reproductive
> advantage.
>
> In pursuit of optimal reproductive fitness, then, evolution will seek
> some combination of immunity to contraception, increased
> preference for childbearing, reduced ability to obtain and keep
> wealth, and immunity to education.
>
> If immunity to contraception is the easiest chromosomal hack, it can
> be expected to dominate the evolutionary adaptation to declining
> TFRs. Not clear that this is the case, but worthy of speculation at
> least.

I suspect an increased preference for childbearing will be the favoured
evolutionary pathway. This preference already tends to increase as
people get older. I expect the trend for people to have more children
when they are older to continue, this might also select for longevity.

I expect cultural adaptations might kick in before biological ones,
though some individuals already have the necessary cultural and/or
biological adaptations. Evolution is not starting from scratch on this
one, it just has to readjust the balance.

I recently heard something about how in a part of Berlin? It was
becoming fashionable to again have kids. I think it might have been
statistically significant.

There has also been a tendency toward small nuclear families, perhaps
for ease of frequent moving. This does not have the economies of scale
that a community has, a flexible sort of urban kibbutz might enable
higher birth rates.

Pete.

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