The Micro-Evolutionary Force of Contraception
A friend of mine has a theory about the long-range effects of massive contraception and low fertility. Basically, he thinks that people who don’t naturally like children are going to have their genes eliminated from the future of humanity.
It makes sense- many psychological traits are genetic, and “degree of liking children” is likely at least partially genetic. Before contraception, the only thing required to procreate was to enjoy sex. Now, you have to enjoy children as well, since you can separate the former from the latter.
This seems to be the case- I was researching the Robinson curriculum recently for homeschooling, and I noticed that Robinson has some odd ways of caring for his kids. Notably, he never leaves them with anyone or a babysitter, presumably out of some sort of worry that someone else can’t take care of them even for a little while- he claims his children are always with him.
Now that’s someone who enjoys children, to the point of extremity- Robinson is a widower with six children. And his genes will be well-represented in the next generation.
I’ll add my own corollary to my friend’s hypothesis: the future will be composed of the descendants of those individuals who tend to like children OR tend to be too stupid, apathetic or incompetent to use birth control properly. Many Christians like to pretend otherwise, but on the other side of the bell curve there are a lot of people who can’t handle taking a pill everyday, whose procreation patterns more resemble cats than humans.
So we’ll have a child-obsessed homeschooling high-fertility overclass with a massive high-fertility low-IQ underclass. Should be interesting to see what happens when the two groups collide politically.
November 16th, 2006 at 12:52 pm
What an interesting hypothesis. Too bad we won’t be around to “see” it proven or disproven, since it will take hundreds of years for this to play out.
It does give an interesting viewpoint to the discussions about contraception. The only other factor I can see in the mix are people who don’t dislike children but are persuaded by society, family, etc., that it is irresponsible to have a lot of children. They’re having kids - one or two, tops - but not six, seven…Does this factor in at all?
November 16th, 2006 at 3:44 pm
Lindsay,
It won’t take as long as you think. Family A consists of two materialistic individuals who don’t like kids, yet they have one child in their 30’s because it seemed like a good idea at the time. Let’s say the child of Family A is also a materialistic child-disliker, and has one child as well.
The parents of Family A have one descendent. Family B has four kids, and their four kids have four kids. Family B, starting from the same base, will have sixteen descendents in the third generation. 16:1 ratios change things very quickly on a historical scale. This is basically what’s happening in Israel and the Southwest. Palestinian and Mexican women have high fertility rates, while Israeli women and Americans have low fertility rates. Just as Texas was 95% Anglo at its founding and Israel was majority-Jewish at its founding, both founding peoples are being displaced by those with higher fertility rates. Israel will soon be majority-Muslim and the founding people of Texas are a mere plurality now.
Obviously, there are more factors than these, but I think contraception is a pretty powerful (arguably revolutionary) micro-evolutionary event in the history of mankind.
Abortion and contraception are probably self-limiting processes, as the individuals who practice them are self-selecting for partial extinction of potential descendents:
http://home.nyc.rr.com/taranto/roeeffect.htm
I am not making an argument against contraception, just stating what I believe to be unavoidable consequences. Our stake in the future is directly proportional to the number of descendents we leave behind.
Just like investing, those who make short term investments in materialism are always outperformed by those who delay gratification to plan for the long haul.
December 1st, 2006 at 6:26 pm
[...] Delicious irony: it seems that belief in the worldview dictated by macroevolution is itself evolutionarily disadvantageous, as only deeply religious people (and really stupid people) reproduce themselves at an above-replacement pace. [...]