I found this interesting paragraph in an article I found recently: "There are many high-fertile religious communities out there - as, for example, the Old Order Amish. Other religious groups, as the Shakers, who didn't manage (or chose) to have enough children, succumbed to (bio-)cultural evolution. In contrast, we still don't know about a single, non-religious population, movement or group that was able to retain more than two births per woman (the so-called replacement level) throughout subsequent generations. This is relevant from a sociocultural perspective: Secularization is taking place (especially among wealthy and secure populations) - but running into demographic dead ends, followed by religious-demographic revivals (through births and immigration). And it is relevant from the perspective of evolutionary studies: Intergenerational reproductive success is "the" benchmark of evolutionary fitness, promoting biocultural traits as speech, musicality - or religiosity."
If you think of life as a game based on evolution, then every child you have is like a point... and the more points you have by the time you're on your deathbed, the better. Women who have few children are unknowingly ensuring that genes responsible for lower fertility die out, and women who have lots of children are unknowingly ensuring that genes responsible for high fertility become more predominant.
There's a book on amazon.com called "monkeys on our backs".. i recommend reading the blurbs.. it's pretty mindbending
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I found this interesting paragraph in an article I found recently: "There are many high-fertile religious communities out there - as, for example, the Old Order Amish. Other religious groups, as the Shakers, who didn't manage (or chose) to have enough children, succumbed to (bio-)cultural evolution. In contrast, we still don't know about a single, non-religious population, movement or group that was able to retain more than two births per woman (the so-called replacement level) throughout subsequent generations. This is relevant from a sociocultural perspective: Secularization is taking place (especially among wealthy and secure populations) - but running into demographic dead ends, followed by religious-demographic revivals (through births and immigration). And it is relevant from the perspective of evolutionary studies: Intergenerational reproductive success is "the" benchmark of evolutionary fitness, promoting biocultural traits as speech, musicality - or religiosity."
If you think of life as a game based on evolution, then every child you have is like a point... and the more points you have by the time you're on your deathbed, the better. Women who have few children are unknowingly ensuring that genes responsible for lower fertility die out, and women who have lots of children are unknowingly ensuring that genes responsible for high fertility become more predominant.
There's a book on amazon.com called "monkeys on our backs".. i recommend reading the blurbs.. it's pretty mindbending
August 22, 2012 - 8:03amThis Comment
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