Evolution and Reproduction (was Fermi "Paradox")

From: Lee Corbin (lcorbin@tsoft.com)
Date: Sun Aug 03 2003 - 18:33:16 MDT

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    BillK writes

    > My poetical image of 'sitting in a rocking chair on the porch'
    > was not intended to be taken too literally or to imply senescence.
    > Older people who do not have to worry about income (because they have a
    > good pension or are wealthy) and already have much experience of the
    > world are not as 'driven' as the young turks. Some are old crocks, but
    > many play golf, tour the world, take drugs (prescribed - of course!),
    > etc. Age, experience and relative wealth does change your outlook on life.

    Yes, indeed experience does change your outlook on life.

    > The European nations are just beginning to grapple with the problems of
    > an aging population, because the young folk don't want kids anymore. If
    > they do have children, they only have one, which is not enough to stop
    > the aging population problem.

    Evolution takes into account all "bad" decisions. People
    such as the present non-Moslem Europeans will simply be
    demographically replaced by people who do decide to have
    children. In North America the native population was
    replaced by the immigrants because the immigrants could
    and did support more children. The tribes failed to grow
    exponentially because they did not have the resources to.

    It is definitely *not* the case that in some obscure fashion
    the Indian tribes choose not to have as many children, for it
    would take only one (1) tribe to happen by chance upon a
    different philosophy and numerically take over the continent!
    The *only* reason that this did not happen was that their
    manner of lifestyle did not support such population growth.

    In the very same way, some of our descendents will choose to
    proliferate, and some will not. Those who choose (or can)
    proliferate will predominate. You can't get away from this
    tautological fact.

    Lee



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