Note: Genesis 1:28 was never revoked. Anyone who reads the Bible can see that it is incredibly pro-natalistic. Up until recent times the Christian church in general held to the standard that family limitation was wrong. That only changed as Christians became more world based. So what do you think of the Danish psychology professor's statements? Should we encourage brighter people to have bigger families?
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This all goes back to my idea of having the air ducts in WalMart emit a chemical that causes sterility.
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I'm wondering if that wouldn't lead to diminished mental capacity. There is an old saying about wasting your brain cells by indulging in too much procreation.
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The issue here isn't whether smart people should have more children - it's whether or not we give any credence to eugenics and the idea that some people are genetically superior to others.
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If you were sterile, and your wife wanted a baby, you know you would pick the brightest, healthiest sperm doner at the fertility clinic.
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I disagree. Even if we could prove conclusively that intelligence was entirely due to having intelligent child-raisers (not necessarily gene-donors), the argument would carry the same strength.
(edit: this was to Professor)
[ June 09, 2004, 06:28 PM: Message edited by: Richard Berg ]
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Well, I guess that since I'm a liberal (and obviously not very bright), I ought to refrain from all the X-treme, Non-Stop Action(tm) I've been getting with my immoral ways, eh, michael?
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There are more issues at play than at first glance. Would a society of universally raised IQs be happier? Until we have robots to clean the toilets, probably not. Of course, I'm speaking more universally now, since if only Denmark adopted this policy they could easily import foreign labor as needed.
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Michele, the majority of positive traits are a trade-off. For the good, there is usually bad to go along with it, and vice versa. It's not hard to imagine a me who developed his body and ignored his mind because that me didn't have the physical problems I was born with.
As for your other argument, I can only suggest that it lacks more than a superficial understanding of the Bible. Genesis 1:28, whether or not it has been repealed, has certainly been fulfilled--the earth is full to overflowing. Moreover, many passages require that people take care of their children, and for an awful lot of people that involves limiting how many they have. (I couldn't take care of any on my income.)
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A friend once pointed out that the commandment was to replenish, not plenish, the earth. That means two.
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He says that intelligence is hereditary, but that is only partly true. A whole lot of other factors influence intelligence, including pre-natal care/nutrition, how attentive and loving the parents are, the type of stimulation provided by the surrounding environment, nutrition, environmental hazards such as lead or other toxins, and on and on and on. It's perfectly possible for average parents to produce very bright children, and the other way around.
So I think he's working from a false premise. Besides, Denmark already has a low birth rate; if he starts trying to get the most prolific people to stop having children, it will drop like a rock. I'm not sure how possible it is to encourage people to have more children when they've already decided that two is more than enough.
And that's not even getting into the whole question of rights.
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As someone else whose sense of humor tends toward the self-deprecating, let me point out that self-directed humor feels VERY different than that coming from someone else. Even if it's the same comment!
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I'd just like to point out that the people in industrialized nations who are having two or three children may be doing as much to "fill the earth" as those who gave birth to ten a couple centuries ago. These days, I'd guess that a huge percentage of children born survive to adulthood, whereas the percentage used to be far lower.
Also, I disagree with the idea that limiting families is more "worldly." Having children right and left that you can't provide for physically or emotionally is far more against religious morals than birth control, in my opinion. In fact, I think that for those who are not secure financially or who simply can't give children the love and attention they need, not reproducing is a responsible and unselfish course of action.
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Ralphie, you have to actually post in the thread in order to get noticed. I know we've been working on that telekinesis thing but I'm still kind of rusty, go easy on me, k?
Posts: 1839 | Registered: May 1999
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Heh, I was reading an article earlier, and this line stuck me as something that would fit in here...
quote: "I used a 20-pound brick of uranium as a doorstop in my office," American nuclear physicist Peter D. Zimmerman, of King's College in London, said to illustrate the point.
Not this point he's illustrating, but it fits. The actual article, which is a complete derail of this thread, is here.
quote:I know we've been working on that telekinesis thing but I'm still kind of rusty, go easy on me, k?
Telekinesis? So she's moving an object with her mind and you're supposed to feel it or something? No, wait, nevermind...I really don't want to know... Posts: 1423 | Registered: Sep 2003
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Remember those times you felt a tap on your shoulder, quickly turned around, and found no one there? Remember how you useta blame the friend standing next to you but on the side opposite of the shoulder on which you were tapped?
You were wrong. It was Ralphie practicing telekinesis.
Now don't you feel silly blaming your friends? Isn't it about time you apologise?
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"I'd just like to point out that the people in industrialized nations who are having two or three children may be doing as much to "fill the earth" as those who gave birth to ten a couple centuries ago. These days, I'd guess that a huge percentage of children born survive to adulthood, whereas the percentage used to be far lower.
Also, I disagree with the idea that limiting families is more "worldly." Having children right and left that you can't provide for physically or emotionally is far more against religious morals than birth control, in my opinion. In fact, I think that for those who are not secure financially or who simply can't give children the love and attention they need, not reproducing is a responsible and unselfish course of action."
1) There is NO industrialized nation in which the birthrate is between 2 and 3 children -- the average is between 1 and 2 children and that will lead to a host of economic and social problems in the future -- not to mention extinction.
2) Even in the days of the Revolutionary War the vast majority of children made it to adulthood -- you might have 2 or 3 out of 10 or 11 die of cholera or some other disease. Just like in Africa today the average birthrate may be 7 children in many places, and there may be a high mortality rate due to disease or warfare, but most children survive.
3) Why do population reductionists always paint the picture as having 2 children is some sort of Utopian ideal but 4 or more automatically equals trailer park poverty? I have not seen too much of that in Utah -- actually, most people there have more than the US average of kids and live a middle class or upper middle class lifestyle. If they can do it so can the US and Europe in general.
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A LOT of generations would have to go by before that would become a danger ... and I think we'd wise up well beforehand Posts: 1907 | Registered: Feb 2000
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quote: There is NO industrialized nation in which the birthrate is between 2 and 3 children
Brazil - 2.01 children per woman Argentina - 2.28 children per woman South Africa - 2.24 children per woman Egypt - 3.02 children per woman Mexico - 2.53 children per woman Turkey - 2.03 children per woman Jamaica - 2.01 children per woman
There are probably more, but I didn't feel like going through the CIA world factbook any longer.
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Dude, michael, take an anthropology class. Or take -some- sort of class on population dynamics.
First a reproduction rate of around 2 children for every pair of monogomous parents is clearly not going to decrease the world population. Next, the world doesn't need more people, the human popluation rises at an exponential rate. It's referred to as a "J" curve. What happens with exponential growth? There is an explosion of growth, until the population grows so large, that it's habitat can't support it. Then there is wide-spread famine and death as the population fights over the avaliable resources.
Humans have the interesting knack that they can squeeze a habitat harder, so to speak, and thus get more bang for the buck, in the short term (and possibly the long term). The problem is, if the squeezing actually makes the habitat less habitable (i.e. you're clear cutting your habitat), and thus less able to support more life.
it can go either way, but increasing the worlds population isn't going to foster anything but more people to fight over limited resources in a world thats already extremely crowded.
Will the exponential population growth outpace our ability to produce resources more efficently? Only time will tell. But i'd rather be safe than sorry.
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actually, i think most population grown is logistic, we just haven't gotten past the inflection point. come to think of it, i vaguely remember hearing something about how the rate of population growth is decreasing
quote:The rate of Earth's population growth is slowing down. Throughout the 1960s, the world's population was growing at a rate of about 2% per year. By 1990, that rate was down to 1.5%, and by the year 2015, it's expected to drop to 1%. Family planning initiatives, an aging population, and the effects of diseases such as AIDS are some of the factors behind this rate decrease.
so i guess we've just passed the inflection point...
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i would like to second the request for michael to take an anthropology class though, might give you some perspective; i know my first cultural anthropology class really changed how i saw the world.
teaches you nifty things like the fact that in some cultures there are more than two genders, and that the words gender and sex have very different meanings. (brought this up in reference to a parallel quasi-discussion of homosexuality)
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even though the rate of growth (the first derivative) is slowing down, it still means that overall it is growing. An inflection point is actually where the 2nd deriviative (rate of acceleration) changes
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I don't have any links, but I remember reading that over and over, in culture after culture, as the standard of living goes up, the birth rate goes down.
Causes? I don't know. Perhaps it's just that the opportunity cost is higher.
quote: I have not seen too much of that in Utah -- actually, most people there have more than the US average of kids and live a middle class or upper middle class lifestyle. If they can do it so can the US and Europe in general.
Actually, from what I can see out here, a lot of people don't do a great job of it out here. There are a *LOT* of Utahns that are in serious debt. We are near the top of the nation when it comes to bankrupcy.
My opinion is that one of the reasons is that too many people want to "do what's right" by having large families, but they don't want to give up the nice house, nice cars, nice toys, etc..
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Pod, I have read Malthus as well as the discredited book "The Population Bomb". Strange, the UN has warned about Europe's low birthrates, Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan has warned of labor shortages in the next generation for the USA, and leaders in Japan, Russia, Sweden Estonia, Spain...etc. have warned about the current rate of births being too low in their countries.
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quote:3) Why do population reductionists always paint the picture as having 2 children is some sort of Utopian ideal but 4 or more automatically equals trailer park poverty? I have not seen too much of that in Utah -- actually, most people there have more than the US average of kids and live a middle class or upper middle class lifestyle. If they can do it so can the US and Europe in general.
Micaele, I don't know where you got this idea. Certainly no one here has posted that they have a problem with larger families. In fact, my dad has three siblings, and I certainly don't consider them some sort of trailer-park family. I think that most of us are arguing against the anti-birth control ideals rather than against large families.
Also, this article states that the world population growth was essentially zero until the Industrial Revolution. I can't be certain if the lower death rate they speak of applied mostly to children or to everyone equally, but my point still stands: we don't need every couple to have ten children to keep the population stable. We need an average of a little over two per couple since most of them will survive.
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Just wondering on another note... The bible is full of commandments that most christians do not keep. What made them decide to keep this one? Its not an attack, i swear! I just never understood why they do some stuff, and not other stuff. Didnt jesus nullify the old testament or something?
Posts: 1604 | Registered: Mar 2003
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Armuth, actually I agreewith you. I believe the Bible is against homosexual relations yet divorce is condemned many more times than homosexuality. I don't support same sex marriage but I believe no-fault divorce (embraced by many devout Christians) is a greater threat to the family than two guys getting "married". There are other examples as well.
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