Re: virus: Why have children?

Jason McVean (jmcvean@acs.ucalgary.ca)
Tue, 29 Oct 96 14:53:08 MST


> Hakeeb wrote:
> For example I've always wondered exactly why (not how!)
> people have children and I've never
> come up with a satisfactory answer. If someone could give me plausible
> reasons for this bizarre practice, I'd
> really be grateful.

Richard Brodie wrote:
> Animals have children because the self-replicating genes that program
> them cause them to.
[...]
> If Level-3 people have children, they do it because it supports their
> purpose in life.
> It would be interesting to see if the average number of children
> decreases as people progress up the levels.

This touches on a discussion I've had off and on with several
people. It seems as though (I have no hard statistics to back
this up) the more intelligent/self-reflective a person is, the
more likely s/he is to not want kids. So in effect, intelligence/
self-reflectiveness is being selected against in our
society. Whether these qualities are genetically rooted or not,
children tend, on average, to be similar to there parents. Is
there some sort of societal survival advantage that comes from
this selection pressure?

Jason

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Dept. of Physics and Astronomy University of Calgary
jmcvean@acs.ucalgary.ca http://www.ucalgary.ca/~jmcvean

"And it would have worked if it weren't for those meddling kids."
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