John D. Giorgis wrote: >Actually, I would argue the opposite - very intelligent and rich families >are more likely to use contraception and thus limit their number of births. >So, is this "contraception differential" going to affect human evolution? > Anecdotally again, they are also having children much later in life, with increasing effects over time as their children have better education prospects (parents can afford tuition etc), which leads to more demanding careers which leads to delayed childraising. At the same time, lower classes have teenage pregnancies recurring these days, with 30 year old grandmothers and 60 year olds with large numbers of descendents. While education and white collar careers do not automatically come with high intelligence, they are a useful indicator.
My question however regards a different effect on human evolution - if American TV is to be believed (and I'm not saying it is) then there are racial differences in play here as well, with European and SE Asian families having fewer children later, while black and latino families have more children earlier. In places where infant mortaility is being reduced, won't the changing racial mix affect evolution more than intelligence levels? Cheers Russell C.
