Harry Pollard: > Ed, > > Read it and found it interesting. Your in-the-field experience is perhaps > more important.Like to hear more. > > Among my questions: > > In the Global Warming discussion, a point was made that the increase in CO2 > followed increased temperature rather than preceding it. I never followed > up on it - but perhaps . . . . . ?
Beyond my competence, Harry. > In the same way, I wonder whether it wasn't the case that harsh conditions > led to the production of "high quality" children, but rather that "low > quality" children simply didn't survive. I'm sure it was something like that. I recall an Alaskan anthropologist getting Holy Hell from his fellows because he suggested that, historically, Alaskan Athapaskan women would refuse to love their children because they were certain that they would die within their first year or two of infancy. It was a hard life. The physically inept children would probably die early, the mentally slower somewhat later. Those that were physically and mentally ept would probably survive, but there were no guarantees. > Also, while larger families are more draining, is this more than > compensated by the advantages of a large family in later years? In medieval times, and even into recent times among medieval people, there were ever so many children. One of my aunts from central Europe had 17 or 18, 12 or 13 of whom survived. You had a great number of kids because many of them would die, and you needed those who survived to help out with the work. Because so many kids died, population would not increase much despite a high birth rate. > If the children continually left the nest as they got older, any advantage > to the parents might be lost. If they remained as part of the family and > even increased by extending families, this might be a survival value. In traditional society, as in medieval times or in the Arctic, kids didn't leave the nest. They stayed around and became the next generation, whose numbers didn't exceed the previous generation by very much if at all because of high death rates. > Perhaps your experience can give us a clue. I would never argue that Aboriginal Canadians of the far north, like the Dene or the Inuit, are genetically superior, in whatever sense, because the strongest and smatest of them managed to survive the harsh conditions under which they lived. However, I would argue that they had to be strong and clever to survive in the environment in which they lived. Probably, they carried the genes of those who were not so smart and not so strong along with them, and in the new conditions under which the Inuit and Dene now live, kids who might not have survived before are surviving and multiplying now. What I find interesting is that people, probably quite unconsciously, seem to meet whatever situation they are in. If they need a lot of kids because only a few will survive, they produce them expecting many to die. If, as now, they are living on the edge of affordability and need two incomes, they'll have few kids because they don't need them. I think its an almost unconcious, visceral response, given the circumstances. Best regards, Ed Ed Weick 577 Melbourne Ave. Ottawa, ON, K2A 1W7 Canada Phone (613) 728 4630 Fax (613) 728 9382 > Ed wrote: > > > From the website posted by Karen i.e.: > >http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2002/12/021206075529.htm > >"Valuation of quality, through better nourishment and education for > >children, fed back into technological progress. And as technology > >advanced, it fed back into more education. Human capital took off. This > >leap in evolution came to dominate the population as a whole, and > >centuries of economic stagnation ended." The authors attribute > >acceleration in this evolutionary process to the emergence of the nuclear > >family that fostered intergenerational links. Prior to the agricultural > >revolution, 10,000 years ago, people lived among hunter-gatherer tribes > >that tended to share resources more equally. "During this hunter-gatherer > >period, the absence of direct intergenerational links between parental > >resources and investment in their offspring delayed the evolutionary > >advantage of a preference for high-quality children," said the > >authors. In fact, according to the theory, a switch back to a quantity > >emphasis began to take place in the 20th century. > > > >I have some familiarity with groups that, until very recently, lived as > >hunter-gatherers, and to some considerable extent still live that way the > >Inuit and Dene of the Canadian north. To survive under the conditions that > >their harsh environment imposed on them required the production of > >"high-quality children". Children of "low-quality" would not likely have > >survived. Groups as a whole would not have survived unless the individuals > >that comprised them were adaptive and intelligent. Intergenerational links > >within these groups were strong because "elders" had a depth of knowledge > >(human capital) that was vital to survival. > > > >I wouldnt want to be critical of Galor and Moav until I had read their > >article, but the website piece suggests that they see people who learned > >to manipulate and industrialize the environment as being somehow superior > >to people who learned how to integrate with it and live within its > >constraints. It suggests that one form of human adaptation is superior to > >another or, really, that our industrialized mode of behaviour is better > >because it produces "higher-quality" offspring who are able to make the > >machine continue to move forward. This raises questions of forward to > >what and where our "high-quality children" are taking us, but Ill leave > >that for the time being. > > > >Ed > > > > ****************************** > Harry Pollard > Henry George School of LA > Box 655 > Tujunga CA 91042 > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Tel: (818) 352-4141 > Fax: (818) 353-2242 > ******************************* > >
