Sort of a genetics vs environment type of question.

I believe women of even average intelligence who are highly educated with lives of their own are much more likely to put off or completey forego having children. Uneducated women of all intelligence levels OTOH, who have no life outside the home are much more likely to breed like rabbits.

It is a serious problem that does need addressing, Poor, uneducated people do seem to reproduce at an alarming rate. This planet only has so many resources, and culling human populations like we do with deer is not a viable option. but just like the deer, humans will overpopulate and outbreed their environment's capacity to support them.

In a response to AsianElvis on the GD board, I made note of the existence and origin of certain sex-linked traits in humans. To save jumping around, I'll put the germaine portion of that post here:

"A fairly blatant example of linked traits is the greater upper-body strength of males. This phenomenon does not exist in mammals that do not have a long pre-history of polygyny (one male mating with many females); but it exists in humans because for a great deal of our evolution, such breeding was the predominant norm; thus ultimately leading to greater upper body strength being a largely sex-linked trait.

This example should not be seen as an absolute. It is rather a matter of odds. If I were to pick 10,000 18 year old human females at random and 10,000 18 year old males at random from the same population group -- and then added the totals of how much each member of each group could bench press -- the aggregated total for males would be substantially greater even though some individual females might lift more than some individual males.

...

A great book explaining the phenomenon and genetics of linked traits in a way accessible to non-scientists is "How to Breed your own Vegetable Varieties."

Having been thinking about feminism generally, and now thinking about sex-linked traits and the way they can be created through patterns of mate choice, something has worried me.

Follow this -- it won't take long.

United Nations researchers have noted that population growth can be controlled by educating women. The more educated a woman is, the more likely she is to voluntarily forego reproduction. (Notice I used the words "more likely" -- I am not stating an absolute.) While this is not predictive of how any one individual will behave, taken in aggregate the effect is quite dramatic. Thus, efforts at population control in developing nations often focus specifically on providing the highest possible levels of education to women.

Here in the United States, more than a third of women with PhDs willingly forego reproduction altogether; whereas men with PhDs see no corresponding decrease in fecundity.

As behavioral geneticists have used twin studies to establish a .8 correlation between genes and intelligence; and as intelligence particularly correlates to levels of education beyond a bachelor's degree; the differential in reproduction between intelligent males and intelligent females may lead to a phenomenon over time in which intelligence becomes a sex-linked trait similar to upper body strength; thus creating a phenomenon similar to that existing in some insects of one sex being general useful only for breeding.

So -- will the current phenomenon of highly intelligent women disproportionately taking themselves out of the gene pool ultimately result in such a differential in intelligence between men and women that feminism will be moot?

Then there are other questions. WHY is there such a linkage between higher degrees of education and decreased natality? Why does it affect females more than males?

Would it be possible to have our cake and eat it too? That is, figure out some way where the higher levels of education do not have this effect?

-- Modified on 10/22/2010 2:31:33 AM

The movie "Idiocracy" is dead on point.

I read something a few years back (I wish I remember what it was so I could link it) that said that lower birth rates were more attributed to equal rights between males and females.

For instance, the places where women had more ability to deny copulation from a male was the biggest deciding factor in birth rate.

It just so happens that equal rights would likely also mean a more equal access to education.

Women often have the most to lose when it comes to reproduction. Men generally don't die during child birth. It doesn't take a physical toll on our bodies.

Being a pirate of sorts, albeit one with a conscience and therefore not a psychopath, I have nevertheless had reproductive opportunities that wouldn't be afforded an accountant.