More sex posting! Yay!
Today, we'll ask this question: Do the cultural shifts in the last, say, 50 years, make Darwinian sense? That is, do they provide an evolutionary advantage? Our first order data says no.
Replacement rate is 2.1 or so. Anything below that and your population is shrinking.
Something that occurred to me when I saw that graph was that secularists, while winning the national culture war, are parasites, growing by consuming other groups' children. If each group stayed completely to themselves as if they were different species, the secularists would die out.
Does that sound like Darwinian success to you? If it isn't, then the subgroup is pursuing a cultural strategy that is in direct opposition to evolution.
Meanwhile, looking globally, Muslim birthrates are on the order of 3.5. That level is off the scale at the top of the chart and almost triple that of the secularists. In secular Europe, they're waking up, probably too late, to the realization that all that evolution stuff they were taught in school applies to them, too.
Recapping recent blog posts, here's where we are so far:
- Classically beautiful and feminine women are a rarity these days.
- Romance is founded upon the biological differences between women and men. The more you deny and minimize those, the less romance you will have.
- Whatever cultural changes we've been making, they are in opposition to evolution and are not driven by natural, Darwinian forces.
More to follow.
It’s a category mistake to look at trivial time-periods such as 50 years in evolutionary terms. Evolution necessarily plays out over far longer time-scales. Plus within any national population some groups may be breeding merrily and that will show in a couple of centuries or so.
ReplyDeleteExcept you're overlooking the compression effects of technology. Technology improvements have accelerated reproduction in areas still experiencing the effects of adopting modern medical techniques, while providing other parts of the world with the technology to discourage reproduction.
ReplyDeleteIf you establish programs that facilitate a cull, don't be surprised when past maxims don't apply.
"secularists . . . are parasites, growing by consuming other groups' children"
ReplyDeleteI think you are looking at this backwards. I know several families that have large (4+) numbers of children, and that had children because they thought it was a religious obligation. From what I have seen, children of large religious families aren't becoming "secular" and then deciding not to have kids. They are fleeing from their religions because they don't want to have kids, and they want their families to stop nagging them about it. They aren't being seduced away by the "secular" lifestyle, they are falling into it as a default.
As far as "pursuing a cultural strategy that is in direct opposition to evolution", this is a point that I keep trying to make - "evolution" is not a goal, it is a description. It is not something you do on purpose, it is something that happens to you whether you like it or not. And I think this is a case where just letting things play out is the right thing to do.
Does a certain cultural mindset lead to having fewer children? Then it will dwindle. Does another mindset lead to having a ton of children, but then these children are so traumatized by the experience, or end up so ill-prepared to start their own families, that they refuse to have children of their own? Then that group will spike up, and then dwindle. Does a third group decide that only the people who really want children should have them, resulting in fewer children at first, but then those children they do have grow up actually wanting to have children and having the parential support to do so? Then that group will dwindle at first, and then increase.
Over time, it will sort itself out, regardless of what you personally do, or don't do. And if you decide that your way is the right way, and try to force everyone else to do it your way, well, remember what happens to "planned economies". Evolution and the "invisible hand of the market" may not be exactly the same thing, but they are definitely close relatives. And planning other people's reproduction for them is going to lead to exactly the same kind of disasters as you get when the government tries to impose wage and price controls.
Well, since Darwinism is nothing more than a vestigial secular fever dream that explains nothing, I think you need to look for answers elsewhere. I would suggest researching the total depravity of man.
ReplyDeleteSome interesting comments here. Thanks for taking the time.
ReplyDelete"It’s a category mistake to look at trivial time-periods such as 50 years in evolutionary terms." Ah. I see. Well, you might want to reconsider that as the Muslims in Europe are having whacking big families while the secularists are having itty bitty ones. The mathematics of compound interest doesn't care about accusations of category errors. How many Sharia Courts are too many?
Never mind. I'm sure your long-term evolutionary advantage will show up before British girls get gang-raped by Muslim gangs by the thousands.
Oh, wait...
Tim: "evolution" is not a goal, it is a description. It is not something you do on purpose, it is something that happens to you whether you like it or not.
ReplyDelete---------------
That's not true for humans, is it? Since our cultures are not genetic, but instead are the results of conscious decisions, cultures can certainly be characterized as being evolutionarily superior or inferior. All evolution means is that something changes in a group and if that group becomes more competitive, the change has a tendency to persist.
Evolution most certainly applies to cultures because the measures are the same. Are there more Japanese now or fewer? What difference does it make if that's the result of cultural choices or predators? In a sense, when we come up with an inferior culture, we've become cannibalistic.
Further, there most certainly is a cultural divide between secularists and weekly-attending religious. What difference does it make to the population numbers if that results in a higher fertility rate just as if it was an increase in the food supply.
Forces which act on populations are many and varied. You want to take a subset of them and say, "these are evolutionary" and the others are not. Pish posh. In the end, they all do the same thing working under the same mechanisms. If you procreate slower than another group, it makes no difference if that's caused by nihilism or a reduction in the food supply.
SDN, I don't understand your point at all. How does that apply to, say, Japan's falling population?
ReplyDeleteKT: In your reply, you appear to think you are arguing with me, but what you are saying is pretty much what I was trying to say. Evolution is change over time based on what traits end up leading to better long-term reproductive success. It doesn't matter if those traits are genetic or cultural, inherent or learned. My main point, though, is that trying to force people to be a particular way isn't evolution, it is selective breeding. And if you try to use your own judgement to try to impose what you think is the best approach for everyone to follow, then that's eugenics. And I don't think you want to do that. I certainly don't.
ReplyDelete"Whatever cultural changes we've been making, they are in opposition to evolution and are not driven by natural, Darwinian forces."
ReplyDeleteOTOH, Darwinism cannot explain anything, anyway; and it is refuted by the existence of the human species, specifically, by Human Chromosome 2.