RE: Watches & Necklaces

From: Richard Brodie (richard@brodietech.com)
Date: Wed 28 May 2003 - 23:55:09 GMT

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    Scott wrote:

    <<Are you implying that education tends to correlate with reduction in the number of offspring?>>

    Yes.

    <<What about the quality of investment in those offspring? Some of lesser education might have more offspring, but how well are these offsring provided for versus the relatively educated person with a better job and more money to provide for needs of fewer offspring?>>

    I don't know. I would guess they in turn would be worse educated and have more children. Do you have any reason to think otherwise?

    <<The r-strategy is cheap, spewing gametes out in the hopes that some will take root and survive. The K-strategy is more expensive, investing in the future of fewer offspring, including college education giving them a better foothold.>>

    So you think the tendency to send kids to college is genetic?

    <<You might think of education as a parasite because it reduces gametic output, but this is looking at things through the lense of biological evolution and fitness as measured by reproductive output, without consideration of quality of life for offspring being improved by education and ensuring their relative chances of success and that of their offspring down the generations. If person A is uneducated and has 10 uneducated kids, how do the chances for survival and reproduction of these kids compare to person B who is educated and has 2 educated kids? Would all 10 children of person A survive and subsequently produce children of their own in the same societal superstructure as that of person B with their offspring when looking at their respective lineages down the generations?>>

    Quality of life has nothing to do with genetic fitness.

    I see no reason to think that 10 uneducated kids would produce fewer offspring than 2 educated kids, particularly with the reverse bias. It might make a great research project though!

    Richard Brodie www.memecentral.com

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