[extropy-chat] darfur EP

[Martin Striz]

On 5/1/06, Keith Henson <hkhenson at rogers.com> wrote:

> >Agrarian-industrialization shifts were not
> >recurrent features of the EEA.  Most wealthy, intelligent people
> >simply make a conscious decision to limit their brood size.
>
> That may well be the case, but it does not help, it only moves the question
> down a level to why people have psychological traits to value one thing
> more than another?

Obviously all psychological capacities have evolved in response to
selection pressures, and reproductive fitness is the ultimate goal. 
However, explaining behavior at the level of proximate goals is
typicall sufficient in order to have a useful understanding of human
behavior.

Reasoning skills that occasionally override innate desires are
adaptive.  That explains why people consciously choose to limit their
brood size when presented with information suggesting that the
cost-benefit ratio of having children is low.

> Then why about 40 years ago did the Irish women suddenly cut the number of
> kids they had about in half?  Particularly why *then* and not ten or 20 or
> 40 years plus or minus?

The fact that there are a variety of anecdotes should be further
evidence that a simple cookie-cutter answer doesn't exist.  Human
psychology and decision making are complex.

Martin