Consider an analogy to the cells in our own bodies. Cells can divide (with some exceptions), yet the cells in our bodies do not keep dividing till they run into local resource limits, the equivalent of subsistence limits. There are signalling systems that tell healthy cells when they are “supposed” to stop dividing, and these mostly work. The analog to saying that people will evolve to get around obstacles that stop them from breeding is that cells will mutate till they are dominated by cancer cells. That isn’t the whole story. Our immune system kills off most of the malignant cells we produce—we have social systems at various levels which could do the equivalent. If we (as a global society—a kind of weak singleton) can add layers of control faster than breeding mutations pile up, we may be able to contain runaway breeding indefinitely.
The fact is we as large complex mammals are already locked into a low rate of reproduction, sure given the right evolutionary pressures we could end up like shrews again, but that would take an asteroid strike or nuclear war, the scenario you’re thinking of assumes long term evolution within a very long lasting stable society essentially like ours. In those circumstances genes for successful reproduction will spread through the population, but that’s largely meaningless—if I have the gene for super attractiveness and manage to have 100 kids with 100 women we’re still below replacement rate. The way women maximize their reproduction is by having male kids who are alpha males but in these circumstances an alpha is someone who is good at seduction rather than the old style coercion and multiple wives ownership of old times.
tl;dr the bottleneck for overpopulation is individual women’s fertility, and the way women maximize their reproduction is by having high quality sons rather than popping out babies nonstop. So you can still have high reproductive strategies without actual overpopulation.
In any case it’s hard to think in these terms, the feeling I have is memetics will always overshadow any purely instinctual drives.
The way women maximize their reproduction is by having male kids who are alpha males
If a woman maximizes reproduction (and so fitness) by having more sons than daughters, then why doesn’t the population tilt towards a male:female ratio > 1?
Because Bugle is wrong and seems to be falling into a species of the group selection error.
If indeed women try to have only alpha males (in the sense of some genetic mutation causing her to have more high-quality males and is being put to the test), then other women make a “genetic killing” (genetic birthing?) by having daughters instead. The equilibrium of this game is that of 50⁄50 chance of male/female babies.
(And alphaness is a positional good anyway and so can’t increase in the gene pool.)
OTOH, cultural mechanisms can permit group selection to occur, so a culture could put a bottleneck on its growth rate by endorsing abortion/infanticide specifically of female babies. (China and Middle East, I’m looking in your general direction here.)
And if a culture endorsed killing most male babies (or with modern medical technology, conceived only girls most of the time), and implemented polygamy, they’d be using their child-raising resources efficiently and would increase their growth rate linearly with the number of women.
Thinking about this some more: the reason this isn’t a historical winner is rather obvious—a mostly female population can’t field a big army and is invaded by young males from other groups. Also, the women have incentives to move to a different group where they could have a man all to themselves (or to invite foreign men), so a few men would have to effectively rule and police a mostly female society.
In the long term (and I mean the very long term) people will evolve to get around the obstacles that stop them producing the children they could.
If contraception decouples sex from reproduction, people will evolve to be less interested in sex and more directly interested in babies.
If entertainment proves more compelling than having kids, people will evolve to be less entertainable.
If being a responsible, well adjusted person is limiting family size, people will evolve to be irresponsible, poorly adjusted people.
Consider an analogy to the cells in our own bodies. Cells can divide (with some exceptions), yet the cells in our bodies do not keep dividing till they run into local resource limits, the equivalent of subsistence limits. There are signalling systems that tell healthy cells when they are “supposed” to stop dividing, and these mostly work. The analog to saying that people will evolve to get around obstacles that stop them from breeding is that cells will mutate till they are dominated by cancer cells. That isn’t the whole story. Our immune system kills off most of the malignant cells we produce—we have social systems at various levels which could do the equivalent. If we (as a global society—a kind of weak singleton) can add layers of control faster than breeding mutations pile up, we may be able to contain runaway breeding indefinitely.
The fact is we as large complex mammals are already locked into a low rate of reproduction, sure given the right evolutionary pressures we could end up like shrews again, but that would take an asteroid strike or nuclear war, the scenario you’re thinking of assumes long term evolution within a very long lasting stable society essentially like ours. In those circumstances genes for successful reproduction will spread through the population, but that’s largely meaningless—if I have the gene for super attractiveness and manage to have 100 kids with 100 women we’re still below replacement rate. The way women maximize their reproduction is by having male kids who are alpha males but in these circumstances an alpha is someone who is good at seduction rather than the old style coercion and multiple wives ownership of old times.
tl;dr the bottleneck for overpopulation is individual women’s fertility, and the way women maximize their reproduction is by having high quality sons rather than popping out babies nonstop. So you can still have high reproductive strategies without actual overpopulation.
In any case it’s hard to think in these terms, the feeling I have is memetics will always overshadow any purely instinctual drives.
If a woman maximizes reproduction (and so fitness) by having more sons than daughters, then why doesn’t the population tilt towards a male:female ratio > 1?
Because Bugle is wrong and seems to be falling into a species of the group selection error.
If indeed women try to have only alpha males (in the sense of some genetic mutation causing her to have more high-quality males and is being put to the test), then other women make a “genetic killing” (genetic birthing?) by having daughters instead. The equilibrium of this game is that of 50⁄50 chance of male/female babies.
(And alphaness is a positional good anyway and so can’t increase in the gene pool.)
OTOH, cultural mechanisms can permit group selection to occur, so a culture could put a bottleneck on its growth rate by endorsing abortion/infanticide specifically of female babies. (China and Middle East, I’m looking in your general direction here.)
And if a culture endorsed killing most male babies (or with modern medical technology, conceived only girls most of the time), and implemented polygamy, they’d be using their child-raising resources efficiently and would increase their growth rate linearly with the number of women.
Thinking about this some more: the reason this isn’t a historical winner is rather obvious—a mostly female population can’t field a big army and is invaded by young males from other groups. Also, the women have incentives to move to a different group where they could have a man all to themselves (or to invite foreign men), so a few men would have to effectively rule and police a mostly female society.
Apart from the aforementioned confusion regarding investment in male vs female children, this isn’t a new balance either.