From: szabo@techbook.com (Nick Szabo)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written,rec.arts.sf.science,sci.bio
Subject: Desire for children: how much innate, how much cultural?
Date: 4 Sep 92 15:29:23 GMT
Article-I.D.: techbook.1992Sep4.152923.1185
Organization: TECHbooks --- Public Access UNIX --- (503) 220-0636


>>>>[I write]
>>>>With
>>>>perfect birth control, a "conscious" decision is required.  What
>>>>motivates such a decision?  A combination of complex cultural
>>>>and perhaps biological factors.  For a genetic adaptation,
>>>>we need an innate emotional response that would somehow override
>>>>the cultural factors. 
>

>>>[It is written, ref lost sorry]
>>>Why is it that despite the cost and
>>>inconvenience of having children the vast majority of people have them
>>>despite access to birth control? 

But they don't, sufficiently.  Cross-cultural demographics show that
with perfect birth control, the birth rate would less than half
replacement levels (ie mean 1 child per couple).  Cf. my paradigmatic
example, the self-genociding space colony: human civilization expanding
across the stars is impossible unless this problem is solved.

In article <1992Aug24.191800.22373@oracle.us.oracle.com> mfriedma@uucp (Michael Friedman) writes:
>And why is raising childrent so emotionally rewarding?  

It isn't, for many people.  And where it is, it would not
necessarily translate into decisions to have children in the first
place, except via cultural mechanisms like mimickry and peer pressure.

>Why are dolls culturally universal?

(1) I'm doubting the universality, though I assume they are ubiquitous.
Do you have a reference for this?
(2) There is probably a "brood-care" instinct that takes effect once the
child or child-substitute (doll, pet, etc.) is put in place.  This
doesn't necessarily translate into a decision to _have_ a child, 
except through mimickry of peers, and furthermore as your example 
indicates culture can easily replace the real baby with a fake,
so that culture still is more powerful than instinct here.

>Why do deranged women steal children in so many
>cultures?

This is very rare, and probably has more to do with peer-pressure and
possesion-envy than with instinct.

>Why is adoption, even of unrelated children, so common in
>so many different cultures? 

There are far more "child-free" couples, in developed societies with good
birth control, than there are adopting couples.   The main factor for
adoptors may merely be peer-pressure and mimickry.

>You don't suppose it could be something
>genetic that makes people want kids?

There may be a component of easily-perverted brood care instinct,
combined with more powerful cultural factors such as peer pressure
and baby-substitutes (dolls and pets).  This instinct is nowhere sufficient
to override culture, and I have a hard time seeing an evoluntionary
path where it could outrun cultural evolution.  

The only possibility I see for avoiding major population loss (eg the 
self-genociding space colony) is somehow combining cultural and innate 
factors in a very powerful way, as has perhaps been done by the 
Hutterites, Mormons and some Islamic cultures.  However, even those cultures 
have not come to grips with perfect and convenient birth control.
They have merely proscribed imperfect and inconvenient birth control,
a far simpler task than an actual cultural adaptation to birth control,
which is what I seek.  I also have a prejudice against religious
solutions, but am forced to admit that the leading contenders are 
relgiions, and "rational" cultures the leaders in the race towards
self-genocide.


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