From: steinly@topaz.ucsc.edu (Steinn Sigurdsson)
Newsgroups: sci.environment
Subject: Re: Population growth and cultural destruction (Re: Nasty ...
Date: 21 Dec 92 04:29:41 GMT
Organization: Lick Observatory/UCO
NNTP-Posting-Host: topaz.ucsc.edu
In-reply-to: gil@tillage.DIALix.oz.au's message of Sun, 20 Dec 92 02:05:19 GMT

In article <724817119snx@tillage.DIALix.oz.au> gil@tillage.DIALix.oz.au (Gil Hardwick) writes:


   In article <1992Dec10.184439.8324@vexcel.com> dean@vexcel.com writes:

    > Such cultural mechanisms never get the opportunity to "stretch" to this
    > task because they are destroyed as part of the whole process.  It is
    > unclear, and certainly unproven, that they couldn't deal with the
    > population problems in cultures that are modernizing.  The paragraph
    > above implies that health care is the primary factor in population
    > growth in such societies.  I challenged this earlier and listed some
    > other factors that contribute to the problem.  If health care is just
    > one component of the problem, then the removal of other culturally
    > destructive practices that accompany "modernization" would certainly
    > help alleviate population problems.  

   Well, I have to agree with Dean on the basis of Steinn's rigidly one-
   dimensional theory that it is improved health care which has led to
   population growth, which is so obtuse as to be meaningless.

Hey, chill Gil, I gave an _example_ of short term population growth
resulting from improved health care extending life expectancy,
the point being that cultural responses adjusting ferility and
strategies for family size work on longer time scales. It is _a_
mechanism for population growth that tends to work to produce a very
sudden burst of population. Long term growth is a different issue.

	 The facts
   are that women everywhere had access to sophisticated cultural norms,
   social organisation, sexual mores and knowledge of herbs and medicines
   that they did not bother having so many children to start with.

Everywhere? At all times? Are you serious???

Hmm, US mean is something like 2.1 - 2.3 children per woman, hunter
 - gatherer cultures and pasturalists are quoted as having 4.3 - 7.3
children per woman. Somewhere along the way women seem to have decided
to have fewer children. I claim that there is a long term correlation
with the fact that US infant mortality is 1.3% (and considered high at that).

   There is simply no evidence from contemporary societies which can be
   extrapolated back into the no-longer existent prehistoric societies by
   any valid comparison with the wild chimpanzee infant mortality rates,
   particularly given the overwhelming evidence on the positive effect of
   social domination on family size among dominated peoples. 

Well, somebody evidently did extrapolate mortalities of prehistoric
societies and compared them with other primates. People can make their
own judgements as to how valid the comparison is.
The theory of imperialist domination governing family size is
interesting, I'd even concede that it is a contributing factor
but to suggest it is the dominant effect seems to me to be ludicrous,
too many known counter-examples. For example, I  think
demographics of various native American groups contradict it?

*  Steinn Sigurdsson   			 Lick Observatory     	  *
* steinly@lick.ucsc.edu		       "standard disclaimer"  	  *
* But, oh, love is strange 					  *
* and you have to learn to take the crunchy with the smooth,      *
* I suppose 				              - B.B. 1983 *