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The heritability of fertility makes world population stabilization unlikely

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Re: The heritability of fertility makes world population stabilization unlikely

#112
post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because that never happened before in human history: https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Who+We+Are+and+How+We+Got+Here&re...

What exactly is your point?

Sorry, my mistake, forget it. I should have read your other comments first before replying.

Re: The heritability of fertility makes world population stabilization unlikely

#114
post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>There does seem to be darker political overtones that are exacerbated by commenters Are we reading the same comments section? Which specific comments are you talking about? The comments section I read seemed quite apolitical, except for this particular sub-thread. >Low-IF journals are easier to publish to by definition. It might be true that Low-IF journals in general are easier to publish to, but that's not true "b…

>> There does seem to be darker political overtones that are exacerbated by commenters > Are we reading the same comments section? Which specific comments are you talking about? The comments section I read seemed quite apolitical, except for this particular sub-thread. Please. >> Low-IF journals are easier to publish to by definition. > (...) By definition, Low-IF journals are journals whose papers are less-cited (th…

>Please.

No, you please. I'm genuinely trying to reach a better understanding of your side. What comment did you think was the most political, outside of this sub-thread? Was it the one by car12 [1] which pointed out a quantitative observation about Muslim fertility rates and imagined a future where Islamic parties gain a bigger voice in politics through demographics? If so, what is it about that that's so political? Or if not that, then can you point to another comment that you think was particularly political?

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20361236

Re: The heritability of fertility makes world population stabilization unlikely

#115
post #84

If this is true, then how do they explain population stabilization in, e.g., Europe, and other developed areas? Why shouldn't what worked for Europe work for the rest of the world?

If an antibiotic doesn't wipe out its target, then its target's numbers will be devastated in the short-term, but in the long-term, its target will evolve immunity to the antibiotic and ultimately recover. If you think about it, contraceptives are extremely similar to an antibiotic whose target is human beings. We're still living in the short-term when the antibiotic seems to be effective.

This is a very interesting and I think accurate take. It also has strong implications for the support or lack there of for abortion in the future.

Re: The heritability of fertility makes world population stabilization unlikely

#116
post #105
post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not trying to score points in favor of a political position (please follow HN etiquette of giving posters the benefit of the doubt). The filtering you refer to may be useful[1] when looking at bulk lists of papers (e.g. when sitting on a hiring committee), but this is an example where the article has already been curated for our attention, namely: by being upvoted on Hacker News. You can still choose to filter it…

Alright, I wasn't talking about you specifically, sorry if you took it that way. On HN curation: while I certainly look up to this community when it comes to coding, technology and latest new software tools in general, I'm sorry to say the standards are not even remotely up to par when it comes to genomics. I assume it's because neither the mod team nor the majority of the community has a relevant background, and it'…

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Re: The heritability of fertility makes world population stabilization unlikely

#118

The main factors currently in determining family size is not genetically heritable, but cultural. Culture appears to be heritable but that is just because culture tends to be passed down. Culture can change fast in either way, towards more children or less. This does not mean we will be stable but rather culture matters. For example soon as a member leaves a conservative religion stream and shifts to a more liberal s…

The desire to emigrate from your country/culture could very well be genetically heritable. Birth control is very new all things considered, I don't think it's obvious that the lack of desire to reproduce is purely cultural. It's just too new of an option to see the long term impact clearly.

Re: The heritability of fertility makes world population stabilization unlikely

#119
post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't get the point. If science does care about the JOURNAL impact factors too much, why then, as a consequence, would everyone publish in low impact factor journals?

Low-IF journals are easier to publish to by definition. You first try to publish in a high-IF journal, if they reject you then you try one with lower IF, and so on. I'm all about not taking IF as face value and don't need a n-th reminder about the metric's issues seeing how rehashing them is something of a favorite pastime among scientists, but in this specific case other more qualitative assessments don't line up ei…

Please explain why estimates of the twin & SNP heritability of age at first birth are wrong

Re: The heritability of fertility makes world population stabilization unlikely

#120
post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"how they reached the conclusion that fertility was heritable?" Isnt it obviously true? If you don't breed you don't pass on your non breeding genes, if you do breed.... Living organisms are literally breeding machines, that's all they really do. Natural selection favours those who do it better.

It's beyond obvious. Strange that people are arguing against it. And, going one further, in the past people had children as a matter of rote. Now, it has to be a deliberate, overcoming the obstacle of modernity, in a sense. In the same way smallpox had a habit of reducing the population's potential, so too (by a different mechanism) does education, birth control, abortion, etc. A subset of the population will effecti…

Would you then also argue that two smart parents have a much higher chance of having a smart kid than two of average intelligence? If not, why not?
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