RE: breeding like rabbits
August 15, 2014 at 10:32 am
(This post was last modified: August 15, 2014 at 10:41 am by Michael.)
A common theme in history is that the part of society that breeds less generally considers, rightly or wrongly, the part of society that breeds more to be inferior, and to be a problem. This has always caused tension. Perhaps one of the most influential writings was Thomas Malthus's 1798 treatise, "An Essay on the Principle of Population" in which he noted that population increase was exponential whereas food production increase was arithmetic (i.e. the population would increase 4X for every 2X increase in food production). It wasn't clear how he derived those figures. Malthus suggested that uncontrolled population increase would lead to war and famine, and noted that the poorest bred earlier and more. He started a movement concerned not only with how the population was growing, but in which group it was growing.
Malthus, as a related aside, was a key inspiration for one of the most significant scientific theories of all time....
"In October 1838, that is, fifteen months after I had begun my systematic inquiry, I happened to read for amusement Malthus on Population, and being well prepared to appreciate the struggle for existence which everywhere goes on from long-continued observation of the habits of animals and plants, it at once struck me that under these circumstances favourable variations would tend to be preserved, and unfavourable ones to be destroyed. The results of this would be the formation of a new species. Here, then I had at last got a theory by which to work". Charles Darwin, from his autobiography. (1876)
Malthus opposed the "poor laws" which provided welfare for the poor, on the basis that, if poverty were relieved, the poor would just have more children and society would be pushed back again into poverty and food shortages. Move the clock on to the later part of the 19th century and we find Francis Galton drawing on Malthus, Darwin and Mendl. Galton was the first to propose that intelligence was largely inherited (Darwin, for whatever reason, thought intelligence was down purely to education). Galton noted that the more intelligent waited until later to have children and had fewer children, whereas the less intelligent would have children earlier and would have more children. He proposed, echoing much earlier work from Plato, that society should control breeding (Plato, foreshadowing Darwin, had noted that farmers knew which animals to breed to make the best herd, so why didn't society do likewise). The trend, Galton said, must be reversed. Intelligent people must be matched to mates earlier in life and encouraged to breed more, and the less intelligent delayed in breeding. Marie Stopes took it a step further and proposed enforced sterilisation for the feeble minded and enforced birth control for the poor classes. Galton coined a phrase for this new science of planned breeding; he called it Eugenics. Eugenics was embraced almost completely by the elite of the time (with the almost singular exception of G.K.Chesteron). The famous author George Bernard Shaw, at a meeting of the Eugenics Education Society of 3 March 1910, suggested the need to use a "lethal chamber" which used lethal but painless gas to rid society of those that did not provide a net contribution. It is unclear now whether we was serious or being ironic and warning of the dangers of going too far. But it was clear that his words were sadly all too prescient as Adolf Hitler took the academic thoughts of the British Eugenic movement (of which even Churchill was a member) and turned them into a dreadful reality.
Malthus, as a related aside, was a key inspiration for one of the most significant scientific theories of all time....
"In October 1838, that is, fifteen months after I had begun my systematic inquiry, I happened to read for amusement Malthus on Population, and being well prepared to appreciate the struggle for existence which everywhere goes on from long-continued observation of the habits of animals and plants, it at once struck me that under these circumstances favourable variations would tend to be preserved, and unfavourable ones to be destroyed. The results of this would be the formation of a new species. Here, then I had at last got a theory by which to work". Charles Darwin, from his autobiography. (1876)
Malthus opposed the "poor laws" which provided welfare for the poor, on the basis that, if poverty were relieved, the poor would just have more children and society would be pushed back again into poverty and food shortages. Move the clock on to the later part of the 19th century and we find Francis Galton drawing on Malthus, Darwin and Mendl. Galton was the first to propose that intelligence was largely inherited (Darwin, for whatever reason, thought intelligence was down purely to education). Galton noted that the more intelligent waited until later to have children and had fewer children, whereas the less intelligent would have children earlier and would have more children. He proposed, echoing much earlier work from Plato, that society should control breeding (Plato, foreshadowing Darwin, had noted that farmers knew which animals to breed to make the best herd, so why didn't society do likewise). The trend, Galton said, must be reversed. Intelligent people must be matched to mates earlier in life and encouraged to breed more, and the less intelligent delayed in breeding. Marie Stopes took it a step further and proposed enforced sterilisation for the feeble minded and enforced birth control for the poor classes. Galton coined a phrase for this new science of planned breeding; he called it Eugenics. Eugenics was embraced almost completely by the elite of the time (with the almost singular exception of G.K.Chesteron). The famous author George Bernard Shaw, at a meeting of the Eugenics Education Society of 3 March 1910, suggested the need to use a "lethal chamber" which used lethal but painless gas to rid society of those that did not provide a net contribution. It is unclear now whether we was serious or being ironic and warning of the dangers of going too far. But it was clear that his words were sadly all too prescient as Adolf Hitler took the academic thoughts of the British Eugenic movement (of which even Churchill was a member) and turned them into a dreadful reality.
