Evolution Passing Harvard By?

The enquirer would next come to the important point, whether man tends to increase at so rapid a rate, as to lead to occasional severe struggles for existence; and consequently to beneficial variations, whether in body or mind, being preserved, and injurious ones eliminated. Do the races or species of men, whichever term may be applied, encroach on and replace one another, so that some finally become extinct?" -- Charles Darwin, The Origin of the Species

Darwin has never been much loved for that kind of remark, often borrowed by racists and other adherents to political pathologies, but, of late, such thoughts have gotten a lot more resonance.

What, basically, persuades people not to have babies even when they have the political, social and economic stability to do so? Among the eras and nations where this phenomenon occurs or occurred one basic characteristic stands out: the loss of a transcendent future. What I mean by "transcendent" is some ideal or love or hope or faith that rises above the interests of the self, the practicalities of expected income, the security of predictable outcomes, and the lifetime of the individual. What I mean by "future" is that it is an ideal, love, hope, or faith that extends beyond the present and is not satisfied with an instantaneous and eternal reward in the now….Culture & The Demographic Crisis, Frederick Turner, TCS Daily, 8/7/2006

One has only to look at Italy, where the native-born population is declining and has been for so long that, in the future, Italians will look a lot more like Moroccans and Algerians than Romans. Italy, after many years of being the poor slob of Europe, is now a hugely successful economy, with a standard of living as good as any in Europe. But, the fruits of these labors aren't going to the children of Italians, but to those of immigrants they've brought in to do the work. I'll bet that's really surprising. What is the posture of what proposes to be our intellectual future?

With no more GapKids, my trips to Harvard Square will be less frequent. Instead, I’ll have to throw all the kids in my big, gas-guzzling, liberal-infuriating Suburban and drive out of Cambridge to where people still have kids and still want them…By and large they are high-immigrant areas and poorer areas…Children are still the wealth of the poor in Massachusetts…Harvard students are more interested in sex — or in feeling sexy — than in kids. Feeling sexy, however, often leads to sex, and sex often leads to kids. Ahem. Or at least to pregnancies. Which is why blue America sweepingly (and coercively) supports choice. They want the sex, but not the kids. The kids are much too costly. To the pocketbook, yes, but most of all to a particular lifestyle more interested in today’s consumption than tomorrow’s production…. Feeling Sexy At Harvard, and The Gap is here to serve, C.R. Hardy, National Review Online, 10/24/2006

Sounds like Italy has come to Harvard. Perhaps in the future they'll describe Cambridge as the tarpit for intellectual dinosaurs.

Luther