Are Humans devolving?

Question

I know lots of women who have held off on having children as they chose to become Doctors, Lawyers etc. Many of them procrastinated too long, and now cannot conceive. For those that do have kids, it's often just 1 child.

Meanwhile, low income people are having children by the dozens. So, what are the future generations going to be like?

Answer 1

YES! Stupid people are out-breeding the intelligent ones, plus there's no natural selection anymore to weed out the dumb folks. Except for drug abuse, that weeds some stupid people out, but not nearly enough.

Answer 2

This video explains it all...

http://i-am-bored.com/bored_link.cfm?lin...

Answer 3

This is an example of 2 different breeding strategies that we also see in nature in animals as well as humans.  you can have a small number of offspring freeing more resources to go to that offspring giving it a better chance to survive; or you can have many offspring realizing many will not make it to breeding age.

Answer 4

we'll be alright.

Answer 5

No, I don't think so.  There is no such thing as devolving in an evolutionary sense.  Those who produce the most viable children who survive are the most adapted.  You may not like the fact that Doctors and Lawyers aren't having more kids but I don't think it is necessarily that bad.  I have some concerns but as our technology continues to advance I think we will adjust and not become less intelligent or capable.

Answer 6

I believe some are evolving through education and those who have only one child are adopting others which helps greatly in the long run.  Lets hope it all works out.  I prefer to be an optimist.

Answer 7

eh, this is like asking what happens when people don't have rich kids and have poor kids? don't you think? so, the only difference((in my opinion)) in the population will be that people have less spoiled brats.

Answer 8

Do you think in history it was different? Yes, survival of the "low income people's children" is higher than it was 300 years ago. But "low income people" are not a garbage and their children can have as good genes as any doctor's children. And there are many examples of poor children becoming famous scientists, writers, artists... etc.

Answer 9

There is no direction to evolution so there can't be a backwards.  This "reverse social darwinism" can be argued to be a contributing factor to the failures of education etc.  But there is no evidence that this has made any change in the survival rate of humans which has seen a steady increase with the advances of science.  For it to be defined as a devolution, it would have to be causing and increasing number of deaths in children.

Answer 10

There is no such thing as devolving. If stupid people end up with more of their offspring surviving, they were more fit to survive. Simple as that. Sour grapes from the brainy smarties isn't going to change the facts of the matter.

Answer 11

survival of the fittest still applies to human in some ways, people incapable of having children because of sickness for example, will not pass on their genes, and a low income mother who has 6 children must still have good enough genes to bare and raise those 6 children, even under low income conditions which makes it more remarkable i would say... people with high paying jobs are usually just more educated and have had better opportunities that have had nothing to do with their genes... so they are not necessarily more fit than low income people... this is a good question and can be looked at a lot of different ways... but i feel evolution does not and should not mean that people who can solve complex math equations should have more children, while those who can raise their children well with good values should have less... what does it say about someone who just wants lots of money and only wants 1 kid or none at all, i do not think income has that much to do with it

Answer 12

There is no such thing.

People have been bitching about the breeding issue for at least a few hundred years and it doesn't make any difference.