Reproduction Today

Mothers are an essential part of reproduction. As seen in The Selfish Gene it is the method that allows genes to pass from an old body to a new one. The definition Richard Dawkins uses for this book is this: "I am treating a mother as a machine programmed to do everything in its power to propagate copies of the genes which ride inside it" (123) This definition although not absolute it is the basic programming that is given to all adult females in a species. Mother must do everything to pass as many of their genes to the next generation as possible. Humans have created an incredible opportunity for themselves in which some mothers can potentially give birth to as many offspring as time allows with food and other resources as a problem. There is a worldwide trend in which countries with a low living standard have a higher population growth rate than those with an excellent living standard. It is only a problem in developed countries that the population of those being born is dramatically less than that of those ageing and because of this other problems arise like the source for pension money. I found it very interesting how couples in developed countries decide to have less children than those of developing countries. I studied this development of populations in science and apparently education isn't the only factor. The theory behind this strange pattern is that when life expectancy for a child increases a couple sees no need in having to invest their resources on more than one or two children.

The problem is that why have only have one child when you could have ten and they would all grow to continue spreading genes? The issue isn't around sexual education or accessibility of birth control methods because in many cases there are available to the population with the least wealth. Maybe it has to do with choice. Our rational brain might not want to have many children but our irrational (genes) will. If our rational brain is busy trying to figure out what you will do tomorrow in order to survive, like in Africa or in Colombian Chocó, then your irrational brain will be able to do as it pleases and genes will do as they please. It is true that rational brains in developed countries will have to be very busy as well but there are times when we can take a break. A person in danger of starvation will dedicate every bit of his rational brain to finding a solution to his situation. At this point in human evolution we are at a crossroads. We can choose to be as civilized and rational as our brains allow but if we aren't careful it only takes a blink for the genes to take over.