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Longevity depends upon the economy and health care Paul R. Earl Facultad de Ciencias Biológicas Universidad Autónoma de Nuevo León San Nicolás, NL, Mexico.
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Longevity depends upon the economy and health care Paul R. EarlFacultad de Ciencias BiológicasUniversidad Autónoma de Nuevo LeónSan Nicolás, NL, Mexico
Without forgetting Wallace the cooriginator of darwinian evolution, we shall quote Darwin: "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".
The purpose of this lecture is to examine effects of population expansion on the standard of living, to look at the philosophic roots of notions on the survival of the fittest and to appreciate the starving African overpopulations now being decimated by human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) so that life expectancy is opposite to that desired.
Population control The western public viewpoint is to encourage teaching contraception globally, but not to use sterilization or abortion. Economics, philosophy and evolution will continue to be much involved with progress towards a better life that includes disease eradications. Smallpox, polio and measles lead the way. Nonetheless, the very many other important global eradications lie unknown in the future. Since we do not have the necessary data, the problem cannot be solved. When a problem is well defined often it then can be solved, thus the least we might do is to take steps in the right direction.
The coincidence of poverty, diseases and lack of resources in a rural setting is a common state. The redistribution of wealth with poverty as the central deficit not population size is marxist. Contraception is antireligious, but Malthusian behavior was by abstinence, and in 19th century practice by coitus interruptus.
State policies on birth control obviously have nothing to do with evolution, even if they oppose religion and tradition. Disease eradication, overpopulation, soil erosion and poverty need not be related, but most likely they are. Also, the people advocating one process may well be promoting another. Issues are likely more complicated than they seem, and much of central European culture is long involved with the decline of the institutions and the churches. Regardless of this, the hard going is in subSahara Africa as in Zambia, Zimbabwe and in other desperate nations like India that has 1 billion people.
With formerly expanding populations, these central African countries are hungry and seriously diseased, e.g., malarious. Medicines, food and money are being poured in, yet all the Malthusian evils including civil war prevail, not the good deeds and intentions of missionary tradition that are swallowed by the birth rates.HIV is cutting the life span in half so that many African people live less than 40 years. Lives are shorter, more hungry and more diseased, especially with TB.
Views on birth control The woman’s and human rights perspective associates a regime of high birth rates with the denial of human rights. Advocates of these rights may say that the subordination of women keeps the birth rate high. Some medical schools have half women students today, almost unheard of 25 years ago. The participation of women in labor, and the contraception revolution change the family and perhaps lower social cohesion. Regardless, women gain respect by earning money and thus raising their standard of living. Failure to know anything about these modern customs relating to ongoing second transition demography let Malthus fall into a terrible mistake.
Immigration control is an example of protecting the status quo. In contrast, Canada short of a home market needs to import people. It has a long history of having to get rid of agricultural surpluses like wheat paid for by industrial worker-taxpayers, a problem sometimes worsened by the US dumping grains in Europe. Suspicious of attempts like the pill to regulate fertility, the pronatalists are inspired by religious objections to birth control. They argue that population growth is not a problem, yet where it is truely a benefit is still another story.
When some moralist commented that, “Drink is the curse of the working classes,” the obvious reply was made that, “ Work was the curse of the drinking classes,” and so much argument sometimes never to be solved depends upon point of view that has its own traditions. Is there a choice only between more people or a higher standard of living? The Black Death produced a higher standard of living before the Industrial revolution. Does more food and other goods by mechanized efficiency mean more richer people? What is the Malthusian theory? Does contraception allow women to win respect, because with it they can enter the job market. Why don’t people like Malthusian thought?
This theory which captivated Wallace, Darwin, Huxley & Galton, class-consciencious Englishmen, applies in some cases, yet does not have experimental proofs. Please object to it if you like ! As population increases, will land rents rise? No, but they did in 1800 in the giant farm called England. In USA, the decline in farmland value relative to annual gross national product (GNP) went from 88 % in 1870 to less than 5 % in 1990, an enormous decline and, to date, a strong Malthusian contradiction. Very few people are needed to work in efficient agriculture. The rural communities produce and use unskilled unemployable labor of the migrant type.
In 1830 the world’s population reached ONE BILLION, and in 1930 2 BILLION. Now it’s over 7 BILLION. Upon seeing the population growth curve, the question is: What is going to happen?,” and a satisfactory world prediction seems unlikely, at least one that satisfies the majority. Malthus is historically wrong, and gloom & doom have yet to surface. Still, complaints about lack of water are common worldwide.
Can diseases be eliminated locally or globally? What happens when disease X is eradicated? Do those healthy benefactors and thus their community gain productive labor time and pay less in medical expenses? Chagas disease, trachoma, malaria and others in a few other nations like Mexico are indeed costly, but hardly any attempt is made to reduce them. Dios Mio. Of course, the greater menace is worldwide HIV/AIDS that can be eliminated by condom education.
Bibliographic sketches of 7 philosophers Early demographic developments centered on the Industrial evolution, and these social changes involved England with much of the central European culture finally focusing on marxism as witnessed by the Russian revolution of 1917. Many quite different issues are and were prompted by the Industrial revolution. Discoveries of the fantastic fauna and flora outside Europe led to lamarkian then darwinian evolution.
The culture includes birth control and eugenics, the distribution of wealth, neodarwinism, women’s rights dating from seeking the vote before 1900, and the present declines in institutional and church social cohesion. All these matters since the 18th century are in states of flux called transitions. Epidemiology relates strongly to eradication and to the cost of diseases, yet has weak relations with economics. What will result socially from determined investments in some disease eradications? For instance, more profitable employment without lost sick days is an issue.
Economics, ecology and social biology have a long interactive past, influenced by the careers of the men sketched here. The goal could be better learning about population, disease and environment.Then it seems that the men who fostered these philosophic changes ought to be better known, especially since individuals, the family, institutions and the church are still the notable social issues, and marriage might become an heirloom. Cohabitation postpones children.We have to see now as ever that TANGIBLE is not SPIRITUAL. These 7 men along with the Cambridge economist Keynes and many others have done a lot of thinking for you, and much of their thought was agnostic, to use Huxley’s word. Incidentaly, he wrote on Hume in 1879.
"Hume is our Politics, Hume is our Trade, Hume is our Philosophy, Hume is our Religion," wrote 19th century British idealist philosopher James Hutchison Stirling (1820-1909).
Adam Smith (1723-1790), another Scot, was much influenced by Hume. In turn, his influence ran through David Ricardo (1772-1823; The Principles of Political Economy and Taxation, 1817) and Karl Marx in the 19th century, and through to John Maynard Keynes (1883-1946; The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money, 1936) in the 20th. Smith’s main work was The Wealth of Nations. Keynes wrote on Malthus in 1935, and on Adam Smith and of course on David Hume, both in 1938, thus demonstrating how close the philosophic system really is.
During the next 4 years at Montmorency, Rousseau produced 3 major works: The New Heloise (1761), the most widely read novel of his day); The Social Contract (1762), on political theory; and Émile (May 1762), a classic statement of education. The 'heretical' discussion of religion in Émile caused Rousseau problems with the Church in France. In 1766 he went to England (Derbyshire), and later to Hume's house in Buckingham Street, London). A paranoiac, he fell out with Hume who had much befriended him. The next year he returned to France. A condition of his return was his agreement not to publish his work.
Malthus was concerned about what he saw as the decline of living conditions in 19th century England. He blamed this on 3 elements: The overproduction of young; the inability of resources to keep up with the rising human population and the irresponsibility of the lower classes. To combat this, Malthus suggested the family size of the lower class ought to be regulated such that poor families do not produce more children than they can support. See new arguments by the Club of Rome http://www.clubofrome.org/links/index.php
