Asymmetrical Information

This isn't exactly evolution. Evolution is wanting sex badly, or companionship, and thinking kids are cute so you protect them rather than kill them, because if you don't, your genes don't live on.

This is more about high intelligence, and culture--we have the capacity to create a world with birth control and marriage ceremonies, etc., and yet individuals can have an awareness (that other animals don't have) that they might want to have babies in the future to see their genes live on, and realize they don't have forever to do it.

"Being human means being evolution's bitch."

Correction: Being alive means, etc.

The price of a biology degree is eternal vigilance against speciesism. As Richard Dawkins said, educated people agree we are cousins to African apes. Fewer realize that we *are* African apes.

@Larry: The observation has everything to do with evolution and little or nothing to do with culture. For example, children and the very old evince little or no interest in sex. This is not limited to certain cultures, or homo sapiens for that matter.

I also think there is another element to it. I think humans don't like not being able to do something that everyone else can do. Knowing that any moron 16 year old in the back of their father's car can do something that, oft times inexplicably, you can not is very frustrating and lead one to have an almost pathalogical need to get it right.

I speak from some experience on this subject.

"Being human means being evolution's bitch" Hmm.

Remember, the quote is about people seeking fertility enhancement -- most have spent years focused on that single topic. Cancer patients usually have days to months to seek treatment, at which point they are motivated to maintain the chosen strategy. The distinction is certainly vivid, but feels a bit morbid.

Where did evolution come in? I missed that part. Evolution, a statistical process applied to populations, tends toward distinct species and rationalizes why some characteristics survive and others die out. The drive to fertility is more along the lines of habits and tendencies preserved in species that survive. In our case (speaking in broadest possible terms of the human societies I am aware of on Earth) we are as individuals either breeders or non-breeders. Non-breeders fill certain niches, many of them also pass along their genes, while the breeders actively preserve their genetic material unto the next generation. This is something that our grandparents achieved (speaking broadly again), we can choose to follow the example that proceeded down from history to today, or we can choose a different path.

I think it unfair to convince, bully, or enforce anyone to procreate.

Maybe I wasn't clear enough. Animals doing instinctual things that lead to having and raising kids is an example of how we've been formed by evolution. Consciously planning to have and raise kids is not really the same thing.

I used to think that the male paternal urge was as strong as the female maternal one. Now I'm not sure, certain basic assumptions I'd made throughout my life have been shown to be flawed.

I do know this though : that it is not uncommon for women born with Harry Benjamin's Syndrome (masculinised body) to remain untreated and in intense discomfort for decades, just to have children. The treatment sterilises them, you see.

I want to have kids eventually. The majority of girls I dated didn't seem to show much interest. Biased sample, I suppose. But it sticks in my mind.

I really think this has more to do with our culture than with evolution. The mainstream of our culture, at least, regards "child free by choice" as a synonym for "horribly selfish and shallow" and/or "unrealistic about how miserable she'll be when she's 45, ha ha". Someone without kids just has no support.

But what is a nun, afterall, besides someone who decided in her twenties to be child free for life, and stuck to it? Hands up if you want to call Mother Teresa selfish and shallow (Okay, Christopher Hitchens has his hand up, but the mainstream culture that tuts childfree types does not.)

As for whether she regretted it when she turned 45, I gather after her death some of her journals came to light that were very frank about her times of spiritual darkness and other un-plaster-saint-like moments. I of course haven't read the whole things, but none of the secondary sources I did read mentioned anything about a longing for children. And from what I gather about the lives of women religious saints in previous generations, this is not atypical.

Infertility has always been painful, but I think it's our culture's attitude, not nature, that makes it more painful than cancer.

Wouldn't it be great if gynecologists could track a woman's fertility through life? For example, an 18 year old goes to the gyno for her first pelvic exam and is informed that she is highly fertile, with say an 95% chance of conceiving and carrying a pregnancy to term (I'm making the figures up, but bear with me). Then each subsequent visit he updates her, so that at 30 she knows that now her chances are only 70%, and so on. I'm sure all women would appreciate knowing their personal fertility rate. To quote Jack Handey, how about it science?

I keep thinking how annoyed I'd be if when I go off birth control it is discovered that I've been sterile all along. Imagine all of the money that could have been saved on years and years of prescription co-pays.

Christina - Imagine all the money they'd get sued for if they were wrong.

Infertility has always been painful, but I think it's our culture's attitude, not nature, that makes it more painful than cancer.

Frankly, by this comment alone I'm not too sure you've known anyone who has dealt with either of these. Culture certainly has its hands in the matter, and yet, infertility can be extraordinarily painful for reasons of instict and biological desire that pale next to what one's culture may or may not think of the absence of children.

Wouldn't it be great if gynecologists could track a woman's fertility through life? For example, an 18 year old goes to the gyno for her first pelvic exam and is informed that she is highly fertile, with say an 95% chance of conceiving and carrying a pregnancy to term (I'm making the figures up, but bear with me). Then each subsequent visit he updates her, so that at 30 she knows that now her chances are only 70%, and so on. I'm sure all women would appreciate knowing their personal fertility rate. To quote Jack Handey, how about it science?

Science has already gotten us part of the way to that goal. Numerical figures maybe not, but those of us who track fertility signals can keep a pretty good eye on a number of the factors that go into overall fertility. Even if she bleeds every 28 days on schedule, nobody can be certain whether she is ovulating regularly, or at all, without that information. And we can make educated guesses about whether we have high or low fertility based on other factors, such as the length of our luteal phase (time between ovulation and onset of menstruation), and other stuff --- I'll spare the details.

Of course, it goes without saying that there is no such thing as a "personal" fertility rate, really. There's only a "couple's" fertility rate. Brave New World techniques aside of course.

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