> This is absurd. The "gene pool" has nothing to do with people's sense of ethics around having kids or not.
To think that fertility -- one of the key issues in evolution -- would not be influenced by genetics requires a massive detachment from reality as well as lack of awareness of current knowledge about genetics and human behavior.
Note that we have data on this, and a good rule of thumb is that most everything is about half genetic. This includes likelihood to have kids. Why? well, things like sperm counts, and personality traits are influenced by genetics, as are things like tendency to be religious[4]. Values are also strongly influenced by genetics, as is income and intelligence[5], all of which is correlated with decisions to have or delay having children. Similarly the duration of the reproductive lifespan of females is influenced by genetics[2] - something very important as women delay childbirth:
The most recent GWAS conducted in ∼370,000 women of European ancestry identified 389 independent signals explaining ∼7.4% of the population variance in age at menarche (Fig. 1), corresponding to ∼25% of the estimated heritability[2]
And even the decision to delay childbirth is influenced by many factors that have a genetic component.
> We don't have a "don't have kids" gene that can get outcompeted.
An international research team, including the Norwegian Institute of Public Health, has found twelve genes that may help determine why some people have children at an early age, while others remain childless.[3]
You are confusing ability to have children (which has genetic components) with the decision of doing so. Then you make a mishmash of claims around other aspects. Then you cherry-pick some random articles, some of which not linked to papers from reliable journals.
Anybody could cherry-pick articles in the same way to make any claim. E.g. that norwegians make better programmers because of some obscure genes potentially related to hand dexterity that might potentially help typing...
> You are confusing ability to have children (which has genetic components) with the decision of doing so.
No, I'm not. Please re-read the sources I mentioned, as well as the text I wrote. I listed both factors and focused on the second - indeed I emphasized this point repeatedly.
> Then you cherry-pick some random articles
None of the points I raised are controversial in the literature, and the journals and textbooks I cited are quite mainstread -- e.g. Nature, NIH, etc. You are welcome to cite even a single paper. I'll wait.
> Anybody could cherry-pick articles in the same way to make any claim.
You know what is even easier that "cherry picking" articles? Not being able to provide even a single scientific paper for any of your claims, because they have no scientific basis.
Low intelligence, low income, and poor self control are associated with greater teen pregnancies and larger families. Smart, high income kids are rarely teenaged moms.
To think that fertility -- one of the key issues in evolution -- would not be influenced by genetics requires a massive detachment from reality as well as lack of awareness of current knowledge about genetics and human behavior.
Note that we have data on this, and a good rule of thumb is that most everything is about half genetic. This includes likelihood to have kids. Why? well, things like sperm counts, and personality traits are influenced by genetics, as are things like tendency to be religious[4]. Values are also strongly influenced by genetics, as is income and intelligence[5], all of which is correlated with decisions to have or delay having children. Similarly the duration of the reproductive lifespan of females is influenced by genetics[2] - something very important as women delay childbirth:
The most recent GWAS conducted in ∼370,000 women of European ancestry identified 389 independent signals explaining ∼7.4% of the population variance in age at menarche (Fig. 1), corresponding to ∼25% of the estimated heritability[2]
And even the decision to delay childbirth is influenced by many factors that have a genetic component.
> We don't have a "don't have kids" gene that can get outcompeted.
An international research team, including the Norwegian Institute of Public Health, has found twelve genes that may help determine why some people have children at an early age, while others remain childless.[3]
See also [1] for an overview and discussion.
- - -
[1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK97281/
[2] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41525-018-0068-1
[3] https://www.fhi.no/en/news/2016/twelve-genes-influence-ferti...
[4] https://www.apa.org/monitor/apr04/beliefs
[5] https://web.missouri.edu/~segerti/1000H/BouchardRev.pdf