[soperj]

> But it's inescapable, for example, that education rates are now strongly negatively correlated with fertility.

You can easily say that city dwelling is strongly correlated with higher education rates, and higher noise pollution, therefore high noise pollution is strongly negatively correlated with fertility. Correlation doesn't equal causation.

> Reliable birth control has fundamentally broken that link.

Reliable birth control has severely reduced unwanted pregnancy, but there's a whole host of people who would like to have children that can't.