Population Control
- PDF / 111,593 Bytes
- 12 Pages / 576.314 x 719.673 pts Page_size
- 79 Downloads / 176 Views
269
Population Control Robert J. Meier
HISTORICAL BACKGROUND Evolutionary Perspective—Malthus and Darwin Thomas Robert Malthus, in his major work originally published in 1816, “Essay on the Principle of Population” (1968), projected a gloom and doom scenario for the human race in what he surmised to be a losing battle between population growth and an adequate food supply. Simply put, humans would multiply at a exponential rate (2, 4, 8, 16, etc.) while increasing food production only would occur at an arithmetic rate (1, 2, 3, 4, etc.). As a dire consequence, the human species would far outstrip its subsistence capacity, unless population growth was checked by such agents as famine and disease. We will have a closer look at the Malthusian doctrine later on, but for now it is important to note that it was Malthus who helped clarify for Charles Darwin a vexing problem he had regarding evolution. Darwin was searching for an understanding of how change would take place over time in a population, and in 1838 it was the writing of Malthus that led him to the notion of “struggle for existence,” possibly due to limited food resources. Given that the reproductive potential of a population exceeded what appeared to him to be more or less stable population numbers, Darwin theorized that a selection process was operating to remove those individuals who were less able to successfully compete for restricted resources. He eventually published his theory of Natural Selection in 1859 (Darwin, 1892). Malthus and Darwin established what to this day are considered to be natural “checks” that help to maintain or restore populations within the boundaries of resource availability. Resources, of course, come in many forms, not the least of which are an adequate food supply, mates, and a measure of secure habitat, or safe living environment. In terms of Darwinian evolution, then, population control was part and parcel of a natural process.
Cultural Revolution and Population Control Responses Were humans under the same constraint? Obviously Malthus must have thought that effective control was not yet in place, and from his perspective it was only going to get worse. He was correct given the subsequent unfolding of major events in human history, such as the Industrial Revolution, that led to high concentrations of people living in crowded, unsanitary cities. However, looking over the long course of human history, now reckoned in terms of several million years, foraging populations lived in small, scattered groups, and local pressures on resources could be relieved temporarily at least through out-migration. In fact, it is quite likely that movements of precursor human groups within and between continents in early time periods were in part due to successful cultural and biological adaptation and reproduction. Population growth spurred outward expansion. A clear picture of the number and timing of migrations has not yet emerged. One intriguing notion is that there was a major population bottleneck some hundreds of thousands of years ago, wh
Data Loading...
