It was Thomas Malthus who noted that scientists had found that wild plant and animal populations quickly increase if their food supply increases, due to both increased birth rates and decreased death rates. In this way plant and animal species breed themselves poor and only the fittest will survive - and this powers 'natural selection' of the 'fittest' which enables evolution. So wild plant and animal populations grow easily and follow the Malthus law of biological poverty, driving biological progress for plants and animals so that poverty is good for progress ! And controvertially Malthus claimed that this applied to humans also.
An Essay on the Principle of Population, Chapter 1 (Malthus 1798) ;
"Through the animal and vegetable kingdoms, nature has scattered the seeds of life abroad with the most profuse and liberal hand. She has been comparatively sparing in the room and the nourishment necessary to rear them .... The race of plants and the race of animals shrink under this great restrictive law. And the race of man cannot, by any efforts of reason, escape from it. Among plants and animals its effects are waste of seed, sickness, and premature death. Among mankind, misery and vice. The former, misery, is an absolutely necessary consequence of it."
Malthus claimed that, like wild plants and animals, human populations also always follow this law of biological poverty and breed themselves poor. And certainly in primitive societies it is often the case that increased food supply does give a population increase, and a decreased food supply does give a population decrease, so that primitive human societies do seem to breed themselves poor in line with the Malthus law of biological poverty.
However, Malthus failed to notice that domesticated plant and animal populations instead follow human wishes and planning, so cow populations do not follow natural food supply biologically and they mostly escape poverty. For humans, Malthus biological poverty can only apply with certainty to societies that have little understanding of conception, for humans who do understand how babies are made can make choices that change birth rates. And humans can of course also make choices affecting death rates, even in primitive societies.
Hence though some human societies can indeed suffer Malthus biological poverty, this does not always apply. And not only is there little evidence of more modern human evolution or progress being chiefly driven by poverty, but there is strong evidence of more modern human civilisations progressing chiefly on the basis of excess wealth - so that human poverty now at least is bad for progress !
by Vincent Wilmot 2007 of http://www.world-poverty.org and http://www.social-exclusion-housing.com
ไม่มีความคิดเห็น:
แสดงความคิดเห็น