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A woman will live for 5 more years. She already has three kids at age 2, 5, and 7. In this scenario it is very likely the reduced resources these kids will have
by username90 5y ago
A woman will live for 5 more years. She already has three kids at age 2, 5, and 7. In this scenario it is very likely the reduced resources these kids will have from sharing with a new sibling will reduce their chance to survive more than the 5 year old motherless child will add to the expected number of descendants.
You could argue that it would be better if the genes considered these scenarios better and adapted. But genes are very crude, they can't encode for all those things, so instead they just do what is best in the typical scneario.
- bawolff 5y agoThen why do humans die in childbirth (esp. Pre-modern medicine) so much more commonly than other animals? Additionally, in pre-industrial societies, i think that children become a net positive much quicker, so im not sure the resource calculation is quite as stark.
- sshumaker 5y agoThey only do so in agricultural societies. Hunter-gatherers (how we spent the vast majority of our history) have fewer children spaced further apart. Being on the move doesn’t lend itself to large families.
- myrandomcomment 5y agoThe child brith death question is a good one. The simple answer is that our brain size (and thus size of our head) evolved much quicker then the needed birthing exit path.