Evolving Wealth
 

... selection gradients for male wealth are ... strongest in subsistence societies with extensive polygyny...

So why do governments work so hard to overthrow the natural order?

try not to politicize it, chris

Executive summary:

Chicks like guys with money, power, food, shelter or the means (brains or brawn) to get these things. Always have always will.

This hardly seems worth publishing.

I'd say that a lot of what is in that journal meets your criterion.

But, you've misread the abstract. It deals with # of offspring, not female mate choice per se.

One criticism I have right off the bat is that they only demonstrated a selection gradient, not evolution.

Obvious study studies obviousness. Reports the obvious.

Anything else Professor?

Did ya note the part about the polygamous societies where the rich dudes get more chicks?

Notice how it doesn't matter if the chick is poor.

Here's a picture to help you understand it all a little better.....

http://mediaswirl.files.wordpress.co...iger-woods.jpg

Is the ability to create wealth genetic, selected for and passed on?

What is "obvious" to the inexpert is usually just prejudice - that is why scientists & engineers do research - sorta like why people actually play football games instead of sitting in a comfy chair and pontificating.

alf - the study shows there is a selection gradient

if there are genetic characters associated with the effects, then yes they will be passed on

there probably ARE such genetic characters in humans - an interesting question would be if they are selected for during certain periods of civilization and not in others

I disagree, Webb. It is clearly not an interesting question. One interesting question, which is probably just my own prejudice because it's obvious to me, being inexpert, is if there really is a difference between human males and human females. And if so, what are they? Somebody should study that and publish it. Wonder if I can get a grant to study this. Better than working I suppose. "Thus, there appears to be significant differences between male and female humans."

OK, so lets start with this as the first subject of your study...

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1270668200.jpg

Dude. You're laying an interesting abstract in front of the same guys who......aw, nevermind.

"Joe the plumber" did not try to politicize it either, but telling the truth about "sharing the wealth" and how it screws anyone not on the public dole gets bent over the couch and buggered.

Seems like in the US it's the opposite.

where is "Joe the plumber" now? did he ever pay his taxes?

political items belong in PARF - chris ought to know that

Am sure glad that there are people like you who have everything perfect in their lives so that they can do nothing but tell others whats wrong with theirs.

Funny thing is how the lib-tards picked Joe apart, but refused to answer his question to the idiot in chief candidate about why should we take money from anyone and give it to those who do not deserve it.

You have a habit of posting items in OT with political connotations and then when someone doesn't agree with your "non-political" (or thinly veiled highly-political) conclusions, you shout them down for bringing politics into your "non-political" (highly-political) thread.

It's an intellectually dishonest debate technique. You are selecting a place to debate where you can get anyone who disagrees with you thrown out, and then you can claim to have a "consensus". (I wonder where you learned this from? Don't the AGW zealots do the same thing?)

The government is short-circutting natural selection in the name of "compassion". In our society, the less intellegent, less innovative, and more dependent on government for subsistence you are, the easier it is to have a large family. The opposite should be true.

This is a crucial element ignored by the above study by design. There is a cash incentive for those on public assistance to have more children. There is also a cash incentive for the fathers of these children to deny paternity. It is not so much that poorer men father fewer children, as that they fail to claim paternity.

The study is flawed. Men don't have chidren, women do. In the lower socioeconomic groups, there are larger numbers of single mothers and each has more offspring. I do not have the statistics in front of me, but this is true, and clear to you if you consider it even briefly.

What the study does look at and is obviously true is that women are drawn to better providers. This is a well known fact.

Randy, you should never, ever, criticize anyone for putting something here that should be in the dungeon. If you understood the above abstract, you would not have put it here.

Is it possible, even slightly possible, for you guys (Chris and Joe) to see and discuss an issue non-politically? Chris, what you say could be true, that one could post a topic here that was disguised to be non-political, just to weed out disagreeing political views, but I truly don't think that's what being put forth here.

I've re-read the abstract several times, and cannot for the life of me see how it MUST be discussed politically. Of course I can see how it COULD be, but not how it MUST be.

The problem dogmatic belief (which is what, IMO, you are both displaying here) is that you can't see anything outside of your belief system, and must filter everything through that belief system. Whether that's right or left, jehovah's witness or scientology, it leads to a distorted world view.

And then phrases like "lib-tards", that's clever. That's precisely what PARF was created for. Leave it there.

Randy is using OT as cover for posting highly biased articles because he knows he can attack anyone who calls him on it as "politicizing" his thread.

This isn't the first time he's done this. It's more like the 20th.

Chris, good call!

Pearls before swine.

I used to think that, Tobra, but I'm really beginning to wonder. In dealing with social welfare programs (both Federal and State), as well as experience in youth court/domestic relations litigation, I'm not so sure any more. I just don't see young, poor women saying "Punching out a baby (or babies) is gonna get me a check (bigger check)."

Rather, I see the attitude being "My life sucks. If I had a baby there would always be someone there for me to love and to love me back. And it makes me an adult." Almost like a kid wanting a puppy. I cannot recall the motivation being pecuniary...certainly not on the front end. Quite the contrary, I've heard the lament "How you gonna raise that baby...your check ain't gonna be enough." Often coming from the grandparents who inevitably end up being the primary caretaker.

As to the comments about the rationale for males to deny paternity to escape financial responsibility, point well taken. Nothwithstanding that, the male attitude does seem to have a similar "Look at me I'm a grown man because I can impregnate a number of women."

And before anybody wants to run this off into a partisan political diatribe, let's face the fact that both sides have to some degree contributed to our welfare state mentality with regard to public policy in this arena. There's plenty of blame to go around that we have 4th, 5th, 6th generation welfare families.

Things may have changed WRT more babies more money mentality in the last 10 years. I have not had as much contact with this social strata as I once did.

Still a very flawed study, unless there is much more to it than the abstract would indicate.

exactly - makes me wonder if I am not wasting my time -- at least with some of the people here

CLEARLY poor American men have far, far more children than rich American men.

Who is the idiot that wrote this study? I need to introduce him to reality.

I wonder if the fact that the government covers most of the cost of raising poor children while middle- and upper-class childrens' parents bear the brunt of the costs has anything to do with it?

If I had a dollar for every time I've wondered that.......

Still, I understand the motivation. For me, and for many, public policy formation is among the most important dialogues in societies. But the problem, for me and for many, and for you, is that while many people acknowledge the complexity of the questions and the answers, for some people both are exceedingly simple. Perhaps we should ask McDonalds for help. McLaws.

We feel exactly the same about some others on this thread, like you...

That is a good question.

I think both genetics and environment influence wealth generation, and they positively reinforce each other over time, growing wealth over generations.

Poor, unmaried, uneducated women absolutely DO have children for the benefits. It is ignorant and disengenuous to think otherwise. I would even go so far as to say 'most' do. It is a well established, well entrenched, transgenerational, politically correct industry. These women loose their eligibility when their children turn age 18 and literally dump them on the street. The girls then have babies, the boys wander aimlessly hanging with their babymommas or going to prison-on purpose. This is the most degrading, harmful, destructive, self-perpetuating human development imaginable. This is public policy that has no upside. The only true beneficiaries of this policy are the bureaucracies and bureaucrats charged with the responsibility to distribute other people's money. Cash benefit amounts have been decreasing, true. However, the non-cash benefits are skyrocketing (i.e., food cards, medical care, housing and energy subsidies, child care, home chore providers, etc.). This creates a permanent, angry, disenfranchised underclass with nothing to lose. And it is growing. If rich men are having more babies than poor men it is only because the state and federal gov'ts have replaced and displaced fathers and fatherhood. The richest man taking responsiblity for the most babies is Uncle Sam himself. If these subsidies ever stopped, you would see images on the streets of American cities indistinguishable from the most squalid, horrific, lawless, disease-ridden third world hell holes on dear Mother Earth. This is a reality too horrible to contemplate and is neither exaggeration nor hyperbole.