They did, but because large families were common, that wasn't the evolutionary pressure. In all cases, then and now, evolutionary success looks like many descendants. It isn't exactly that because you may give rise to a clan of morons that is over fitting a narrow niche that will go away. Think Dodos etc. But number of far future descendants is a decent proxy.
For humans, we live long enough to aid and abet two generations so the best we can do is count grandchildren.
The evolutionary pressure of the age is whatever is keeping you from having 25+ grandchildren. In the past everyone kind of assumed children were a blessing because if you didn't have them your farm would start falling apart as you got creaky in the joints. So that wasn't the limiting factor.
It was things like disease resistance and hygiene. There have been lots of them many simultaneous. For humans a large number have less to do with physical health and more with our ability to cooperate. Learning to read and write has been big the last few hundred years. With computers it is now essential. I suspect learning to code is a partial pressure as is the ability to touch grass. But the biggest is the most obvious but also most contentious. Birth-control. We now have to come up with reasons to conceive rather than have it be a thing that just kinda happens. Most people don't have articulated reasons and well that is like having poor hygiene in crowded European cities. You just aren't going to have many surviving descendents.
Daniel Wigton
npub1w4…q30zp
2025-08-13 17:20:07 UTC
in reply to nevent1q…j4yp
Author Public Key
npub1w4jkwspqn9svwnlrw0nfg0u2yx4cj6yfmp53ya4xp7r24k7gly4qaq30zpSeen on
wss://nos.lolPublished at
2025-08-13 17:20:07 UTCEvent JSON
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"content": "They did, but because large families were common, that wasn't the evolutionary pressure. In all cases, then and now, evolutionary success looks like many descendants. It isn't exactly that because you may give rise to a clan of morons that is over fitting a narrow niche that will go away. Think Dodos etc. But number of far future descendants is a decent proxy. \n\nFor humans, we live long enough to aid and abet two generations so the best we can do is count grandchildren.\n\nThe evolutionary pressure of the age is whatever is keeping you from having 25+ grandchildren. In the past everyone kind of assumed children were a blessing because if you didn't have them your farm would start falling apart as you got creaky in the joints. So that wasn't the limiting factor.\n\nIt was things like disease resistance and hygiene. There have been lots of them many simultaneous. For humans a large number have less to do with physical health and more with our ability to cooperate. Learning to read and write has been big the last few hundred years. With computers it is now essential. I suspect learning to code is a partial pressure as is the ability to touch grass. But the biggest is the most obvious but also most contentious. Birth-control. We now have to come up with reasons to conceive rather than have it be a thing that just kinda happens. Most people don't have articulated reasons and well that is like having poor hygiene in crowded European cities. You just aren't going to have many surviving descendents.",
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