Just Thinking Out Loud

Its funny, isn't it, how nature and society are at odds with each other. Nature and biology has its own agenda, and it isn't necessarily what we want. Not on the surface, anyway. Society's rules and morals try to control what nature and biology are demanding. Sigmund Freud's Id and Superego, constantly in conflict. I wonder how that is working out for us as a species and in the grand scheme of things.

Is it better to go along with Mother Nature's "plan" and accept chaos in our personal lives or should we try and control everything we do and hope we know where we are taking ourselves? Take the obesity epidemic. We thought we would have it made once we had better medicines, more (and better) food and didn't have to work as hard as our ancestors. Now we are dying of heart disease, diabetes and obesity because we are eating too much and not getting enough exercise. Those of us in the Western World are having a proverbial feast, and suffering for it. The Law of Unintended Consequences always finds a way to rear its ugly head. Order and chaos. To what degree do we prefer one over the other? To what degree do we cause one while trying to prevent it?

Take the birth control pill. Its meant to prevent unwanted pregnancies. Pure and simple. Yet some research says its changing the course of human evolution. Women like men whose immune systems are different from theirs, and the birth control pill seems to steer them towards men with similar immunity. How does this effect the next generation if we are doing the reverse of what evolution has guided us towards for generations?

The majority of abortions are done for young, unmarried women. Women under the age of 24. These are the healthiest time of a woman's reproductive lives and will produce the healthiest offspring. If evolutionary biology is correct, than many young women are getting pregnant by the most evolutionarily fit men, to produce the strongest children. This doesn't happen when the pair want it to, it happens when nature wants it to. Of course, we've found a way around that by abortion and contraception. Take that, nature!

Of course, there is the alternative: unmarried young women without two sources of income to provide for the little bundle. Teens that get pregnant usually drop out of high school or college and never go back. So much for a strong financial situation. So much for whatever ambitions they had. And what becomes of the kid? A Swedish study from 2003 found that kids raised in a one parent home are twice as likely to develop mental illness problems or addictions later in life.

So there you have it. Damned if you do, damned if you don't. I think I'll go have a vasectomy tomorrow.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/02/04/health/main539283.shtml