Jul 12
5
Darwinian pregnancy rate
ChristianGovernane letter – July 4, 2012
Darwinian pregnancy rate
The researcher quoted here says pregnancy rates are down because of improved use of contraception:
“The report’s lead author, Stephanie J. Ventura, a demographer with the health statistics center, said the declining numbers were largely a result of birth control. ‘It’s not that the birthrate is going up and the abortion rate down, which has happened in the past,’ she said. ‘Now everything is changing in the same direction, suggesting that more effective birth control is at work here’.”
This is a Darwinian conclusion which assumes that people are simply rutting animals with no control over sexual impulse. In other words, people are probably having sex as frequently because that’s just what we have to do, but we are using birth control better.
As a principled Humanist, it probably escapes her that another reason pregnancy rates may be down is that people’s values and priorities are changing so they are redirecting their energy from sex and intimate relationships. The researcher chooses a materialistic, evolutionary interpretation of the evidence rather than one which appeals to intangibles and ideals.
In our humanistic age of materialistic group-think, most people probably don’t think to question her interpretation of the evidence. Those who do probably mostly feel it best to keep their opinions to themselves.
Click here to read the article, “Pregnancy rates sank over last 20 years.”