SOBRE A FERTILIDADE HUMANA

Destaque semanal para a coluna "What's new" do físico Robert Park:

"FERTILITY RATE: IT’S PROPORTIONAL TO HUMAN IGNORANCE.

World population reached 7 billion in November 2011 and is on track to a disastrous 9 billion by mid-century. This is generally taken to be evidence of a powerful reproductive instinct. There is, to be sure, a nurturing instinct, but who thinks about that during foreplay? The Pill will one day be recognized as the most important invention of the 20th century; it permits us to plan our most essential function: reproduction.

Unfortunately, industry wants more consumers, generals want bigger armies, priests want their souls. Fertility in developed nations, however, including all of Europe, is at or below the replacement rate, usually taken to be 2.1. This is not the result of some policy consensus; it's simply that access to the Pill now empowers women to develop to their full potential. The lowest fertility rate is in China, where the current economic miracle refutes the belief that a low fertility rate is bad for business. The highest fertility rate of any country is 7.0 in Afghanistan, where the Sunni Muslim Taliban forbade girls to learn to read.

REPUBLICAN FERTILITY: IS IT PROPORTIONAL TO POLITICAL SUCCESS?

In Rick Santorum’s marriage, fertility follows the appalling rate of Afghanistan. A father of seven and a Catholic, Santorum described contraception as "a license to do things in a sexual realm that is counter to how things are supposed to be." Uh, what sexual things is he talking about and how should they be? With five children of his own, Mitt Romney, barely edged out Santorum in the Iowa Republican Caucus but trails him slightly in fertility, five being closer to that of Rwanda. The presumptive Democratic presidential candidate has two children."

Robert Park