Jim Menegay  wrote:

> john_SPAM{at}wilkins.id.au (John Wilkins) wrote:
....
> > He says (Ch 5) that "all checks to population may be resolved into
> > misery of vice" and notes that "The sons and daughters
of peasants will
> > not be found such rosy cherubs in real life as they are described to be
> > in romances. It cannot fail to be remarked by those who live much in the
> > country that the sons of labourers are very apt to be stunted in their
> > growth, and are a long while arriving at maturity", and this
he ascribes
> > to poor food, a "want of either proper or of sufficient
nourishment".
> 
....
> 
> > It follows that if one takes preventive and moral restraint into account
> > when raising a family, they will be better off and fitter. The Poor Laws
> > "tend to depress the general condition of the poor in ... two ways.
> > Their first obvious tendency is to increase population without
> > increasing the food for its support. ... Secondly, the quantity of
> > provisions consumed in workhouses upon a part of the society that cannot
> > in general be considered as the most valuable part diminishes the shares
> > that would otherwise belong to more industrious and more worthy
> > members..." [p97 in the Penguin edition]
> > 
> > To put it in modern terms, the poor relief laws will increase the
> > population beyond the carrying capacity of the environment, and secondly
> > will cause a Tragedy of the Commons.
> > > 
> [snip]
> I still don't quite see that you have supported your claim that 
> > > >Malthus thought that economic selection would
> > > >generate fitter individuals.

Jim, I mention fitness (in the non-evolutionary sense, but rather one of
being as healthy as one can be and suited for one's environment) several
times above. Malthus thinks that economic selection will generate fitter
individuals. But note that the term "fitness" here in the population
genetics sense is post-Fisher. Prior to that, it means what it means
above.
> 
> The only dynamic that I can see in this that might generate fitter
> individuals would be:
> 1. Culling of the unfit ("economic selection"?)
> 2. Survival of the fit offspring of the foresightful.
> 3. Cultural inheritance of the habit of foresight.
> I can see this dynamic possibly increasing population fitness, and
> population foresight, if not shortcircuited by "bad ideas" such as the
> poor laws.  (That is, I can see it if I close my eyes to the likelyhood
> that the culling will not be precise, nor will the economic hardship
> be so perfectly tuned that the foresightful will never have unfit
> offspring).
> 
> My question is whether Malthus actually closed the causal cycle in this
> way, from one generation to the next, and predicted a virtuous cycle of
> increasing fitness and foresight?  If he did, it is fairly amazing
> that Darwin was the first reader of Malthus to think of the idea of
> substituting some other kind of inheritance for cultural inheritance in
> this dynamic.

I think you are conflating the two meanings of "fit" here - I took care
to be precise:


> John Edser  wrote:
> > Where Malthus could only see death and destruction
> 
> This is also false. Malthus thought that economic selection would
> generate fitter individuals (in the pre-Fisherian sense of "fit").

-- 
John Wilkins
john_SPAM{at}wilkins.id.au   http://www.wilkins.id.au
"Men mark it when they hit, but do not mark it when they miss" 
                                               - Francis Bacon
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