April 12, 2010
Bradford Wilcox PhD
University of Virginia
Sociology Department
545 Cabell Hall
P.O. Box 400766
Charlottesville, VA 22904
434 924-0588
E-mail wbw7q
Dear Dr. Wilcox:
I appreciated your contribution to the documentary “Demographic Winter.” You pointed out that children from broken homes have problems. It seems hard to imagine much worse, but the point of the documentary is the decline in fertility, and that is very threatening. Troubled children are better than no children at all. Of course it is necessary to attack both problems. Oddly they sort of go hand in hand.
The biological fact is as obscure as it is profound. In order to have sufficient fertility for long term survival, people must marry kin, apparently out to about sixth cousins. After roughly that distance of kinship, fertility declines below replacement. And it gets worse. The effect accumulates over generations. I have pulled together what evidence I can at nobabies.net with the most recent summary being the March 25, 2010 entry.
Once that point is taken to heart, then it is obvious that marriage is not a matter of whim. At least if one cares about ones children it is not a matter of whim. There are in fact very few people among whom one can rationally choose a mate. Doing differently harms ones own children. The problem is that this phenomenon is little known. Were it known then those who cared about children would choose kin if they possibly could as mates. That would put the children at the very center of the marriage, where they deserve to be in the first place. And given the importance of choosing the right mate the first time, broken homes should be very rare.
Those who do not choose with care will die out. Sorry. That is just immutable biological fact.
But those who do not know, and right now that includes just about everybody, are in the same predicament as those who do not care.
Look through my evidence and please let me know what you think and what you think might be done.
Sincerely,
M. Linton Herbert MD
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