Re:The global fertility rate is falling
by bondarchuk on Wednesday July 15, 2020 @06:34AM
(#23843375)
Contraception is part of the environment in which natural selection occurs, in that sense it "knows" about it. Concretely, if there is a set of genes that makes it more likely to have children in spite of contraception, that can be selected for.
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No. You do not pass e.g. ability to read via genetic code. So you do not pass knowledge about the contraception (or lack of it) either.
If reading is advantageous to select for, you'll find that natural selection will prefer whichever genes facilitate reading ability
There are a lot of subtle hereditary hints. This isn't to say a person can't consciously counteract those hints, but that in the long run those hints will have an impact on behavior which feeds back into selection
It's possible to inherit traits which will hint one to choose not to use contraception
This is the whole nature vs nurture debate. Ultimately it's both