Blute Blog

There is a contradiction in common assumptions about demographic values. Consider the three topics in Table 1, density-dependence relative to resources in row 1, the human demographic transition in row 2, and conventional sex roles in row 3. With respect to density-dependence, we typically view low density-dependence relative to resources i.e. plentiful resources as good conditions and high density relative to resources i.e. scarce resources as bad conditions. But with respect to the human demographic transition, we typically view before the transition (e.g. foraging or hunting and gathering societies) as bad conditions and after (eventually modern industrial societies) as good conditions. With respect to conventional sex differences i.e. with males producing more numerous potential offspring at low cost per capita (microgametes or sperm), and females producing fewer potential offspring at high cost per capita (macrogametes or eggs), we consider them as neither good nor bad, just different. Yet despite these intuitively different evaluations in each row, in fact all three in the same column are empirically the same – high fertility and mortality in situation 1 and low fertility and mortality in situation 2. So much for our intuitive evaluations!

What is wrong with those evaluations in each case? With respect to density-dependence, low and high density relative to resources are neither good nor bad, just different conditions in which selection favours different strategies – reproductively for example, producing offspring versus re-producing. The latter in a patchy environment serves the function of producing offspring which are capable of seeking out plentiful resources by means of the 3M’s – maintenance, motility and/or mutability and hence of producing grand-offspring (1, 2). With respect to the human demographic transition, foraging societies may not have been so bad after all, people there had lots of contact with nature, and industrial societies may not be so great. There one often must be patient and wait, move, or innovate. With respect to common basic sex differences, we commonly do recognize that they are neither good nor bad, just different, which is how we would view all three cases were we consistent.

There is a lesson here provided by Max Weber, the great nineteenth-century sociologist in two famous essays – one on “science as a vocation” and the other on “politics as a vocation” (3). Weber argued that science cannot answer questions of value. Slogans such as “value free science” are misleading however, because while science itself cannot answer questions of value, it can be brought to bear on them. Given an end, science may be able to tell us how to achieve it. Given a means, it may be able to tell us what its consequences are likely to be. And given two ends or two means, it may be able to tell us whether they are compatible. But science cannot, in and of itself, tell us what we should value.

1 Blute, M (2016). Density-dependent selection revisited: mechanisms linking explanantia and explananda. Biological Theory 11(2), 113-121.

2 Blute, M (2023). Costs as a key but too often neglected component of evolutionary theory. Biological Theory 18(2), 77-80.

3 Gerth, H. H., & Wright Mills, C. eds. (1958). From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology. Oxford University Press, Oxford.