Mass extinction and the medical profession

It is an interesting notion that a minor cultural change in the medical profession ‘more humility and greater human kinship’ ¹ will save the planet from the catastrophe of the human species.

The mass extinction of which you speak is surely a biological phenomenon in that it will be one of the consequences of an uncontrolled population spike in the human population. The human species undergoes no significant natural predation. In such a model the population will be controlled by biological responses such as a drop in fertility rates, by the diseases and behavioural changes caused by over-crowding and by reduced access to food, water, shelter and other necessary resources. Like any other animal population, size is dependent on longevity and the differential between death rate and birth rate. Unfortunately for both our own species and the majority of other highly evolved species on earth today our ability to develop technology will prolong our struggle with the inevitable. In the course of this struggle, we will probably devastate the earth making it uninhabitable through climate change, habitat change and the consequences of armed conflict.

The irony is that the medical profession, in its remarkable efforts to preserve life, will be making the long-term outlook worse both by encouraging population growth and by a reduction in the stressors driving evolution. Perhaps the cultural change the profession needs is a greater emphasis on contraception.