We are talking about humans; since changes can only occur at one alteration per human generation, I feel safe in calling that “slow”.
Another part of the answer is that if a certain sector of the population is not reproducing itself because of a birth rate below replacement, another sector will quite likely take up the slack, and this is perfectly sound Darwinism in operation. As a concerned Caucasian in a traditionally white country, I might choose to worry myself over the low birth rate among my fellow whites and the higher rate among non-white immigrants, but that’s my look-out. Evolution doesn’t care two hoots.
Population hysteria up or down is what originally made me wary of statistics. Lies, damned lies, and statistics, as it were.
Just a decade ago we were hearing about over-population and how the world was going to run out of space/resources. Game over, man.
Now we’re arguing about how we’re going to survive because of depopulation. Especially small countries like the Czech Republic which is going to have a HARD time supporting an ageing population with a negative growth rate. But these are political boundaries, not species ones.
And, I do believe that Darwin said “survival of the fit” not “fittest” which does subtley change the meaning. Instead of it meaning the best survive, it means the merely OK and above survive. Subtle, but important.
Reminds me of the joke “What do you call a medical student that graduates with a C average?”
Doctor.
-Tcat
These are totally separate issues. The OP mentioned that this population aging and decline is happening only in “various parts of the world” (the West). On the whole, the Earth’s population is growing fast, and it’s expected to peak at 10 or 11 billion in the middle of this century, last I heard. That bulk of that population growth will take place in Africa and in Third World countries that are already having problems, and it’ll probably be a major strain on resources.
Exactly. And this is a “tragedy of the commons” issue, of a sort.
It’s an advantage for a particular couple in first-world cultures to have only one or two children, because raising and educating children by the standards of your culture is expensive. But a low birthrate is disadvantageous to the long-term preservation of the culture.
This, of course, ignores such factors as immigrants from cultures with higher birth rates assimilating into the culture with the low birth rate. Cultures with low birth rates for this reason tend to be attractive to others, because they have a high standard of living. Of course, once these immigrants do assimilate, their birth rate will likely go down too, and then another group will assimilate in, and so on and so forth. If the culture is too inflexible on the issue of who “their kind” is, though, this won’t work, and the culture will be in trouble. There might also be trouble if a culture is too inflexible toward the inevitable cultural changes that an influx of immigrants will bring with it.
The real crunch on resources will come as more of those 11 billion start to aspire to the life-styles seen in developed countries. Once China, India, and Brazil begin consuming energy and other resources at something near the rate seen in the US and Europe - and they are heading in that direction - the strain will be far greater than if they maintained their current relatively low rate.
Yes, the old “God will provide” and “That’s what they were saying back in 1930” responses to the overpopulation worry will really be put to the test when India, China, Brazil consume at the same rate per capita as does the US.
Come now. I am perfectly sure that India, China and Brazil are capable of developing new, technologically advanced methods of starving to meet future needs.
The crunch will become doubly so as the average age of world population is becoming increasingly older - even in those countries that still have relatively high population growth rates. Not only will those countries be competing with the rest of the developed world for resources, they will in turn need to allocate more of their own scarce resources to support a progressively older population.
Hence the likely scenario that a good chunk of the underdeveloped world will become old before they become rich.
Possibly. On the other hand plain vanilla starvation is one of the methods that God provides to handle overpopulation. 
That peak was not what was being said in the early 90’s…it was all up, up, up and over. It was mentioned in the news, it was quoted on TV, heck, read most Sci-Fi books written in that period and they all mention being forced off Earth when the population hit 75 billion… :rolleyes:
And now we are arguing about the resources and over-population in “various parts.” This is projected to be bad in many ways. But, owing to the fact that everyone and their dog have projected the end of the world since the beginning, I have to remain skeptical. I think I agree with eponymous that people will get old before becoming rich. The resources will work themselves out. The governments will rise to some level of competence and mankind will probably shuffle along like it has been. I’d like to see less poverty, a greater spread of resources and all that, but I don’t think I will. What I do think we will see is a loosening of borders and a greater influx of immigrants as countries bring in the younger, cheaper labor to maintain their aging populace.
Thus the resources will remain the same in their locales, but the users will spread out more and more and the world will balance out that way. Less transported grain from the USA to Ghana, more Ghanese(sp?) to the mid-west to harvest the grain.
An interesting article I read a few months back spoke of how certain areas in Germany were seeing a wildlife boom because more people were moving to the cities. Another article was on how few of us techno-geeks actually work from home. Remember all the Internet promises of having the house in the countryside while you Telecommuted to work? It hasn’t happened to the scale imagined and we have the tech to do it. Why not? Because, well, for most of us, being surrounded by others is better than being alone.
It is interesting to think that our cities could grow to these huge organisms and the surrounding areas would revert to their previous wildlife habitats. Concentrating the populace (and pollution, etc) and enjoying the ‘natural’ world as it grows around us. In a scenario like this we could see certain resources increase (biomass - aka wood - for energy, and food both harvested and hunted) and thus be better able to handle a population rise. If people become ‘happy’ in a world of hi-rise apartments with weekend trips to the surrounding area, then we could more readily support them.
I just think it is interesting that a population doubling could actually force a planetary balance. The spread of man has caused much of our problems, but what happens when we’re done spreading?
-Tcat
What does Darwin have to do with anything?
Look, just because it might be in the best interests of humanity as a whole for women to have more children, it doesn’t follow that it’s in any given woman’s interest. And when a woman is deciding whether or not to have a child, her nation’s current population needs aren’t likely to enter into her thinking.
To use a flawed analogy, the NFL has a very, very strong interest in putting a team in Los Angeles… but no individual team has much interest in going there, because their chances of getting a sweetheart deal and a new, luxurious stadium paid for with taxpayer dollars are much greater elsewhere.
So, people looking at the big picture may see a need for an NFL team to move to LA, or for women to start having kids… but most people only look at their own little pictures.
Excessive picture-looking-at may make having kids seem less important. 
The OP exhibits a fundamental misunderstanding about Darwinian evolution. The type of “response” to environmental changes is Lamarckian, not Darwinian.
Evolution is not a force; it exerts no impact upon the development of species. It’s just a way to describe the way that things in nature happen to fall into place over time. In Lamarckian evolution, organisms respond to environmental changes by “proactively” adapting to exploit them. That’s not how it works though.