# Composers who didn't have children



## 1996D (Dec 18, 2018)

It seems a lot of composers had either no children or significantly less than was the norm in their eras. At the top of my head, Beethoven, Brahms, Tchaikovsky, Schubert, and Chopin had none.

I was thinking about natural selection and how with time we should become a more intelligent species, yet how is that so, if so many of the talented have no children? Is it possible that we're going down instead of upwards? 

It would explain why contemporary music is such crap.


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## mbhaub (Dec 2, 2016)

There are a lot of intelligent, talented people today who don't have children. The only way to really make the species more intelligent through breeding brings up an old terror: eugenics.

Then, there are plenty of examples of composers who came from a family where music was not important or even supported. They succeeded despite their situation. A lot of people like to remind me that people are smarter today than ever. I do not believe it at all. I do think that mentally we're on the decline. Yes, maybe more people today are literate than ever, and my definition of being intelligent is likely skewed. It takes a certain amount of intelligence to listen to and appreciate complex, classical music. People gravitate to cheap, easy, pop music because it doesn't challenge them - they don't want to spend brain power on it. The same goes for movies, books, TV, newspapers. In the US we have a population totally addicted to sports, porn and violence - intellectual pursuits are taken up by a small minority, sorry to say. This is one of my favorite topics to discuss with anyone, anywhere, anytime. Two highly recommended books: The Twilight of American Culture (Morris Berman) and Out of the Ashes (Anthony Esolen). very insightful and very, very depressing.

Then there's Bach...what a stud!


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## Larkenfield (Jun 5, 2017)

Definitely not Robert and Clara Schumann with eight! It’s amazing they did so much creatively while having such a large family.


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## Xisten267 (Sep 2, 2018)

mbhaub said:


> There are a lot of intelligent, talented people today who don't have children. *The only way to really make the species more intelligent through breeding brings up an old terror: eugenics*.
> 
> Then, there are plenty of examples of composers who came from a family where music was not important or even supported. They succeeded despite their situation. A lot of people like to remind me that people are smarter today than ever. I do not believe it at all. I do think that mentally we're on the decline. Yes, maybe more people today are literate than ever, and my definition of being intelligent is likely skewed. It takes a certain amount of intelligence to listen to and appreciate complex, classical music. People gravitate to cheap, easy, pop music because it doesn't challenge them - they don't want to spend brain power on it. The same goes for movies, books, TV, newspapers. In the US we have a population totally addicted to sports, porn and violence - intellectual pursuits are taken up by a small minority, sorry to say. This is one of my favorite topics to discuss with anyone, anywhere, anytime. Two highly recommended books: The Twilight of American Culture (Morris Berman) and Out of the Ashes (Anthony Esolen). very insightful and very, very depressing.
> 
> Then there's Bach...what a stud!


There's another way, actually: genetic manipulation. With the right technology, this would actually be doable I think.


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## LezLee (Feb 21, 2014)

Children severely impinge on the freedom to do what you want as they are omnipresent and have to be considered in every area of your life.
Picture the scene - you’ve just reached a critical point in your latest concerto and little Jimmy has a nightmare. Next day you have to walk Anna to school in the snow, takes you an hour. You need to get a manuscript to the printers’ before the weekend but one of the kids has scribbled all over it. Etc.,etc, etc,. Is it any wonder many composers didn’t procreate?
What has intelligence got to do with anything? Isn’t music an innate talent rather than an intellectual pursuit?

3 of Dvorák’s 9 children died, none of the remaining 6 became composers.


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## 1996D (Dec 18, 2018)

mbhaub said:


> There are a lot of intelligent, talented people today who don't have children. The only way to really make the species more intelligent through breeding brings up an old terror: eugenics.
> 
> Then, there are plenty of examples of composers who came from a family where music was not important or even supported. They succeeded despite their situation. A lot of people like to remind me that people are smarter today than ever. I do not believe it at all. I do think that mentally we're on the decline. Yes, maybe more people today are literate than ever, and my definition of being intelligent is likely skewed. It takes a certain amount of intelligence to listen to and appreciate complex, classical music. People gravitate to cheap, easy, pop music because it doesn't challenge them - they don't want to spend brain power on it. The same goes for movies, books, TV, newspapers. In the US we have a population totally addicted to sports, porn and violence - intellectual pursuits are taken up by a small minority, sorry to say. This is one of my favorite topics to discuss with anyone, anywhere, anytime. Two highly recommended books: The Twilight of American Culture (Morris Berman) and Out of the Ashes (Anthony Esolen). very insightful and very, very depressing.
> 
> Then there's Bach...what a stud!


I'll read the books, thanks. What do you think of Charles Murray? His book Coming Apart has proven to have great foresight.


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## CnC Bartok (Jun 5, 2017)

mbhaub said:


> Then there's Bach...what a stud!


Bach's organ works...sorry, just had to say it...!

Martinů had no children I am aware of, well not with Charlotte. Contrast with Dvorak there!


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## Art Rock (Nov 28, 2009)

Larkenfield said:


> Definitely not Robert and Clara Schumann with eight! It's amazing they did so much creatively while having such a large family.


And yet, although both parents were highly musical and good composers, none of these eight made any known contribution to music afaik. Genetics is not that straightforward.


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## Malx (Jun 18, 2017)

CnC Bartok said:


> Bach's organ works...sorry, just had to say it...!
> 
> Martinů had no children I am aware of, well not with Charlotte. Contrast with Dvorak there!


Probably giving away my lack of breeding - but just had to chuckle!


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

mbhaub said:


> There are a lot of intelligent, talented people today who don't have children. *The only way to really make the species more intelligent through breeding brings up an old terror: eugenics.*
> 
> Then, there are plenty of examples of composers who came from a family where music was not important or even supported. They succeeded despite their situation. A lot of people like to remind me that people are smarter today than ever. I do not believe it at all. I do think that mentally we're on the decline. Yes, maybe more people today are literate than ever, and my definition of being intelligent is likely skewed. It takes a certain amount of intelligence to listen to and appreciate complex, classical music. People gravitate to cheap, easy, pop music because it doesn't challenge them - they don't want to spend brain power on it. The same goes for movies, books, TV, newspapers. In the US we have a population totally addicted to sports, porn and violence - intellectual pursuits are taken up by a small minority, sorry to say. This is one of my favorite topics to discuss with anyone, anywhere, anytime. Two highly recommended books: The Twilight of American Culture (Morris Berman) and Out of the Ashes (Anthony Esolen). very insightful and very, very depressing.
> 
> Then there's Bach...what a stud!


The problem I have in having been to university and met some so-called 'intelligentsia' is that many of them were pretty hopeless when it came to things like common sense and good choices. Just take many of the great composers, for example. Intelligence is not just about being talented.


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## LezLee (Feb 21, 2014)

CnC Bartok said:


> Bach's organ works...!


... but without the stops.

Glad we've got that one out of the way :lol:


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## Iota (Jun 20, 2018)

1996D said:


> we should become a more intelligent species


An aspiration that would seem very distant, alas, judging by comments such as the following:



1996D said:


> contemporary music is such crap.


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## brahms4 (May 8, 2017)

Berg,Handel,Vivaldi,Ravel,Copland,Barber,Vaughan Williams,Britten,Respighi,and Bruckner didn`t have any children.


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## Open Book (Aug 14, 2018)

Larkenfield said:


> Definitely not Robert and Clara Schumann with eight! It's amazing they did so much creatively while having such a large family.


From Swafford's biography of Brahms I believe the Schumanns' children were placed in the equivalent of boarding schools while Clara toured around the continent supporting them with her concerts. Robert died while some were still minors. Several of them turned out messed up. They may have inherited their father's mental illness. Not everyone believes contagious disease was the cause of it but maybe genetics.

In olden days most women did not tour around Europe and would have stayed home with the children. So you might think a family may not have been a burden on a composer. Most of these childless composers never married, composing is probably too all-consuming. We also have to consider that some of them were gay.


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## Open Book (Aug 14, 2018)

LezLee said:


> Children severely impinge on the freedom to do what you want as they are omnipresent and have to be considered in every area of your life.
> Picture the scene - you've just reached a critical point in your latest concerto and little Jimmy has a nightmare. Next day you have to walk Anna to school in the snow, takes you an hour. You need to get a manuscript to the printers' before the weekend but one of the kids has scribbled all over it. Etc.,etc, etc,. Is it any wonder many composers didn't procreate?
> What has intelligence got to do with anything? Isn't music an innate talent rather than an intellectual pursuit?
> 
> 3 of Dvorák's 9 children died, none of the remaining 6 became composers.


With Mozart, out of six children, two sons survived to adulthood. Neither married or had children. One became a composer but is almost unknown and wrote few works. Imagine the expectations of being the son of Wolfgang Mozart.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozart_family


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## SONNET CLV (May 31, 2014)

1996D said:


> It seems a lot of composers had either no children or significantly less than was the norm in their eras. At the top of my head, Beethoven, Brahms, Tchaikovsky, Schubert, and Chopin had none.


I fail to see any scientific/statistical/demographical/analytical evidence for such a statement. Rather, I would assume that composers fall into a statistical tie (concerning progeny) with persons of the general population or other occupations. One can certainly name composers who had no children, and ones who had many. Little is proven by such a statement one way or the other except that of noting that some composers have no children and others have many, and still others fall in between to have had one, two, few, more than a few, or a bit short of many.



1996D said:


> I was thinking about natural selection and how with time we should become a more intelligent species, yet how is that so, if so many of the talented have no children? Is it possible that we're going down instead of upwards?


Perhaps you'd be better off reading Darwin and letting it go at that. Again, where is the evidence that "so many of the talented have no children"? Too much here at issue. For instance, what does it mean to be talented? I am glad I do not have to pursue this proposition in a formal debate; I do not generally appreciate making a fool of myself.



1996D said:


> It would explain why contemporary music is such crap.


_Nothing_ in this post explains _anything _at all about contemporary music. I'll leave it at that.


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## Clouds Weep Snowflakes (Feb 24, 2019)

Beethoven dies without issue, didn't he?


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## LezLee (Feb 21, 2014)

brahms4 said:


> Berg,Handel,Vivaldi,Ravel,Copland,Barber,Vaughan Williams,Britten,Respighi,and Bruckner didn`t have any children.


Bruckner, Vivaldi and Ravel never married. Barber, Britten and Copland were gay.


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## brahms4 (May 8, 2017)

LezLee said:


> Bruckner, Vivaldi and Ravel never married. Barber, Britten and Copland were gay.


They were still COMPOSERS WHO DIDN`T HAVE CHILDREN.Try to stay focused.


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## LezLee (Feb 21, 2014)

brahms4 said:


> They were still COMPOSERS WHO DIDN`T HAVE CHILDREN.Try to stay focused.


Where did I contradict that statement? I'm merely pointing out why. Perhaps you could try to be polite?


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## Jacck (Dec 24, 2017)

many composers (as well as many brilliant scientists) might have suffered from Asperger's syndrom. I do not know if it is true or not, but I read that Mozart, Beethoven, Bartok, Martinů, Newton, Einstein any many others had an Asperger syndrome. I only report what I read on the web. I am not sufficiently versed in the biography of any composers, so it is hard to tell if Beethoven had an Asperger syndrom or if he was just an arrogant mean *******


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## Bulldog (Nov 21, 2013)

I don't believe there is any correlation between having children and composing music, and no evidence of correlation has yet to be presented in this thread.


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## Open Book (Aug 14, 2018)

1996D said:


> It seems a lot of composers had either no children or significantly less than was the norm in their eras. At the top of my head, Beethoven, Brahms, Tchaikovsky, Schubert, and Chopin had none.
> 
> I was thinking about natural selection and how with time we should become a more intelligent species, yet how is that so, if so many of the talented have no children? Is it possible that we're going down instead of upwards?
> 
> It would explain why contemporary music is such crap.


I think talent on a very high level is so freakish that it isn't directly inheritable. Maybe it requires a random natural occurrence like cosmic rays causing certain genetic mutations in the womb. If so, the likelihood that very talented people have few children isn't really dumbing down the human race.


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## fliege (Nov 7, 2017)

1996D said:


> I was thinking about natural selection and how with time we should become a more intelligent species, yet how is that so, if so many of the talented have no children? Is it possible that we're going down instead of upwards?


Why should we continue to become a more intelligent species? What pressure is driving natural selection to achieve this? I don't see one. What evidence is there that "so many of the talented have no children"? From what I can see, most people (talented or otherwise) end up having children.

A species regressing in some way ("going down", as you put it) is not the correct way to think about evolution. Evolution isn't about reaching perfection or falling away from it; it's about adapting to the environment through the mechanism of natural selection. The fitness of a species may decrease due to environmental change, which could drive evolution through natural selection. Alternatively, a species may have attributes gradually become vestigial if they become irrelevant to survival. Neither scenario is "down" or "up". They are just changes driven by the environment.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

fliege said:


> Why should we continue to become a more intelligent species? What pressure is driving natural selection to achieve this?


It's looking like our Darwinian advantage from higher intelligence will result in our own extinction -- not through losing the evolutionary struggle but by winning it!  No more Chicken McNuggets when we're the only species left...


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## 1996D (Dec 18, 2018)

fliege said:


> They are just changes driven by the environment.


Yes, but we influence that environment through culture, and that becomes the mechanism for natural selection, rather than environmental pressures which we have managed to control as to make our lives extremely physically comfortable for some time now.

It is then societal pressures that act as natural selection through our own human ecosystem. The trends are set and different attributes are valued by women according to what society values in man. If there are masses of stupid people with low attention spans and a class of rulers making the laws, it's because over time we have made it so--the evolutionary spirit of the species.

In cities the environmental is human made, and we have been in them for a long time now. What I'm trying to say is that I don't think society values composers or artists for that matter: that can only mean that with time we will see less of them or a drastic reduction in quality, which we are indeed seeing.

Furthermore, many great composers and artists of the past, as well as scientists, had a great sense of the divine and of moral obligation to give their talents to society. Now, as godless societies abound, all the talent goes to creating wealth and the pursuit of hedonism.

If we are in democracy as Plato describes it, it will take a tyrant to get us out of cultural degeneration.


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## Open Book (Aug 14, 2018)

Bulldog said:


> I don't believe there is any correlation between having children and composing music, and no evidence of correlation has yet to be presented in this thread.


Hasn't there been anecdotal evidence? Several composers from the very greatest were enumerated. A large proportion of the very greatest had no children. It is unlikely that fertility rates were that low among people in general in those times before birth control.


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## Bulldog (Nov 21, 2013)

Open Book said:


> Hasn't there been anecdotal evidence? Several composers from the very greatest were enumerated. A large proportion of the very greatest had no children. It is unlikely that fertility rates were that low among people in general in those times before birth control.


You go from one questionable assumption to additional ones. Where are your statistics, and what are your motivations?


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## Xisten267 (Sep 2, 2018)

1996D said:


> It seems a lot of composers had either no children or significantly less than was the norm in their eras. At the top of my head, *Beethoven*, Brahms, Tchaikovsky, Schubert, and Chopin had none.


Actually, Beethoven may have had a daughter, named Minona, which died aged 83 and had no children:

https://www.classicfm.com/composers/beethoven/guides/beethoven-josephine-brunsvik/


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## Bulldog (Nov 21, 2013)

1996D said:


> Furthermore, many great composers and artists of the past, as well as scientists, had a great sense of the divine and of moral obligation to give their talents to society.


I almost choked on my drink when I read the above.


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## 1996D (Dec 18, 2018)

It's funny now, but even a strongly mathematically minded scientist like Newton, which I consider to be one of if not the smartest man in history, had a strong sense of the divine.


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## Bulldog (Nov 21, 2013)

1996D said:


> It's funny now, but even a strongly mathematically minded scientist like Newton, which I consider to be one of if not the smartest man in history, had a strong sense of the divine.


I don't know what you mean by "strong sense of the divine". Could you elaborate?


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

1996D said:


> I was thinking about natural selection and how with time we should become a more intelligent species, yet how is that so, if so many of the talented have no children? Is it possible that we're going down instead of upwards?


Anything is possible. And you apper to be our new shining example. Congratulations!


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## 1996D (Dec 18, 2018)

Bulldog said:


> I don't know what you mean by "strong sense of the divine". Could you elaborate?


Seeing God as masterful creator; knowing your place from a wider perspective; giving your talents for good alone, without seeking idolatry. Marcus Aurelius put it perfectly:

"Beautiful things of any kind are beautiful in themselves and sufficient to themselves. Praise is extraneous. The object of praise remains what it was-no better and no worse. This applies, I think, even to "beautiful" things in ordinary life-physical objects, artworks. Does anything genuinely beautiful need supplementing? No more than justice does-or truth, or kindness, or humility. Are any of those improved by being praised? Or damaged by contempt? Is an emerald suddenly flawed if no one admires
it? Or gold, or ivory, or purple? Lyres? Knives? Flowers? Bushes?"

Brahms was an atheist, but followed the above perfectly; how he resisted his will to power, I don't know. Most who do however, believe the world to be ultimately in God's control, and that gives them complete artistic freedom from seeking power in the world.

Because the life of an artist or scientist is a life without power, from men that have the will and ability to hold it. Hitler is the most famous example of a man that abandoned art for power, and he was not a great artist. Who knows what leaders great artists of the past would have made were they not focused on their art.

The fundamental truth is that a great man is a great man - eclectic - and he can use his talents for...


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## Bulldog (Nov 21, 2013)

1996D said:


> Seeing God as masterful creator;


Right, I thought you would have God as the foundation of your premise. Of course that doesn't work at all if there is no god.


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## 1996D (Dec 18, 2018)

Bulldog said:


> Of course that doesn't work at all if there is no god.


Whether God exists or not doesn't matter, what matters is what the artist believes. If he sees the world as fundamentally good, then he will want to build on it instead of seeking hedonism. If there is no God then it becomes much harder to see the world as worthy of his talents, life, and devotion.


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## Bulldog (Nov 21, 2013)

1996D said:


> Whether God exists or not doesn't matter, what matters is what the artist believes. If he sees the world as fundamentally good, then he will want to build on it instead of seeking hedonism.


That sounds like idealistic fantasy. Artists are not all of one type; each is a unique individual who may or may not share your views.


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

1996D said:


> Whether God exists or not doesn't matter, what matters is what the artist believes. If he sees the world as fundamentally good, then he will want to build on it instead of seeking hedonism. *If there is no God then it becomes much harder to see the world as worthy of his talents, life, and devotion.*


Much harder for whom? For you maybe.

Worthy of talents and devotion? Maybe composers just want to get paid so they can write more music? That's quite a worthy end right there.


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## fluteman (Dec 7, 2015)

brahms4 said:


> Berg,Handel,Vivaldi,Ravel,Copland,Barber,Vaughan Williams,Britten,Respighi,and Bruckner didn`t have any children.


Several of those composers were homosexual, and the lack of children isn't surprising. But not so Vaughan Williams, good-looking as a young man and allegedly a bit of a ladies' man. Alas, his first wife, Adeline Fisher, a cousin of Virginia Woolf, was rather frail and sickly for much of their marriage, though she lived to the age of 80. In his later years he had a young mistress named Ursula Wood who lived in the home (his wife must have agreed with the arrangement as Ursula helped care for her). Vaughan Williams married Ursula soon after Adeline's death. A rather poignant story.


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## SONNET CLV (May 31, 2014)

Bulldog said:


> I don't know what you mean by "strong sense of the divine". Could you elaborate?


Does this help give you the "Sense"?


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## elgar's ghost (Aug 8, 2010)

The assumed lack of offspring isn't the issue (no pun intended) for me, what I do find surprising is the amount of bloodlines from certain families which appear to have died out altogether on the male side, thus taking the famous name with them - unless I'm wrong there are no more descendants bearing the name of Haydn, or Mozart, or Handel, or Beethoven, or Brahms, or Delius, or Elgar, even though there may be descendants on the distaff side with different surnames. Of course, I'd be happy to hear if any of the above names are actually still with us.


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

Allerius said:


> There's another way, actually: genetic manipulation. With the right technology, this would actually be doable I think.


If we wanted geniuses we would not know what to aim for or what to value. We could aim for intelligence and perhaps even a particular type of intelligence. We could aim for stability and constructive personality. But geniuses?


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

1996D said:


> It's funny now, but even a strongly mathematically minded scientist like Newton, which I consider to be one of if not the smartest man in history, had a strong sense of the divine.


Newton was of questionable sanity. And his sense of the divine probably did more to pull him towards insanity than towards his mathematical genius.


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

1996D said:


> I was thinking about natural selection and how with time we should become a more intelligent species, yet how is that so, if so many of the talented have no children? Is it possible that we're going down instead of upwards?
> 
> It would explain why contemporary music is such crap.


The obvious response is that "natural selection" (whatever that means for the very short period of time that our species has existed) seems not to have equipped you with the gift of being able to understand and enjoy contemporary music. You miss a lot. Perhaps, if Beethoven, Brahms, Tchaikovsky, Schubert and Chopin had had more children, you would be better equipped to enjoy it.

But, more seriously, there are a great number of contemporary and relatively great contemporary composers with a strong sense of the divine (just as there were many in the past who did not) - Messiaen may be the most spiritual composer there ever was. MacMillan - not a composer I particularly warm to but he has quite a following (you might join them as his music is quite tonal) - is very driven by his Christian faith. There are many more.


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

1996D said:


> I was thinking about natural selection and how with time we should become a more intelligent species, yet how is that so, if so many of the talented have no children? Is it possible that we're going down instead of upwards?
> 
> It would explain why contemporary music is such crap.


the first thing I can think of is that natural selection is about being fit much more than being intelligent.


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

^^^ Yes, fit to breed successfully more than other members of the species.


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## LezLee (Feb 21, 2014)

elgars ghost said:


> The assumed lack of offspring isn't the issue (no pun intended) for me, what I do find surprising is the amount of bloodlines from certain families which appear to have died out altogether on the male side, thus taking the famous name with them - unless I'm wrong there are no more descendants bearing the name of Haydn, or Mozart, or Handel, or Beethoven, or Brahms, or Delius, or Elgar, even though there may be descendants on the distaff side with different surnames. Of course, I'd be happy to hear if any of the above names are actually still with us.


Avril Elgar (born 1932), British actress
Dean Elgar (born 1987), South African cricketer
Rebecca Elgar, English children's book illustrator and writer

Several more on Wiki, now dead but might well have living descendants.

Caryl Brahms (of Brahms & Simon) now dead but might be descendants.

Friedrich Christian Delius (born 1943), German writer
Fritz Delius (1890-1966), German actor
Ernst von Delius (1912-1937), German racing car driver
Nicolaus Delius (1813-1888), German philologist
Tobias Delius (born 1964), English jazz musician


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## elgar's ghost (Aug 8, 2010)

LezLee said:


> Avril Elgar (born 1932), British actress
> Dean Elgar (born 1987), South African cricketer
> Rebecca Elgar, English children's book illustrator and writer
> 
> ...


And these Elgars are actually related to Edward, LL?


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## Boychev (Jul 21, 2014)

The social-darwinist assumptions of a few of the posters in this thread is disgusting and they should be ashamed of themselves. Eugenics, aside from being inhumane and perverse, does not and cannot make for a more intelligent and cultured population. The notion that great composers not "breeding" (speaking about Beethoven as if he were an animal!) is a problem that somehow leads to a decline in music represents a basic misunderstanding not only of how talent is "inherited" (obviously the children of musicians would be likely to become musicians themselves, but that's not a matter of magical music genes, it's a matter of becoming familiar with music at a very early age when the mind is extremely receptive and malleable, e. g. look at how people from musical families are far more likely to develop perfect pitch than people from other backgrounds), but also ignorance of the fact that very few of the great composers in history have been children of other great composers (there are the Bachs and, what... Mozart? Does Leopopld count as notable in any way other than pushing his son from a very, very early age to train in music?). It's also insulting, really. Oh, Beethoven poured his heart and soul in his music but it really just boils down to him being of superior breeding. Nevermind the complete devotion and passion for music, he was just naturally gifted.

To answer the question in the OP: someone who wants to devote their entire life to making music might not want to, care, or be able to have a family because having family requires that you make certain sacrifices like, say, not devoting your entire life to making music. More aspirations and ambitions = less time and energy for being a good husband/father/wife/mother, or to seek out someone to start a family with in the first place. Not saying that some people can't be both, but common sense should be sufficient to understand why it could present problems. Beethoven might have been a musical genius but that wouldn't automatically make him a more attractive partner because being a musical genius is not constitutive of being a good partner, or a good human being really.


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## LezLee (Feb 21, 2014)

Excellent post, Boychef.


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## fluteman (Dec 7, 2015)

Boychev said:


> The social-darwinist assumptions of a few of the posters in this thread is disgusting and they should be ashamed of themselves. Eugenics, aside from being inhumane and perverse, does not and cannot make for a more intelligent and cultured population. The notion that great composers not "breeding" (speaking about Beethoven as if he were an animal!) is a problem that somehow leads to a decline in music represents a basic misunderstanding not only of how talent is "inherited" (obviously the children of musicians would be likely to become musicians themselves, but that's not a matter of magical music genes, it's a matter of becoming familiar with music at a very early age when the mind is extremely receptive and malleable, e. g. look at how people from musical families are far more likely to develop perfect pitch than people from other backgrounds), but also ignorance of the fact that very few of the great composers in history have been children of other great composers (there are the Bachs and, what... Mozart? Does Leopopld count as notable in any way other than pushing his son from a very, very early age to train in music?). It's also insulting, really. Oh, Beethoven poured his heart and soul in his music but it really just boils down to him being of superior breeding. Nevermind the complete devotion and passion for music, he was just naturally gifted.
> 
> To answer the question in the OP: someone who wants to devote their entire life to making music might not want to, care, or be able to have a family because having family requires that you make certain sacrifices like, say, not devoting your entire life to making music. More aspirations and ambitions = less time and energy for being a good husband/father/wife/mother, or to seek out someone to start a family with in the first place. Not saying that some people can't be both, but common sense should be sufficient to understand why it could present problems. Beethoven might have been a musical genius but that wouldn't automatically make him a more attractive partner because being a musical genius is not constitutive of being a good partner, or a good human being really.


Quite. Dvorak was the son of a butcher. And when we see musical or other kinds of artistic ability passed from one generation to the next, it is often the case that the parent or parents were gifted teachers, rather than celebrated for their own art. Of course, Dvorak's daughter, grandson and great-grandson do seem to have inherited musical ability, the last of these being the late great violinist Josef Suk.

While nature and nurture both matter, I suspect natural artistic talent is more common than the right circumstances and environment to fully nurture it.


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## SONNET CLV (May 31, 2014)

elgars ghost said:


> The assumed lack of offspring isn't the issue (no pun intended) for me, what I do find surprising is the amount of bloodlines from certain families which appear to have died out altogether on the male side, thus taking the famous name with them - unless I'm wrong there are no more descendants bearing the name of Haydn, or Mozart, or Handel, or Beethoven, or Brahms, or Delius, or Elgar, even though there may be descendants on the distaff side with different surnames. Of course, I'd be happy to hear if any of the above names are actually still with us.





LezLee said:


> Avril Elgar (born 1932), British actress
> Dean Elgar (born 1987), South African cricketer
> Rebecca Elgar, English children's book illustrator and writer
> 
> ...


My own initial search for a randomly chosen "George Haydn" turned up rather much:

https://www.myheritage.com/names/george_haydn#col_a_10053

Then there is "The Mozart Development Company has been developing quality commercial real estate in the Bay Area for 35 years. Under the leadership of John Mozart...":

http://mozartdev.com/about_us.php

And at the "My Heritage" website you can explore the Beethoven name:

https://lastnames.myheritage.com/last-name/beethoven

I just looked up Albert Beethoven, who lived in New York according to the 1940s census. Too, the surname Van Beethoven will get a number of hits.

Don't forget to see this page: https://answers.yahoo.com/question/...tsPqfJJkNSAGpVUU1ArGurrtQMQC-zzik9KrlpxLe4Hx_

The point here is simple. A single ancestral name likely has nothing at all to do with genius. If genius or talent is indeed inherited, it could well come from the family member (say the mother) whose name is likely not that of the known artist. Haydn's, Mozart's, Beethoven's and a lot of other composers mothers had different birth surnames than did their children. Maybe the talent comes from _that_ side of the family!

Of course, geniuses of all ilks tend to children who are _less_ than geniuses, as most of us tend to be. Most people, after all, tend to be "average" in intelligence and talent, which is all right. A person with mental challenges could well father or mother a genius. Nothing is proved pursuing this line of thinking. (Though some will note that many accomplished folks' children often accomplish great things; but often environment -- money, cultural exposure, better education possibilities -- allows for such to happen. I'm a great fan of the early romantic poem "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard" which alludes to the idea of geniuses born into circumstances that did not allow their talents to flourish.)

Finally, to continue the nonsense of this pursuit, I must point out that if we tend to think of bloodlines as meaningful, bloodlines exist in many many names. One has two parents, only one of which generally has the person's surname. Then, four grandparents, only one of which has the same surname. And then eight great-grandparents, only one of which …. And then 16 great-great-grandparents … and then 32, and then 64, and then 128, and then 256, and then 512, and then 1024.... and only one of the persons has the same surname. Unless, of course, that name changed sometime, as it often did with immigrants to these United States where names were often misspelled or Anglicized or simply rid away with in favor of a new name. To trace a bloodline through the miasma of heritage is quite daunting. I once read, in a very reputable source I believe, that something like 99% of all humans on Earth (where else would they be?) are related within 24 generations. If you calculate that you'll find that 24 generations back you had so many grandparents that there probably weren't that many people on the planet at the time. (Of course, cousin intermarriage collapses the pure pyramid of heritage, but that's a topic for someone else to pursue.)

My point remains: I shouldn't even be wasting time responding to this post.


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## Larkenfield (Jun 5, 2017)

Quote Originally Posted by Boychev:
“Mozart? Does Leopold count as notable in any way other than pushing his son from a very, very early age to train in music?“

Of course, he does—except of course if one underestimates his abilities as a teacher, pedagog, and composer. He didn’t push Mozart in the beginning. Mozart came to the piano himself. Then after his father discovered his talents he was strict with him and corrected him. But Mozart’s genius came first. It was innate as a potential to be developed. But Leopold was still a respected musician in his own right and had connections with such renown composers as JC Bach who mentored Mozart starting at the age of eight. There has to be something to develop within the individual. It’s not all a matter of working your butt off and that explains genius. That degree of talent can’t be strictly explained by some rationalistic theory. Mozart was playing before kings and queens by the age of five and that can’t be taught or there would be other little Mozarts running around today who worked hard. It’s also highly likely that Mozart inherited some of this musical DNA from his father since, lo and behold, his father was a talented in his own right. Nannerl, Mozart ’s musically talented older sister, also likely inherited something significant from her father genetically. Genius cannot always be explained by something as simple as effort or being pushed by a parent.


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## 1996D (Dec 18, 2018)

Boychev said:


> The social-darwinist assumptions of a few of the posters in this thread is disgusting and they should be ashamed of themselves. Eugenics, aside from being inhumane and perverse, does not and cannot make for a more intelligent and cultured population. The notion that great composers not "breeding"* (speaking about Beethoven as if he were an animal!)* is a problem that somehow leads to a decline in music represents a basic misunderstanding not only of how talent is "inherited" (obviously the children of musicians would be likely to become musicians themselves, but that's not a matter of magical music genes, it's a matter of becoming familiar with music at a very early age when the mind is extremely receptive and malleable, e. g. look at how people from musical families are far more likely to develop perfect pitch than people from other backgrounds), but also ignorance of the fact that very few of the great composers in history have been children of other great composers (there are the Bachs and, what... Mozart? Does Leopopld count as notable in any way other than pushing his son from a very, very early age to train in music?). It's also insulting, really. Oh, Beethoven poured his heart and soul in his music but it really just boils down to him being of superior breeding. Nevermind the complete devotion and passion for music, he was just naturally gifted.
> 
> To answer the question in the OP: someone who wants to devote their entire life to making music might not want to, care, or be able to have a family because having family requires that you make certain sacrifices like, say, not devoting your entire life to making music. More aspirations and ambitions = less time and energy for being a good husband/father/wife/mother, or to seek out someone to start a family with in the first place. Not saying that some people can't be both, but common sense should be sufficient to understand why it could present problems. Beethoven might have been a musical genius but that wouldn't automatically make him a more attractive partner because being a musical genius is not constitutive of being a good partner, or a good human being really.


Everyone is a subconscious eugenicist; we want the best looking, most intelligent, most morally sound partner, with a personality we can admire. What we all oppose is state mandated eugenics.

If you can fall in love with someone for their physical body alone then I give you a pass as a non eugenicist, and rather, a lust driven being.


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## 1996D (Dec 18, 2018)

norman bates said:


> the first thing I can think of is that natural selection is about being fit much more than being intelligent.


Intelligence is part of being fit.


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

1996D said:


> Intelligence is part of being fit.


Not necessarily. Nikola Tesla was a genius, he was in love with a pigeon and he died poor.
There are so many examples of persons who were brilliant or even geniuses and totally alienated or unable to deal with the real world.
While you could be fit even just because you're good looking or rich. 
Psychopaths are often very successful men too.


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## LezLee (Feb 21, 2014)

1996D says “Everyone is a subconscious eugenicist; we want the best looking, most intelligent, most morally sound partner, with a personality we can admire...”

What absolute crap!!


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Boychev said:


> The social-darwinist assumptions of a few of the posters in this thread is disgusting and they should be ashamed of themselves. Eugenics, aside from being inhumane and perverse, does not and cannot make for a more intelligent and cultured population.


Actually, intelligent yes, cultured probably not! Read the literature on the heritability of IQ. It's never wise to base your science on your ideology (lot of that going around these days, on both sides of the aisle).

In fact, the age of designer offspring will soon be upon us, with all "desirable" attributes available for a price. Better save your pennies because the rich will (as usual) have a big advantage. In not too many generations, there will be multiple species of humans.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

For Elgars Ghost: Carl van Beethoven, Ludwig's long-suffering nephew, was in his time the only remaining male in the Beethoven line. After he left the military he married and had several children, only one of whom was male. Carl named him Ludwig, which may surprise some.

That Ludwig van Beethoven emigrated to the US and went to work for the railroad. He married but died childless. He was the last Beethoven.


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## Open Book (Aug 14, 2018)

There are dead ends all over the place when you look at the tree of humanity. I wonder how common they are. One of every six long term couples is infertile, they say, and that doesn't count people who never find a permanent partner. This just seems more common among great composers when you think of all the examples, although that suggestion seems to infuriate some people here.

Why is Beethoven such a rare name though? Why aren't there more Beethovens unrelated to THE Beethoven? Same with Mozart, Debussy. There are some Haydns, but many became Haydens. There are no more Hitlers either but it's obvious why no one wants that name.


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## Boychev (Jul 21, 2014)

KenOC said:


> Actually, intelligent yes, cultured probably not! Read the literature on the heritability of IQ. It's never wise to base your science on your ideology (lot of that going around these days, on both sides of the aisle).
> 
> In fact, the age of designer offspring will soon be upon us, with all "desirable" attributes available for a price. Better save your pennies because the rich will (as usual) have a big advantage. In not too many generations, there will be multiple species of humans.


Oh, I absolutely agree that it's never wise to base your science on your ideology. That's why I won't accept the notion of intelligence being a matter of the mystical "g factor" and as a materialist will hold to the notion that intelligence is a matter of actually observable material conditions during the development of a person (e. g. social status of the family, nutrition during pregnancy and early childhood, education, access to healthcare, various health conditions the individual might have for various reasons including genetic, emotional development of the individual, etc, etc).


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## Arent (Mar 27, 2017)

Boychev said:


> Oh, I absolutely agree that it's never wise to base your science on your ideology. That's why I won't accept the notion of intelligence being a matter of the mystical "g factor" and as a materialist will hold to the notion that intelligence is a matter of actually observable material conditions during the development of a person (e. g. social status of the family, nutrition during pregnancy and early childhood, education, access to healthcare, various health conditions the individual might have for various reasons including genetic, emotional development of the individual, etc, etc).


So DNA is "mystical" because it's not directly observable by the naked eye? Interesting. Let me know what your review of the literature on separated twins tells you about the heritability of IQ and other traits.


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## Boychev (Jul 21, 2014)

DNA is clearly not an abstraction, where did you read anything of the sort?


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

Boychev said:


> Oh, I absolutely agree that it's never wise to base your science on your ideology. That's why I won't accept the notion of intelligence being a matter of the mystical "g factor" and as a materialist will hold to the notion that intelligence is a matter of actually observable material conditions during the development of a person (e. g. social status of the family, nutrition during pregnancy and early childhood, education, access to healthcare, various health conditions the individual might have for various reasons including genetic, emotional development of the individual, etc, etc).


I'm not clear how you are avoiding ideology. Also, I wonder what intelligence is? Are you thinking of it as a single trait? And what is the relationship between intelligence and achievement in life, talent and other outcomes?


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

Enthusiast said:


> Newton was of questionable sanity. And his sense of the divine probably did more to pull him towards insanity than towards his mathematical genius.


Your evidence for this please?


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

^^^ I drew mostly on what I knew about his obsession with alchemy and making predictions as well as my vague memories of how he seemed to his contemporaries. But this book might say more ... https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=dAQ2W9ihxK8C&pg=PA150&lpg=PA150&dq=was+newton+sane&source=bl&ots=cs6USlbYIc&sig=ACfU3U2RpQzbITvxDH2rHcjh0AxdR-gOgA&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwi7zcDRytvgAhUhtHEKHTALAwIQ6AEwEHoECAMQAQ#v=onepage&q=was%20newton%20sane&f=false


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

Enthusiast said:


> ^^^ I drew mostly on what I knew about his obsession with alchemy and making predictions as well as my vague memories of how he seemed to his contemporaries. But this book might say more ... https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=dAQ2W9ihxK8C&pg=PA150&lpg=PA150&dq=was+newton+sane&source=bl&ots=cs6USlbYIc&sig=ACfU3U2RpQzbITvxDH2rHcjh0AxdR-gOgA&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwi7zcDRytvgAhUhtHEKHTALAwIQ6AEwEHoECAMQAQ#v=onepage&q=was%20newton%20sane&f=false


Newton was colossal genius but a crank as can be seen from the fact that when Halley asked him about planetary orbiting he said he had solved it. However when he looked for the piece of paper he had written it on he couldn't find it. However he did say that he would write it out later and it became Principia Mathematica , One of the greatest works of physics and mathematics ever . His ramblings into alchemy and unoethodox theology were as a result of his bizarre personality rather than the cause of it


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## Boychev (Jul 21, 2014)

Enthusiast said:


> I'm not clear how you are avoiding ideology. Also, I wonder what intelligence is? Are you thinking of it as a single trait? And what is the relationship between intelligence and achievement in life, talent and other outcomes?


What achievement in life are we talking about? Musical achievement? Doing well financially? Scoring high on tests?


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

DavidA said:


> Newton was colossal genius but a crank as can be seen from the fact that when Halley asked him about planetary orbiting he said he had solved it. However when he looked for the piece of paper he had written it on he couldn't find it. However he did say that he would write it out later and it became Principia Mathematica , One of the greatest works of physics and mathematics ever . His ramblings into alchemy and unoethodox theology were as a result of his bizarre personality rather than the cause of it


I don't disagree with any of that. It seems you already knew the material that costs doubt on his sanity. It has never been my position that he was not a great mathematician. He clearly was a genius but genius and insanity, although often close are almost opposites.


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

Boychev said:


> What achievement in life are we talking about? Musical achievement? Doing well financially? Scoring high on tests?


I was asking you! You are the one who referred to intelligence so I was asking you what the word means to you.


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## fluteman (Dec 7, 2015)

KenOC said:


> In not too many generations, there will be multiple species of humans.


Hmm. I seem to remember reading a novel about that. I don't quite remember the title. Brave New something or other. But I do remember that things didn't work out quite as neatly and cleanly as you suggest.

The point of the story being, it's not as easy for humans to engineer their environment or themselves as it may seem.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

fluteman said:


> The point of the story being, it's not as easy for humans to engineer their environment or themselves as it may seem.


Not easy at all! But increasingly possible, and a lot of people will be willing to pay really big bucks for it. There will be an irresistible tendency for it to happen.


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## Open Book (Aug 14, 2018)

We humans already engineer our environment. We have made our lives easier in so many ways, at least in the First World, that some selection pressures are almost gone. For instance we don't have small bands of people fighting to the death over scarce food and territory anymore, we have efficient agriculture to feed everyone. Medicine protects us even if we have weaknesses and predispositions toward certain diseases. We get to live longer despite our fitness.


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## fluteman (Dec 7, 2015)

Open Book said:


> We humans already engineer our environment. We have made our lives easier in so many ways, at least in the First World, that some selection pressures are almost gone. For instance we don't have small bands of people fighting to the death over scarce food and territory anymore, we have efficient agriculture to feed everyone. Medicine protects us even if we have weaknesses and predispositions toward certain diseases. We get to live longer despite our fitness.


Now we have much larger bands of people fighting to death over scarce oil and territory.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

fluteman said:


> Now we have much larger bands of people fighting to death over scarce oil and territory.


It's interesting that over the last 70-80 years, war has been declining as a contributor to the worldwide death rate. The death rate from war is now quite low.


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## 1996D (Dec 18, 2018)

Open Book said:


> We humans already engineer our environment. We have made our lives easier in so many ways, at least in the First World, that some selection pressures are almost gone. For instance we don't have small bands of people fighting to the death over scarce food and territory anymore, we have efficient agriculture to feed everyone. Medicine protects us even if we have weaknesses and predispositions toward certain diseases. We get to live longer despite our fitness.


The selection is different, but there is always selection. Today's Western propaganda is geared towards influencing people not to have children--that's your selection right there.

It's those that ignore what others think, with strong ideas of their own that will reproduce in contemporary society.


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

KenOC said:


> It's interesting that over the last 70-80 years, war has been declining as a contributor to the worldwide death rate. The death rate from war is now quite low.


Interesting way of telling the story but it is a very small slice in time and the sense that its end point is the direction things are taking could be a feature of that. What if the trend were examined over 250 years? The other thing that it makes me think is how "easily" a very low level can become unimaginably huge! BTW - what caused that huge blip in the 80s?


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

1996D said:


> The selection is different, but there is always selection. Today's Western propaganda is geared towards influencing people not to have children--that's your selection right there.
> 
> It's those that ignore what others think, with strong ideas of their own that will reproduce in contemporary society.


Where do you live that you perceive birth control as our main message to the rest of the world?


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## elgar's ghost (Aug 8, 2010)

Enthusiast said:


> BTW - what caused that huge blip in the 80s?


Iran/Iraq War and Soviet Union in Afghanistan, maybe?


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

^^ And the Ethiopian civil war? But it still seems bigger and more awful than I would have expected (and with a much bigger proportion of civilian deaths).


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## fluteman (Dec 7, 2015)

KenOC said:


> It's interesting that over the last 70-80 years, war has been declining as a contributor to the worldwide death rate. The death rate from war is now quite low.


I don't know how "battle deaths" are defined here, but wars are not fought the same way today as they were in the 20th century world wars. Informal civil wars can drag on for decades with large civilian casualties, both direct and indirect. I wonder if all those who died in Rwanda and Somalia, and are dying now in Syria and Yemen, though not always in battle and often of disease and starvation, would count as battle deaths. I see 800,000 Rwandans were killed between April and June 1994. It's too depressing to look up the rest.


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## RICK RIEKERT (Oct 9, 2017)

fluteman said:


> I don't know how "battle deaths" are defined here... I wonder if all those who died in Rwanda and Somalia, and are dying now in Syria and Yemen, though not always in battle and often of disease and starvation, would count as battle deaths.


The Uppsala Project defines "battle deaths" thus: "Battle-related deaths occur in what can be described as "normal" warfare involving the armed forces of the warring parties. This includes traditional battlefield fighting, guerrilla activities (e.g. hit-and-run attacks / ambushes) and all kinds of bombardments of military units, cities and villages etc. The targets are usually the military itself and its installations, or state institutions and state representatives, but there is often substantial collateral damage in the form of civilians killed in crossfire, indiscriminate bombings etc. All deaths - military as well as civilian - incurred in such situations, are counted as battle-related deaths."


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## fluteman (Dec 7, 2015)

RICK RIEKERT said:


> The Uppsala Project defines "battle deaths" thus: "Battle-related deaths occur in what can be described as "normal" warfare involving the armed forces of the warring parties. This includes traditional battlefield fighting, guerrilla activities (e.g. hit-and-run attacks / ambushes) and all kinds of bombardments of military units, cities and villages etc. The targets are usually the military itself and its installations, or state institutions and state representatives, but there is often substantial collateral damage in the form of civilians killed in crossfire, indiscriminate bombings etc. All deaths - military as well as civilian - incurred in such situations, are counted as battle-related deaths."


But such methods will not fully account for the 1,000,000 dead in the Rwanda civil war, 500,000 in Somalia, over 500,000 so far in Syria (see NY Times article below about how death counts in this war have been understated) and 80,000 so far in Yemen, where death counts have also been understated (see Independent article cited below). Unfortunately, understating or defining away death counts has become a new political propaganda tool. The "battle deaths" statistic you discuss may be useful for some purposes, but it does not account for the full cost in lost lives of these wars.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/13/world/middleeast/syria-death-toll.html
https://www.independent.co.uk/voice...-how-many-killed-responsibility-a8603326.html


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## Boychev (Jul 21, 2014)

Enthusiast said:


> I was asking you! You are the one who referred to intelligence so I was asking you what the word means to you.


To me personally? I view it as more of a moral quality than some measure of how quickly you can do mental operations and whatnot. I see no value in abstract tests of intelligence other than for testing for conditions that might actively hamper one's capacity for learning and thinking. The people I've met that I consider to be intelligent display a kind of intellectual rigour, willingness to test and take a critical stance towards one's own ideas, willingness to follow arguments through to their logical conclusions, along with a kind of discipline, thoroughness, and openmindedness in exploring one's area of interest. To me people are not CPUs whose clocking speed you can measure and an IQ tells you absolutely nothing about an individual other than if they have an intellectual disability, or how good they are at standardized testing. But standardized testing when is good for doodly-squat.

To me IQ is an attempt to put people into neat boxes and either give them a vapid sense of pride (in the cases of people with high scores), or discourage them from further developing their intellectual capacities.


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## fluteman (Dec 7, 2015)

Boychev said:


> The people I've met that I consider to be intelligent display a kind of intellectual rigour, willingness to test and take a critical stance towards one's own ideas, willingness to follow arguments through to their logical conclusions, along with a kind of discipline, thoroughness, and openmindedness in exploring one's area of interest.


Well put. In these days of the internet and cable TV, it has become easy, maybe too easy, to do your own research. You press a button, and there's the answer in a matter of seconds. Unfortunately, it may not be the right answer. Worse, it may contain intentional distortions and inaccuracies to reflect or promote an agenda of the provider. In addition to remaining skeptical, always considering the source, and thinking for myself, I find another good tool is to try to put things in historical perspective and context as the years go by. Think of what we were told 10, 20 or 30 years ago by commentators, pundits, politicians, etc. Who turned out to be right and who didn't, and why?


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

fluteman said:


> But such methods will not fully account for the 1,000,000 dead in the Rwanda civil war, 500,000 in Somalia, over 500,000 so far in Syria (see NY Times article below about how death counts in this war have been understated) and 80,000 so far in Yemen, where death counts have also been understated (see Independent article cited below). Unfortunately, understating or defining away death counts has become a new political propaganda tool. The "battle deaths" statistic you discuss may be useful for some purposes, but it does not account for the full cost in lost lives of these wars.
> 
> https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/13/world/middleeast/syria-death-toll.html
> https://www.independent.co.uk/voice...-how-many-killed-responsibility-a8603326.html


Perhaps a more important measure would total wars, genocides, and the liquidation of enemies of the state. 1966 saw the deaths (uncertain figures) of between 150,000 and 400,000 with the fall of Sukarno in Indonesia. Has Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge been counted?


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## fluteman (Dec 7, 2015)

Strange Magic said:


> Perhaps a more important measure would total wars, genocides, and the liquidation of enemies of the state. 1966 saw the deaths (uncertain figures) of between 150,000 and 400,000 with the fall of Sukarno in Indonesia. Has Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge been counted?


I didn't have to look far to figure out that the "battle deaths" statistic does not include, for example, the Rwandan casualties of 1994 at all, or almost at all. You can try to hunt down the statistics for Cambodia if you like. But the main point of the articles I cited was that accurate casualty statistics are simply not obtainable in the ongoing conflicts in Syria, and more recently in Yemen, and that the hard numbers likely vastly understate reality. The colorful bar graph above therefore means very little in terms of tracking worldwide conflict-related casualties.


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