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Thanks for your response; I'm glad to hear that you were at least sort of kidding about the charge of genetic inferiority. The thing is, I actually know enough about evolutionary biology to understand the argument you're making, but I still reject it. Under its terms, everybody who reproduces is genetically superior to, or more "successful" than, everybody who doesn't: an abusive, drug-addicted creep who has a child and dies in her twenties is more "successful" than, say, Mother Teresa. And people who have raised their children to adulthood are thereafter pointless and purposeless--there's no biological value in the (I hope delightful) sex you and your wife are apparently about to have, or in your continued existence. As is no doubt obvious, I think that's a ridiculous way of judging the value of anyone's life or choices. I have no reason to think I'm intrinsically genetically unfit--that I couldn't have kids, or that I might not have chosen to do so under different *environmental*, rather than biological, circumstances (e.g. if I'd had a different set of life experiences with these same genes I've got now). If you measure happiness or success or what have you by whether someone reproduces, then yep, I'm a big loser, and some rather horrible folks I know are glorious winners--but that's not how I'm measuring it! My genes may be designed to reproduce themselves, but they're not calling all the shots, and I'm kind of happy about that. I expect they might like me to do all kinds of other stuff I'm not really interested in, like attacking people who are competing with me and my (imaginary) offspring for resources...
I'm going to assume you're joking about the "do your duty" thing, as you seem to have an excellent sense of humor :)
