214 evolution: the ages and tomorrow 



tions and the additional time required to become established. 

 In view of the direct relation between planned family size 

 and economic status, and in view of the trend toward in- 

 creasing use of fertility control by contraception, Osbom 

 predicted that "to a far greater extent than in the past, the 

 genetic basis of man's higher qualities of intelligence and 

 personality will, for good or evil, be sorted out for survival 

 bv individual choice as to births." 



Cook in his book Hu?nan Fertility , which is essential 

 reading for anyone with the least concern for our society, 

 stresses the effect of the machine age on human reproduc- 

 tion and concludes that if the impact of all the work-saving 

 and life-saving gadgets is to be the generation of half-wits, 

 then the Industrial Revolution will be a failure. The present 

 reverse pattern of human reproduction will sooner or later 

 (in less than 100 years) "halve the present number of schol- 

 arship ability and double the number of feeble-minded." 

 The tragic day of the blackout of intelligence, as the genet- 

 icists who attended the Edinburgh convention of 1939 

 pointed out, can be avoided not just by passing laws against 

 birth differentials but by an aroused people becoming "fired 

 with a determination to act to make the future safe for their 

 children and their children's children." Cook wonders, as 

 does the writer, whether people will act in time and will act 

 with full knowledge of the genetics which can and would, 

 if properly applied, make near-genius and stable emotions 

 and good health the birthright of every child. 



