Times Colonist writer Iain Hunter's column titled Families in a world without women starts by defending Christy Clark's families first slogan and ends with citing facts that say women will die out by the year 2600. This kind of rambling without fully formed ideas seems to be common in Hunter's columns. Often times it is hard to tell if he is being sarcastic or if he really means the things he writes. Perhaps the only accurate thing Hunter writes is that the definition of a family has changed over time. He cites an article in the Economist magazine that says if current fertility rates remain the same, women will eventually die out within the millenium. The Economist article is only about a paragraph long and based only on the UN's fertility rate projections for the next few years. Hunter's argument (if that is what he is trying to do) is in favour of Christy Clark because her policy will keep the family alive. The extinction of women seems to be a very odd thing to be worrying about given the global population is now over 7 billion and rising fast. Shouldn't everyone be happy that fertility rates are down around the world? Conversely, an entire book written by geneticist Bryan Sykes says that it is the male population that is in danger of dying out because of the decay of the Y-chromosome. Both studies are basic projections of what could happen if nothing changes; if the past is any indication things will always change. To worry seriously about these issues right now is pointless. To use them to prove a political point is silly. Hunter is inflaming an issue that really doesn't exist. All this article shows is that facts and statistics can be twisted to suit a certain purpose.
No comments:
Post a Comment