My brother the Chimp

So the current class I am 'taking' (let me say there is a big difference between taking a class in college and taking a class by watching the videos online,) a course called 'Global Population Growth'.  So I started taking this class because I want to watch the later courses.  There are interesting videos later in the course about the course of the future of humanity.  I am interested in this because the growth of population and the strain on resources are going to be huge (and possibly destabilizing) stories of the next 40 years.  I am also interested in them because I would like to understand the problem better so I can pick our companies better that will profit from technologies to alleviate these problems and help vote for policies that will help alleviate the problems.

Well I was slightly surprised by the first 3 or 4 lectures which were completely about the current scientific scholarship on the community aspects of chimps and early humans.  What is interesting is how close it is the content of 'The Third Chimpanzee' which I had read recently.  (I am a huge fan of Jared Diamond.)  This is good because I have something to point to give someone an idea of what was in the book (since most people don't devour books as much or as fast as I do).  However the content is not 1:1.

What is interesting to me is the biology of reproduction and how it differs from chimps to humans.  (Also the history of human civilization is very interesting.  The book I recommend for this is 'Africa: A Biography of the Continent'.)  There is a lot that can be learned from our nearest 'relatives' in the animal kingdom.  However I think to understand the difference between humans and 'animals' it is important to understand the similarities.  Specifically these videos go into things like the maximum childbearing capacity of a chimpanzee female and the theoretical maximum of humans (in early human development).  Also there is some interesting discussion on the biological processes that limit reproduction.  What is interesting (and is illuminated in the later lectures like #5) is the religious and sociological aspects of society especially those that try to limit the number of children a couple can have.  This is needed because of the distribution of resources in the environment.  I just find it incredibly interesting that throughout history a lot of religions have created constructs which attempt to mold human reproduction in a way that is most optimal for the environment.  It is an interesting set of data points to me.