-Professor Joel Green, BSc

The human population has more than doubled since 1970, now growing close to eight billion people worldwide, with Homo sapiens the most populous large animal on the planet. Around 108 billion people have ever lived on Earth. This means that today’s population size makes up 6.5% of the total number of people ever born, a truly staggering rate of growth and one that must be considered unsustainable within a closed system like the Earth’s.[image error]

Two converging factors drive this prodigious rate of growth. H. sapiens as a biological organism like any other exhibits behaviours governed by evolutionary psychology, or ‘instinct’, one of the most powerful driving forces of which is the reproductive urge. A combination of sexual and nurturing behaviour traits reinforced by oxytocin releases and other myriad neurochemical stimulations of the amygdala and other areas of the brain too numerous to mention here conspire to manufacture the reproductive urge. The purpose of this is the same ultimate goal of all biological function – to facilitate the perpetuation of genetic material. Darwinian evolution (natural selection) is a process of trial and error selecting for those traits best suited to continue the replication of DNA ad infinitum (as those organisms less inclined to do so are now extinct, leaving behind only the most successful survivors and breeders).

The tendency to reproduce has, in the history of an organism like H. sapiens, been tempered by environmental factors that place downward pressures on the growth of a population. Humans (recently in evolutionary terms) experienced predation, disease, starvation, exposure and a whole host of factors producing significant attrition rates. Prehistoric humans were short-lived animals with a high rate of infant mortality. Modern humans, conversely, enjoy an extensive built environment, absent predators, insulation from the elements, plenty of food and the advantage of advanced medicine. Those pressures against our population’s growth have been removed, however the old ‘software’ running human instinct remains unchanged. H. sapiens is reproducing as if it were still crouched in a dark cave in fear of the Sabre-toothed Cat lurking outside.

That is the problem.

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When old-world reproductive drive meets new-world survivability, the result is a catastrophic and unsustainable population explosion. Now, even disasters resulting in massive-scale human causalities are insufficient to put a cap on the growth rate. The base population is sufficiently large enough to absorb major culls and only responds with an even greater increase in reproduction rates, observed as “baby booms” seen after major periods of instability and large numbers of deaths (like the aftermath of World War 2). There is a demonstrable spike in births occurring nine months after a major disaster in a given area. This is due to another neurological aspect of human (and other animals’) reproductive drive – high stress and attrition rates among the population is responded to with an increased urge to breed in a period of instability and fear in order to maximise the chance for at least some of the offspring to survive.

This, it can be concluded, is why Thanos was severely misguided in his plan to eliminate half of the population of the universe.

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Not only would the measure only be temporary, leaving the halved populations, still governed by the same reproductive drives, to sooner or later re-attain the same population as before. But also triggering post-disaster “baby booms” across the cosmos.

The core problem remains un-addressed: technological beings are still governed by animal instinct that does not take their technological advancement into account. Thanos could have reduced the reproductive drive and/or fertility rates in intelligent, technological entities across the universe. That would have actually achieved a significant, long-term reduction in population rates down to a more manageable level.

As it is, Thanos’ plan would only necessitate a repeat culling every fifty years or so.

In conclusion, it is clear that Thanos is a moron.