>> If you're a child of a western culture you're more likely to have been a
>> bottle baby or have been the product of assisted childbirth. It seems
>> that this might put you at a -natural_ disadvantage if not a genetic
>> disadvantage.
>
>Really? I'd be interested to hear more about this.
Reducing infant mortality rates in western culture has been at the expense of fitness for all of the reasons that you've been arguing.
Bottle feeding simply removes the exposure to some transmission of specific antigens. The increased use of anti-biotics reduces the need for natural antibodies. Western children are more dependent on technological interventions than their counterparts in less "progressed" cultures. I don't know whether the author of "Whoa" was anywhere near right with her 80/20 split between un/priviledged, but the poor are with us still, if not always.
Anyway, my point is that social darwinism indicates that we are the threatened culture rather than the cultures represented by starving children. I think that bringing everyone else under the umbrella is the _only_ way to optimize y/our chance of genetic survival.