Idiocracy Film Analysis

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Recommended: Intelligence due to environmental factors

Andrew Smith
Professor Karels
Biology 1407
2 March 2014
Idiocracy: Society’s Future?
It seems like parents and grandparents are always telling their children, “back in my day we worked harder, studied harder, were more thankful” and so on. Believe what you will about your peers, but what if your parents are right? What would happen to the world if each generation continually got lazier and less intelligent, but continued to procreate? That is the basis of the plot of Idiocracy, a futuristic film where this degradation of society has already occurred by the year 2505.
Of course the scientific concept throughout this film would be that of population evolution. One of the first sequences in the film is a fictional video that suggests that poorer and less educated people reproduce faster and more often than their wealthier and more intelligent counterparts, thus leading to the film’s new society. Could this actually be happening in today’s world? First lets examine real world studies on the relationship between socioeconomic status and number of children.

The table here was constructed using data provided by the U.N., which does in fact support the theory that as income increase, the number of children decreases (Jones & Tertilt, 2006). Although there are certainly many other factors that go into how many children are born, this data definitely does present an interesting question; could economic factors cause a population to evolve? The makers of this film would like you to think so, but I don’t buy it. The problem that I have with this concept is that just because one comes from an underprivileged family and potentially less intelligent parents does not mean that the child will end up in the same position. I am cert...

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...are today are more a result of our society rather than genetic change. Also it reminds us not to water our plants with our favorite sports drink! All in all, this film does make you think more about science and the future our world more than most and I enjoyed it.

Works Cited
Jones, Larry E., and Michelle Tertilt. AN ECONOMIC HISTORY OF FERTILITY IN THE U.S.: 1826-1960. The National Bureau of Economic Research. Dec. 2006. Web. http://www.nber.org/papers/w12796. Dugdale, David C. "Electrolytes." MedlinePlus Medical Encyclopedia. U.S. National Library of Medicine, 20 Sept. 2011. Web. 02 Mar. 2014. http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/002350.htm.

Davis, J. G., R. M. Waskom, and T. A. Bauder. Managing Sodic Soils. Colorado State Extension. Colorado State University, 8 Jan. 2014. Web. 2 Mar. 2014. http://www.ext.colostate.edu/pubs/crops/00504.html.

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