That's not dogma. That's evidence.
As I mentioned, I have no training or professional experience with demographic science. But if I don't know a lot, I suspect a lot, especially in the light of the above statistics. (While you're thinking outside the box, are you also thinking outside the facts? --- This is not a slam on you, believe me. I'm just wondering.)
It would be interesting if we had a little more evidence to discuss.
I'd love to think Europe could rebound, but the biggest obstacles, as I see it, are not economic or political, but spiritual. You've got people who have cashed out their whole inheritance because they no longer believe in the next life, let alone the next generation.
The kindergartens in London and Hamburg aren't, after all, empty. There's just few Edmunds and Annikas, and lots of Fareeds and Aaliyahs.
First of all, to make sure we’re on the same page here, I took umbrage with the author’s quoted third party (the “expert”) statement in the article, not your’s.
Now then, as you agree, it’s not impossible to turn around from that 1.3 fertility rate - hence my “linear extrapolation” comment. (As an aside, there are some who believe that all of mankind has spawned literally from only one man and one woman - Adam and Eve. So it would only take one European man and woman to get things going again. Going by the author, impossible! But let’s not dwell on that.)
I do not know whether or not any society in the history of the world has rebounded from a 1.3 fertility rate - and I posit that neither does the author or anyone else. There’s only so much we know. Respectfully, I refute your claim of “evidence”. Any number of reasons have contributed to the demise of now-extinct civilizations. War, famine, invasion come to mind. I’m just saying that I do not see any mathematical or other reason why a turn-around of low birth rates should not happen. Indeed, such an outcome seems most likely to me. Things go down, things go up...
What I really need to stress here is that I’m not arguing along *moral* lines. Just what *is possible* in the realm of biology and physics, if you will. So what if the population of, say, Germany is halved in a couple of decades. There’ll still be 40 million people, millions of them young and fertile. The social problems they’ll have to deal with would be grave. But solvable, if not in a pretty way. (This might include any number of truly horrific scenarios - think Soylent Green and Logan’s Run.) Today’s norms of what is acceptable and what is not will go right out of the door. We’ve enjoyed a couple of truly luxurious decades - well, those times may be over soon, and things will go back to what they’ve been like for millenia. To wit, GOOD-BYE WELFARE STATE. Ho-hum. Not the end of a people as such.
Can we agree on that? (My argument from the beginning.)