> Clearly, that second child is more important because it has already given you a grandchild when your third child is still in the process of being born. That second child has already resulted into two offspring, and counts for twice as much.
Well, to pull the idea from my own other comment... a child+grandchild pair is not twice as good as a child even if all you care about is that specific moment in time). It's 1.5 times as good, because a grandchild is only half as good as a child.
And (as ars says) once all concerned have died, the timing offset is of no significance whatever. However, for the impact on your total representation in the world of the present (no particular present), which does have significance... see my other comment, where you're still quite wrong. The Euler-Lotka equation values all members of the population equally; that has no relationship to reality when you're talking about (in your own exact words) "how many copies your genes make of themselves".
Well, to pull the idea from my own other comment... a child+grandchild pair is not twice as good as a child even if all you care about is that specific moment in time). It's 1.5 times as good, because a grandchild is only half as good as a child.
And (as ars says) once all concerned have died, the timing offset is of no significance whatever. However, for the impact on your total representation in the world of the present (no particular present), which does have significance... see my other comment, where you're still quite wrong. The Euler-Lotka equation values all members of the population equally; that has no relationship to reality when you're talking about (in your own exact words) "how many copies your genes make of themselves".