Chapter 7 Family Planning

In which Dawkins trashes population control for the good of the group

This chapter is devoted to debunking the idea that animals regulate the size of their families for the good of the species and to prevent over population. He says instead that animals regulate the size of the children born in order to maximize the number of children successfully reared. If the mother spreads her resources too thin amongst her children then less may survive then if she'd had less children.
He claim there is simply no need for group population control because there is no welfare state in nature (I knew he'd talk about welfare states.) If the mother has to many children it won't hurt the species by leading to over population, they'll simply starve to death. A mother will have less children if she knows the population has large numbers not for the good of the group but because she realizes she and her children will be competing for fewer resources so she "optimizes" her litter amount.
He argues the reason why humanity suffers from such extreme over population is because we have departed from nature's model. If a woman has too many children the state will feed and care for the children instead of allowing them to starve as they would in nature. Of course, over population will eventually lead to the trimming down of the species through starvation, we're simply delaying the process.