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Study reveals average age at conception for men vs. women over past 250k years

phys.org

41–50 of 166 posts

Re: Study reveals average age at conception for men vs. women over past 250k years

#41

The link to the paper wasn't loading for me. But I would love to see the reasons for extrapolating present-day biology back 250k years?

A fundamental tenet of much modern science (and, especially, punditry) is that humans have completed the evolutionary process.

I've never heard this before. Do you have a source?

Re: Study reveals average age at conception for men vs. women over past 250k years

#42
post #3

A lot to unpack (read - wildly speculate about) here. 10,000 generations ago. Like the next one but less of a "solved game". 1000 generations ago - Old men coupling with young women reads as small-scale tribal society to me. Polygamy, pride-of-lions. Groups are small enough that village elders control the, uh, means of production. The bottleneck on food is natural stocks. 200-300 generations ago lines up with the daw…

I watch a lot of old movies (30s-40s-50s). A ton of them have a 40s-50s man marrying a 20s woman. No idea if that was societal norm, mens fantasy, or whatever. I have to kind of believe movie execs would want the largest audience and so if 40s-50s men dating 20s women was not appealing to women of the time they'd been losing 1/2 the market. But, maybe these particular movies were the male equivalent of romance novels…

In the US, Men are 2-3 years older than women at first marriage and have been for a century

https://www2.census.gov/programs-surveys/demo/tables/familie...

Re: Study reveals average age at conception for men vs. women over past 250k years

#43
post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A fundamental tenet of much modern science (and, especially, punditry) is that humans have completed the evolutionary process.

There are no modern scientists who understand evolution and think it can be "completed" or that humans have done so. If you stand by your assertion, please provide evidence.

Not parent commenter, but what can be argued is that evolutions “rules” are way different to us then to any other animal (except the ones we closely handle ourselves). E.g. healing people, far smaller infant death rates, no basically no food scarcity from natural causes, etc. Our selection process is societal, not “natural”.

Re: Study reveals average age at conception for men vs. women over past 250k years

#44
post #3

A lot to unpack (read - wildly speculate about) here. 10,000 generations ago. Like the next one but less of a "solved game". 1000 generations ago - Old men coupling with young women reads as small-scale tribal society to me. Polygamy, pride-of-lions. Groups are small enough that village elders control the, uh, means of production. The bottleneck on food is natural stocks. 200-300 generations ago lines up with the daw…

I watch a lot of old movies (30s-40s-50s). A ton of them have a 40s-50s man marrying a 20s woman. No idea if that was societal norm, mens fantasy, or whatever. I have to kind of believe movie execs would want the largest audience and so if 40s-50s men dating 20s women was not appealing to women of the time they'd been losing 1/2 the market. But, maybe these particular movies were the male equivalent of romance novels…

Afaik career of actress was considered to be dead by the time she was 40 or so for most. Younger are more sexy, basically. Male actors could play big roles later. It is not that older women did not existed in real life. They outnumbered old men in real life.

Plus, movies always operated in fashions. What was depicted was heavily limited by big studios policies and by mandated codes. These limited topics and the way things were shown.

Movies are not reality and never were. They don't depict real life now either.

Re: Study reveals average age at conception for men vs. women over past 250k years

#45
post #3

A lot to unpack (read - wildly speculate about) here. 10,000 generations ago. Like the next one but less of a "solved game". 1000 generations ago - Old men coupling with young women reads as small-scale tribal society to me. Polygamy, pride-of-lions. Groups are small enough that village elders control the, uh, means of production. The bottleneck on food is natural stocks. 200-300 generations ago lines up with the daw…

I watch a lot of old movies (30s-40s-50s). A ton of them have a 40s-50s man marrying a 20s woman. No idea if that was societal norm, mens fantasy, or whatever. I have to kind of believe movie execs would want the largest audience and so if 40s-50s men dating 20s women was not appealing to women of the time they'd been losing 1/2 the market. But, maybe these particular movies were the male equivalent of romance novels…

In Asia I very often see men (and I don’t mean retired foreign guys moving to Asia) married to women 20, 30, even 40 years below them.

I’m used to the idea of actors and weird new age dudes doing it in the US, but it seems rare for normal people.

Re: Study reveals average age at conception for men vs. women over past 250k years

#46
post #3

A lot to unpack (read - wildly speculate about) here. 10,000 generations ago. Like the next one but less of a "solved game". 1000 generations ago - Old men coupling with young women reads as small-scale tribal society to me. Polygamy, pride-of-lions. Groups are small enough that village elders control the, uh, means of production. The bottleneck on food is natural stocks. 200-300 generations ago lines up with the daw…

I watch a lot of old movies (30s-40s-50s). A ton of them have a 40s-50s man marrying a 20s woman. No idea if that was societal norm, mens fantasy, or whatever. I have to kind of believe movie execs would want the largest audience and so if 40s-50s men dating 20s women was not appealing to women of the time they'd been losing 1/2 the market. But, maybe these particular movies were the male equivalent of romance novels…

What world do you live in where 50 year old men don’t want 20 year old wives?

Re: Study reveals average age at conception for men vs. women over past 250k years

#48

Tbh, I thought in early humans females got pregnant at 12-15. Simply because that when they begin to have the capability to have kids.

I would hazard that they are accounted for. People had very many children, only some children survived, some of those reproduced again, I would also guess that the mothers who would die during pregnancy or during childbirth would encounter that at one of the earlier in life pregnancies, and no longer be contributing to the average. I could see all that together supporting the average age of 23.

Also, today at least, miscarriages are relatively elevated in very young mothers, then decrease, and then increase again. IIRC, the lowest rates of miscarriage are in the early 20 to mid 20s or something like that.

Re: Study reveals average age at conception for men vs. women over past 250k years

#49
post #29

Tbh, I thought in early humans females got pregnant at 12-15. Simply because that when they begin to have the capability to have kids.

I know that's a common conception about the past, but what's the actual evidence for it? There are plenty of social and religious norms even today that keep people from getting together too young. There's also no reason not to think people at the time understood how sex and pregnancy worked. They didn't have the internet but they were as intelligent as we are today. I'm sure they could figure out how to have "fun" wi…

The Bible and plenty similarly old texts refers to marriage of such young women to usually older men, but even Romeo and Juliet is about 14 years olds.

Biological fertility as a baseline only slightly modified by social norms seems to be a good guess.

Re: Study reveals average age at conception for men vs. women over past 250k years

#50
post #43
post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are no modern scientists who understand evolution and think it can be "completed" or that humans have done so. If you stand by your assertion, please provide evidence.

Not parent commenter, but what can be argued is that evolutions “rules” are way different to us then to any other animal (except the ones we closely handle ourselves). E.g. healing people, far smaller infant death rates, no basically no food scarcity from natural causes, etc. Our selection process is societal, not “natural”.

Are you implying that Cindy saying "ew" when I asked her out is not as much as natural as being mauled by a sabertooth tiger in my teens?
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