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

phys.org

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

#151
post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even 200 years ago, it was common for women to give birth 10 times. I bet 100k years ago, some women were pregnant yearly, from teenage to menopause.

Breastfeeding works as a natural contraceptive, so I highly doubt it - babies would need to be on solid foods without breastfeeding, and that was much harder in the past then it is now.

Only for a few months and it's still not 100% effective.

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

#152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Older men have had time to climb the social ladder and amass resources and status, a corollary for power. These equal higher odds of survival for offspring. Younger women are more fertile. There's nothing more to it than that. This dynamic has existed for so long it's part of our DNA now via sexual selection.

That assumes nuclear families raising children under capitalism - that's a culturally specific western view of the past maybe 200 years. There's many other modalities over the entire globe and 250,000 years. The premise and the conclusion of your statement is unsupported unless you can demonstrate those assumptions consistently holding in most societies over a quarter million years.

I'm talking about becoming the tribal chief or one of the other leaders. Nothing to do with nuclear families, quite the opposite.

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

#153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Men with harems perfectly explains history's obsession with virgins. 1. No man wanted to raise another's child (as far as evolution is concerned, that doesn't lead to replication of ones own genetic material) 2. Less risk of VD, which would seriously affect your ability to utilise the harem

After loss of virginity those two things can happen just fine.

Precisely.

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

#154
post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Breastfeeding works as a natural contraceptive, so I highly doubt it - babies would need to be on solid foods without breastfeeding, and that was much harder in the past then it is now.

Only for a few months and it's still not 100% effective.

more like 6 months, and even modern contraceptives are not 100% effective

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

#155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That assumes nuclear families raising children under capitalism - that's a culturally specific western view of the past maybe 200 years. There's many other modalities over the entire globe and 250,000 years. The premise and the conclusion of your statement is unsupported unless you can demonstrate those assumptions consistently holding in most societies over a quarter million years.

I'm talking about becoming the tribal chief or one of the other leaders. Nothing to do with nuclear families, quite the opposite.

Now you're assuming there's a social hierarchy where someone can exercise sexual indiscretion as some kind of reward and where the social customs encourage such a behavior, which also must be demonstrated. Again, if we aren't talking about hard biology like menopause, puberty, fertility and stillbirth rates, things get dicey. Things can dip into eisegesis quickly.

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

#156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm talking about becoming the tribal chief or one of the other leaders. Nothing to do with nuclear families, quite the opposite.

Now you're assuming there's a social hierarchy where someone can exercise sexual indiscretion as some kind of reward and where the social customs encourage such a behavior, which also must be demonstrated. Again, if we aren't talking about hard biology like menopause, puberty, fertility and stillbirth rates, things get dicey. Things can dip into eisegesis quickly.

No, I'm assuming two modes:

One were women were treated as sexual resources to be taken and controlled

Another with more free will.

In both cases, sexual selection would lead the offspring of those that aligned with the dominant male and his group, through free will or coercion, to have greater survival odds due to the dominant male's ability to control or capture resources, or fend off danger.

If you're aware that a majority of stone-age societies practiced communism without hierarchies for several tens of thousands of years to offset this sexual selection, I'd be interested to hear about that period of history.

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

#157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Now you're assuming there's a social hierarchy where someone can exercise sexual indiscretion as some kind of reward and where the social customs encourage such a behavior, which also must be demonstrated. Again, if we aren't talking about hard biology like menopause, puberty, fertility and stillbirth rates, things get dicey. Things can dip into eisegesis quickly.

No, I'm assuming two modes: One were women were treated as sexual resources to be taken and controlled Another with more free will. In both cases, sexual selection would lead the offspring of those that aligned with the dominant male and his group, through free will or coercion, to have greater survival odds due to the dominant male's ability to control or capture resources, or fend off danger. If you're aware that a…

Sure. There's a famous recent book about it

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dawn_of_Everything

Regardless what you think of the text, even the most stubborn critics agree the classical claims lack critical support.

You don't have to assume communism. A world requiring lots of labor to do basic things with lots of diseases and death being common is alien to us. I don't realistically need to worry about wild animals, water access, food availability, or succumbing to unfortunate weather.

DNA studies show that human population may have been as low as 2,000, on the brink of extinction 70,000 years ago.

This time period is so vast we're talking neanderthals and a bunch of other hominids.

It's a wildly different structure. There was lots of diversity. I assumed no social structure in my claims and showed that regardless of social structure, that pattern would arise as an artefact of the biology of childbirth.

If you can demonstrate the delta is larger than biologically expected, then you have something to back structural claims. But that's you know, actual academic work that would take a month or twenty. We aren't going to resolve that here. The childbirth argument was the easy one.

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

#158
post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Our selection process looks pretty natural to me. Also we solved food scarcity, like, a century ago?

Is our weak culled by predators, or are we pressured towards some change (e.g. more efficient digestive track) due to food scarcity? Those would be some natural selection processes, and they don’t apply to us in any significant way since.. I would say the agricultural revolution at least, but maybe even sooner (the very reason we can “feed” such a hungry organ as our brains is due to our efficiency at hunting/process…

Anything that has some effect on the number of children one has, and their probability to survive until they can have their own children, would be a natural selection process. Nobody actually has to die, or even to remain childless.

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

#159

100 gen ago is ~ 2500 years. So that log mark ~110 gen ago is ~3k BP. A particular civilization doesn't last in a recognizable or functional form more than about 10 gen.

If 10 generations == 250 years, that sounds very debatable to me. Looking at e.g. Joseon-era Korea, did it really become a different civilization between 1500 and 1750?

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

#160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, that leads to the question, why only men were famous actors past 40, which is where the arguments becomes tautological. Because men can have attractive roles past 40 and women not, or only very rarely. I don't remember the name of the movie, but it was about greek and a female character that was 40, but the cast was not offered to a 40 year old, but a 30 year old. Because 40 year old women are not supposed to l…

> Well, that leads to the question, why only men were famous actors past 40, which is where the arguments becomes tautological. It was well known that Hollywood had an age discrimination problem for women up until the mid or late 80s or so. Like a really well known problem where women couldn’t get leading roles after a certain age. It was a well publicized thing and just kind of common knowledge.

You are implying that holyrood does not have an age discrimination problem today?
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