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Do Fathers Who Exercise Have Smarter Babies?

nytimes.com

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Re: Do Fathers Who Exercise Have Smarter Babies?

#51

Post by whatshisface »

toasterlovin wrote: post #47
Jagat wrote: post #41

Did anyone else notice that there's been an increasing number of mildly successful research that hint towards Lamarckian evolution as being real sometimes? Has something changed (either ease or impetus) that's made it easy to do such research? Or does it have something to do with the fact that most people's conception of evolution is Lamarckian in nature? Whenever I ask someone to describe evolution, they describe it…

The way I conceptualize of it is that evolution is still almost entirely Darwinian, but that there's also a ton of other stuff that happens. Without wanting to get political, I think a good analogy would be human gender and sexuality. The statement that there are two human sexes, male and female, and that they seek each other out for the purpose of mating explains somewhere around 95% of what you see in humans. But h…

A slight mismatch in your analogy is that G&S studies doesn't explain anything, they just categorize it. They aren't proposing any mechanisms.

Re: Do Fathers Who Exercise Have Smarter Babies?

#53

Post by jonlucc »

godelmachine wrote: post #49
nostrademons wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In mice, though. It's an open question to what extent rodent results apply to humans. This result should open doors to future research, but by itself should be taken with the appropriate grain of salt.

It's a well known fact that mice and humans promdominantly share the same genome, so this research should be taken with more than grain of salt, methinks.

> mice and humans promdominantly share the same genome

And yet you're 70kg and a mouse is 20g. Plenty of diseases have been treated/cured in mice in ways that don't translate to the clinic, so I think the caution is warranted.

Re: Do Fathers Who Exercise Have Smarter Babies?

#54

Post by stinos »

jriot wrote: post #29
wanderr wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe for some people. Exercise doesn't give me energy. I do it anyway and find ways to make it enjoyable, but if I'm tired it's a slog.

Most people exercise, most people don't play - there is a difference. Watch kids play, they are still exercising but having fun. Pick up a playful form of exercise. Mountain biking, skateboarding, BMX etc... Do it just to have fun, you will see a difference - more energy.

I think you should define 'energy' somewhat. As it stands, both you and the person you and wanderr are right as far as I'm concerned. My body is pretty tired right now and even hurts a bit after 2 hours of bmx. But yes, I still feel energy, the urge do the things, to be creative and whatnot. But that's mainly mentally. I couldnt really go for another ride. Tomorrow though it'll be different: after a night of good sleep I'll be energetic both physically and mentally. An effect which unfortunately wears off after some days. Likely the reason sports are addictive.

Also it's really not as simple as 'play, don't exercise'. I do admit the playful sports work better for me, but it's not that the more boring plain exercise ones don't do anything at all. And I can imagine some people just don't care for the play at all.

Another aspect: something like 'plain' road cycling is fairly easy on your body and is not really hard to do. The 3 other sports you mention are different though so they're just nor for everyone. As much as I love jumping a set of stairs for instance, the impact is hard on your body and the older I get the more care I have to take. E.g. if I don't properly warm up now I'd just damage myself. That used to be different when I was 20. And it's extremely likely at one point I'll just have to give up on bmx because I simply won't be able to do it anymore. Man, I wish that day would never come. But it will.

Re: Do Fathers Who Exercise Have Smarter Babies?

#55

Post by ksk »

fortythirteen wrote: post #30
wkrause wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This article is about a study done on mice. Having not read the underlying study, and it not being my field, I can't speak to how well the article articulates the study's findings, but I don't think it's fair to dismiss it with the "correlation does not imply causation" argument.

> on mice And the article automatically relates it to humans, when absolutely no study has been done. Correlation to causation.

>And the article automatically relates it to humans,

From the article:

"Of course, this study involved mice and not men and cannot tell us whether the same processes occur in people."

> when absolutely no study has been done. Correlation to causation.

It is unethical to run certain studies on humans, which is why the mice models are used (also pigs, fish, flies, worms, etc) initially. And such models have been fantastically successful. It seems like you are rather unfamiliar with the scientific process...

Re: Do Fathers Who Exercise Have Smarter Babies?

#56

Post by JohnJamesRambo »

tankerdude wrote: post #21

So that would imply that people who actually must exercise for their job (construction workers) would have smarter children, on average? And how would that be measured if the child gets stuck in a poorly performing school and no real academic challenges?

Exercise for work and exercise done for play may have different outcomes though. I remember reading George Sheehan’s Running and Being and he says dockworkers etc don’t seem to get the same health benefits from their work exercise. There’s something unique about it being for play.

Re: Do Fathers Who Exercise Have Smarter Babies?

#57

Post by ksk »

thankthunk wrote: post #38

I wish HN would ban all betteridge's style headlines. How much did newton or einstein's father exercise? Were they body builders?

>How much did newton or einstein's father exercise? Were they body builders?

Why would that matter? Are they the only smart people? And why are you conflating exercising with body building?

Re: Do Fathers Who Exercise Have Smarter Babies?

#58

Post by Analemma_ »

Jagat wrote: post #41

Did anyone else notice that there's been an increasing number of mildly successful research that hint towards Lamarckian evolution as being real sometimes? Has something changed (either ease or impetus) that's made it easy to do such research? Or does it have something to do with the fact that most people's conception of evolution is Lamarckian in nature? Whenever I ask someone to describe evolution, they describe it…

Be aware that actual biologists wince when epigenetics and related phenomena are described as "Lamarckian evolution" (much like physicists do when quantum effects are claimed to be "proof" of non-materialism or New Age woo). They are superficially similar in their effects but the underlying mechanisms are very different and (as far as we know) epigenetic changes rarely persist beyond a few generations and probably can't impact populations very much.

Re: Do Fathers Who Exercise Have Smarter Babies?

#59

Post by Kevin_S »

lostmsu wrote: post #48
shbm wrote: post #42

How do you even define smart? Is it quantified by the IQ tests? Does smartness include the factor of social skills(EQ) and how someone may present himself or herself in a social situations. How do you decide what's smart and what's not smart?

Why do social skills have any preferred treatment over any other skills? I'd say smart is best measured by IQ.

They should both be important is his point. And measurements for IQ (and EQ frankly) aren't very reliable. His point seems to be that "smart" is not really measurable as we don't include EQ and our measurements of IQ are poor as well.

Re: Do Fathers Who Exercise Have Smarter Babies?

#60

Post by pavel_lishin »

godelmachine wrote: post #49
nostrademons wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In mice, though. It's an open question to what extent rodent results apply to humans. This result should open doors to future research, but by itself should be taken with the appropriate grain of salt.

It's a well known fact that mice and humans promdominantly share the same genome, so this research should be taken with more than grain of salt, methinks.

Isn't that also true of me and corn?
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