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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

#81

Post by llampx »

pronlover723 wrote: post #40
sdwr wrote: 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…

I wonder how many of the male protagonists in these movies are extraordinarily or above-average rich, successful, handsome or charming.

I daresay you won't find a George from Seinfeld in there, rather a set of George Clooneys.

I don't doubt that there was an age difference, but we have/had plenty of living couples from that era and can look in the census records - were Spring/Fall marriages that common?

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

#82

Post by vintermann »

pronlover723 wrote: post #40
sdwr wrote: 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…

There have been men in their 20s marrying women in their 50s too (especially when inheritances have been involved) but since they wouldn't get children in that case, they would be totally invisible in these kinds of genetic statistics.

Even if average age in a relationship was symmetric, men being fertile for longer would cause age at (child's) conception to be higher for men. That effect needs to be untangled before we can know just how much men preferred younger women in the past/vice versa.

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

#83

Post by rat9988 »

svnt wrote: post #4

It seems they used modern human mutation rates, which vary by ~300%, to predict age at reproduction. Since the relationship between this rate in parents and the offspring even a few generations back does not seem to be particularly well understood, it seems they would have a hard time reaching back very far into history with this analysis and claiming any accuracy at all. To me it reads like someone bought a cheap e.…

This point was already addressed in the research. It is tiring to see this low effort comments on every research thread, thinking that the researchers are idiots and there is no need to read the article to reject it.

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

#85

Post by saiya-jin »

pronlover723 wrote: post #40
sdwr wrote: 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…

You know this hasn't stopped, ie Tom Cruise is 60 and you won't see him having female partners above 40, that look like 30. Sure he doesn't look his age, be it genes, good lifestyle, laser treatments etc. but he always looks much older than his partners.

It happens in real life too - successful older men being with much younger females is normalized by society and a common sight. The opposite not so much though.

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

#86

Post by nprateem »

kristopolous wrote: post #27

The perennial older male age is because men are fertile longer than women so statistics would tend to this pattern over a large enough population. There's power asymmetry, people are monsters and sexual predation is rampant but there's also biological feasibility at play here. To demonstrate, let's say that we have an imaginary equalityville where for every age pairing and sex act, there is an exactly equal one with…

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.

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

#87

Post by nprateem »

zeristor wrote: post #58

A few points, female fertility declines steeply past 40, but males not so much, so older males could conceivably father children with other females. Dare I say it, and this may just be not right, Genghis Khan is purportedly supposed to have fathered thousands of children it is said he had 500 or so secondary wives (citation needed). Since average (mean) income is famously a bit pointless due to a few very rich people…

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

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

#88

Post by poulpy123 »

ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #84

That title … the way it is written, sounds like the only accurate answer is … 0 . […] average age at conception […] I’m a programmer. I guess I’m used to literal interpretation.

-9 months since it's conception and not being born

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

#89

Post by tanbog5 »

kaba0 wrote: post #49
tanbog5 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Within the time-span of the study, I would argue both the Bible and Romeo and Juliet are effectively modern/contemporary events.

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

#90

Post by ChrisMarshallNY »

poulpy123 wrote: post #88
ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #84

That title … the way it is written, sounds like the only accurate answer is … 0 . […] average age at conception […] I’m a programmer. I guess I’m used to literal interpretation.

-9 months since it's conception and not being born

Good point.
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