>>ACF, if nature didn't intend there to be 55 year old fathers, there would be a male menopause<<
You should be careful with this "nature intends' stuff, Mq. Nature has no intentions. Evolution has no purpose. It just is what it is. Certain adaptations confer reproductive advantages and tend to persist, while others do not, and don't. Did you know by the way that contemporary historians calculated that thirty years after the death of Attila the Hun, 30,000 people carried his genes. It is estimated that 30% of the population of Hungary today is descended from Attila. Now Attila was a guy who achieved this level of reproductive success largely through the tactic of leveling the first city he encountered in each new territory, making separate mounds of the skulls (heads initially, I should imagine) of the men, women, children and animals that previously inhabited the unfortunate community. Following this performance, the remainder of the population usually made the total resources of their civilization available to Attila, hence the 30,000 descendants.
My point is that, just because we can does not necessarily mean that we should. Exercising voluntary control over our reproductive organs is about the only thing that separates us from the rest of the animal kingdom.
When it comes to aged parenthood, putting aside the slightly distasteful aspect of the relationship between a 53 year old man and a thirty-ish(?) woman (don't make me explain this), science is now suggesting that male zygotes do not improve with age:
Men aged 45 to 49 were twice as likely to have children with schizophrenia as men under the age of 25 who became fathers, while the risk tripled for men over the age of 50
sciencedaily.com
There is also empirical evidence that having an older father increases the likelihood of exhibiting attention-seeking behavior as an adult. <g> |
