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To: Maurice Winn who wrote (36955)	8/3/2003 3:10:13 PM
From: AC Flyer	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 74559

>>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>

To: Maurice Winn who wrote (36955)	8/3/2003 3:32:59 PM
From: AC Flyer	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 74559

More food for thought, Mq: guardian.co.uk >>Ben is reading Harry Potter to his grandmother, Eliza. He reads slowly and loudly, pausing between sentences and holding the pictures up to the light so the illustrations can be seen more clearly. His hesitancy has nothing to do with his eyes or his reading skills - Ben is 10 and, his mother proudly claims, unusually bright for his age, but his grandmother is almost 90; she has problems with her hearing, her sight and her concentration. Maria, Ben's mother, watches, affection mixed with mild exasperation. 'I'm relieved mum got a chance to see her grandson grow up,' she says. 'I didn't expect her to; she was old when I was young, and she's really barely aware of what's going on now.' Eliza, a talented and determined photographer in her youth, is a rare example of an early twentieth-century woman who was prepared to put her family on hold for the sake of her career. She was 42 when Maria was born and her daughter harbors simmering resentment that she is still paying the price for her mother's ambition. 'My family life made me a complete freak at school, but that wasn't the point,' said Maria. 'I love my mother but I've never been that close to her intellectually or emotionally because we never had that period where we could interact as equals: she was an old woman by the time I was even halfway cognizant and by the time I was an adult, I was a full-time carer to this woman who had trouble remembering who I was.'<< Delightful, eh? But you go right ahead, Mq.