Older men have geekier sons, study finds

Coriolan

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The geeks are inherent at birth: older men have geekier sons, study finds

https://www.theguardian.com/science...geek-index?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Eupedia_Forum

"Older men tend to have “geekier” sons who are more aloof, have higher IQs and a more intense focus on their interests than those born to younger fathers, researchers claim.

The finding, which emerged from a study of nearly 8,000 British twins, suggests that having an older father may benefit children and boost their performance in technical subjects at secondary school.

Researchers in the UK and the US analysed questionnaires from 7,781 British twins and scored them according to their non-verbal IQ at 12 years old, as well as parental reports on how focused and socially aloof they were. The scientists then combined these scores into an overall “geek index”.

Magdalena Janecka at King’s College London said the project came about after she and her colleagues had brainstormed what traits and skills helped people to succeed in the modern age. “If you look at who does well in life right now, it’s geeks,” she said.

Drawing on the twins’ records, the scientists found that children born to older fathers tended to score slightly higher on the geek index. For a father aged 25 or younger, the average score of the children was 39.6. That figure rose to 41 in children with fathers aged 35 to 44, and to 47 for those with fathers aged over 50.

The effect was strongest in boys, where the geek index rose by about 1.5 points for every extra five years of paternal age. The age of the children’s mothers seemed to have almost no effect on the geek index."



It's not always true. I am geeky by any standard and my dad was 25 when I was born.
 
The geeks are inherent at birth: older men have geekier sons, study finds

https://www.theguardian.com/science...geek-index?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Eupedia_Forum

"Older men tend to have “geekier” sons who are more aloof, have higher IQs and a more intense focus on their interests than those born to younger fathers, researchers claim.

The finding, which emerged from a study of nearly 8,000 British twins, suggests that having an older father may benefit children and boost their performance in technical subjects at secondary school.

Researchers in the UK and the US analysed questionnaires from 7,781 British twins and scored them according to their non-verbal IQ at 12 years old, as well as parental reports on how focused and socially aloof they were. The scientists then combined these scores into an overall “geek index”.

Magdalena Janecka at King’s College London said the project came about after she and her colleagues had brainstormed what traits and skills helped people to succeed in the modern age. “If you look at who does well in life right now, it’s geeks,” she said.

Drawing on the twins’ records, the scientists found that children born to older fathers tended to score slightly higher on the geek index. For a father aged 25 or younger, the average score of the children was 39.6. That figure rose to 41 in children with fathers aged 35 to 44, and to 47 for those with fathers aged over 50.

The effect was strongest in boys, where the geek index rose by about 1.5 points for every extra five years of paternal age. The age of the children’s mothers seemed to have almost no effect on the geek index."



It's not always true. I am geeky by any standard and my dad was 25 when I was born.

My dad was 38 when I was born and I love programming and math (besides statistics-booring!).

But seriously...I don't fully understand why I can excel in those two disciplines (as well as tough puzzle solving).

Take this from me and ponder it for a while...after enough time I've realized the following:

the brain doesn't make much sense.
 
my father was 36 when made me,

and I manage to have a diploma on engineering
and also had my times for search.

my first daughter never liked science enough,
my second daughter when I was older is like me when I was young,
she plays high maths/physics like Messi plays with ball.
I do not know how she will react with veryhigh and speliazid maths like Gray's

so I do not know how the age effects,
if that was a law, then the first should always be smarter and the last a very geek,
 
Similar tendency in our family.
 
Trump was 60 years old when he had his son Barron Trump I guess that kid will probably become a genius or something.

Sent from my WAS-LX1 using Eupedia Forum mobile app
 
Men with high IQ delay parenthood. Weird how confused these researchers are about something that was already known.
 
Older fathers also produce children with a higher percentage of defects. Think about it: dna breaks down and accumulates mutations with aging, and that includes the dna in spermatozoa.

We have a thread on it:
http://www.eupedia.com/forum/thread...lder-Fathers-Less-Fit?highlight=older+fathers

Any woman who is going to have a child with an older man should be aware of it and get all the pre-natal testing possible.
 
Older fathers also produce children with a higher percentage of defects. Think about it: dna breaks down and accumulates mutations with aging, and that includes the dna in spermatozoa.

We have a thread on it:
http://www.eupedia.com/forum/thread...lder-Fathers-Less-Fit?highlight=older+fathers

Any woman who is going to have a child with an older man should be aware of it and get all the pre-natal testing possible.

Any woman? Perhaps the woman should be young too. Older parents - both sexes, will product more defects.

Perhaps an older father who is mature and settled will rear his children better and set a better example, over that young buck who isn't exactly ready for parenthood.
 
Any woman? Perhaps the woman should be young too. Older parents - both sexes, will product more defects.

Perhaps an older father who is mature and settled will rear his children better and set a better example, over that young buck who isn't exactly ready for parenthood.

Of course mutations accumulate in both sexes: old eggs are not optimum. However, how many 50 and 60 year old women do you know who can conceive? It does all end for us eventually, thank God. In fact by 35 most women have difficulty conceiving and have to get hormones or other assistance from a fertility doctor.

More maturity is of course better, especially if you have to deal with a child with down's syndrome or autism.

Why do men get so defensive when this comes up? Women don't. As a professional woman most of my friends are also professional women, and so having children had to be put off for all of us usually, until the late 20s and or 30 for a first child for most, never mind the second and third. We were all aware and accepted not only that fertility decreases with age but also that the chances of our children having defects also increased with age, and accordingly worried about it and all got testing during the pregnancy. It's just reality.

Any 25 year old woman considering marrying a man of 50 should definitely think about this. In addition to a greater probability the children will be less fit, the fertility decreases for older men as well, not to mention performance. I read somewhere recently that the best sexual match is an older woman/younger man. I think they probably mean something like 30 year old woman, 20 year old man or something like that. Who knows, maybe they're right. Other things may definitely be more important, of course, and for a good many women sex isn't the first priority. It depends on the woman, I suppose.
 
Not wanting to be accused of "Aristotleist" or something (although he is a reference to me), here's what Aristotle himself wrote about the subject:

"Since the time of generation is commonly limited within the age of seventy years in the case of a man, and of fifty in the case of a woman, the commencement of the union should conform to these periods. The union of male and female when too young is bad for the procreation of children; in all other animals the offspring of the young are small and in-developed, and with a tendency to produce female children, and therefore also in man, as is proved by the fact that in those cities in which men and women are accustomed to marry young, the people are small and weak; in childbirth also younger women suffer more, and more of them die; some persons say that this was the meaning of the response once given to the Troezenians- the oracle really meant that many died because they married too young; it had nothing to do with the ingathering of the harvest. It also conduces to temperance not to marry too soon; for women who marry early are apt to be wanton; and in men too the bodily frame is stunted if they marry while the seed is growing (for there is a time when the growth of the seed, also, ceases, or continues to but a slight extent). Women should marry when they are about eighteen years of age, and men at seven and thirty [thirty-seven];​"
 
Great...now we're going to take advice on the right ages for procreation from someone born before we knew anything about genetics. :)

Of course, I'm sure there were advantages then for a middle-aged man in marrying a virginal girl straight out of virtual "purdah". What comparisons could she possibly draw? Nowadays, she might know more than he does!
 
Great...now we're going to take advice on the right ages for procreation from someone born before we knew anything about genetics. :)

Of course, I'm sure there were advantages then for a middle-aged man in marrying a virginal girl straight out of virtual "purdah". What comparisons could she possibly draw? Nowadays, she might know more than he does!

Still, he's argument was based on observation, while yours was partially based on God, even if joking:

It does all end for us eventually, thank God.

But I guess this is you just being defensive.

And, please, avoid speculations in your arguments...

What comparisons could she possibly draw? Nowadays, she might know more than he does!
 
You didn't understand what I said. Perhaps it's a language problem.

For one thing, "Thank-God" is a figure of speech in English. Do people who say the Portuguese version of that necessarily believe in God? Could you be any more literal?

Second of all, I was "giving thanks" that past a certain age women don't have to worry about conceiving again. Perhaps I should spell it out for you since you're not following me: at a certain age, anywhere from late 30s to late 40s women stop menstruating, and enter menopause, and therefore can no longer conceive. So, good-bye monthly inconvenience, pain and paraphernalia, good-bye birth control. Hooray! Get it now? It's liberating for most women not to have to worry about all of that or unwanted conception ever again.

Third of all how could I be defensive about it when I already said that I did push back child-rearing but was well aware that it might mean it would be more difficult to conceive and there would be more chance both of complications and birth defects. Accordingly, like any rational, realistic person I was tested during pregnancy. It was a risk of which I was aware, but I wanted those advanced degrees. Being 20 and pregnant was not something I would ever have wanted under any circumstances. Good grief! It was the late 20th century.

Sorry, but in addition to trouble understanding me, I think your logic switch is off today.

As for the sexual behavior of young girls today, if you doubt what I said things must be very different in Portugal than they are in the U.S. , the Anglo countries, and northern Europe. That opinion, btw, is based not only on personal observation but a multitude of studies.

If you don't believe that modern science, including genetics, trumps the "observations" of people living more than 2000 years ago, then you're on the wrong site.

Ed. Honestly, on many occasions I feel as if I am explaining women to men who have never met any! :)
 
If you don't believe that modern science trumps the "observations" of people living more than 2000 years ago, then you're on the wrong site.

Maybe I am then, if that's what this site is all about.

That's a ridiculous statement though.
 
My dear Joao, more than half the site is about genetics, or archaeology or science of some sort. Didn't you notice?

I personally find a lot of the other sections just as interesting, but if it's a scientific subject, shouldn't I be giving more credence to modern scientists?

I meant nothing offensive about what I said, I assure you. I wish you participated more.

Now it's I who isn't understanding you.
 
I already said what I wanted to say.
 
τελομεραση telomere,
is not given neither by father,
neither by mother,

IQ genes if exist, surely pass after statistical law, that does not exclude second or third etc kid,


some standard geek DNA are given either by one parent 50-50 , either by both,
either by a certain one, like case of Down syndrom,

yes after 35 a mother and 50-55 a father it is known that statistically the danger increases,


AND I ASK.

IF THE WORK WAS CORRECT,
then each child must be smarter than the next
and every next must be dumper than previous,
DO YOU BELIEVE SO?

our grandmothers made 4-7 kids, before modern Capitalism destroy their way of life.
they always gave responsibilities to 1rst born,
but for other reasons, especially not for the reason next kids are more geeks
 
τελομεραση telomere,
is not given neither by father,
neither by mother,

IQ genes if exist, surely pass after statistical law, that does exclude second or third etc kid,


some standard geek DNA are given either by one parent 50-50 , either by both,
either by a certain one, like case of Down syndrom,

yes after 35 a mother and 50-55 a father it is known that statistically the danger increases,


AND I ASK.

IF THE WORK WAS CORRECT,
then each child must be smarter than the next
and every next must be dumper than previous,
DO YOU BELIEVE SO?

our grandmothers made 4-7 kids, before modern Capitalism destroy their way of life.
they always gave responsibilities to 1rst born,
but for other reasons, especially not for the reason next kids are more geeks

No, I don't believe it's age itself. I think, as someone suggested, what we might be seeing is that older parents are more intelligent because they're the ones getting more education and so they're older when they have children.

My grandmother had 11 children. She was 19 and my grandfather 27 when their first child was born. She had a child about every two years. The last one was the "change of life" surprise baby. They were all pretty intelligent, but the first three and then the 8th and ninth were in a different category: extremely gifted. I think it was just statistical chance in her case.

In my mother's family they were more "modern" and had only three, and the two oldest were more gifted.

So, at least in my family it didn't fit the pattern the paper is suggesting.
 
Men with high IQ delay parenthood. Weird how confused these researchers are about something that was already known.

Correct I was thinking the same but didn't comment on it.

A factor of course is that people of higher status (not neccessary higher IQ) have children at older age. However that doesn't explain the same tendency in many families who do not have parents of higher education.
 
Older fathers also produce children with a higher percentage of defects. Think about it: dna breaks down and accumulates mutations with aging, and that includes the dna in spermatozoa.

We have a thread on it:
http://www.eupedia.com/forum/thread...lder-Fathers-Less-Fit?highlight=older+fathers

Any woman who is going to have a child with an older man should be aware of it and get all the pre-natal testing possible.

But what is old. Is a parent around his 40s considered old?
 

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