[HN Gopher] Evolution of the Dad
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Evolution of the Dad
Author : RickJWagner
Score : 54 points
Date : 2021-06-19 12:59 UTC (10 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (knowablemagazine.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (knowablemagazine.org)
| jugg1es wrote:
| Decrease in testosterone in human males after birth is not news,
| but I've never seen anyone suggest that the cause could be
| decreased sexual activity as the mother heals. It is known that
| decreased sexual activity lowers testosterone in human males. I
| just had my third child 10 days ago so I'm right smack in the
| middle of this. I don't feel a drop in libido, but lack of sleep
| and the knowledge that there won't be sex for a while doesn't
| help. I'd like to see a study that actually proves a causal
| relationship here.
| the__alchemist wrote:
| Not directly mentioned in the article, but relevant: Richard
| Dawkins, in at least one of his books, discusses why dads don't
| put in as much child-rearing (in many mammals, for example). The
| evolutionary incentives for fathers and mothers are the same (eg
| they have equal stakes in the genes being propagated). 2
| categories of reasons. (there may be more)
|
| - Fathers (depending on species) can't be confident a given child
| is theirs. Mothers can be confident due to giving live birth.
| Fathers have a lower incentive to care for a given child, since
| expending effort on offspring that's not yours is evolutionary
| detrimental; everything has an opportunity cost.
|
| - Mothers have a much higher investment in the child from the
| moment of conception: Due to the extra food they must consume to
| nourish the embryo, the effects of pregnancy etc. By comparison,
| sperm is cheap. Neither parent wants to let the child die due to
| lack of care, but the fathers are in a better position to call
| the mothers' bluff than vice versa due to the sunk cost.
| webinvest wrote:
| Well nowadays there's inexpensive DNA tests incase your wife
| purposefully confuses paternity. Cheap enough that you don't
| have to go on the Maury TV show to find out. One female dating
| strategy as old as time is to have a baby with an alpha male
| and let a beta male raise it. However, I don't know of a
| scenario where a wife won't get very angry if you request a
| paternity test.
| pgsimp wrote:
| It is not necessarily legal to get such a test, and in some
| countries (like Germany), the men are still liable to pay
| child support even if the child isn't theirs.
| vladvasiliu wrote:
| They may be inexpensive, but they also have to be legal. In
| France, you may only have one if ordered by a judge, which
| only happens for a limited number of reasons, and may be
| refused if it's deemed against the child's interest.
|
| > The carrying out of a paternity test outside the legal
| framework carries penalties ranging from one year's
| imprisonment to EUR15,000 fine.
|
| Official source: https://www.service-
| public.fr/particuliers/vosdroits/F14042?...
| gambiting wrote:
| Wait, really? Even if both sides consent? Why does the
| French government want to tell people whether they can or
| not can have a DNA test if both parties consent??
| watwut wrote:
| I would point that it these are speculations and gender
| ideologies more then science.
| jrue wrote:
| This is fascinating, but also worrying how people might
| extrapolate too much from innate evolutionary upbringing. We're
| social beings and there are so many examples of social
| constructs that benefit humans as a species but run against the
| grain of our more primal tendencies. It's still important to
| study, and interesting nonetheless. But too often I see it used
| as a justification for people to express certain types of
| behavior (e.g. physical altercations, etc)
| canadianfella wrote:
| Can you provide one example?
| kqr wrote:
| This is an argument I've heard previously but in the context of
| jealousy. The idea then is that men are on average more
| "sexually" jealous (don't want their heterosexual partner to
| have physical intimacy with other men) whereas women would on
| average be more "socially" jealous (don't want their
| heterosexual partner to have emotional intimacy with other
| women.)
|
| In case it needs to be explicit: the men in the story are
| worried that their women may become with another man's child,
| whereas the women are worried that the man will not remain
| loyal and help raise their child.
| pgsimp wrote:
| How silly to frame that issue in terms of jealousy, when
| there are actual underlying economic concerns.
| User23 wrote:
| Paternal investment massively improves outcomes, including
| fitness, for the offspring. There is a ton of data supporting
| this.
| borski wrote:
| Can you provide any such data, as the article disagrees with
| you and specifically focuses on the _role_ being important, but
| not the presence of a male father fulfilling that role.
| chmod600 wrote:
| "I think we need to take a much more nonjudgmental view of the
| human family, and the kinds of family structures in which
| children can thrive"
|
| A strange conclusion. After spending the rest of the article
| describing ways in which dads matter, why would the article pivot
| to essentially say all methods are equal?
|
| Different circumstances create different pressures and evolve
| different behaviors. Choosing and socially encouraging the best
| ones is important. Isn't that being judgemental?
|
| Sure, there's room for variety. But, as a society, you should be
| somewhat choosey.
| lukas099 wrote:
| A lot of the article was about how human behavior varies based
| on culture, including the role of the father. It also talks
| about studies where children without fathers had the same
| survival rates as those with fathers, and speculates that the
| father role might be fillable by other members of society. So
| that conclusion was not totally out of the blue.
| sudhirj wrote:
| The studies they're quoting support the thesis that fathers
| aren't strictly necessary for child survival, only the role
| they perform is. So from the child survival point of view, a
| culture or society that does not have doting fathers but enough
| community support to fill those roles is just as beneficial as
| one that has doting fathers. Either way works, from a child
| survival p.o.v.
|
| There may be other factors that we as a society consider
| beneficial that we wish to promote, that need present and
| involved fathers, and that's fine. But that doesn't mean a non-
| involved father is bad for the survival of the child. We
| currently based societal mores on more than just survival,
| though, and that is a sign of progress.
| [deleted]
| kriskrunch wrote:
| Can the reduction in testosterone result from increased cortisol
| levels caused by the stress of a newborn in the home?
| DoingIsLearning wrote:
| Sleep deprivation.
|
| Unless the study is controlling for that. Most of these studies
| only control for sleep deprivation based on self reported
| questionnaires, where parents are likely to be too optimistic.
| jugg1es wrote:
| Agreed. They need to start controlling for sleep deprivation
| and cessation of sexual activity for the weeks after birth
| before these studies can start suggesting anything
| physiological.
| h2odragon wrote:
| > I think we need to take a much more nonjudgmental view of the
| human family
|
| Dunno; how many of us agree what makes a good family? "Is
| everyone there happier and healthier than they would be
| elsewhere?" would be my question, but a lot of people seem to
| assume a good family is one that looks like those portrayed on
| TV.
|
| As for animals; I can speak firsthand of dog packs where junior
| males have a lot to do with caring for the young, especially the
| "raise the teenagers" stage. The females of that age tend to
| stand on dignity and want nothing to do with pups, but the males
| are willing to be chew toys.
| User23 wrote:
| Most people on the planet agree that the ideal family involves
| both parents in a loving stable relationship who are able to
| provide for their children's needs.
| watwut wrote:
| Nuclear family as unit isolated feom extended familly is not
| worldwide universal nor was in the past.
| zrail wrote:
| Fascinating generalization over 7.8 billion people.
| asguy wrote:
| How about we generalize a different way: how many
| successful societies can you name, that became successful
| while pushing single-parent child rearing?
| williamdclt wrote:
| You implicitely changed the criteria though: you went
| from the "ideal family", which is very vague but I would
| understand as "a family where the members are happy in
| their lives", to "a family model that makes a society
| successful".
|
| Optimising for the individual's happiness or for society
| "success" conceivably yields different family models.
| User23 wrote:
| It's a bit of a brutalization of the concept of ideal to
| reduce it to mere happiness. The junkie on his way to a
| fentanyl overdose may very well be happy, but nobody who
| is honest and not evil would hold it up as an ideal life.
|
| It's pretty obvious that an ideal has to account for
| externalities to be much of one.
| borski wrote:
| But "success" is a fleeting metric, is the point. In your
| meth use example, the addiction and codependency are due
| to a physical dependency. Child-rearing is a choice, not
| a physical addiction. Can't compare apples and oranges.
|
| Happiness is measured in happiness. We can also measure
| health.
|
| But "success" is too subjective to matter as a useful
| metric.
| sonofhans wrote:
| > ... but the males are willing to be chew toys.
|
| The perfectly describes a non-trivial amount of fatherhood for
| me -- I'm a combination of a mobile jungle gym and a chew toy
| :D
| damagednoob wrote:
| > how many of us agree what makes a good family?
|
| I think there are things we can broadly agree on. For example,
| reducing the number of single-parent families or general
| delinquency. Once we solve those types of issues, we can get
| into the relative minutae of things like screen time, etc.
| developer93 wrote:
| Why is a single parent family alone a bad thing? I could see
| a case where a single caring parent could be much better than
| 2 negligent or abusive ones.
| compiler-guy wrote:
| "All else being equal" is an implied assumption here. Yes,
| two abusive parents are worse than one good parent. But two
| good parents are better than one good parent. It is
| probably also the case that one good parent and one abusive
| parent is better than one abusive parent alone.
| balfirevic wrote:
| > But two good parents are better than one good parent.
|
| What about 3?
| damagednoob wrote:
| Sure, add 'limiting any amount of abusive parents' to the
| list too. I was coming from the point of view of 'all other
| things being equal', two parents are better than one.
| DangitBobby wrote:
| We don't have kids but I see this kind of behavior with my wife
| regarding the dog. When he gets zoomies or very playful, she's
| likely to see this energetic behavior as "being bad" and not
| something to engage with. Not sure how extensible my anecdote
| is to other people's situations but it mirrors my understanding
| of the treatment of boys in a school setting.
| developer93 wrote:
| I think in a school setting, you can't make allowances for
| the 1 kid who is stopping the rest from learning, so
| behaviour that might be tolerated by parents or in a 1;1
| situation gets shut down. Just hypothesising, no direct
| experience.
| petermcneeley wrote:
| Some "dads" employ other strategies
| https://bumpreveal.com/blogs/statistics/genghis-khan-dna-des...
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(page generated 2021-06-19 23:01 UTC)