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Is Middle Age Evolution's Crowning Achievement?
Hugh Pickens writes "Reproductive biologist David Bainbridge writes that with the onset of wrinkles, love handles, and failing eyesight we are used to dismissing our fifth and sixth decades as a negative chapter in our lives. However recent scientific findings show just how crucial middle age has been to the success of our species and that with the probable existence of lots of prehistoric middle-aged people, natural selection had plenty to work on. 'We lead an energy-intensive, communication-driven, information-rich way of life, and it was the evolution of middle age that supported this,' writes Bainbridge, adding that middle age is a controlled and preprogrammed process, not of decline, but of development. 'When we think of human development, we usually think of the growth of a fetus or the maturation of a child into an adult. Yet the tightly choreographed transition into middle age is a later but equally important stage in which we are each recast into yet another novel form' — resilient, healthy, energy-efficient and productive. 'The middle aged may not have been able to outrun the prey, but they were really good at working out where it might be hiding and dividing up the spoils afterwards.' Although some critics say that middle age is a construct of the middle aged, Bainbridge asserts that one key role of middle age is the propagation of information. 'All animals inherit a great deal of information in their genes; some also learn more as they grow up. Humans have taken this second form of information transfer to a new level. We are born knowing and being able to do almost nothing. Each of us depends on a continuous infusion of skills, knowledge and customs, collectively known as culture, if we are to survive. And the main route by which culture is transferred is by middle-aged people showing and telling their children — as well as the young adults with whom they hunt and gather — what to do.'"
Author David Bainbridge is 44. And 25 years ago he wrote a book claiming that teenagers are the pinnacle of human existence.
(OK, so it wasn't 25 years ago. But that would have been funny.)
I am middle aged, nearing fifty. I (and my friends) can still hike a trail with my kids, keep up with them and show them interesting things, stuff I remember wondering about when I was their age.
My Mom, however, is 77. She cannot hike those same trails at our speed and she has difficulty remembering things. She stays back with the great-grandkids and the octogenarian dog, baking cookies while we hike.
There is a qualitative difference between middle age and old age, but that may not be readily apparent if you have nothing to compare to.
How come Slashdot never gets Slashdotted?
I would agree that any attempt to define middle age solely in terms of calendar age is bound to be arbitrary. But the summary hits the important distinctions with "resilient, healthy, energy-efficient and productive." At some point for each person (who lives long enough) the advantages of experience can't make for the physical decline, and we transition from "middle age" to "old age."
Of course these terms are pathetically vague, and we need better ones that say what we mean, but the distinction itself is real.
Boomer "science". :-)
"Look! We're still the center of the unverse! The reason for human existence!"
Calm down, Grandpa.
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
My very limited understanding was that evolution really could only work if the survivors were of reproductive age. If they are great at surviving and making children then it would work, otherwise not.
Ah.. fine I read the article:
"The probable existence of lots of prehistoric middle-aged people means that natural selection had plenty to work on. Those with beneficial traits would have been more successful at nurturing their children to reproductive age and helping provide for their grandchildren, and hence would have passed on those traits to their descendants. As a result, modern middle age is the result of millennia of natural selection."
So really it's grandparents that this article is really getting at. Middle aged for the purpose of having your offspring's offspring survive. That actually makes sense.
Not buying that outdated knowledge does not persist. For example Religion!
As an aging geek, and as much as an aging body sucks, I wouldn't trade my wiser more developed brain for my younger body.
You seem to have a gross misunderstanding of libertarians.
Baby boomers aren't really middle-aged any more. Depending on how you define "baby boomer," "middle age," and "old age," anyway. But if you were born five years after the end of WW2, you're old enough to start collecting Social Security this year.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
I'm 47 and I feel and know that I'm over the hill. Life's something that takes place before you're 30.
REALLY? I am 45 and can still ski and hike with the best of them. I don't feel close to being over the hill. My son is 18 and skis like a maniac, but I can still wear him out. Old is a state of mind, and "middle age" or 40s/50s is definitely NOT old. My father played tennis into his mid/late 70's.
I hope you are just trying to provoke conversation, if not, I really feel sorry for you.
If you could reason with religious people, there would be no religious people
Our culture is so old phobic that people just want to bury their heads in the sand.
Yea, you're right, parts of the US culture is like that, certainly much of the media.
And that's why we have old guys hitting on twenty something year old women
Uh, no, dude, that's NOT why.
"Somebody has to do something. It's just incredibly pathetic it has to be us."
--- Jerry Garcia
See also:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pak_Protector
It's a match made in, er, evolution:
Little children love to hear the same story repeatedly, over and over, using exactly the same words.
Old folks repeat the same stories over and over, and if they get the words wrong, the children correct them.
Perfection.
it's not reproduction, but having your genes go on
being alive in middle age means you can take care of your grand kids while their parents work and give them a chance to have more kids. if you look around the cultures with the strong extended family traditions like latinos and asians seem to have more kids
a lot of the english/irish/italian/ kids can't wait to move halfway across the country as soon as they can. in other cultures where you stay closer to your parents you can have more kids if they help take care of them
Heh, a recent FB status of mine was "I'd like some Tree of Life Root about now." Of course I'm probably too old at this point and it would kill me, but I'm definitely feeling like evolution is done with me and I'm supposed to die off soon to make room for the younger and faster.
And I'm 44.
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Yes, but if you can live long enough to keep your kid from dying at 15 while he's still showing off trying to get laid, then you've helped to pass on your genes further. If you can watch your grandbabies while your kid is out hunting, you've helped to pass on your genes further. The continuation of your bloodline doesn't stop with your first red-faced, squalling brat.
From an evolutionary POV, it should be the older guys hitting on younger women (you might think that I'm above a certain age, I couldn't possibly comment).
You can only really examine a man for his propensity for success - both culutral and genetic - until he gets out of his twenties. Alas, women have a certain reproductive shelf life. The inbuilt male interest in younger women is a reflection of this - older women are less likely to be fertile, more likely to have troublesome pregnancies, more likely to have children with birth defects. On the other hand, for a man to have reached his forties at all, let alone with all his faculties intact, was no mean feat for much of the history of the human race. A woman would have to weigh this kind of mate in the balance - the advantages of his experience and the proof of his superior genetic quality, versus the possibility that he'll peg out and not be around to provide resources for her - but you can see how a middle aged man is, from an evolutionary point of view, a much better bet than a younger man.
Perhaps the stereotype of the mid-life crisis is actually just a successful evolutionary strategy that just receives bad press. Or perhaps I'm just sucking on those sour grapes... :-)
I read a little blurb years ago by a guy who was in the peace core in the Caribbean. In a little village, 200 people or so. There was one really old guy who was eighty or some such. He was long past being able to do much more than gossip and look after small children. Till the day they heard over the radio that a hurricane was coming. Most people didn't really know what a hurricane was, but he did. He'd been through one when he was a young man. And all these years later he knew what to do. He had young men go into the forrest and bring back logs, showed them how to brace the insides of homes. To board up the windows, block the doors. Use rope to tie down the roof. Ordered families to just abandon badly constructed huts. Cut down and remove trees that were likely to come down. People were busy and a little grumpy but did what they were told. Hurricane hit in the middle of the night, 120 mile an hour winds. Most of the poorly constructed houses got knocked down, the ones that were reinforced survived and the people in them. No one died, not in that village. Some other villages, they didn't do anything, and houses fell down, people died.
So the thing is, the old man had already passed on his genes. By living long he was also able to use and pass on hard won knowledge and thus insure that his children. grand children and great grand children survived.