I doubt there was any real misunderstanding here.

“may” is the word these scientists use to frame the conclusion themselves, so I stand by it. You can’t repeat human evolution through research, so a lot of the conclusions in that field are prefaced by words like “may”.

I mean, I suppose that I would HAVE to concede that their “may” carries more weight than my “may” but considering the fact that their research does not in fact negate any of the other contributing factors I listed and concurred with my initial “maybe” framing, and also that scientific research is NOT infallible, I…

Yeah for sure. I’ve studied science in my lifetime so I know there is a lot of bullshit research out there, so when I was taking this article’s word for the framing of the study, I was a) not surprised that such bullshit would exist and b) not hesitant to call it total bs but after looking at the study, they are in…

Your edit posits a good question: why do humans have menopause, and in fact the researchers in this study are asking that question, and not “why don’t women die after menopause” which I would have hoped would be seen universally as ridiculous, but no. And according to them other species do live past their reproductive…

When you ask a question like this, several possible reasons spring to mind, any of which is a viable reason, and actually all of which may be contributing reasons. In nature when there are several reasons for something to be so, and no reasons for it not to be so, all of those several reasons to be so are “answers”…

Yeah of course. But no matter how many times you re-test something like this it can never be boiled down to a repeatable result. If you look at the study even the scientists say it “may” confer the benefit of late-life helping. In fact if you look at the study they are not framing the question as this article suggests…

I am neither sociologist nor scientist, and I never said I was. If you take a look at the study, even the scientists state that life after menopause “may” confer the benefit of late-life helping - as they and any reasonable person recognize, something like this cannot be reduced to a test which produces a repeatable…

Yeah I really feel my mind expanding from this research. Great point.

If you question the existence of ridiculous research pursued to push an agenda, you don’t “science” either. The questions you list are more examples of things which answer themselves and cannot be scientifically nailed down, ie, there are more than likely several reasons why they came to be. Worth looking into but…

Copy pasting from separate thread:

It really is amazing. My kid is making connections now intellectually and it’s like watching the aurora borealis (spoken like an obsessed parent, I know, I know).

People get so upset about the pet kid comparison but I’ve really felt that myself. It’s funny - I’m so used to training puppies that with my first I was like “jesus, how am I gonna teach him to walk” - it never occurred to me that he would have an instinct to stand upright and begin pulling himself up to standing on…

Oh ok, now I see what you are saying. Wasn’t clear at first. You could call helping with kids “altruism”, I guess, but you could also call it a necessary biological function since our offspring remain helpless for years. Real scientific “altruism” usually refers to an inexplicably selfless act, such as a bird flying…

There are a whole lot of really worthwhile things to study when it comes to sexuality and reproduction, but this specific question, a) answers itself as I laid out in detail, and b) cannot actually be answered beyond doubt. They reached a conclusion, but how did they even conduct this study? This is not a study of…

I have 2 kids under 3. It’s taken this long for me to get grossed out by the poop, but I’ve always had dogs raised from puppies. As far as walking they actually teach themselves to do that, no joke - blew my mind.

What

This is at least as solid as:

I’m not a scientist, but I did receive a basic education, and before I’d even finished the article at least a dozen reasons why animals, including humans, survive past reproduction. It’s beyond easy to surmise and any scientist that pursues this type of research is either hopelessly stupid or pushing an agenda.

Yeah but you don’t need altruism to answer this one. About a million scientifically solid answers had presented in my mind before I finished reading the article. These scientists are really dumb.