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#Post#: 19137--------------------------------------------------
More boys are born after war. Why?
By: Nikola Date: August 14, 2019, 3:49 pm
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Here's an interesting phenomenon I didn't know about.
HTML https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yRRg0-TsKlM
#Post#: 19138--------------------------------------------------
Re: More boys are born after war. Why?
By: Aliph Date: August 14, 2019, 4:23 pm
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I am a bit perplexed. Tall men father more boys. Ok. But how
come that some tall men have children of different sex?
About the jubilation after the end of a war and the unknown
biological mechanism that favors the production of spermatozoa
that will give life to boys...all this seems a bit esoteric to
me.
However “ se non é vero, é ben trovato”= even if it is not true,
it is well conceived.
#Post#: 19139--------------------------------------------------
Re: More boys are born after war. Why?
By: Truman Overby Date: August 14, 2019, 4:24 pm
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[quote author=Sofia link=topic=1333.msg19138#msg19138
date=1565817790]
it is well conceived.
[/quote]
Nice pun.
#Post#: 19142--------------------------------------------------
Re: More boys are born after war. Why?
By: SHL Date: August 14, 2019, 11:16 pm
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Sorry, but I didn‘t listen to your video Nikola, but I have no
problem believing it to be true.
When you think about it, men have been the ones historically to
fight wars. Hence, when a war is over, there is likely a
shortage of men. Right?
So, it makes total sense to me that more males would be born
after a war as maybe nature‘s way of replenishing the lost
man-power due to the war or something. Of course, how and why
this would occur seems hard to imagine. But, you see the logic?
That’s why I say it wouldn’t surprise me, but I surely couldn’t
explain it or even theorize about it.
Ever hear the theory of alcoholism? It’s an interesting one. It
sort of goes like this. There is no gene for alcoholism as such,
of course, but there is evidence of a gene or genes of some sort
which predispose to addiction in a general sense. That’s why
some people can drink alcohol without becoming alcoholics and
other cannot, and it explains why alcoholism runs in families.
If you do a demographics study, you find higher rates of
alcoholism in conquered populations. The theory is that the
non-alcoholic men in a group /tribe would be the first to go out
and fight in the war, because they were healthier and stronger
due to not being alcoholic. The alcoholic men would sort of hang
back, avoid the battle, and hide under the rocks (for lack of a
better analogy). If the population group were conquered, all or
most of the strong and healthy non-alcoholic men likely got
killed off, and an overabundance of alcoholic men survived to
breed with the women (because the alcoholic population avoided
the battle) passing on the genetic inclination toward alcoholism
to their off-spring.
It’s just an hypothesis (I suppose that’s the right word) but it
kind of makes sense. Also, you see clusters of alcoholism in
specific areas. For instance, higher rates are seen in Ireland
and Scotland, as compared to England. Ireland was England‘s
first conquered colony, then Scotland came later I suppose. If
you take a map of Europe, so I‘ve been told, and drew a wide
band starting in central France and ran that band across into
Russia, you will find higher rates of alcoholism within the band
(I have no idea how wide the band would be, but imagine it to
extend through Central Europe). If you go North of the band,
toward Scandinavia, the alcoholism rates drop. If you go South
of the band, toward Italy, the alcoholism rates also drop.
It’s an interesting phenomenon.
#Post#: 19145--------------------------------------------------
Re: More boys are born after war. Why?
By: Nikola Date: August 15, 2019, 1:47 pm
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[quote author=SHL link=topic=1333.msg19142#msg19142
date=1565842604]
When you think about it, men have been the ones historically to
fight wars. Hence, when a war is over, there is likely a
shortage of men. Right?
So, it makes total sense to me that more males would be born
after a war as maybe nature‘s way of replenishing the lost
man-power due to the war or something. Of course, how and why
this would occur seems hard to imagine. But, you see the logic?
That’s why I say it wouldn’t surprise me, but I
surely couldn’t explain it or even theorize about it.
[/quote]
I do see the logic and I was thinking the same but I suppose the
question should be "how" rather than "why". Shame Irena's not
here, she'd probably just post a link to some study that would
explain the whole thing.
#Post#: 19146--------------------------------------------------
Re: More boys are born after war. Why?
By: SHL Date: August 15, 2019, 2:35 pm
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[quote author=Nikola link=topic=1333.msg19145#msg19145
date=1565894828]
[quote author=SHL link=topic=1333.msg19142#msg19142
date=1565842604]
When you think about it, men have been the ones historically to
fight wars. Hence, when a war is over, there is likely a
shortage of men. Right?
So, it makes total sense to me that more males would be born
after a war as maybe nature‘s way of replenishing the lost
man-power due to the war or something. Of course, how and why
this would occur seems hard to imagine. But, you see the logic?
That’s why I say it wouldn’t surprise me, but I surely couldn’t
explain it or even theorize about it.
[/quote]
I do see the logic and I was thinking the same but I suppose the
question should be "how" rather than "why". Shame Irena's not
here, she'd probably just post a link to some study that would
explain the whole thing.
[/quote]
Oh, I doubt that even Irena would have an answer to it, or know
of a study.
I can‘t even imagine an hypothesis to explain it like in the
alcoholism example that would make sense. Why would a war cause
men to produce more X chromosome sperm (I suppose that’s not on
the banned word list) because women certainly couldn’t have
anything to do with it biologically. It would have to have
something to do with the effect of war on men.
The only thing I can think of that even comes close (sort of) to
the issue of war and offspring was a study done I believe in
East Germany in the 1960s or so. Women who gave birth to sons
during the war had a statistically significant higher rate of
having sons who later were gay, as opposed to a sample of women
giving birth to boys born after 1945. Why, no one can explain. I
doubt the research extended beyond that, but one could only
theorize it had something to do with the stress of war on
pregnant women and the developing fetus.
An interesting issue, but it could have been mere coincidence as
well. Who knows?
#Post#: 19148--------------------------------------------------
Re: More boys are born after war. Why?
By: Susan Date: August 15, 2019, 6:27 pm
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Here is one theory about it, based on genetics, some logic, and
some math. Sounds as reasonable as anything I could think of.
HTML https://www.popsci.com/scitech/article/2008-12/why-does-war-breed-more-boys/
#Post#: 19150--------------------------------------------------
Re: More boys are born after war. Why?
By: SHL Date: August 16, 2019, 12:10 am
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[quote author=Susan link=topic=1333.msg19148#msg19148
date=1565911656]
Here is one theory about it, based on genetics, some logic, and
some math. Sounds as reasonable as anything I could think of.
HTML https://www.popsci.com/scitech/article/2008-12/why-does-war-breed-more-boys/
[/quote]
Good job in finding the article, Susan. :)
#Post#: 19151--------------------------------------------------
Re: More boys are born after war. Why?
By: Nikola Date: August 16, 2019, 2:57 am
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Thank you, Susan. This does sound a lot less far-fetched than
some of the hypotheses they come up with in the video, although
I wonder if the men's height could be related (in that the same
gene which causes a higher son-daughter ratio in different
families might also produce taller men) so they might have been
going the right way with that argument, only they might have
drawn the wrong conclusion. The height wouldn't be the cause, it
would be a byproduct of the same gene. That's just something
that crossed my mind. As the article says, this gene still
hasn't been discovered, and I think it could be difficult
because not all men know exactly how many children they have (or
where).
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