It doesn't seem logical for an animal to evolve a system of ending its reproductive capability after a certain age; in fact it would appear the opposite. It doesn't help the individual's reproduction nor the reproduction of its offspring, and it would appear to be beneficial evolutionarily to not have menopause and have women be fertile all their lives.
People aren't meant to live long enough to go into menopause.
>>7702658
But it would still be beneficial for the few times that they did live longer; wouldn't appear to have a non-good effect. Most animals don't have menopause, in fact.
>>7702654
animals don't evolve. Stop being such a plebeian dogmatist.
>>7702670
You can't reproduce when you're dead, and until extremely recently in evolutionary timescales we had a short lifespan due to all the things in the world that could kill us, so it makes sense to reproduce as early as possible (teenage years). If any of those reproducing women happened to have the "menopause gene" it never factors into whether they can reproduce or not, in the extremely unlikely event they reach that age they've almost certainly already passed on the menopause to future generations.
>>7702654
I'd imagine its a safeguard so females don't reproduce when they might die during the kid's childhood or after they've become too weak to survive childbirth
>>7702670
if a species is too long-lived, it slows evolution aka adaptability down. bad thing in nature. you have to die to give room to the next generation, which hopefully is better adapted to the changed surroundings
>>7702700
why wait for evolution when we could make evolution
>>7702654
>Why did some [insert evolutionary trait] happen if evolution is so perfect?
It's not perfect. It's a system that's well defined by the "hill climbing algorithm." It constantly gets stuck in a local maximum.
>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oSdPmxRCWws
Skip ahead to 3:00 for a better explanation than I have the patience to give you.
>>7702654
My educated guess is that it happens because as women get older the chances of having a malformed or Down's, autistic...etc baby increase greatly so there's an evolutionarily optimal age to stop reproductive capabilities due to the inherent risks of childbirth not being worth it if your offspring will not be fit enough to reproduce. Also the postmenopausal grandmother can help care for the grandchildren or help get food for the family unit or...etc,, so that would be an evolutionary benefit of menopause.
>>7702654
There is no menopause gene
It simply happens because they have a fixed amount of eggs at birth
I suppose that producing eggs any day would have them spend significant amount of energy
>>7702745
Thank you. That was a superb watch.
>>7702775
Seems pretty straightforward to me.
It didn't.
>>7702654
Parents are supposed to die when their children are old enough to care for themselves. This allows more resources to be used by the children. In species where the parents don't die, they usually go through menopause to ensure that no new children from the same genetic source is competing with the current generation.
>>7702654
Isn't the other way around? Humans evolved to live longer than their reproductive years
>>7702654
Finite eggs.
>>7702654
perhaps the old people who never menopause spawned kids who didn't live
>>7704531
Maybe it's evolutionarily less complicated to make people live longer than it is to reconfigure ovaries to keep making eggs after the fetal stage
>>7702677
B9 m9 9s agsjjahsjsjsjs
Nope.
>>7702658
>meant
Unless you can prove God's intent here, you're pulling bullshit out of thin air.
>>7702693
>until extremely recently in evolutionary timescales we had a short lifespan due to all the things in the world that could kill us,
This is a common misunderstanding of average lifespan.
Just a hundred years ago, the average American lived 45 years.
They TYPICAL American lived into their 70's, but so many children died before the age of 6, that the average was very skewed.
My personal theory is that women over 40 (even today) aren't as likely to carry a child to term well.
Hot flashes in particular: try sleeping in the same bed with a woman having a hot flash.
It's nature's way of pushing you towards younger pussy.
>>7702654
Women go through menopause not because they have a finite number of eggs, women have hundreds of thousands of eggs, but because all of these eggs exist from the time a woman is born. After sitting in an ovary for decades, an egg becomes slightly unstable for reproduction, and the risk of birth defects, and/or congenital diseases rises.
>>7702654
Menopause developed in human females and some other mammals (like orcas) so they could provide care for grandchildren without competing with their own young.
The female is related to both her children and grandchildren so naturally she wants both to survive to ensure the survival of her own genes. If the female were to have a young child at the same time as having a young grandchild, certain situations may lead to a conflict in interests. For example, in a time of little food the female may wish to provide food for her own young before the grandchild, as she is more related to her own child. The grandchild's mother would then have to compete with the female for these resources, leading to less being provided to both young, which in turn leads to them being potentially less capable of passing on their genes.
In a tribal setting, no one would choose to give a 70 year old pregnant lady extra food and support when their are plenty of young pregnant ladies who need the support just as badly.
Because of that, getting pregnant would be a death sentence for the 70 year old, so she is better off helping out her children and grandchildren.
https://csde.washington.edu/downloads/01-04.pdf
What makes everyone in this thread think group selection and cultural evolution (helping grandchildren, etc) would exert enough selective pressure to drive physiological evolution of something like menopause? Because it really doesn't.
1. Human birth is DANGEROUS for both the mother and child.
2. Humans are SOCIAL creatures.
Menopause makes a ton of sense from an evolutionary standpoint: it allows the mother to continue to care for her feeble children born earlier in life.
>>7704700
I hope everyone reads this before responding.
I'm having to stop to google terms so I haven't finished but this is a great read.
>>7704531
I don't think we've been living long for long enough to have any changes like that. Also the primary thing deciding between life and death in girls isn't how long their eggs last or how many they have. You have one kid at a young age and your DNA duties are good so it's ok for you to die after you raise the kid.
The easy way to fix that is to make your ability to have children at an old age the primary factor between life and death. You'd have to prevent everyone from having kids until they're as old as your body allows you to have a baby, and then keep upping the age with generations. then maybe you could select for traits that allow babies at an older age or people who don't get menopause.
That sounds like a fast way to kill the species though. And besides steroid hormones kill you with time anyway.
>>7702654
In any system the ability to produce offspring exceeds the availability of resources in the long run.
It would be disadvantageous to the continual evolution of a species for an alpha (male or female) to have all the offspring indefinitely.
There are several organisms that have reverted to asexual reproduction methods including some vertebrates, these organisms produce clones of themselves, though sometimes imperfect close which allows only slow linear changes in there DNA.
There are also examples of organisms that have biological immortality.
But the vast majority of higher life forms reproduce by mixing DNA from two parents and dying, freeing resources for there progeny. So far it seems to work better than the other options that are available.
up until fairly recently (last 150yrs) the average life expectancy was only 40yo.
No point in bearing children when the pregnancy probably killed older mothers.
This is such a stupid question.
Do you know how and when eggs are formed in women? Do you know how many DNA-damaging agents you are exposed to every day of your life?
I'm fucking furious.
