Our Ability to Produce Offspring in Teenage Years

[SerengetiLion]

I ponder the thought of the reasoning of why us humans once puberty hits are able to produce offspring. In our society having a child at this young age is not ideal for many reasons. I can't help but think the reason is because one's DNA hasn't copied itself as many times as the DNA in anyone older in age, less copying thus less mutations, errors as well as epigenetic altered DNA. 

[Sensei]

In biology when some organism is able to have offspring is considered "adult".. it used to be this way in ancient times e.g. in ancient Rome you became "adult" at age 13-14, and could marry partner and could have your own child.

In modern times human adult status has been artificially delayed from 13-14 to 18 years.

 

The smarter and the more knowledgeable are parents the smarter can be their offspring, as long as parents are spending time with their children, spending time on teaching everything they know..

But knowledge of humankind is growing with time..

 

We have here two concurrent visions: less damaged DNA with not really smart and not really ready parents versus the more damaged DNA with the more ready, the more knowledgeable parents. Offspring of not too bright, not ready, too young parents won't be able to develop to full intellectual potential, because of limits of their parents..

 

Edited March 22, 2019 by Sensei

[SerengetiLion]

The reason I think that is because I don't believe in any god creating life on Earth, I believe it happened because the ingredients and conditions were there from natural processes. I understand life forms as just to keep on producing life, like that's it's main goal. For humans to be able to produce offspring in early teenage years I think it made it possible from these years as being the best due to less mutations and errors to DNA of the host that's passed down and of course the process couldn't put any thought into the problems it would pose like our standards of knowing it's best to grow into an adult with a level head before having offspring.

[CharonY]

I would not try to derive it from such individual basic principles. More often than not, you will have wild speculations that are difficult to test, especially as humans have a wide window of procreation.

You could think about in terms of a simple optimization, i.e. having the broadest window of opportunity whilst still having a sufficiently high survival rate to be competitive. 

[SerengetiLion]

Lol, I have not the slightest intention of "testing" the idea. It's merely a thought as I said.

[CharonY]

Thoughts that are untestable are usually not conducive for getting insights.

[Sensei]

2 hours ago, CharonY said:

Thoughts that are untestable are usually not conducive for getting insights.

..but you can check how well offspring of parent with given age prospered in their life by analyze of statistical data i.e. take database of the all born people with connections between them with mentioned level of education, and building graph with age of parent in X axis, and degree of offspring in Y axis, material status of offspring in yet another Y axis 2nd line, etc. etc.

If there is correlation, it'll be revealed on such graph.

 

[CharonY]

7 hours ago, Sensei said:

..but you can check how well offspring of parent with given age prospered in their life by analyze of statistical data i.e. take database of the all born people with connections between them with mentioned level of education, and building graph with age of parent in X axis, and degree of offspring in Y axis, material status of offspring in yet another Y axis 2nd line, etc. etc.

If there is correlation, it'll be revealed on such graph.

 

Yes, but that is not what was proposed. OP speculated that DNA damage favours child birth at young age. Tbf, the statement in OP was also slightly confusing, i.e. that folks are able to produce offspring once puberty hits. That, of course is the definition of puberty, so I take that OP meant "at a relatively young age" or before "full maturity". What I was hoping to achieve is to direct OP to a more careful framing of the thought. Specifically the testable aspect would be whether there is evidence that children of teenage parents are less likely to have health effects that can be traced back to DNA damage than adult folks. 

The complicating factor in health outcomes is that in modern societies, teenage pregnancies are more common when other factors that may adversely affect health are also present, including socioeconomic status (especially in the US among Western countries). But to make a long story short, there is only relatively weak evidence for increased risk past 30, which becomes more apparent hitting ~35. Between 15-20 there are no reliably detectable effects.

[peterwlocke]

we evolve slowly and this is something from back then.

[naitche]

On 3/22/2019 at 5:05 PM, SerengetiLion said:

I ponder the thought of the reasoning of why us humans once puberty hits are able to produce offspring. In our society having a child at this young age is not ideal for many reasons. I can't help but think the reason is because one's DNA hasn't copied itself as many times as the DNA in anyone older in age, less copying thus less mutations, errors as well as epigenetic altered DNA. 

Many of the reasons its 'not ideal' today, would not have been such issues in the past. With extended families,  those children would have had an advantage that would also  extend to  perpetuating the genetics for longer life spans and familial cooperation. 

[Ten oz]

On 3/22/2019 at 2:05 AM, SerengetiLion said:

I ponder the thought of the reasoning of why us humans once puberty hits are able to produce offspring. In our society having a child at this young age is not ideal for many reasons. I can't help but think the reason is because one's DNA hasn't copied itself as many times as the DNA in anyone older in age, less copying thus less mutations, errors as well as epigenetic altered DNA. 

The longer one must wait to reproduce the less likely they are to ever successfully reproduce. We humans have done a good job over the last few hundred years reducing the risks posed by disease, predators, weather, and etc but even still not everyone born doesn't safely makes it to 30yrs of age or whatever. The sooner one can have children the more likely they are to get a chance to do so before they die. The average human life span during antiquity was just 30 years. Before that it was even less. People having children at 13yrs old meant the child would probably get at least 10yrs or more with a parent before they were stuck fending for themselves. 

In my opinion survival of the fittest is easier to understand if thought of as survival of those who reproduce. It doesn't matter to evolution how intelligent, strong, or other fit something is. Only genes passed down through reproduction continue. Evolution doesn't default toward progress in any specific aware other than survival. Having children young increases the likelihood one will live to have kids. It also increase the number of generations that fit a century. If Humans weren't able to reproduce until they were older there is a chance Humans would have gone extinct. Insignificant numbers and inability to reproduce (successfully) quickly enough surely played a roll in the extinction of Neanderthals and Denisovans .

 

Edited March 28, 2019 by Ten oz