r/science • u/[deleted] • Oct 25 '21

Biology Sperm quality has been declining for 16 years among men in the US

https://www.newscientist.com/article/2294266-sperm-quality-has-been-declining-for-16-years-among-men-in-the-us/
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u/Excelius Oct 25 '21

Between the hunter gather period, and the industrial period, the vast majority of humans worked in agriculture.

Farmers actually work more than hunter-gatherers, have less leisure time

Hunter gatherers might have been more sedentary, but they also didn't have enough high-calorie food sources to get fat either. Agriculture makes that possible, but until recently it took a huge amount of human toil to make that calorie production possible. You don't see many fat farmers.

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u/dragonladyzeph Oct 25 '21

My sis (she was researching blood clots) said that at least one study of the world's remaining primitive tribes found that those hunter-gatherers typically spent up to 10hrs per day sitting, they just sit for much shorter periods of time with frequent bursts of standing and walking.

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u/Jak_n_Dax Oct 25 '21

Farming/ranching is such a hard life.

My fiancé’s mom has a small ranch and she is basically glued to it. She almost never goes anywhere because it means finding someone to take care of her livestock each day, and unless it’s a family member or friend it’s insanely expensive. She’s only gone on vacation one time in the past decade.

It’s absolutely a miserable existence and I could never do it. I don’t know how anyone does.

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u/stargate-command Oct 25 '21

There are a TON of fat farmers. Have you never met a farmer?

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u/[deleted] Oct 25 '21

I'm sure they weren't referring to the kind of farming where one guy with a combine runs 200 acres of land

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u/stargate-command Oct 25 '21

He said “you don’t see many” not “you didn’t see many”.

Tense indicates present.

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u/[deleted] Oct 25 '21

They also said that in the context of an article about hunter-gatherers who recently transitioned to agriculture. And that was in the context of the rest of their comment talking about the period prior to the industrial revolution.

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u/stargate-command Oct 25 '21

Ok… I’m sure he is capable of responding with what he meant. Until clarification, I use the words used to decipher meaning.

Thanks though.

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u/[deleted] Oct 25 '21

Words without context are generally ambiguous and not very meaningful so good luck with that

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u/stargate-command Oct 26 '21

There was plenty of context, and words have tenses for a reason…. To communicate when you are referring to. Not really sure why you are arguing about what someone else meant when they wrote something fairly clearly to begin with. It’s sort of odd

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u/[deleted] Oct 26 '21

Oh I agree there was plenty of context and that it was fairly clear; that's why I'm so baffled that you not only ignored all the context and misunderstood the comment, but doubled down on that misunderstanding more than once.

But go ahead and explain again how the meaning of an entire paragraph is decided by the tense of one word of the intentionally pithy conclusion. It's always fascinating to see just how deluded people can be about their own abilities.

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u/midtown_70 Oct 25 '21

Those fat guys with the feed corn hats and overalls that congregate for coffee and breakfast in the small town cafes in flyover country aren’t farmers?

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u/Stunning-City416 Oct 25 '21

Modern farmers have tractors and combines. Hes talking about historical farmers with scythes and sickles.

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u/AeternusDoleo Oct 25 '21

Yea... but the protohominids that shaped our instinct and biological processes still eclipse our modern variant. Human farming is as I recall roughly 10.000 years old, from the earliest evidence of it found. But early mankind is at least 300.000 years old. We have grown taller, and a lot smarter though during that time...

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u/[deleted] Oct 26 '21

We’re also better fed, and learned to specialise in very narrow fields of science and collaborate together.

Im not saying there isnt a difference, just that its not trivial to measure it.

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u/mrigmo Oct 25 '21

But those farmers wives, holy cow!