
Do Fathers Who Exercise Have Smarter Babies? - gk1
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/09/well/move/do-fathers-who-exercise-have-smarter-babies.html
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l5870uoo9y
The title makes it sound like a dull statistical correlation was found in some
sociology report, but they did some actual measuring. From the report summary:

> We show that this effect is mediated through sperm RNA and especially miRs
> 212/132\. In conclusion, our study reports intergenerational inheritance of
> an acquired cognitive benefit and points to specific miRs as candidates
> mechanistically involved in this type of transmission.

[https://www.cell.com/cell-
reports/fulltext/S2211-1247(18)304...](https://www.cell.com/cell-
reports/fulltext/S2211-1247\(18\)30404-2?sf186956567=1)

~~~
nostrademons
In mice, though. It's an open question to what extent rodent results apply to
humans. This result should open doors to future research, but by itself should
be taken with the appropriate grain of salt.

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godelmachine
It's a well known fact that mice and humans promdominantly share the same
genome, so this research should be taken with more than grain of salt,
methinks.

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pavel_lishin
Isn't that also true of me and corn?

~~~
joombaga
~85% with mice, ~60% with bananas. I suspect corn is more like a banana than a
mouse.

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Jagat
Did anyone else notice that there's been an increasing number of mildly
successful research that hint towards Lamarckian evolution as being real
sometimes?

Has something changed (either ease or impetus) that's made it easy to do such
research?

Or does it have something to do with the fact that most people's conception of
evolution is Lamarckian in nature?

Whenever I ask someone to describe evolution, they describe it the way Lamarck
thought it worked. And when I talk about natural selection, they say they need
time to digest that.

~~~
toasterlovin
The way I conceptualize of it is that evolution is still almost entirely
Darwinian, but that there's also a ton of other stuff that happens. Without
wanting to get political, I think a good analogy would be human gender and
sexuality. The statement that there are two human sexes, male and female, and
that they seek each other out for the purpose of mating explains somewhere
around 95% of what you see in humans. But human sexuality is complicated and
to get to an explanation that encompasses 100% of what you observe requires
vastly expanding your model of what's going on. So what's going on now with
evolution is that we are discovering all the little ways in which evolution is
complicated.

~~~
whatshisface
A slight mismatch in your analogy is that G&S studies doesn't explain
anything, they just categorize it. They aren't proposing any mechanisms.

~~~
toasterlovin
There is definitely serious research into the causal mechanisms of
homosexuality and transgenderism.

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tankerdude
So that would imply that people who actually must exercise for their job
(construction workers) would have smarter children, on average? And how would
that be measured if the child gets stuck in a poorly performing school and no
real academic challenges?

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JohnJamesRambo
Exercise for work and exercise done for play may have different outcomes
though. I remember reading George Sheehan’s Running and Being and he says
dockworkers etc don’t seem to get the same health benefits from their work
exercise. There’s something unique about it being for play.

~~~
gamblor956
Importantly, mice are exercised by being forced to run in wheels, i.e.,
cardio.

There have been studios _in humans_ showing that cardio exercise has mental
benefits, presumably in part due to increased blood flow to the brain. And
anecdotally, among knowledge workers like lawyers and doctors, cardio exercise
is disproportionately over-represented compared to average populations.

~~~
chiefalchemist
The last bit is interesting. But ya have to wonder which came first...the
runner or the knowledge worker. Know what I mean?

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zerostar07
" mice whose fathers grew in environmentally enriched cage have better LTP".
That's basically what the study says, and they attribute it to epigenetic
effects through some miRNA. The effect lasted for 1 generation.

How can someone take that, put an image of a human baby and start talking
about "smart babies" and "fathers who exercise" is beyond me.

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LinuxBender
Could a correlation factor be:

Fathers that exercise have more active children?

Meaning, less to do with sperm and more to do with the development of and
interaction with the infant?

If I am a sloth, my child is likely sitting in a cradle watching TV with me.

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chiefalchemist
The lack of exercise is a historical abnormality. In that context, which feels
more accurate, the title should be: "Do fathers who don't exercise have less
intelligent children?"

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amelius
Makes me wonder how sperm motility correlates with offspring IQ.

And could an improved selection for higher sperm motility (e.g. by giving
sperm some extra challenge before they reach the ovum), lead to higher IQ or
some other beneficial trait?

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creaghpatr
Interesting thought, could also lead to lower fertility is the other side of
the coin there.

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Jolter
"They also hope in future animal studies to tease out the individual effects
of running from those of playing with toys and being otherwise mentally
engaged, he says."

How can they not have done this yet still draw the conclusion that the
exercise was the important factor?

I wouldn't be surprised if the "sedentary" individuals would have been
diagnosed with depression, had they beem humans. What would make an
interesting study is epigenetic effects of depression on human patients.

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trumped
They should also test fathers/kids who put vinegar on their pizza...

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m3kw9
Smarter in which area and would be be at expense of other traits?

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zeofig
Do smarter babies know how to make daddy hit the gym??

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mathgeek
Actual title: "Do Fathers Who Exercise Have Smarter Babies?"

To further quote the article: “My personal opinion is that exercise is
probably much more important” than mental stimulation for altering brains and
gene expression and potentially even the aptitudes of one’s offspring, Dr.
Fischer says.

If the author of the article specifically phrased it as a question, let's not
jump to making a definitive statement by changing the title.

~~~
gk1
I used the title from the NY Times homepage, which at the time of submission
had the more definitive version of the title.

~~~
sctb
We'll update the headline to the current title, then, which is also in the
URL.

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thankthunk
I wish HN would ban all betteridge's style headlines.

How much did newton or einstein's father exercise? Were they body builders?

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ksk
>How much did newton or einstein's father exercise? Were they body builders?

Why would that matter? Are they the only smart people? And why are you
conflating exercising with body building?

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xstartup
Most people don't exercise because no one is paying them to exercise. If a
government wants healthy people, they should pay up $100 per hour to just
exercise.

I think this is the conspiracy of rich people to make poor people fat so that
they get sick and rich people sell medicines, fast food, and garcinia
combogia, gym membership (which is just another name for drugs like cocaine,
meth etc.... but licensed and regulated)

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gascan
_Not_ paying people to take care of themselves is a conspiracy? Is paying
people to take care of themselves, somehow the natural state of the world?

~~~
xstartup
Assuming that everyone knows how to take care of themselves is ignorance.

We don't live in a natural state, otherwise, it would have been fine for me to
kill you for my survival.

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Willson50
.

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wufufufu
The study described (albeit in mice) eliminates that confounding variable.

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mi100hael
Maybe the researchers only allowed the rich mice to move to the "fun house"
cage

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shbm
How do you even define smart? Is it quantified by the IQ tests? Does smartness
include the factor of social skills(EQ) and how someone may present himself or
herself in a social situations. How do you decide what's smart and what's not
smart?

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lostmsu
Why do social skills have any preferred treatment over any other skills? I'd
say smart is best measured by IQ.

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shbm
What do you exactly measure by comparing IQs? A person who does not do well on
math test can become much more "successful" than a person who does. How does
IQ really correlate with success?

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lostmsu
It correlates a lot, actually. It even may be one of the best predictors (if
not the best, I dunno honestly).

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fortythirteen
Correlation implied as causation.

Here is another correlation into causation article linking cardiovascular
fitness to IQ[0]

Another way to look at it can be from the per-capita relation of economic
class to fitness[1]. It is entirely possible that, because people higher up
the economic ladder are more likely to be fit, and because they are more
likely to receive better prenatal care, generally have better nutrition, and
give their children more educational opportunities, that the actual cause may
be economic status.

[0] [https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/quilted-
science/2009...](https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/quilted-
science/200912/cardiovascular-fitness-is-linked-intelligence)

[1] [https://thesocietypages.org/socimages/2011/06/10/the-
correla...](https://thesocietypages.org/socimages/2011/06/10/the-correlation-
of-fitness-with-class-and-education/)

~~~
wkrause
This article is about a study done on mice. Having not read the underlying
study, and it not being my field, I can't speak to how well the article
articulates the study's findings, but I don't think it's fair to dismiss it
with the "correlation does not imply causation" argument.

~~~
fortythirteen
> on mice

And the article automatically relates it to humans, when absolutely no study
has been done. Correlation to causation.

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ksk
>And the article automatically relates it to humans,

From the article:

"Of course, this study involved mice and not men and cannot tell us whether
the same processes occur in people."

> when absolutely no study has been done. Correlation to causation.

It is unethical to run certain studies on humans, which is why the mice models
are used (also pigs, fish, flies, worms, etc) initially. And such models have
been fantastically successful. It seems like you are rather unfamiliar with
the scientific process...

