
Scientists warn of sperm count crisis - cs702
http://richarddawkins.net/news_articles/2012/12/5/scientists-warn-of-sperm-count-crisis
======
napoleoncomplex
There was an article in The Economist about this as well[0], which points out
something that most other sources I've seen seemed to have skipped over:

"...much of the effect could be caused by changes in how sperm quality is
measured.. the World Health Organisation’s manual on the subject has been
revised four times since it was first published in 1980..."

"...a continuing investigation of Danish conscripts, is notable for having
been established with a consistent method of measurement from the start. Its
data show no changes over the years. And Dr Rolland and Dr le Moal admit that,
despite the apparent drop in sperm counts they found, there was no increase in
the number of infertile men during the period of their study."

I haven't actually dived into this new study to see if the authors accounted
for these factors. Even if they did, it seems odd that the one study which has
maintained the same method of measurement is the one that shows no changes.

[0] [http://www.economist.com/news/science-and-
technology/2156787...](http://www.economist.com/news/science-and-
technology/21567879-yet-another-study-suggests-sperm-numbers-are-falling-rich-
countries-countdown)

~~~
huggah
Those revisions have actually enabled the problem to stay hidden longer;
they've reduced the sperm count threshold at which men are considered
"normal". You may be referring to technical issues, such as distinguishing
live from dead sperm, or measuring motility---but WHO numbers don't reflect
that.

------
sbierwagen
Blogspam.

OP at [http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/scientists-warn-
of...](http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/scientists-warn-of-sperm-
count-crisis-8382449.html)

------
jeroen
Original article: [http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/scientists-warn-
of...](http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/scientists-warn-of-sperm-
count-crisis-8382449.html)

------
dexter313
Children of Men here we come!

<http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0206634/>

~~~
ComputerGuru
That was one of the most profound movies I ever watched, I also highly
recommend it. It is moving, beautiful, and makes you rethink everything we
take for granted.

~~~
otibom
And the single take scenes were brilliant.

------
yason
Male energy is in crisis. In the modern world boys aren't allowed to be boys
to make sure they will become men grown tame. Boys are grown by women—and
these days also men who have adopted the women's way of growing kids. We think
that male energy is aggressive and offensive, and it must be suppressed and
tainted, while simultaneously we have lost our icons of what real manhood
entails. We don't have rites of manhood like indigenous people had: the boys
were cut off their mothers and their mothers let go of the boys, they started
living with men, and the rites eventually transformed a boy into a man. THis
doesn't happen anymore. And if you, instead, grow a boy to a man the woman
way, what you get is not a man but an overly feminine male who is at loss with
his manhood and who has two balls that are barely working.

~~~
Mz
My two kickass adult sons would find this paragraph laughable.

\-- Their Mom

Though, in all fairness, I am kind of a ballbusting bitch and did not raise my
sons "normally". My ex was career military, so I could afford to be a
ballbusting bitch since my anachronistic family of origin and the federal
government both had my back. But I imagine that a) you wouldn't be up for a
meaty discussion of that sort and b) hn is probably not the place to have it.

~~~
return0
The parent thread was probably trolling, or not aware of some details about
these rituals of passage (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sambia_people>)

Gender role development is a touchy but very important subject (although i m
not sure it's related to sperm count). Related:
[http://www.theatlantic.com/sexes/archive/2012/12/you-can-
giv...](http://www.theatlantic.com/sexes/archive/2012/12/you-can-give-a-boy-a-
doll-but-you-cant-make-him-play-with-it/265977/)

~~~
Mz
I have been called a troll (or treated like one). I am not. For that and other
reasons, I am very reluctant to hang that on this person. HN is an actively
hostile environment for some topics. Regardless, most people do not want to
have a real serious discussion about a touchy topic like this, under any
circumstance. That is the only piece I really take issue with. As someone who
believes in a lot of things that would not be respected here, I would happily
defend the OP's right to free speech and to have a different mental model. The
problem I have is that they are highly unlikely to be willing to engage in
serious discussion, therefore they probably should have not bothered to post
it here.

~~~
yason
Comments like yours are exactly why I posted the original article. It's really
nice to hear from someone at HN who sees beyond the controversy caused by a
totally different mental model, as you put it. I'm surprised I wasn't
downmodded more aggressively.

I wouldn't have answered to this thread unless you had written these two
comments of yours: HN certainly isn't the place for serious discussion about
such topics and while I don't necessarily like it that way, that's just the
way it is. But I sometimes keep fishing for different responses.

Now, anything related to gender, sex, gender roles, and the masculine and
feminine parts of a person's psyche and spirit seems to be a touchy subject:
add in a few feminist and antifeminist preconceptions—or just any politically
correct one—to the mix and what you have is the mother of all can of worms.

It's virtually impossible to discuss those in a large group unless there's a
predefined consensus that limits what can be said. All we probably _can agree
with together_ is that there's a difference between the masculine and
feminine, but there are indefinite ways of how that could unfold into a
discussion. Yet it's a very fundamental dynamic of life that you're bound to
deal with one way or another, regardless of if you're a man or a woman.

Further, there are so many angles into this gender topic that it's hard if not
impossible to establish a definitive model of how to present my thoughts on
such a topic myself. And that doesn't fly well at HN: generally people who are
thinking more aloud than asserting their final conclusions don't fare well on
internet forums.

So, a fruitful conversation of the subject is probably only possible with at
most two people who trust each other enough so that they're able to just
reflect the other person's thoughts instead of trying to argue them out.

I know there are tens of thousands of different people on HN and most do have
beliefs and attitudes that don't fit in the canned scientific-consensus
impression most people present on HN.

There is a wealth of intelligent people here and I sometimes wonder what they
think of things that can't be said here.

~~~
Mz
One problem with your original remark is that it is openly hostile to women
while simultaneously failing to conform to the "scientific" model popular
here. You managed to alienate pretty much everyone in one stroke.

If you posit a male-female dynamic, they must be complementary. If male energy
is in crisis, so is female. The one requires the other to balance. I was a
homemaker for many years. That is a dying role in modern America. But it is
the logical and practical complement to the traditional masculine role of
going out and conquering the world. It is routinely disrespected by the modern
world. You decry what is being done to male energy while actively
participating in the modern trend of pissing on the traditional maternal role.

It is no wonder you perceive a crisis. You are shooting yourself in the foot
on this one.

Best of luck with sorting out whatever is on your mind.

~~~
yason
It's not hostile to women unless you choose to interpret it in that light. I
simply brought up that subjecting boys to feminine nursing for too long tends
to make it more difficult for them to find the man within themselves later. I
could have said the same about girls grown in a very male environment and
managed to be hostile to men too :)

And of course I decry what has happened to male energy in such a short
comment. I wrote about male energy because I didn't want to _start_ by writing
pages and pages on a subject like this. (See, still trying to keep it short.)

By the way, you are aware that traditional patriarchy is a dying scheme in the
modern world as well and that traditional paternal role has been pissed on for
a long time, too, aren't you? It all started in the 50's/60's and female
energy _is_ in crisis too, like you said!

For example, in the contemporary world, women in the worklife wear a highly
masculine attitude because the current way of doing business is regrettably
masculine only. Women in office jobs even dress like men. Now, when a woman
comes home after work it will take a while until she can be in touch with her
feminine side again. If she has a so-called modern husband who has already
picked up the kids from school, looked after them while making dinner for
everyone (these are traditional, parallel, stereotypical feminine activities)
then she might have a hard time a) finding her feminine side to get in touch
with her feelings and b) finding the masculine side in her husband so that she
can relax in the trust the masculine provides for her, and just talk her
feeling out to get rid of her working day stress.

~~~
Mz
I am a woman and I am sympathetic, but it sounded hostile to me. You are now
dismissing that and blaming me instead of simply trying to clarify when I am
the only person here taking you at all seriously. And given that I am having
my head handed to me elsewhere on hn, I am not in a good frame of mind to bend
over backwards to give you a receptive audience. If you would like to try
again, I would be happy to give you a do-over. But, no, I am not going to make
a serious attempt to engage this reply.

Again, best of luck with whatever is on your mind.

~~~
yason
Well, thanks for telling me what bothered you. I think I was just surprised to
see the question of hostility being brought up at all. Certainly my words can
be read in as many ways as there are readers, thus in my head that question
was sort of off-topic so I think I didn't pay attention to how important it
was to you and possibly others.

I am not actively or passively hostile to women, at least to any such extent
that I can recognize myself or that can be recognized by my friends, so the
whole matter simply hasn't been on my radar at all.

~~~
Mz
HN can be pretty mysogynistic. (I have ben told other women have left because
they find it unpalatable and I know that a lot of women downplay or hide their
gender on HN because it is seen as a problem.) So, the environment here tends
to bias perception. If you want support, you will need to make extra effort to
avoid even an appearance of attacking the roles of women while talking about
your concerns about the roles of men. Women are widely regarded to be second
class citizens, something you no doubt know. The language you are using is
more likely to be acceptable to women or other more "feminine"/not "hard
science" types. It will not go over well with most members here. Not being
careful of how your remarks will be perceived by the minority that might take
you seriously practically guarantees you will not be anything but attacked.

I know from firsthand experience. You can check my remarks for how I am going
down in flames elsewhere on HN today. Unfortunately, many years of history
have painted me into a corner that, in practice, I don't know the way out of
dven though in theory I know the general principles which should work.

I hope you find a path forward in discussing gender issues with people,
whether here or elsewhere. I have long found such topics fascinating. But,
yes, they are super touchy topics.

------
return13
There is a real good german/french documentary on this subject named 'Men in
danger':

"A program which looks at some of the factors which may explain why sperm
production in males has dropped 50% in 50 years, and explores an important
question currently facing scientists; could chemical molecules in our
environment be affecting our ability to reproduce? Aside from the huge drop in
the amount of sperm production over the last five decades, scientists have
also recorded a dramatic rise in the number of testicular cancers and a
disturbing increase in the number of congenital malformations in male
reproductive organs - two trends echoed in wildlife studies. This suggests the
cause is environmental and not genetic. For Niels Skakkebaek, Danish doctor
and researcher, the male reproductive and infertility problems we are
currently facing are ‘as important as global warming.' (From France, in
English) (Science) M CC WS"

Here is at least an english trailer:
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hQfduzOmctI>

And a review: [http://healthhighway.blogspot.de/2008/03/men-in-danger-
sbs-d...](http://healthhighway.blogspot.de/2008/03/men-in-danger-sbs-
documentary.html)

Germans: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nFBbbItpdc8>

------
lutusp
What? This is being described as a "crisis"? It's the best news I've heard all
year. We should celebrate!

The world's population is completely out of control, all estimates of future
environmental catastrophe turn out to be overly optimistic, we're drifting
into a state of perpetual war because of population pressures, and someone
laments a decline in sperm count without the slightest grasp of how funny that
is?

Read and weep, children:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overpopulation>

~~~
mikeash
Drifting into a state of perpetual war? Isn't the current period the most
peaceful in known history?

~~~
lutusp
> Drifting into a state of perpetual war? Isn't the current period the most
> peaceful in known history?

Let's look at the evidence:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ongoing_military_confli...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ongoing_military_conflicts)

The only reason we aren't aware of the number of military conflicts taking
place is because they aren't on the evening news.

And yes, by any objective measure, this is a more warlike time than any in
prior history, simply because there are more people available and willing to
fight.

~~~
mikeash
That's not actually evidence related to the assertion at hand. For that, you'd
need a historical comparison, which that list does not provide.

You may be right about absolute numbers, but absolute numbers are pointless
here. From what I've seen before, in terms of the _relative_ number of people
killed in war compared to the overall population, this is the most peaceful
time known. If 2x as many people get killed in wars, but there are 4x as many
people alive, that world is _more_ peaceful, not less.

~~~
vadman
I don't entirely agree that "absolute numbers are pointless here". If you look
at the amount of human suffering, your world is 2x worse.

~~~
mikeash
By that reasoning, a world where there are only a thousand people, divided
into two tribes constantly engaged in horrific war, is vastly better.

~~~
ChuckMcM
I think that is where we are headed.

------
droithomme
Great movie about this.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Children_of_Men>

Seriously though what is the problem, we have large complex societies and
fertility drops dramatically. There's a natural limit and Malthusian ethics of
genocide and eugenics are unnecessary. Good news all around.

~~~
nazgulnarsil
Malthusianism has been debunked since before any of us were born. Humans are
on average wealth producing.

------
ok_craig
I would be interested in learning whether this issue is universal for all men,
or specific to men of certain demographics. Anyone have any insight?

------
icegreentea
The study was preformed on sperm banks in France. This means the results
probably generalize to all developed/industrialized nations. What would be
nice would be some studies to look for this effect in other societies. It
would certainly help dial in on root causes.

