On: Shared genetics between cognitive functions and ph...

[thaumasiotes]

> It is generally thought that genetics plays little role in mortality until very late life

I don't understand this at all. Risky behavior is largely driven by being male, a genetic effect. Within males, it is still largely driven by genetics. Terminal diseases that strike young people are also often genetic problems. How could it be generally thought that genetics plays little role in early-life mortality? What are all the early deaths that are viewed as not implicating genetics?

[thaumasiotes → thaumasiotes]

So, I found US death data by age and sex for 2007 ( http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/dvs/mortfinal2007_worktable310.... )

Here are male deaths, expressed as a percentage of female deaths, for every year of age from 0 to 30:

     0  127%
     1  119%
     2  130%
     3  131%
     4  142%
     5  138%
     6  123%
     7  129%
     8  122%
     9  125%
    10  126%
    11  152%
    12  143%
    13  145%
    14  178%
    15  193%
    16  199%
    17  248%
    18  278%
    19  313%
    20  317%
    21  317%
    22  342%
    23  310%
    24  314%
    25  291%
    26  261%
    27  269%
    28  250%
    29  231%
    30  237%

Odds are good (I haven't checked) that the male population in this age range is larger than the female population. But it's going to be larger by less than 10%, which is completely neglible in the face of the factor-of-2-or-3 differences in deaths.

This isn't "little role in early-life mortality", it's a gargantuan genetic effect you'd have to devote quite a lot of effort to ignoring. (And if you meant something different by "early life", male deaths stay in the range of 150-200% of female deaths right up until the early 60s. Female deaths finally exceed male deaths once people hit 80 years old.)

[ekianjo → thaumasiotes]

> Female deaths finally exceed male deaths once people hit 80 years old

Absolute numbers-wise, simply because you are running out of males.