Elves, why so long to mature?

[Saeviomagy]

"Old maids" and nuns go back far, far further than modern career women -- women putting off childbirth is not a brand new phenomenon.

If we posit that (a) putting off childbirth enhances your own longevity (beyond simply avoiding the risks of childbirth itself), and (b) you can pass this longevity along somehow, I guess it could make some kind of weird Lamarkian sense...

1. Survival of the fittest means that the best strategy for passing on genes will come to define the characteristics of a species over a number of generations

2. There is an 'upper bound' on when you can have kids. Beyond that, the upper bound is preceded by a stage where offspring are less viable

3. You need to be hot to get some action. If you got action later on, you were hot later on.

All of which mean that if having kids is made less likely in early adulthood by external factors, then the process of evolution is likely to favour people who look better (and are therefore healthier) at a later age, and people who can successfully reproduce at a later age.

At leasts that's the theory, and it makes sense to me.

 

[Agback]

One problem. Dogs and wolves are classified as different species.

You are out of date. Dogs are now classified as a sub-species of wolf. The former species Canis familiaris is now classified as Canis lupus familiaris, while the common grey wolf wolf (formerly Canis lupus) is now Canis lupus lupus, and the timber wolf is now Canis lupus lycaon.

See http://www.sciencedaily.com/encyclopedia/wolf#Taxonomy.

Regards,


Agback

 

[Agback]

There has never been a culture on the face of the earth that eats as much meat and sweets as people First World countries do now.

You may be right about sweets. But hunting cultures (such as the Esquimaux) and pastoral cultures (such as the Masai and the Mongols) had a much larger proportion of meat in their diets than industrial people do. (They also had mmuch more active lives, but that is another issue.)

People posting to this thread in general ought to be aware that the theories of diet that informed the famous USDA Food Pyramid are controversial. The fact that conventional diet advice is shouted very loud does not mean that it is right. There is a contrary view that a diet high in carbohydrate is responsible for the modern plague of obesity, high blood pressure, arteriosclerosis, stroke, coronary occlusion, and type II diabetes, that saturated fat is harmless, and that eating meat is good for you.

I, for one, have been convinced by the argument and evidence, and switched from a diet high in complex carbohydrate to one high in meat, eggs, and full-fat dairy products. As a result I have lost eighty pounds, my blood pressure and LDL ('bad cholesterol') have fallen into healthy ranges, and the symptoms that indicated that I had fatty change in my liver and was developing insulin resistance have all cleared up.

Regards,


Agback

 

[Agback]

As a broad generalization, it takes over 10 pounds of grain to produce one pound of meat - it was, and still is, really, only a staple food for the wealthy.

This is only a relevant consideration in places where meat animals are raised on grain. There is a related consideration that is relevant where animals are grazed on arable land. But there are many places in the world, and in former times there were more, where people ate meat that was fattened by grazing on uncultivable rangeland or by masting in forests.

To peasants of the time, meat was more like a dietary supplement, and they didn't generally eat enough of it to have high cholesterol levels.

I have two problems with this statement.

1. What time are you talking about? According to Rosener's Peasants in the Middle Ages European people in the Early Middle Ages ate a great deal of pork, the pigs being fattened by masting in beech and oak forests. It was only as populations rose and forest were cleared in the High Middle Ages that poor people switched to eating grain products.

2. Since cholesterol is synthesised in the human liver, you don't have to eat any meat at all to have high cholesterol levels. Most people on modern diets get only 20% or less of their cholesterol from their food. The vast bulk is synthesised internally.

Regards,


Agback

 

[Darthjaye]

Well i see i got lots of iuseful info regarding this topic, but say for instance i have this idea for a elf. Say he is found by nomads. The nomads find him as a child who doesn't know his language at all yet. He's taken in by these nomads who then chose to bring him up as their own. What would you say his maturity cycle/ time frame should be then? They are human, they have chosen to keep this child for any number of reasons and bring him up as their own So all other questions about why they would do this or what the details are about the exact people, we just assume they are nomads like say the Wolf Nomads in the world of Greyhawk and go from there on how he would mature.

 

[Bran Blackbyrd]

"Old maids" and nuns go back far, far further than modern career women -- women putting off childbirth is not a brand new phenomenon.

I'm not saying the theory is correct, I'm saying it's interesting. Also, old maids and nuns aren't exactly renowned for their fecundity or for passing on their genes; as such any benefits they reap from putting off reproduction aren't going to be passed on.

Darthjaye: This assumes you subscribe to the idea that elves mature physically at the same rate as humans (minus the old age thing) but mature mentally/emotionally more slowly. If that's the case, the orphan would probably be considered "slow" or mentally disabled somehow.
"Gosh, he gets taught same as the other kids, he just don't seem to catch on."
The nomads were kind enough to take the child in, so they would probably just treat him like anyone else unless they thought his condition was contagious, the result of evil influence, etc.

 

[Crass]

We're talking average lifespans. Even as long ago as ancient Greece, some very rare humans lived 60-70 years. Our longer lifespans are largely due to better medicine, etc.

But humans don't actually take 20 years to mature.

Banshee

Remember that some humans are - sexually - physically mature (in the sense that they are able to reproduce - at least sporadically) from as early as 9 or 10 these days, and others will not reach that same stage to age 16 or 17. Largely this is influenced by: diet, percentages of body fat, amounts of hormones, etc, etc.

For example, as late as the last century females in Scandinavia typically got their first period at age 16 or later, and many did not have a regular cycle until their early twenties. Conversely, ten and 11 year old girls have been reported pregnant... Perhaps elves would have a similar spread of maturation ages?

 

[Agback]

Even as long ago as ancient Greece, some very rare humans lived 60-70 years.

Sophocles live to the age of ninety. Living to sixty might not have been so very rare.

Regards,


Agback

 

[Crass]

Learning to a large extent comes from synapses in the brain wiring themselves in a certain way (a lot of research has gone into exactly how this happens and no one knows for sure yet, though see my disclaimer at the bottom). Before a certain age, it is simply impossible for a person to realize certain things. For example, small babies have no concept of object permanence. If they see a ball they smile. If you put your hand in front of the ball and the ball disappears, in the baby's mind, the ball is *gone*. When you remove your hand, the ball suddenly appears. At a later point, they understand the concept that the ball is still there even if something blocks their vision of it.

If you talk to an 11 yr old vs a 16 yr old about their life perspective, you'll get very different answers. Some of it of course is attributed to social experience and learning. However, it's unclear how much is simply that, and how much is caused by hormones and wiring of the brain as a pre-requisite, and how much is independent of those two factors. In other words, if you took about the hormonal changes and the wiring away, how different would the 11 yr old vs the 16 yr old still be? It's hard to say because that experiment will never be done.

Disclaimer: it's been several years since I've taken classes in these subjects. I may be wrong

Anyways thats my 2cp

It's been several years since I've taken similar subjects. I agree - generally - with your statements, but it also depends upon the societal developmental level. Generally, children in our - Western - world develop their mental capabilities in (according to the developmental psychologist, Piaget) four stages, the fourth of these being what is known as Formal Operational. More "primitive" cultures only develop to the third - Concrete Operational - stage, meaning that they have difficulties reasoning logically about - for instance - ideas contrary to their personal beliefs.

I'm no psychologist (I remember the above info. from when I was studying HISTORY, of all things!), but I would tend to assume that a race with a predilection for nature, such as elves, would tend to develop at quite a different rate to 21st century mankind, and would not be surprised to find their entire cognitive process alien to ours.

 

[Crass]

Sophocles live to the age of ninety. Living to sixty might not have been so very rare.

Regards,


Agback

60 years was not rare - for certain classes of people. In certain Greek cities, including Athens in the 5th century BC, hoplites (who came from the middle to wealthy classes) were liable for service from their teens to age 60. It must be remembered that when attempting to calculate the "average" age, that a LOT of slaves etc led shorter than "average" lives - many Greek slave miners only survived for about a year to two years before dying. That'd make their lifespan, what, 20-30 years?

However, after the "fall" of the Roman empire, lifespans for the population as a whole decreased for a number of centuries.