> That's why, in fairness to HN user wufufufu, we should point out that they do NOT control for the age of the female The article is so poorly written that one

> That's why, in fairness to HN user wufufufu, we should point out that they do NOT control for the age of the female The article is so poorly written that one can't tell whether they controlled for it or not. The first, second and third paragraphs all list increased health problems or indicators of health problems without mentioning whether they control for the mother's age. The fifth paragraph gives some more figures (born a day earlier, weigh 20g less) which don't contradict the other paragraphs, and explicitly mentions controlling for the mother's age. If they didn't control for the mother's age (a huge effect and hugely correlated with the father's age) the study should never have been published or reported on. If they did control for it and found such insignificant differences, it should have been published, but not reported on. For my faith in research, I'm left hoping they did find some large effects after controlling for the mother's age but the Guardian has failed to communicate that.