3 ms·

What would "actually find that" mean to you in this context? Science is not as clean and perfect as many would like to imagine. A strong correlation and a plaus

• cjensen 14y ago
  People who have children later in life are going to have a number of significant demographic difference from those who have children earlier. Here's how you rule out each possibility: for each one, you pair up people in the "earlier" and "later" groups who have identical demographics. If the subgroups have identical outcomes, you have found the cause. If not, you have eliminated a cause.
  • streptomycin 14y ago
    That still doesn't "prove" causation, as there are innumerable demographics that are either impossible to match or nobody thinks to match. And FWIW, the paper does say that "factors other than father’s age do not seem to contribute substantially to the mutation rate diversity in our data".
    • learc83 14y ago
      > "factors other than father’s age do not seem to contribute substantially to the mutation rate diversity in our data". But as another poster already pointed out, age could be hiding other factors. Exposure to environmental factors that could cause mutations change with time, e.g, older fathers would have been exposed to pesticides that were banned before younger fathers were born, nutritional changes, etc...
      • streptomycin 14y ago
        I know, that's the point I was replying to in my previous post..