Scientists warn of sperm count crisis

http://richarddawkins.net/news_articles/2012/12/5/scientists-warn-of-sperm-count-crisis

by cs702 • 14 years ago

61 81 14 years ago

lutusp4• 14 years ago

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

pathy2• 14 years ago

A bit less pessimistic view is presented by Hans Rosling at a relatively recent TED talk. http://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_religions_and_babies.h... Well worth watching.

Sperm count is unlikely to affect the population growth anyway, what we need is to get people out of poverty and proper family planning with access to proper birth control. Then we can "control" the population.

wesley• 14 years ago

What we need is a 1 child policy like in China.

lukifer2• 14 years ago

Don't forget educating women, which tends to result in fewer children per household.

I am concerned, though, that the temporary lull in overpopulation will be broken by belief systems that encourage large families; by definition, those with a genetic or memetic instinct to have many children will out-populate those without that instinct. (I have a soft spot for the Mormons, but they come to mind here.)

Alaskan005• 14 years ago

Thanks for the link, I would have never known without Wikipedia...out of all places. /s

Sperm count falling by one third in 25 years is much scarier, suggests a horrible trend for us. As for overpopulation, people usually had /have a lot of kids because of high mortality rates.

By the way, who is going to work so that pension check gets to you ;) ?

mikeash6• 14 years ago

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

lutusp4• 14 years ago

> 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...

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.

EthanHeilman3• 14 years ago

>Isn't the current period the most peaceful in known history?

[Citation needed].

Define current period and define peaceful? We haven't had a global conflict in 60-odd years (and yay for that), but we had two global conflicts in the last hundred years. We almost had a third (US vs PRC)and forth one (US vs CCCP) but it appears that nuclear war let cooler heads prevail. In the past two hundred years there is almost no place of human habitation that has been untouched by war.

In fairness most of the civilized world has, with a few rare exceptions, always been in a state of perpetual war.

For bonus points how many wars is did the US fight during the year 2012?

Jayschwa• 14 years ago

> Isn't the current period the most peaceful in known history?

Relevant TED lecture by Steven Pinker:

http://www.ted.com/talks/steven_pinker_on_the_myth_of_violen...

rayiner3• 14 years ago

What overpopulation crisis? Current UN projections have population peaking not to much higher than now. China's population is expected to peak in 2026 then start shrinking. Most of Europe is facing a depopulation crisis.

grannyg00se3• 14 years ago

How is depopulation a crisis?

bcoates3• 14 years ago

Wow, that Wikipedia article is awful, and a fantastic demonstration of how hobbyhorse subjects on Wikipedia tend to get filled with crap.

Contra that shitty graph at the top of the article, population diverged from the historical trend of exponential growth in the 1950s. Worldwide birth rates have peaked. The largest cohort of babies the world has ever seen was in the 80s. The population is now growing solely due to increased lifespans.

Much to the disappointment of everyone waiting gleefully for mankind to suffer for its many sins, the Malthusian crisis has not happened, and will not ever happen.

eliasmacpherson3• 14 years ago

If Malthus' warning was heeded, the Irish Famine that occurred less than ten years after his death may have been avoided. Ireland's population of 8 million, to Britain's 14 million, dropped by estimates of 25% through disease, emigration and starvation. This was on the doorstep of the dominant British Empire. Saying the Malthusian crisis will not ever happen is hubris.

lutusp4• 14 years ago

> the Malthusian crisis has not happened, and will not ever happen.

Obviously a scientist talking -- or is it "astrologer"?

Avoid making ignorant predictions, especially about the future. :)

return02• 14 years ago

No, i don't think we should celebrate about such a serious health issue. The data is alarming and future studies should focus on identifying the source of this trend. The decline is reported in developed countries (France and Britain), which already have at-or-below level replacement birth rates. The best way to reduce population growth in the developing world is to bring people out of poverty.

chr1• 14 years ago

who will go to mars, if there will be not enough to fill earth?

orthecreedence• 14 years ago

You beat me to it. While the resource to person ratio for our current population may be somewhat sustainable, that does not take into account the output of humans, such as trash, waste, unnatural pollutants, and (sorry, but it's pertinent) carbon gases.

So while humans may be fine at our current population, the earth and its other tenants are not fine. Humans are the most destructive force in nature, and the less of them there are the better, for our own survival as well as the rest of the planet.

Add the impending climate change into the mix (once again, our fault), which will most likely bring droughts and famine, and your resource-to-person ratio drops significantly, making the human population as it is now dangerously high.

I really think dropping human population is a good thing. It will mean less conflicts and resource contention in the next 300 years as deserts spread and oceans rise.

dexter313• 14 years ago

Children of Men here we come!

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

ComputerGuru• 14 years ago

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• 14 years ago

And the single take scenes were brilliant.

malkia• 14 years ago

I was thinking about that movie when reading the article :)

jeroen• 14 years ago

Original article: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/scientists-warn-of...

icegreentea• 14 years ago

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.

napoleoncomplex• 14 years ago

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...

huggah• 14 years ago

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.

yason4• 14 years ago

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.

stbtrax• 14 years ago

This is such a stupid argument that I don't know where to begin. Do you seriously think performing male rites of passage will somehow increase sperm count? You come off as an old curmudgeon that resents advances in women's rights and the lgbt movement and sees this as some sort of threat to old practices which were somehow more masculine in your mind.

freyrs3• 14 years ago

> 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.

This reasoning seems a bit specious.

rmrfrmrf• 14 years ago

Oh, Lord. HN is turning into Reddit more and more by the minute.

icebraining• 14 years ago

If your account is less than a year old, please don't submit comments saying that HN is turning into Reddit. (It's a common semi-noob illusion.)

http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Mz6• 14 years ago

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.

return02• 14 years ago

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...

illuminate• 14 years ago

"Male energy is in crisis"

Yes, and thank goodness strict gender roles are considered arbitrary and laughable if they weren't so damaging.

saraid2162• 14 years ago

You know what my favorite rite of manhood was? Taking a sharp rock and slicing the bottom of your penis. You should try it.

Source: Joseph Campbell.

sbierwagen• 14 years ago

Blogspam.

OP at http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/scientists-warn-of...

return13• 14 years ago

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...

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

droithomme• 14 years ago

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• 14 years ago

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

ok_craig• 14 years ago

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?

Scientists warn of sperm count crisis

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