I have been mulling over this blog for about two weeks when the information first came out. If you remember, there was a big announcement about a scientific study showing that men over 45 years old have a higher chance of fathering a child with autism and ADHD. I remember one of the medical experts on TV proclaiming that this study shows that not only do women have a ticking clock for having a child, but so do men.

I take some issue with this. First of all, this is one study. I do not care if there are 10 people or 10,000 people in the study, it needs to be replicated. I would not care if the newscaster said something like this study SUGGESTS that men may also have a time frame for having children. But the pronouncement that THIS is the last word is wrong.

All of us know families with children who have ADHD and autism. I would suspect that many of those families have parents of normal ages when these children were conceived. Doug Flutie (the football player)’s first child, Doug Jr. is autistic. John Travolta son, Jett, was autistic (although he did not talk about it and did not confirm or deny this).These men were not over 45 when their children were conceived.

On the other hand, Cary Grant was well over 45 when his daughter was born. Bing Crosby started a second family after the death of his first wife and had 3 normal children. Tony Randall fathered children when in his 70s in his second marriage. There are many examples of “normal” children to men beyond 45.

I take exception to any single piece of research that proclaims that it is has true answer to some area of science. Research is based on a hypothesis and then the discussion of the results are included in the body of the research paper. The final part of any scientific paper is what needs to be done next.