First of all, we have to assume that God didn’t simply design killer whales to be exactly as they are.
That’s always the simplest explanation for the way the world works: God designed it that way.
Scientists, these days, don’t seem much interested in simple explanations, probably because you can obtain a lot more grant money to researching and writing up complicated theories.
From what I’ve been able to gather, only a few known species of females go through menopause and then continue to have a long, productive life: killer whales, short-finned pilot whales, belugas, narwhals, and humans. (We’re going to ignore all the other whales because, apparently, no one has yet written a grant to study them.)
Certain other female animals stop bearing children, but only just before the end of their lives. Killer whales and humans are two of the rare, and lucky, species who can enjoy life, long after having kids.
Killer whales are a lot like humans, except in the ways we’re different. We both like to eat salmon, for example. We both like swimming (although the killer whales like it more than we do.) We both tend to live in families, and the families tend to work together to acquire and share food. We both communicate ‘verbally’ when we happen to have something important to say, or just to make conversation.
And the gals go through menopause. Female killer whales stop having babies around the the age of 30, maybe 40, but can live to be 80 years old, and even older. Other long-lived creatures, like tortoises and elephants, continue producing offspring into old age. But humans don’t, and killer whales don’t. In our cases, the grandmothers hang around for another 40 years or so, helping to look after the kids.
The National Academy of Sciences published a theory proposed by Dr. Darren Croft, a behavioral ecologist at the University of Exeter, who — along with some of his colleagues — looked back at a killer whale menopause study they’d done in 2015. (Apparently, you can get funded just for looking at an old study you did a while back, and coming up with some clever new ideas.)
The scientists began with the assumption that there’s a very good reason why female killer whales stop having babies as they enter ‘middle age’, and they assumed that the explanation has to do with ‘evolution’… rather than simply supposing that male killer whales stop looking attractive to them.
These are the same type of scientists who believe killer whales were descended, through evolution, from a dog-like creature called a Mesonychid. So obviously, we are dealing here with scientists who have quite a lively imagination. The National Academy of Sciences appreciates an overactive imagination, generally speaking.
As humans with an interest in evolution, Dr. Croft and his colleagues asked themselves, “Why would female killer whales (and maybe by extension, female humans) evolve to stop having babies at around age 40?”
Well, in the case of a human female, maybe she’s had quite enough of listening to the children fight over which TV show to watch, and she’s ready for the kids to go off to college and give her some peace and quiet for a change?
Maybe she’s looking forward to being a grandma, and having the grandkids over occasionally, but not too often?
Of course, killer whale children don’t fight over control of the TV, but I can imagine they must fight over something or other, since they are so much like humans, in certain ways. (You don’t have to be a scientist to have an lively imagination.)
In evolutionary terms, menopause is intriguing: Why would it be advantageous to a species, for the female’s reproductive ability to end, long before her life is at its end?
The theory in regards to killer whales: Measured statistically, the ‘grandmother’ whales who had stopped reproducing helped the ‘grandchildren’ whales survive, thus contributing to continuation of the species.
The assumption made by scientists is that every species has a primary goal, which is to produce as many offspring as possible and make sure the offspring survive to an age where they can, in turn, enjoy sex. (Scientists prefer to call it “reproduction”.) Of course, we now know very well, that human beings want to enjoy sex without reproducing, which is why The Pill was invented.
So much for evolutionary theory.
If menopause were actually an evolutionary benefit to a species’ survival, everybody would be doing it. Elephants, tortoises, everybody. But everybody is not doing it, so clearly it’s not terribly advantageous, and probably just a quirky accident.
Take dogs, for example. A female dog who has reached the fine old age of 8 or 9 has basically lived out her age of fertility. But scientists don’t call it “menopause” in a dog, because the dog doesn’t have hot flashes.
Also, you can’t get a grant to study menopause in dogs. So you are stuck studying killer whales. The main benefit to studying killer whales, instead of dogs, is killer whales are more exotic, and hard to study… so very few people will be arrogant enough to challenge your crazy assumptions.
But we’ve made it our collective mission, here at the Daily Post, to question everyone’s assumptions. It’s good for survival of the species.