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Comment by reducesuffering | Hacker News Reader

The article makes no reference to a possible strongly correlating factor, age. If research is to be done and claims made like this, they need to be along age intervals. It seems apparent that the older you get, the more sexual partners you have and PROBABLY the more altruistic, as you have the means too. This shouts Occam's razor to me.

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Additionally: More sexual partners can plainly be interpreted as either:

  - Polyamory
  - A long series of failed monogamous relationships

That's assuming age is constant.

It could be a long series of successful monogamous relationships. Not all good relationships last a lifetime.

That's true. All relationships end with either death or a breakup, but just because it ended doesn't mean it wasn't good while it lasted.

Damn, human interaction is so nuanced. >:\

Or a long series of failed polyamorous relationships...

Well said. The article's title makes it sounds like "more" is somehow good or desirable, but really, the "more" referred to here is likely just a series of failed relationships, which nobody wants. If you look at it from this perspective, it sounds like the "altruistic people" described by the article are actually getting the short end of the stick.

To be fair, the study does specify undergraduates, so unless there are a few mature students in their confounding things, it's probably about the only demographic where the number of sexual partners rises with age but wealth/income doesn't

They studied undergraduates, so the problem is minimized, though I agree that age blocking would be appropriate.

They should do a larger study but I find it weird that all of the comments here seem to be so negative when the authors are up front about some of the flaws and the results make a lot of sense.

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