A question to Mav...

Yax

Yax

Ancient Mariner
I was just now having a discussion with my girlfriend. And we need this question answered. When is the earliest age a "normal" person can become a biological adult (I'm talking about when the body is fully evolved)?

Isn't it about 17 or something like that? Or have I been given misinformation?
 
Well, it depends on what one means when reffering to the word adult. If one considers that someone becomes an adult when one has fully developed, you could close in on it at the age of 25. One of the last things to fully develop is maximum bone density.
 
It's impossible to say. It really depends on how you define adulthood, I guess.
Since the human body never stops changing and developing from the day you're born until the day you die, there's no single static stage we can pin down as "adulthood". It's a completely cultural and/or sociological construction.

If we choose to define adulthood as being able to reproduce with minimal risk to the body, I'd say it's 18 or so for women and 12-15 for men. However, everyone "develops" at different rates. (Males can reproduce with absolutely no direct physical problems, whereas females must be physically developed enough to carry the baby to term safely. This is why a far greater percentage of teenage pregnancies have serious complications)
Generally, it's safest to say "18 or so."

Further added to the complication, kids in the Western world are entering puberty earlier all the time. Some have attributed this to the increased amount of hormones in the food we eat - me, I don't know.
 
I know that the question was -- for some obscure reason -- directed to me, but I think that the good doctor Gor and the Duke have answered it quite nicely.

Adulthood, in biological terms, can indeed be somehow determined by bone density (that's what is being done, for example, when human remains are discovered in archeological excavations). Safe reproductive function is another way to determine if an indivual is 'adult', although it cannot really be measured as reliably as bone density (some people are adult 'in their bones', but never reproduced, and conversely).

In psychological terms, this is even more difficult to answer. Someone like Silky/Raven seems pretty adult to me on this board, whereas he's only 17 and most probably hasn't reached full biological 'adultness'. I also know some 41-year-olds who have certainly the right bone density to be classified as 'adults' and who have even reproduced, but whom I cannot consider adult in any way due to their complete lack of mental maturity (these individuals will probably never achieve proper adulthood anyway).

So, before the complexity of the answers, I'll choose the simplest one: doctor Gor's bone density.  :)
 
Maverick said:
Someone like Silky/Raven seems pretty adult to me on this board, whereas he's on 16 and most probably hasn't reached full biological 'adultness'.
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Silky is 17. ;) You might want to edit your post Mav, before he has a hissy fit :p
 
Done. I even corrected my incomplete spelling of 'only'.  :blush:
 
Hunlord said:
Silky is 17. ;) You might want to edit your post Mav, before he has a hissy fit :p
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You may want to edit your quote to hide the fact that Mav got my age wrong. :p
 
Raven said:
You may want to edit your quote to hide the fact that Mav got my age wrong. :p
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This is the hissy fit I was talking about :halo: No, to be honest I'm not arsed, and you would have to edit all the posts made after it, so there would be some sort of continuity in the thread.
 
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