Do wars have any effect on the gene pool?

[Dis]

This may be a stupid question. And a stupid theory I have. Just something I have been mulling around for a while. Perhaps it's not genetic, but a societal thing. But sometimes I wonder why europeans are so much less violent than the rest of the world. Did the loss of millions of young men who never had any chance to procreate have any effect on the gene pool? You'd think it would, though eventually things would even out again (not sure how long that would take). Japan is not a violent society either. They lost millions of young men as well. It seems to me the only ones that were able to procreate were the ones left behind to work the factories and such. I'm not saying they are cowards, but perhaps less prone to fighting.

But then again, the women were not killed. So the other half of the gene pool would still be in tact. So aggressive genes could still be passed on I suppose.

Not sure why some conquered nations are less violent, yet when we conquer nations today (Iraq) the violence continues.

[Harry Tuttle]

Wars have an effect on the gene pool, but your inferrence as to the behavior of those left alive to procreate is wrong. In both cases it was the severity of the war and its social impact that caused more "peaceful" societies.

You could make the case for the random 1% of skitzos to be weeded out from war since they'd be the ones wishing to take part more than anyone else due to their violent tendencies, but then it's an incredibly small group. Not enough to make a huge impact.

Besides, a lot of soldiers did live through the war to pass on their genes.

[Dauphin]

The anti-argument is that those soldiers good at war would survive and pass on their genes rather than the useless soldiers who died in panic. Hence those nations that have had many wars are damned good at war because of genetic selection (and nothing to do with the experience gained and testing of battle tactics).

[lord of the mark]

In the hay day of eugenics, there was speculation that the Am Civil War killed off the bravest and best, leaving the country to cowards. Oh, and what was even worse, killed off anglo-saxons, leaving us a "mongrol" society. Yet another reason not to have fought for something as silly as liberating non-whites from slavery.

The performance of US troops in subsequent wars would seem to give the lie to that.

Even today, when we once again seem to believe that lots of psychological traits are genetic, id be skeptical of a "courage' gene.

Dauphin - it would depend on the nature of a given war. In the Am Civ War, for ex, the cowards either avoided army service, deserted, or hung back in battle. Courage (and unit loyalty) probably led you to die, rather than live, and efficiency in combat probably didnt protect you much (though it enabled you to kill more of the other side before you died)

For infantry in WW2 combat efficiency probably did protect you. But based on what ive read in Ambrose, it had less to do with native intelligence than with experience. Replacement troops tended to die quickly, but those who survived through luck tended to get good at survival.

[LordShiva]

I read somewhere that Genghis Khan was the most successful alpha-male in history, or something, and that his DNA shows up in some absurdly high percentage of the world's population.

[Ecthy]

Because mine and yours are 99% the same anyway and the reason is not Genghis Khan.

I probably would have died off quickly in WWII I suck at learning practical strategies.

[LordShiva]

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1158027/posts

[Ecthy]

Typical for modern day "science": some theoretical figures and no practical model to explain how it might have happened.

[Barnabas]

Wars for sure can have an effect on the gene pool, but the war has to be huge and completely devastating

A good example is the war that Paraguay lost to an alliance of Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay

Most of the male population of Paraguay was killed, over 90 %, to the point that for decades poligamy was common just because there were so many women and so few men.

A result of that, is that Paraguay is the only american country where almost the whole population speaks an amerindian language (guarani), but what is funny is that full blooded amerindians unlike in Bolivia, Peru or Guatemala, are very very few, almost all Paraguayans are mestizos, and more on the european side.
Which makes it a unique case.

Paraguayans would look very different today if they hadnt had that war

I also remember reading that without Napoleon killing hundreds of thousands of the best french soldiers, the french would be one inch and a half taller nowadays

[Barnabas]

In Paraguay there were ten women for every man, iirc

[Ecthy]

Ten females to each male

Wouldn't that necessitate the abandonment of the so-called "monogamous" sexual relationship? I mean as far as men were concerned...

[Barnabas]

Yes, I mentioned polygamy was common for decades in paraguay, even the government aproved of it to repopulate the country.

I think even the church tolerated it

[Odin]

Originally posted by Brachy-Pride
Wars for sure can have an effect on the gene pool, but the war has to be huge and completely devastating

A good example is the war that Paraguay lost to an alliance of Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay

Most of the male population of Paraguay was killed, over 90 %, to the point that for decades poligamy was common just because there were so many women and so few men.

A result of that, is that Paraguay is the only american country where almost the whole population speaks an amerindian language (guarani), but what is funny is that full blooded amerindians unlike in Bolivia, Peru or Guatemala, are very very few, almost all Paraguayans are mestizos, and more on the european side.
Which makes it a unique case.

Paraguayans would look very different today if they hadnt had that war.

[Odin]

One would think wars would have an effect, but we will probably never know because the PC nuts would squelch any reasearch into it.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Odin
One would think wars would have an effect, but we will probably never know because the PC nuts would squelch any reasearch into it.

Oh cmon now, we live in a time when genetic explanations for EVERYTHING are in fashion. Someone wanted to do a "Bell Curve" on war and courage could get away with it - bigger problems would be a working quantifiable definition of "courage", and measuring the whole pop before and after a war. And seperating out other effects of war.

Maybe first you could try demonstrating that courage IS, in fact, genetically determined? My guess is that rather than a "courage" gene, youd find genes for ADD, for Bipolar, for risktaking behaviour in general, that would be strongly related to behaviour associated with "courage".