Naked Science Forum
Life Sciences => Physiology & Medicine => Topic started by: Titanscape on 03/07/2006 04:18:07
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Many wars have taken place since ancient times, just look at Rome. Ancient tribal wars, then the republic and empire and Papal wars and political wars... This surely had an effect on the selection in reproducing and the present people.
Also looking at GB and Germany... Germans in WW1 and 2 were men of national fervour and ambition. Shell warfare surely led to the deaths of millions, the sorts who were first to go, yes they never returned. Ones that did could hardly start families with no legs and one arm...
The English too lost tens of thousands, like 87% in just one battle in one morning. The sort again of national fervour, courage and belief in fighting for democracy and family...
The ones that didn't go are the ones who had children, with the women who of course were not directly endangered.
Men of courage, adventure, cause, honour, the foolish... went to battle not to return.
So this was no survival of the fittest but survival of, well, what do you think? And what might you say this selective breeding has had on the present character and nature of the living generation?
Titanscape
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Evolution does not depend upon survival of the individual, but survival of the offspring.
One of the byproducts of war is always an increased birth rate, even if the fathers of the children do not survive to the end of the war.
That having been said, as you say, the real beneficiaries of the war were those who sent others to fight, rather than the one's who did the fighting themselves.
You also have to remember not to focus on evolution from purely the male standpoint. If a soldier dies, but his sister has a baby, then 25% of the soldiers genes will still live on in his nephew or niece.
And, ofcourse, one also has to (however unpleasant the fact may be) factor in the tendency of soldiers (in some armies more than others, but it is true of all armies to some extent) to indulge in a bit of rape here and there (and there are some women who are quite willing to fraternise with the enemy totally voluntarily). The children born to these women may not have a father whom they might call father, but the soldiers genes nonetheless live on.
George
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Evolution does not depend upon survival of the individual, but survival of the offspring.
One of the byproducts of war is always an increased birth rate, even if the fathers of the children do not survive to the end of the war.
That having been said, as you say, the real beneficiaries of the war were those who sent others to fight, rather than the one's who did the fighting themselves.
You also have to remember not to focus on evolution from purely the male standpoint. If a soldier dies, but his sister has a baby, then 25% of the soldiers genes will still live on in his nephew or niece.
And, ofcourse, one also has to (however unpleasant the fact may be) factor in the tendency of soldiers (in some armies more than others, but it is true of all armies to some extent) to indulge in a bit of rape here and there (and there are some women who are quite willing to fraternise with the enemy totally voluntarily). The children born to these women may not have a father whom they might call father, but the soldiers genes nonetheless live on.
George
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Yeh, you know that not all men go to war with children at home. In Australian history, fifteen year old boys would lie about their age in order to go to the French trenches.
Does the spirit of adventure really live on?
Also children not having fathers are at a disadvantage in life.
Then two wars in a row. Centuries or Roman wars.
28,000 Hungarian soldiers fought 70,000 Turks in Hungary in the, was it, 14th Century, and won, but which kind died, among the soldier sorts, and which returned, and which didn't go?
Titanscape
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quote:
Originally posted by Titanscape
Yeh, you know that not all men go to war with children at home. In Australian history, fifteen year old boys would lie about their age in order to go to the French trenches.
Does the spirit of adventure really live on?
Also children not having fathers are at a disadvantage in life.
But you missed my point about the sisters of these men.
It is very probable that these men who were more adventurous in the battlefield left womenfolk at home who were more adventurous in the bedroom.
Also, you have to take into account the competitive advantage that these men give their relatives who remain at home, because they have removed from the human race other males who may have competed for the same resources as their own siblings and their offspring.
You also have to remember that you much look at the statistical spectrum, not individual cases. It is a little like wearing seat belts: it is well known that there are some situations where wearing a seatbelt can cost lives, yet statistically the wearing of seatbelts is shown to save lives, so governments try and get every motorist to wear seat belts, knowing full well that they will be condemning a few of them to an early death, but also knowing that they are probably saving far more lives than they are foreshortening.
George