Extra thin soldiers

[Tom W.]

Millions? The UK total for killed and died in the Great War was some 720,000 out of a 1914 population of something over 46 million - tragic, but hardly a catastrophic dent in the gene pool.

By millions I mean all European dead in two world wars. Not only combatants but the millions of children and single women who died of violence, famine, and disease before they could reproduce.

If bone density is an indication of strength, and strength is built up through manual labour, then surely we are weaker today not due to the removal from our gene pool of hundreds of thouands of strong men in two wars, but rather to the sedentary, office based jobs that most of us now have?

From what I understand lifestyle and genetics both play a part.

You can have a genetic predisposition toward alcoholism, for example, but if you never start drinking it'll never manifest itself.

It works in the opposite direction, too. People with a genetic predisposition toward great physical strength or fitness will thrive physically on less exercise and manual labor than those of us without this genetic advantage.

So our ancestors were stronger both because they worked harder but also because they had a genetic superiority.

It's a controversial theory. The term "superiority" has too many negative overtones. I certainly don't mean to imply that our ancestors were better than we are. I'm using the term only in a biological sense.

But in the end, it's just a theory.

[truthergw]

Nothing as recent or as short lived as the Great War could have any effect on our genes. Of the killed, many had families. My GFs were both casualties of the war but left 10 children between them.

[George Armstrong Custer]

By millions I mean all European dead in two world wars. Not only combatants but the millions of children and single women who died of violence, famine, and disease before they could reproduce.

Ok - I didn't take your 'we' to mean the whole of Europe (your final sentence refers to our losing millions of 'soldiers'). But even taking into account your later qualification of the whole of Europe in two world wars, combatant and non-combatant, as Tom has pointed out this is still too small a percentage of the total, and over too short a period, to have a measurable impact on the gene pool.

ciao,

GAC