Did wars genetically lower intelligence?

Tradução: Engrácia Maria Victoria Fernandes.
e-mail: victoriafernandes@hotmail.com

I think so. In my opinion, this should’ve happened. I stress out that what I mean is the average intelligence - neither genius nor retarded - and also the one people are born with, which has nothing to do with the level of education. A man with higher education may be less "organically intelligent" than the other, with basic education incomplete, or even illiterate. In popular language, so to speak , some are born shrewd, quicker or more inventive than others. Even among educated people, the level of intelligence is variable.

I presume that wars - in addition to resulting deaths, cripples, chaos and material destruction - provoke within each country involved in the conflict a genetic setback in subsequent generations, since wars lead to the "survival of the less fit" and "extinction of the fit "- the opposite of Charles Darwin's theory of evolution. This is yet another argument against the stupidity of wars. Fortunately, so far, women have not participated massively in the fighting. They saved the best genes of their respective nations.In wars, it is precisely the youngest and the healthiest - recruited and approved by military service – are those who first die in combat, usually before they become parents. Only young people rejected by military service because of being disabled, leave offspring.

Inclined as a mere curious to inquire about possible biological nexus of cause and effect on social issues - in this case the deaths of millions of young soldiers and the non-advancement or setback of human beings throughout history - I wonder if periodic wars and other forms of massacres, chipping away the best "slice" from human species - its healthy youth, explain why mankind still remains unchanged, or worsened, in moral terms, despite its impressive technological advance. It should be remembered that scientific and technological inventions are relatively rare. I will discuss in this text only the global, statistical hypothesis, recognizing indeed, that many young people unfit to fight in wars can be unusually intelligent. I do not discuss the exceptions here.

How did this idea of periodic and frequent wars resulted in just a slight or even none evolution of mankind? I explain below.

After reading hundreds of quotations from Greek philosophers - Socrates, Plato, Aristotle and even the pre-Socratics - I kept asking myself: Socrates was probably born in 470 BC, that is to say about 2,500 years ago; what he said and his followers wrote - about ethics is by far superior to what we witness, on average, in our times. Even among the current "thinkers", many of whom are much more concerned with phrases of effect rather than the depths mixed with common sense. In politics, it's even worse. It’s a simple case of comparing the speeches from the presidents of nations presiding over the last hundred years, including the wealthiest nations. As for the speeches read, it is known that they are commonly written by ghostwriters. No progress in 2,500 years. Maybe even a setback, despite our impressive technical progress, most likely coming from a couple of innovators.

Despite so much reading available - with the invention of the press, computers, smartphones, free and instant availability of information, etc. - modern man continues to lie, deceive, kill and steal without shame, apparently more exacerbated than two and a half millennia ago. With an aggravating factor: after the mentioned philosophers, three religions emerged and being monotheistic should have fostered humankind towards the brotherhood of human species.

Of no avail. The carnage has only increased: The Crusades, the War of 30 years, the War of 100 years, Napoleonic Wars, Russian Civil War, American Civil War, the Dungan Revolution (in China), "Attacks" of Tamerlane ", World War I, World War II, Korean War, Vietnam War, Gulf Wars, "Syrian" War, Islamic State, Israeli-Palestinian fighting, etc. Not to mention a possible nuclear conflict if Kim Jong-Un and Trump continue to threaten each other. A push of a button, even accidental, and we will have chaos.

I said an "accidental" push because when Jimmy Carter was president, his suit was sent to the laundromat.

In one of the pockets of his jacket inadvertently a "mobile" or equivalent device that could fire atomic rockets at Russia. In retaliation, the latter could use its system of "immediate response", firing atomic missiles against the US, London and other capitals. Fortunately, no laundry employee, unaware of the danger, tried to "test" the buttons of the enigmatic "toy". Would it be a new smartphone?

I often remember that in evil lies good, and vice versa. If the US and Soviet Union, at the time of the Cold War, were not nuclear powers the 3rd. World War would have already occurred. Probably in 1962, in the well-known incident of Russian rockets, with nuclear warheads, sent to Cuba by the Soviet Union but intercepted at sea by the Americans.

The aim of this article was to present a new argument - the genetic one, of a future effect - against the stupidity of wars, all of them, except the strictly defensive wars, before the arrival of the "sheriff" who will arrest "the bandit."

In order to avoid wars, it is necessary to prohibit them, but to prohibit them nations need to be aware of the demand to give up part of their sovereignty when it collides with the sovereignty of another nation.

Collision that still today resolves itself by force, the most primitive way of solving any problem.