BuHuHaHa! My standardized answer to such widespread moronic crap:
Love it or hate it - if we look on the issue from a Darwinistic point of view, those wars cleaned the male European gene-pool from those who were not able to survive such a situation like war. There are many reasons for it: Some were too aggressive, some were not careful enough, some were too dumb, some followed their orders to the last etc. etc. etc.. War is a perfect selection. I am aware that not all reasons for not dying in a war are that honourful, but they are for sure a good way not to win the "Darwin Award"*. Those who survive are usually (we do not speak about individual cases) more intelligent and more able compared to their fallen comrades (I know that this is not PC - but it is the plain truth). And guess what: Those Europeans who survived war, the Holocaust, Gestapo, Russian imprisonment, the foreign Legion, NKWD, KGB, SS, American chewing gum, Mormon missionaries, the economic wonder and Elvis Presley are my grandfathers and fathers. The by far best genetic material you can find.
Since your
professor was obviously too dumb to understand Darwinism and the principles of biological selection I recommend strongly the visit of another -more scientific- univercity. The teachers of your campus should better specialize into cleaning toilets instead of European history, since this would obviously fit much better into their intellectual potentials.
Greetings from Lake Constance - Good old Europe!
AB
I see one thing that never went away is European arrogance.
My, you are full of yourself, aren't you?
You assume incorrectly.
In most previous (and some subsequent) wars, your thesis would hold: those who fought bravely and cannily would live to fight another day and thus to reproduce.
Unfortunately for all concerned, the leadership was (as usual) fighting the last war, with horrific consequences in the age of machine guns, HE, and poison gas. The individuals who would have been "selected" for their sterling qualities in a more traditional war were overridden by the stupidity of the brass hats, most particularly French, Haig, Foch, and Joffre.
Darwinist theories were submerged in total war and total slaughter. The statistics, while incomplete, do indicate a noticeable falling-off in physical size and strength. I don't know about the IQ issue, Binet invented the concept just before the war, so I don't know what kind of a baseline they had. Probably just anecdotal, but the physical statistics are easy to find. I'm most familiar with Britain, and I know that the recruiters in WWII were disturbed enough by the falling-off in health and strength to take note of it.
BTW, rather than deride the professor, you might give this some serious consideration. I majored in history with a concentration in military history, and he has a point.
P.S., the Swiss stayed out of it, thus proving once again their essential good sense.
Wow, your ignorance on this subject takes my breathe away. You remind me of that character, Cliff, from Cheers.
Artillery does not respect good genes.
Of course, that gene pool started with the liability that everyone with an IQ higher than their hat size emmigrated to the US.
Take your genetic superiorty nonsense somewhere else.
"War is a perfect selection. "
That is the dumbest thing guised as intelligence I've ever read.