[ExI] Did Evolution produce a gene for good soldiers?

[Keith Henson]

John Clark <johnkclark at gmail.com> wrote:

snip

> If you're right then those women must have come from tribes that lost wars

Or lost women in raids.

> because they didn't have the religious gene, or whatever the gene was that
was needed to make them or their offspring good soldiers, but nevertheless
the genes the women did have were quite successful evolutionarily speaking
even if they didn't ensure military victory.

The traits behind Stockholm syndrome were probably selected in women
since captured males were usually just killed.  There is no reason the
psychological mechanisms don't exist in men.

> So a gene to give up, not make
trouble and to just surrender might have a better chance of getting into
the next generation than a gene to fight on heroically to the death against
impossible odds would.

Here there is a sex difference.  Males might as well fight on to the
death since that's what is going to happen to them if they were
captured.

> And if a gene can't do better at getting into the
next generation than the competition then it won't spread through the
population.

Winning left more copies of genes than losing.  Losing got the genes
into the winning group.

The traits probably became universal before 60,000 years ago.


Keith