It all sounded like perfect schoolbook Darwinism. Until someone made a issue of the fact that the foxes were the descendants of already-tame foxes in Prince Edward Island (province) in Canada.
Tag: domestication
Taming the silver fox, taming ourselves…? Oh, please…
The idea that we humans “tamed ourselves” over the generations, on the face of it, it fails a logical test. Who decided that that was a good idea? Who created the benchmark? Why? Why didn’t the bonobos do it?
Evolution or art? The chicken as a human artifact
We’ve probably had even more influence on the dog, of course. But here’s the interesting thing: When dogs run wild, they just go back to being wolfhounds after a few generations. Apparently, feral chickens just breed with still wild fowl and revert to ancestral types. Just how really significant irreversible changes occur remains unclear.
New Scientist: Monkeys “look like” they are domesticating wolves
Then that is the monkeys’ mistake, not the wolves’: In the alpine grasslands of eastern Africa, Ethiopian wolves and gelada monkeys are giving peace a chance. The geladas – a type of baboon – tolerate wolves wandering right through the middle of their herds, while the wolves ignore potential meals of baby geladas in favour Read More…