Foxes to Dogs

[Whag]

I think this is good strong evidence for evolution. More than fifty years ago, Russian scientists bred the wildness out of foxes. Within three generations, they created a domesticated breed almost indistinguishable in temperament from dogs.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YbcwDXhugjw

[USIncognito]

Did you read what happened after they stopped selectively breeding them?

[phank]

Did you read what happened after they stopped selectively breeding them?

More accurately, after the selection criteria changed. And one would expect that with different selection criteria, you'd see a different survival pattern. Always.

[Whag]

Did you read what happeAned after they stopped selectively breeding them?

Yes, I watched the whole thing. I didn't wanna mention that in case a smart alleck creationist decided to stop it prematurely and ask what it has to do with proving physical evolution.

Personally, I find it quite profound that breeding for tameness pays off in physical diversification. That pleases the multicultural hippie in me. Fascinating that dogs might be wolves frozen in infancy.

[lao tzu]

Fascinating that dogs might be wolves frozen in infancy.

Humans, chimps, mut. mut.

[Whag]

Humans, chimps, mut. mut.

This study has interesting implications. We have a good idea why early human beings would have significantly changed the wolf. The aggressive ones were of no use and probably killed and eaten. The tame ones thus flourished and changed the physical appearance of the wolf relatively quickly compared to random breeding. Maybe that's what happened to hominids. Maybe there was a period in which a group of tamer apes began producing larger numbers of friendlier, less wild offspring thereby calming us down, in a sense, and allowing us the time to think and be more innovative with our surroundings. Are there any studies that suggest something like that could have happened?

[lao tzu]

Maybe that's what happened to hominids. Maybe there was a period in which a group of tamer apes began producing larger numbers of friendlier, less wild offspring thereby calming us down, in a sense, and allowing us the time to think and be more innovative with our surroundings. Are there any studies that suggest something like that could have happened?

I ran across articles some years ago that described humans as neotenous primates. As I recall, both Gould and Haldane were supporters. In essence, an extended adolescence allows for better socialization and more time for learning. One of the principal differences in cognition studies between apes and humans is that human children share their discoveries more widely and frequently in group settings. A quick run through PubMed yielded little more than psychological studies, though there were a couple of hits on brain development. If you're interested, that's where to start, I'd say. Or you could sweet talk Roy into making it his next project.

[magellan004]

Did you read what happened after they stopped selectively breeding them?

Whag gave a link to a video. There was nothing to read. Are you referring to an article? And anyway - what did happen?

Magellan

[Whag]

Whag gave a link to a video. There was nothing to read. Are you referring to an article? And anyway - what did happen?

Magellan

He probably was aware of it and assumed it was a link to an article he had no need of reading. It's a video. Click on it and learn something fascinating about life.

[rogue06]

I ran across articles some years ago that described humans as neotenous primates. As I recall, both Gould and Haldane were supporters. In essence, an extended adolescence allows for better socialization and more time for learning. One of the principal differences in cognition studies between apes and humans is that human children share their discoveries more widely and frequently in group settings. A quick run through PubMed yielded little more than psychological studies, though there were a couple of hits on brain development. If you're interested, that's where to start, I'd say. Or you could sweet talk Roy into making it his next project.

Prothero in his "Evolution: What the Fossils Say and Why It Matters" makes a mention of this:

"In fact, since the 1920s, many biologists and anthropologists have argued that much of what differeentiates us from the chimpanzee is neotenic retentions of juvenile ape characters. If you look at a juvenile chimpanzee (fig. 15.8), its skull is much like that of a human, with a large brain, small brow ridges, short snout, and upright posture. Then during development to an adult, the chimpanzee develops the larger snout with long canines, big brow ridges, and forward slouching posture of the head. If regulatory genes tweak our embryonic development a tiny bit, we can make most of the characteristics that mark as human just by becoming juvenile apes that reach sexual maturity without ever truly growing up.

Here is the image that he (minus the caption) used for fig. 15.8:






He covers neoteny in general on pages 100-101 which can be found here

Dawkins also writes about it in his "Greatest Show on Earth" as well along with the attempts at silver fox domestication and the results.

[Whag]

Prothero in his "Evolution: What the Fossils Say and Why It Matters" makes a mention of this:

"In fact, since the 1920s, many biologists and anthropologists have argued that much of what differeentiates us from the chimpanzee is neotenic retentions of juvenile ape characters. If you look at a juvenile chimpanzee (fig. 15.8), its skull is much like that of a human, with a large brain, small brow ridges, short snout, and upright posture. Then during development to an adult, the chimpanzee develops the larger snout with long canines, big brow ridges, and forward slouching posture of the head. If regulatory genes tweak our embryonic development a tiny bit, we can make most of the characteristics that mark as human just by becoming juvenile apes that reach sexual maturity without ever truly growing up.

Here is the image that he (minus the caption) used for fig. 15.8:






He covers neoteny in general on pages 100-101 which can be found here

Dawkins also writes about it in his "Greatest Show on Earth" as well along with the attempts at silver fox domestication and the results.

That's extraordinary. The baby looks more human than the actors in Planet of the Apes.

[magellan004]

He probably was aware of it and assumed it was a link to an article he had no need of reading. It's a video. Click on it and learn something fascinating about life.

Let's not get bogged down with USincognito referring to a phantom article and no evolutionists querying what he meant, or that Whag somehow thought a non-existent article was going to be used by Creationist skallywags.

There have been many threads in Natural Science where selective breeding was proffered as some sort of evidence of evolution. That line always failed. Selective breeding has no connection with evolution.
Let's have a look at the Evolutionist's smorgasbord of wiggle-room definitions:

1. Evolution is simply change.
Well the shape of the moon changes too.

2. Evolution is change in frequency of alleles.
The silver fox experiment video does not support this. Sure, over hundreds of years, scientists seem to think it is OK to subject animals to cruel treatment but in this case the animal abuse did not address alleles.

3. Evolution is common descent with modification.
The silver foxes did not have a common ancestor in the experiment.

4. Evolution involves one type of animal turning into another type of animal that cannot interbreed with its relatives.
The video did not say anything about interbreeding ability.

Conclusion - The video of silver foxes being can lead only to one conclusion - Scientists acting like little gods can be systematically cruel to animals over prolonged periods.



Magellan

[Tiggy]

Let's not get bogged down with USincognito referring to a phantom article and no evolutionists querying what he meant, or that Whag somehow thought a non-existent article was going to be used by Creationist skallywags.

There have been many threads in Natural Science where selective breeding was proffered as some sort of evidence of evolution. That line always failed. Selective breeding has no connection with evolution.

Klownshooze too lazy to Google.

Domesticated silver fox

1. Evolution is simply change.
Well the shape of the moon changes too.

Klownshooze guilty of equivocation

2. Evolution is change in frequency of alleles.
The silver fox experiment video does not support this. Sure, over hundreds of years, scientists seem to think it is OK to subject animals to cruel treatment but in this case the animal abuse did not address alleles.

Klownshooze ignorant of the actual work done. from the Wiki article:

"In an article published in Current Biology about the genetic differences between the two fox populations,[4] an experiment was reported in which DNA microarrays were used to detect differential gene expression between domesticated foxes, non-domesticated foxes raised at the same farm as the tame foxes, and wild foxes. Forty genes were found to differ between the domesticated and non-domesticated farm-raised foxes, although about 2,700 genes differed between the wild foxes and either set of farm-raised foxes.

3. Evolution is common descent with modification.
The silver foxes did not have a common ancestor in the experiment.

Klownshooze fail. The domesticated foxes at the end of the experiment were the direct descendants of the initial wild population.

4. Evolution involves one type of animal turning into another type of animal that cannot interbreed with its relatives.
The video did not say anything about interbreeding ability.

More Klownshooze ignorance. Evolution doesn't always involve speciation, especially over the short term.

Conclusion - The video of silver foxes being can lead only to one conclusion - Scientists acting like little gods can be systematically cruel to animals over prolonged periods.

Conclusion. Klownshooze really is a better name than Clownshoes for our resident board idiot.

- T

[Whag]

1. Evolution is simply change.
Well the shape of the moon changes too.

*spit take*

[Roy]

3. Evolution is common descent with modification.
The silver foxes did not have a common ancestor in the experiment.

Klownshooze fail. The domesticated foxes at the end of the experiment were the direct descendants of the initial wild population.

It's worse than that. The clip shows two groups of foxes, a tame group and an aggressive group, both of which are descendants of a common ancestral population of wild foxes. Bozoboots either didn't watch the clip, didn't understand it, or can't remember it.

Roy