
Animal Domestication: Taming the Wild - david_west
http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2011/03/taming-wild-animals/ratliff-text
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skosuri
I got a tour of this place a few years ago when I was in Novosibirsk for a
genomics conference. I'll see if I can dig up the pictures and videos, but a
few observations.

1\. The different body characteristics (fur coat, ribs, ears, etc) do make the
tame foxes look like dogs, more than a wild animal. It's fascinating why those
two things co-evolve.

2\. The tame foxes (and especially minxes) seemed more mentally challenged
than tame. For example, the tame minxes and foxes would just sit around and
purr/drool, and that's pretty much all they did.

3\. The untamed ones looked very unhappy in their cages.

4\. When I was there, they had already begun selling the foxes to rich
westerners. I think the going rate was a few thousand dollars per fox.

~~~
david_west
I think your points get at Belyaev's original intentions for the experiments.
His papers are not so much "wouldn't it be cool if we could domesticate foxes
in just a few generations", but speak much more to the fact that, as you
select for behavioral traits, physical traits are sort of unintentionally
selected. The interesting thing about it (though I don't think Belyaev said
this) is that the domesticated physical traits tend to be "cute" by our
standards. For example, the domesticated foxes have proportionally wider
skulls, which I can't help but read and think about this:
[http://www.exploratorium.edu/mind/judgment/cuteify/v1/](http://www.exploratorium.edu/mind/judgment/cuteify/v1/)

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terhechte
Well, our definition of "cute" stems from thousands of years of answering the
question "will this animal kill me". Those who successfully answered that
could procreate, the others not so much.

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thaumasiotes
I'd say it's more likely that our definition of "cute" stems from the question
"is this a human baby".

~~~
usaphp
And what if I don't find other human babies cute? But still find all kittens
and puppies cute?

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david_west
Video on experiment:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0jFGNQScRNY&feature=youtu.be](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0jFGNQScRNY&feature=youtu.be)

~~~
s_dev
You can see another here:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-L58NPPQ5eI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-L58NPPQ5eI)
\- this one is less of a documentary but better illustrates the contrast in
behavior between the wild dark foxes versus the artificially selected tamer
silver foxes. They're cool, I wouldn't mind having a fox as a pet.

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mr_overalls
I wonder if this type of domestication wouldn't be possible with raccoons or
some of the great apes, maybe giving other traits like intelligence equal
footing with docility. Uplift, in the David Brin sense.

~~~
raverbashing
Cats were smarter and self-domesticated themselves

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rwmj
There's some sort of "exotic pet" start-up here. It may take 10 years of
development, but the research costs would be relatively low. I wonder what the
ethics of that would be.

~~~
DanBC
Breeding animals as pets is gently problematic when there are so many unwanted
animals that would make very good pets.

Traditional breeding is notoriously bad at avoiding genetic defects and
temperament problems. Mutts avoid a bunch of those.

If you charge enough you could fund humane death for surplus animals (tricky
to persuade people this is a good thing) or better animal shelters, which
would help reduce some of the problems.

~~~
ssharp
> Traditional breeding is notoriously bad at avoiding genetic defects and
> temperament problems. Mutts avoid a bunch of those.

A large number of mutts are also either born or placed into bad situations and
end up developing social and temperamental issues as a result, which become
increasingly difficult to overcome the older they get.

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david_west
Here's the article I originally wanted to post but couldn't find. Does a much
better job than the more cursory nat geo piece.
[http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/807641/posts](http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/807641/posts)

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TheMagicHorsey
What patience these scientists had! What dedication to their discipline!
Imagine losing your brother to a labor camp and still continuing the work he
was punished for. Amazing!

And these were not experiments that gave results in just a few months. These
guys were laboring for decades!

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PeterWhittaker
The description of the article following the title is flawed. It reads _Only a
handful of wild animal species have been successfully bred to get along with
humans. The reason, scientists say, is found in their genes._

But that's not what the article says - well, not directly or explicitly. Yes,
I am being pedantic, and yes, I agree that this is likely the case. But as the
article points out later on, _Identifying the precise genetic footprint
involved in tameness, however, is proving extremely tricky science...
domestication is driven not by a single gene but a suite of genetic changes._

It's an interesting project, to be sure. Might it identify a complex of genes
necessary (but not sufficient) to domestication? Maybe.

Or maybe not.

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tomkinstinch
RadioLab had an episode on this:

[http://www.radiolab.org/story/91696-new-
nice/](http://www.radiolab.org/story/91696-new-nice/)

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DyslexicAtheist
awesome article.

if only it would be as easy to domesticate humans. sadly there is no life form
on earth that has the intelligence to domesticate us into a more peaceful
species.

~~~
boyaka
Domestication of humans is what came to my mind on this topic. I'm not sure I
would agree with you that we aren't being domesticated. Maybe countries
domesticate humans? Maybe the most violent countries have the least
domesticated humans? Maybe freedom and individuality combat domestication?
It's definitely worth thinking about!

~~~
kitsunesoba
If you look at the driving causes of domestication in animals, it's typically
the fact that surviving is no challenge — e.g. food and shelter are easy to
come by, danger is rare, and there's little need to fight with other animals
or those of the same species.

Following this, I'd think that the same conditions would domesticate humans.
There's no reason it wouldn't; there's little value for aggressive behavior in
a world where aggressiveness simply isn't necessary (and possibly even looked
down upon).

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omgitstom
Does anyone know how many foxes they started with for the experiment?

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Htsthbjig
I suspect something like this happens with entire societies and humans.

When you first travel to the US you realize there is a different breed of
people there. The native American population was basically exterminated and
replaced with a European population that were tired of the State, of the kings
and the Church and leaved all behind for going there . Also they send to the
US lots of prostitutes as women, and then withing America, they send the "wild
women" to the West.

You almost could feel the Mustang or Maverick spirit. I have only seen this
spirit in some places in Africa.

On the other side when you go to Asia, you find the other side of the coin,
submissive to the limit, society not tolerating any minimal deviation of the
norm of the pack.

