
Evolution: The Curious Case of Dogs - tokenadult
http://scienceblogs.com/observations/2010/01/evolution-the-curious-case-of-dogs.php
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jerf
"The most impressive beggars, however, get their own title: 'metro dogs'. They
rely on scraps of food from the daily commuters who travel the public
transportation system. To do so, the dogs have learned to navigate the subway.
They know stops by name, and integrate a number of specific stations into
their territories."

Score another one for science fiction. SF writers have talked about city-
specialized animals emerging for a while now, and while you could certainly
say that some critters have adapted nicely (pigeons, squirrels, depending on
the degree of urbanization), dogs that know how to use crossing signals is,
IMHO, a higher level.

See also their symbiotic protection of the inner city from the vicious dogs.
Note that had the politicians decided to be rid of them, that would have been
the end of them, so they actually passed a selection criterion there. Humans
have, at least for now, accepted this breed as symbionts at the urban level.
One could easily imagine them further specializing rather quickly, if they are
not wiped out.

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Retric
I think the best example of just how fast evoltion can be is the domesticated
silver fox: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domesticated_silver_fox>

Video:
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=enrLSfxTqZ0&feature=relat...](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=enrLSfxTqZ0&feature=related)

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gxFKKf5B2BE>

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scott_s
Thanks. I've read about that experiment before, and I thought it was
fascinating. But I had never actually seen the domesticated foxes, and I
hadn't realize how freaking adorable they'd be.

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bjelkeman-again
I saw a TV programme about this, maybe 10-15 years ago and it dawned on me
then that the scariest part of this was that it would only take the same
amount of breeding to make humans as domesticated as this. Reminds me of S.M.
Sterling's Draka novels. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Domination>

~~~
scott_s
Probably not true. Dogs - the species - have a large amount of genetic
variation. There's a lot to play with. Humans do not have as nearly as much
genetic variety across the species. A stat I read is that there's more genetic
variety in a group of 50 chimps than in the entire human species.

This points to a genetic bottleneck in the past 100,000 years or so. Our
ancestors were the few survivors of some catastrophic event.

~~~
Retric
Humans are domesticated relative to our ancestors / closest primate relatives.
Anyway, I suspect the reason domestication works so fast is it's breaking down
a chemical pathway which is fairly simple relative to creating a new sequence.
Most young animals are minimally aggressive as baby's and it's only after they
start to grow that they become aggressive. So just about any mutation
effecting that transition sequence and they stay as infants.

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Qz
_"This dramatic shift from the survival of the fittest to the survival of the
smartest..."_

It really bugs me when people use terms like this. Survival of the smartest
_is_ survival of the fittest. Nothing has changed!

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scott_s
Selection pressures have changed, but, yes, it's still "fitness." It's just
that the criteria of "fittest" in that situation has changed. I think people
conflate "fittest" with "physically fit" which is not what the word means in
"survival of the fittest."

~~~
Qz
What's funny is that the phrase itself is something of a tautology -- fitness
in that context is basically having whatever attributes contribute to
survival, so the phrase ends up meaning "survival of that which survives best"
or even simpler, "survival of the survivors". Survival is the only measurable
quality of fitness.

The other thing that can be confusing is that the timeframe of the statement
is infinite. It's not saying "that which is still alive today is the fittest",
but rather "that which is still alive infinitely far into the future is the
fittest".

~~~
tokenadult
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survival_of_the_fittest>

"Darwin first used Spencer's new phrase 'survival of the fittest' as a synonym
for 'natural selection' in the fifth edition of On the Origin of Species,
published in 1869.[2][3] Darwin meant it is a metaphor for 'better adapted for
immediate, local environment', not the common inference of 'in the best
physical shape' [4]. Hence, it is not a scientific description,[5] and is both
incomplete and misleading."

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kqr2
There is also a good excerpt about the evolution of dogs from Richard Dawkins:

[http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertai...](http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/books/book_extracts/article6808173.ece)

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drtse4
This reminds me of City by Clifford Simak, nice story.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_(novel)>

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Dylanfm
I'm part way through that book at the moment. It's a good read.

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russell
>> you don't see many Chihuahua/Saint Bernard mixes

I'm not so sure about that. My sister once had a Chihuahua/Husky mix that she
got from a Russian circus. She looked like a small Husky with brown and white
fur. (The dog not my sister.)

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pyre
Though sometimes "you don't see many" is used to imply "because none exist,"
it doesn't literally mean so. Just because she had a Chihuahua/Husky mix
doesn't mean that they aren't rare.

