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50 Years of Domesticating Foxes For Science
gamebittk writes "In 1959, Soviet scientist Dmitri Belyaev set out to breed a tamer fox that would be easier for their handlers in the Russian fur industry to work with. Much to the scientist's shock, changes no one had expected emerged after just 10 generations. The foxes began behaving playfully, were smaller in size, and even changed color — much like dogs."
Belyaev died in 1985, but the experiment continued (PDF) in his absence, and to this day provides strong evidence to parts of evolutionary theory. The experiment eventually branched out to involve other species as well.
There's nothing scaring about humans playing "god". Sure, bad things can sometimes be created like the atomic weapon, for instance, but many of those god games result in great advances for the science. Sure, it's easy to cry armageddon for every little investigation we do in science, but, if we don't play god, who will do it then? God?
It's time to realise that Abble's products are the biggest abomination these days. Just say NO to the dumb iAbble way!!
"Never the less, it's always scary when humans play god. Something is going to happen eventually, so should be really careful about it."
We are talking about breeding foxes here. Just like breeding dogs/cats/horses/plants, which is done by tens of thousands (hundreds? millions?) of people the world over, and has been for thousands of years.
All our science and technology is based on the idea that we can understand, control, and improve nature.
Playing God, in the Xn tradition, is creatio ex nihilo. Tweaking nature - even with catastrophic results - is not playing God.
Selective breeding is evolution but not by natural selection. Exactly same process - i.e. only some survive to pass their genes on to the next generation based on traits. Not sure where you are going with this existing information crap - also no such thing as devolution - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biological_devolution.
Control is an illusion, order our comforting lie. From chaos, through chaos, into chaos we fly
The idea that comes into my head when I hear the word "evolution" is a process by which life as we know it developed from very, very simple organisms.
Well, yes... And then those very, very simple organisms became less simple... And then those less simple organisms became just simple... And then those simple organisms became kind of complex...
Just because an organism is currently fairly complex, doesn't mean evolution has somehow magically stopped. Evolution is happening everywhere, 24/7.
The process mentioned in the article is not this.
Yes it is.
It's being guided by human beings, instead of natural forces... And it's been taking place over a short timeframe... But it's still evolution. The exact same kind of stuff that created all the biodiversity on this planet.
No new genetic information has been added to the gene pool.
Again the "information" word.
If I breed a new kind of fox with black fur, instead of red... Is that new information? Is that more information, or less? What if some fox randomly mutates and is born with neon green fur? Is that new information? More information? Less?
All that has occurred is that existing genes have been rearranged.
Well, but that's kind of the point.
I mean, we've only got the four bases... They can only combine in so many different ways... It's all about the order of the base pairs.
Just like binary - you've only got two digits, it's the order that matters.
You cannot continue the same process and get a cow or an elephant.
Probably not. Not because this isn't evolution, but because those are two very specific and unique species. It would take a hell of a lot of work, and more understanding than we currently have, to turn a fox into an elephant.
But, if we were to keep this up long enough we could very well wind up with an entirely new non-fox species.
The way mutations are worked into the gene pool seems, to me, to be the main interesting thing about evolution, and this article has nothing to do that.
Mutations are essential to biodiversity. They're what introduce new and different things.
Which is specifically why they're avoided and weeded out in selective breeding. With selective breeding you have a specific trait that you are intentionally trying to emphasize. You want to avoid random mutation as much as possible and, to the best of your ability, produce a predictable result.
Also, now I really want a pet fox.
Agreed.
"Work is the curse of the drinking classes." -Oscar Wilde
I want one! Foxes are cute and smaller than dogs but clever like cats.
If they have bred them to be more behaved they would probably be good house pets for urban dwellers. Foxes are pretty adaptable anyway, living off the scraps of society for a few hundred years already. It's mostly people that keep them out of populated places. That's how man started taming dogs and cats.
Reminds me of the Cold War Dog Fight joke: The Americans and Russians at the height of the arms race realized that if they continued in the usual manner they were going to blow up the whole world. One day they sat down and decided to settle the whole dispute with one dog fight. They'd have five years to breed the best fighting dog in the world and which ever side's dog won would be entitled to dominate the world. The losing side would have to lay down its arms. The Russians found the biggest meanest Doberman and Rottweiler dogs in the world and bred them with the biggest meanest Siberian wolves. They selected only the biggest and strongest puppy from each litter, killed his siblings, and gave him all the milk. They used steroids and trainers and after five years came up with the biggest meanest dog the world had ever seen. Its cage needed steel bars that were five inches thick and nobody could get near it. When the day came for the dog fight, the Americans showed up with a strange animal. It was a nine foot long Dachshund. Everyone felt sorry for the Americans because they knew there was no way that this dog could possibly last ten seconds with the Russian dog.
When the cages were opened up, the Dachshund came out of it's cage and slowly waddled over towards the Russian dog. The Russian dog snarled and leaped out of it's cage and charged the American dachshund. But, when it got close enough to bite the Dachshund's neck, the Dachshund opened it's mouth and consumed the Russian dog in one bite. There was nothing left at all of the Russian dog.
The Russians came up to the Americans shaking their heads in disbelief. 'We don't understand how this could have happened. We had our best people working for five years with the meanest Doberman and Rottweiler in the world and the biggest meanest Siberian wolves." That's nothing", an American replied."We had our best plastic surgeons working for five years to make an alligator look like a Dachshund."
"we didn't really evolve that much since we got ourselves these big brainy things that we use for thinking."
This isn't true, actually. We did evolve, and a lot too (because although not much time has passed, populations are much higher). The thing is, it's not the "evolution" of racial theorists, of bigger brains or better skills. It's mostly resistance to disease, and adaption to more monotonous diets. When you have a population of half a billion, and half of them die from disease and/or malnutrition before reaching maturity, there's a lot of selection pressure, even over a few generations. Especially since we're talking about new diseases (big crowd diseases) and new diets ("high carb"...) that we haven't already spent millions of years adapting to.
(I guess disease and malnutrition is what keeps seagull population stable as well, but there it is in the form it has always been - they're probably pretty well optimized to it already)
xkcd is not in the sudoers file. This incident will be reported.
First, it was a wild fox, quick and smart.
After a few years, it became playful, domesticated, slow, stupid, and unstable. I'm on Chrome now. ;)
WTF am I doing replying to an AC at 5 A.M on a Friday night?
Oh you creationists are so determinedly ignorant.
It's perfectly clear how organs can result from evolution in a gradual series of steps. Here Richard Dawkins explains exactly for the evolution of the eyeball in so simple a way a way a child could understand. You'd benefit from watching the whole thing, but if you want to cut to the chase, the eye section starts at about 23 minutes in.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YT1vXXMsYak