Russian foxes were selectively bred for tameness. Can a similar process happen to humans, under the right conditions — say, extreme political pressure to obey ?
$\begingroup$
$\endgroup$
13
-
1$\begingroup$ Do you understand how the process works for a fox (or anything else for any other trait, for that matter)? Think about what the prerequisites are and what the process is. $\endgroup$– Bryan Krause ♦Aug 16, 2018 at 17:45
-
$\begingroup$ Cages and a basic test for friendliness. I know this has dark resonances for humans and their history - I'm not advocating it, I'm asking if it is a process that happens already. I should maybe change the question to "Have" instead of "Can". $\endgroup$– Jimmy WiddleAug 16, 2018 at 17:58
-
1$\begingroup$ If a trait is genetically influenced, has variation, and affects production of progeny, it can be selected on, naturally or artificially. So if there is variation in human tameness with a genetic cause (unlikely to have been studied specifically as 'tameness'), and people who are not tame are killed or otherwise prevented from reproducing, then yes, you would select for tameness. You won't be able to get a rigorous result for the more specific questions your question seems to imply or that you've mentioned in a comment. $\endgroup$– Bryan Krause ♦Aug 16, 2018 at 18:10
-
$\begingroup$ OK so thinking about the selection within societies I suppose we're looking back at the beginning of social stratification and law - favouring obedience and punishing disobedience. Sometimes this is highly ruthless and lethal - the USSR would be one example of this. But the activities of Stalin & co were quite brief. But do the selection processes of dictators select for tameness or aggression ? Dictatorships seem to reward both the aggression (on the government side) and obedience (on the citizenry side) simultaneously. OK good thanks you've prompted me to reconsider on this. $\endgroup$– Jimmy WiddleAug 20, 2018 at 10:27
-
$\begingroup$ Harpending wrote about it. $\endgroup$– Rodrigo de AzevedoJul 21, 2020 at 9:24
|
Show 8 more comments
1 Answer
$\begingroup$
$\endgroup$
5
Setting aside the eugenic implications of what are you suggesting (short answer: yes it is theoretically possible, but no it is practically impossible), a more interesting observation is that evolutionary anthropologists think that humans might have "self-domesticated" during our evolutionary history.
There is a wide literature on this topic, but a recent paper summarizes the main ideas and addresses the question from a genomic point of view. Theofanopoulou and coauthors find credible genomic evidence for similar patterns of genetic evolution in humans and other domesticated animals.
-
1$\begingroup$ Good yes I was wondering about the natural neotony of humans over time. But the eugenics - I was wondering if it already happened unconsciously, for instance through the communist era in Russia and various other times and places where people have been selected by political or religious systems. As I understand it the foxes showed signs of change in about 10 generations. In human terms that's somewhere around 250 years I think. Whether there is an equivalence between human and fox generations is part of my question, really. $\endgroup$ Aug 16, 2018 at 17:56
-
1$\begingroup$ @kmm What do you mean with practically impossible? $\endgroup$– ArsakAug 16, 2018 at 18:41
-
$\begingroup$ @Marzipanherz From an implementation (practical) perspective, breeding humans will not work. If there is heritable variation, it can be selected on. Actually doing that selection on humans is impossible. $\endgroup$– kmmAug 16, 2018 at 19:20
-
1$\begingroup$ @kmm I was thinking, whether something like this might have happend (unintentionally) already: Think of an isolated culture (an island, for example) that prevents non-tame people from getting children (via prison or death penalty). If such a culture has been/is stable for enough generations and assuming that tameness in human was heritable.... $\endgroup$– ArsakAug 16, 2018 at 19:29
-
1$\begingroup$ @kmm There are practical ways that artificial selection can be done in humans (This is a different question from whether it should be done). A country which is a welfare society could, for example, make IVF with embryo selection free and legal. When some portion of the variation of trait X is understood genetically (such as from GWAS), then you can select directly at the embryo level. For example, a procedure could be that a couple made 10 fertilized eggs, and then you can select the egg that has the highest probability of high/low X. $\endgroup$– EffAug 23, 2018 at 7:19