# Evolution versus selective breeding **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [November 13, 2021, 2:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evolution-versus-selective-breeding/954266 "2021-11-13T02:24:22Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2021, 8:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evolution-versus-selective-breeding/954266/61 "2021-11-14T20:22:22Z")
> [@Crane](#): > > Yes, it attracts mates and intimidates predators. Attracts mates is part of the reproductive advantage part, but I’m not sure about the intimidating predators. It certainly makes him less likely to evade predators. Plenty of males attract mates without such an encumbrance, but the plumage must have represented a local maxima for reproductive advantage. It’s just another argument against design. Designers don’t get stuck in local maxima so easily. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2021, 8:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evolution-versus-selective-breeding/954266/62 "2021-11-14T20:24:09Z")
> [@Darren\_Garrison](#): > > All genes are at risk for mutation. In genes for traits that matter, damaging mutations get selected against. But if the trait no longer matters, broken genes are no longer weeded out by natural selection. Therefore all traits are stable only as long as they are useful. Think of loss of vision and pigmentation in cave animals, and loss of Vitamin C production in several animal groups. Right. I was thinking of environmental changes, actually. Given no or minor change in environment, you’re not going to see a regress to genes with less reproductive advantage. ---
**Author:** ![Crane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crane/32/3495_2.png) [@Crane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crane)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2021, 8:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evolution-versus-selective-breeding/954266/63 "2021-11-14T20:50:37Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > intimidating predators Have you encountered one at the zoo? They fan and shimmer the tail which makes them huge and intimidating. ---
**Author:** ![HoneyBadgerDC](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/honeybadgerdc/32/1033_2.png) [@HoneyBadgerDC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HoneyBadgerDC)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2021, 10:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evolution-versus-selective-breeding/954266/64 "2021-11-14T22:20:34Z")
Natural selection is what I really had in mind when I posted. When I was thinking about is the rapid changes that humans make around the cities and how so many animals have adapted to this in less than a hundred years. Urban coyotes would be a good animal to study on this. I sometimes wonder if Urban raccoons have any distinct differences between their rural cousins. At a glance day appear the same physically and I do know that behavioral changes are usually associated with physical changes as well. ---
**Author:** ![Andy\_L](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c67d28/32.png) [@Andy\_L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy_L)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2021, 12:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evolution-versus-selective-breeding/954266/65 "2021-11-15T00:10:50Z")
Stephen Jay Gould suggested that for some creatures (ones with a very short lifecycle) even a few years of a locally changed environment might lead to speciation - and subsequent extinction of the new species when conditions changed back to the original environment, [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evolution-versus-selective-breeding/954266.md?page=3)