Is it possible to breed humans for tameness in the same way as foxes have been bred ?
Has anything similar already happened ?
In human populations subject to an oppressive selection regime, such as in a ruthless political or religious system which denies those that don’t submit the opportunity to thrive or even reproduce, is it possible that constant artificial selection results in people hopelessly dependent on that system or the people who lead it ?
Nat Geo article says,
" Robert Wayne led a study comparing the wold and dog genomes. A brief aside in which Wayne and his colleaugues identified a particular short DNA sequence, located near a gene called WBSCR17, that was very different in the two species. That region of the genome, they suggested, could be a potential target for "genes that are important in the early domestication of dogs.
In humans, they researchers went on, WBSCR17 is at least partly responsible for a rare genetic disorder called Williams-Beuren syndrome…its sufferers are often over friendly and trusting of strangers. "
The argument has been made that it has, in the form of several thousand years of civilization. Humans who are law abiding and are willing to get along with others generally do better in civilization than do humans who aren’t. Being in prison (or executed) is generally a serious setback for reproduction.
Where do you think namby-pamby liberals came from?
Seriously; one of the interesting things I recall about the fox experiment is how few generations were required to achieve fairly consistent tameness, assuming I’m remembering the NPR piece on correctly.
Any claims of a gene “for” any specific behavioral trait must be regarded with skepticism. Indeed, it is often the press, not the scientists, who make any perceived link stronger than it actually is. Consider the NatGeo quote you provided:
Bolding mine. That’s a lot of maybe for one sentence; Wayne and his colleagues found what amounts to nothing more than a correlation at this time. That particular gene may or may not have anything to do with tameness.
And, as far as WBSCR17 and humans go, that gene is but one of 26 genes, the deletion of which is responsible for Williams-Beuren syndrome - that gene alone likely has little role in the “over friendly and trusting of strangers” component of WB syndrome. We aren’t even entirely sure what that gene actually does (as is really the case for many genes), but it is believed to play a role in transporting materials across a cell’s membrane.
Gene? Almost certainly not. Many genes that relate to various aspects of tameness, together or separately? Probably.
This is the first I’ve heard the term “Williams-Beuren syndrome.” Everyone I’ve heard calls it “Williams syndrome.” Sorry, Herr Doktor Beuren. Any link to that and a “true tameness gene” (sic) is tenuous at best. Williams people have other problems besides being trusting, and in them it is maladaptive because it means they will enter the stranger’s van or hug the lion.
Chief Pedant, the fox program started in 1959, so not many generations, and floundered a bit in the late 90s. From Wikipedia: “By the tenth generation, 18 percent of fox pups were elite; by the 20th, the figure had reached 35 percent. Today elite foxes make up 70 to 80 percent of our experimentally selected population.” If humans were bred to be “tame,” 20 generations would of course be centuries not decades.
Then there’s the opposite of tameness, the so-called “warrior gene,” a term which oversimplifies things quite a bit.
As another example, guide dogs, at least the ones I’m familiar with, have been bred for tameness since the late 1940s. (Though no dog has a lineage that goes back that far.) Any dog expressing the slightest bit of aggressiveness gets career changed and in any case never gets to breed. Our former breeder is incredibly tame, and has been in situations where she has been mauled by elementary school kids without the slightest reaction. It is true that dogs in general can be provoked, but not her, and I’ve never heard of a guide who has been aggressive after passing the program.
As for humans, I can’t imagine a breeding program that could control for aggressiveness and last long enough to have an impact.
Yes it’s about 10 generations for traits of tameness to show.
Hmm, breeding age for humans is, what 12/13 depending on nutrition etc. So that would be 130 years but given a more realistic generational age maybe 200 years ?
The totalitarian regimes of last century didn’t last that long, though the USSR was pushing for about 60 years.
Various empires, churches and monarchies last for much longer, often with the most ruthless possible methods of selection. Thousands of years even - which is a long time to pressure a population for the obedience that you want if your a ruler.
One thing I haven’t seen is whether the Russian foxes are generally tame, or just tame towards humans or even just a subset of humans.
Looking at dogs, obviously they can be totally tame towards owners and hostile towards others, so how far is that training and how far inbred temperament ? And could this be reflected in human dispositions ?
The fox experimenters also took the trouble to breed for aggressiveness, which did indeed produce very hostile animals - warrior genes ?
How long has the US republic lasted - getting on for 11/12 generations ?
Guide dogs are tame towards everyone. Remember they don’t even get their blind partner until they are about 2. And while I’d like to claim that guide dog puppy raisers are really good, I’m afraid that we aren’t that good. I’m sure it is breeding/genetics.
GDB in San Rafael has blood and tissue samples for dogs going back decades. They are just beginning to work with universities in trying to find genetic markers for various diseases. Perhaps when DNA sequencing become cheap enough they can find the markers for tameness also.
Not the right society to postulate this for, really, to open for most of it’s population to be deliberately selected for tameness, so far, I would think (if this general idea has any legs).
I know of a guide dog that bit a human being, but only after said human being had beaten said dog with a broken beer bottle sufficiently to not only half-scalp the dog but also fracture his skull. At that, the dog didn’t go into some sort of berserk attack mode, he basically bit the attacker until the attacker stopped acting aggressively. His mistress also believed that the dog’s biting was partly in defense of her - the dog got involved in the fight because the attacker originally started out assaulting the blind lady and interposed himself between the attacker and the woman.
The dog was isolated for a couple weeks to rule out rabies, as well as for recovery from injuries, then returned to duty and served faithfully for many more years before his pampered retirement. Had a wicked scar across his head, but otherwise recovered fully.
Given the circumstances, I’d call that justified self defense and not exactly what is usually meant by “aggression” in a dog.
Fascinating story. Good for the dog and good for the people who put the dog back into service. Our old pet dog was very protective of my wife, and it was clear that he would attack anyone he saw as attacking her. Our guide dog, not so much.
In the case of the guide dog, guide dogs are actually trained to do some independent thinking. They need to block the motion of a master who can’t see danger. Thus, they are taught to prevent a master from crossing a street under dangerous circumstances. They also work extremely closely to their masters on a daily basis for years on end. This can’t help but make a very close relationship between the dog and human. Dogs also have an instinct to take care of, work with, and protect their packmates, and a blind person using the services of a guide dog is most certainly within that dog’s “pack”.
Thus (my theory) when the mistress was attacked the guide dog interposed himself between the attacker and her because 1) he has been trained to prevent his mistress from entering into hazardous circumstances, up to and including physically pushing her away from a hazard with his body and 2) he has an instinct to protect his “pack”. If the attacker had been smart enough to back off when the dog started growling and bared his teeth he most likely would not have been hurt by the dog as the dog is not aggressive - the dog never sought out a fight. That doesn’t mean the dog would be unable or unwilling to *defend *himself or his mistress.
Likewise for other animals. Horses, as another example, are typically non-aggressive. Given half a chance the odds are a horse will run away rather than stand and fight. They’re not predators, they’re prey. But, if you back one into a corner and hurt it/threaten it badly enough it will lash out at you, and if you threaten/harm a foal its mother might come to its defense, and a stallion has an instinct to defend his harem/offspring.
“Tame” has to do with willingness to tolerate humans and lack of aggression. It’s not inherently tired to an animal’s ability to defend itself.
How were the foxes raised and housed, does anyone know? I would think it would be difficult to determine whether the rapid increase in tameness was solely the result of genetics if the fox kits were left with their parents. Wouldn’t the kittens of tame fox mothers learn to trust and like humans from their mothers?
Firstly, the foxes began to show tameness right away with a big leap at generation 5. Changes in phenotype (coat, color and ear mutations) occured around generation 10 iirc.
The tameness “gene” or really, genes affect adrenaline levels
There is a documentary on the silver foxes on youtube I suggest people watch before asking too many questions. It covers most of whats already been asked.
The trained disobedience you mention is an amazing thing to see, but it is trained into the dog. Guide dogs are not necessarily all that intelligent. In fact since they often spend much of their day under a desk, they brains isn’t an asset. Our Golden had gotten a bit smarter with age, but we had puppies who were downright stupid, especially compared to our border collie mix.
Guide dogs have to deal with strangers coming up to the partner all the time, so I don’t think they have much of the defense instinct, But not even 20 generations of breeding are going to get rid of all of the instincts. You don’t allow a Golden to fetch during training for instance - but when ours became a breeder, and was freed from that restriction, she fetched immediately with no training at all.
I suppose it’s how you define “intelligence”. They need a certain sort of judgement, which isn’t the same sort of smarts you’d need to solve math problems. Border collies would make horrible guide dogs, but then, golden retrievers aren’t noted for their sheep herding skills.
Right, you want a congenial dog (not friendly as people normally use the term). I’ve been told by the two blind people I’ve worked with/for that ideally you want a dog that’s largely indifferent to strangers. On the other hand, you don’t want a dog that’s too passive because of the need for that “trained disobedience”. In the incident I mentioned it took a LOT of provoking for the dog to react in a physical manner, but I don’t think you’d want to breed out that last bit of self-defense impulse from any critter.
All here buddy. Those foxes are super adorable, BTW.
Apparently the breeding program was set up away from the eyes of the government - can anyone have thought that there would be no political implication ? If I was a dictator this is exactly the sort of research I would be wanting to fund. Efforts of Pavlovian condition on human populations would be left in the dust by something developed from this.