Love this analysis and makes me wonder what a hyper domesticated human might look like compared to a typical human today. Are there any conditions which cause the human brain to develop and mature even more slowly than normal?
My sense is that this experiment is already on display all around us - some individual humans are as hyper-domesticated as a mammal can possibly get, while other individual modern humans are about as feral as Neanderthals are inferred to have been. It's why the shocking speed of the Belyaev fox experiment is so important - you can plausibly start to imagine an entire human population shifting from, say, nasty brutish Vikings to friendly urbane Danes.
The hypothetical genetic switches I'm wondering about could theoretically be environmentally responsive. If I were the god of placental mammals, that's how I would have designed things. What's the point of having offspring geared for fighting if the environment has plentiful resources that can easily be gathered through friendly cooperation. Conversely, if you live in a war zone it might be evolutionarily better to have mean babies.
Great post! I would hasten to add another important aspect of domestication syndrome: it can occur shockingly quickly. Belyaev's original fox experiments got a fully dog-like phenotype in four generations. It doesn't look to me like evolution is making use of random mutations, it looks like foxes (and raccoons and mice and chimps/bonobos/humans) are pre-built with a rapidly adjustable slider of some kind. You might be tempted to invoke epigenetics, but the Occam's razor explanation might be the sorts of germline-genetic switches previously observed in bacteria. I'd love to hear any push-back you can give me on these posts:
“I began to think of children not as immature adults, but adults as atrophied children" very thought provoking. Our atrophied future and geriatric behaviour seem very scary. My initial interest reading this was about domestication of pets but have learnt much more. Thanks
What domesticated Man: Woman. "Wipe your bloody feet! You're not going to wear that, are you? Wash your bloody hands before you touch me, I don't know where they've been!"
This post fascinated me. I had been wondering why Neanderthals declined; it now makes perfect sense to me. That we are becoming a geriatric species is reflected in current politics, and does not bode well.
Love this analysis and makes me wonder what a hyper domesticated human might look like compared to a typical human today. Are there any conditions which cause the human brain to develop and mature even more slowly than normal?
My sense is that this experiment is already on display all around us - some individual humans are as hyper-domesticated as a mammal can possibly get, while other individual modern humans are about as feral as Neanderthals are inferred to have been. It's why the shocking speed of the Belyaev fox experiment is so important - you can plausibly start to imagine an entire human population shifting from, say, nasty brutish Vikings to friendly urbane Danes.
The hypothetical genetic switches I'm wondering about could theoretically be environmentally responsive. If I were the god of placental mammals, that's how I would have designed things. What's the point of having offspring geared for fighting if the environment has plentiful resources that can easily be gathered through friendly cooperation. Conversely, if you live in a war zone it might be evolutionarily better to have mean babies.
Interesting question...
Great post! I would hasten to add another important aspect of domestication syndrome: it can occur shockingly quickly. Belyaev's original fox experiments got a fully dog-like phenotype in four generations. It doesn't look to me like evolution is making use of random mutations, it looks like foxes (and raccoons and mice and chimps/bonobos/humans) are pre-built with a rapidly adjustable slider of some kind. You might be tempted to invoke epigenetics, but the Occam's razor explanation might be the sorts of germline-genetic switches previously observed in bacteria. I'd love to hear any push-back you can give me on these posts:
https://cbuck.substack.com/p/can-self-cleaving-dna-resurrect-lamarck
https://cbuck.substack.com/p/why-i-love-domestic-jesus
https://cbuck.substack.com/p/we-need-friendlier-pawpaws
“I began to think of children not as immature adults, but adults as atrophied children" very thought provoking. Our atrophied future and geriatric behaviour seem very scary. My initial interest reading this was about domestication of pets but have learnt much more. Thanks
What domesticated Man: Woman. "Wipe your bloody feet! You're not going to wear that, are you? Wash your bloody hands before you touch me, I don't know where they've been!"
This post fascinated me. I had been wondering why Neanderthals declined; it now makes perfect sense to me. That we are becoming a geriatric species is reflected in current politics, and does not bode well.