6 ms·

The truth dogs reveal about evolution

43 points by bootload 17y ago

bootload 17y ago
"... We can imagine wild wolves scavenging on a rubbish tip on the edge of a village. Most of them, fearful of men throwing stones and spears, have a very long flight distance. They sprint for the safety of the forest as soon as a human appears in the distance. But a few individuals, by genetic chance, happen to have a slightly shorter flight distance than the average. Their readiness to take slight risks — they are brave, shall we say, but not foolhardy — gains them more food than their more risk-averse rivals. ..." I see flight distance every day outside with birds but have never seen it explained well. There are some birds like Coots (Purple Swamphen, Pukeko ~ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pukeko http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pukeko or Porphyrio porphyrio) who's flight distance is about 20m. I cannot take an photo from the front ~http://www.flickr.com/photos/bootload/492391687/in/set-72157600195774723/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/bootload/492391687/in/set-72157... The same with the little Corella (Cactua Gymnopis) ~ http://www.flickr.com/photos/bootload/3594879014/in/set-72157600195774723/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/bootload/3594879014/in/set-7215... No matter how careful the approach they always fly away at a set distance. Now compare this to the common everyday Magpie (Cracticus tibicen ~ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_Magpie http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_Magpie) who even a young age ~ http://www.flickr.com/photos/bootload/3046710061/in/set-72157600195774723/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/bootload/3046710061/in/set-7215... don't seem too concerned how close I get ~ http://www.flickr.com/photos/bootload/3993808413/in/set-72157600195774723/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/bootload/3993808413/in/set-7215... The Sulphur Crested Cockatoos (Cacatua galerita ~ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sulphur-crested_Cockatoo http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sulphur-crested_Cockatoo) also seem to have evolved a shortened flight distance ~ http://www.flickr.com/photos/bootload/490365274/in/set-72157600195774723/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/bootload/490365274/in/set-72157... Now the question I'd really be interested in is, "could ideas like 'flight distance' be explained in Startups with respect to risk?", "Can you think of Startups in business evolutionary terms? where founders take more risks to obtain more personal reward?", "What are the 'pleiotropy' traits associated with Startups? and are they close to what's described in 'Startups in 13 sentences'?" ~ http://paulgraham.com/13sentences.html http://paulgraham.com/13sentences.html
- seldo 17y ago
  The most obvious pleiotrope that I can think of associated with startups (possibly all businesses) is that CEOs tend to be, putting it bluntly, jerks. The same qualities that make for a successful CEO -- ruthlessness, tenacity, the ability to play fast-and-loose with the facts when necessary -- also make for the kind of person you don't want to hang around with much. The better CEOs I've seen are able to compartmentalize this ability: they can be likeable, loyal friends, and restrict their ruthlessness to their business relationships. In the close-knit startup world, where the lines between business partners and friends blur, this is less practical. I'm not saying I would change this -- I need a CEO who is ruthless -- but the side-effects are unfortunate.
  - Brushfire 17y ago
    I disagree. There are those people out there, and some of them are successful, but I dont believe that being a jerk makes you successful, and while I dont have any hard data on this, I do know a number of highly successful business owners who are also decent human beings. It turns out, if your model makes sense, you are selling things to people that they want, and they like you for it. There is no need to be ruthless in these types of scenarios, just effective. Look at Zappos. It may be true that 'Jerks' get ahead many times because they are willing to cut throats to do so, but that doesnt mean that you need to be a jerk to succeed, especially if you learn to define success a little differently.
  - andymism 17y ago
    > The better CEOs I've seen are able to compartmentalize this ability: they can be likeable, loyal friends, and restrict their ruthlessness to their business relationships. I've been thinking about an idea in this vein a lot recently due to a less than ideal business transaction. It seems to me that the idea of a ruthless CEO is a myth constructed and put up on a pedestal by a largely male business community (combative/competitive instincts, right?). A successful business person need not be ruthless in the strict dictionary definition. What they need to be is persistent in pursuing their own economic goals or those of their organization. From the outside, this might look like ruthlessness, especially in a transaction between friends, but experience has shown me that applying social norms to a situation where market norms should rule can end badly.
seldo 17y ago
This kind of clear, accessible relation of everyday observation to real science is what Dawkins became known for, excels at, and what I wish he would stick to. His strident anti-God rhetoric elsewhere does much to damage the reputation of evolutionary science, turning it from a widely-accepted theory into a symbol of the inevitable triumph of rationality over irrationality, to be fought tooth-and-nail by religious zealots everywhere.
- CamperBob 17y ago
  I'll be more sympathetic to your point of view when 40% of Americans no longer believe the Earth is <= 6,000 years old and that humans were created in their present form. Religion is voluntary stupidity, and stupidity has consequences for civilization. Dawkins understands that, having seen it firsthand.
  - pbhjpbhj 17y ago
    I don't describe myself as religious as that to me has connotations of order and regulation that I don't ascribe to. However, I am a man of faith (I believe we all rely on faith in some way) - I've directly experienced God and as a Christian most people would pigeon-hole me as "religious". I have not directly experienced or observed evolution. I find macroevolution to be too large a leap based on the evidence I've seen. You describe me¹ as adopting voluntary stupidity. Could you give me some pointers as to where I'm being stupid. --- ¹ I'm assuming "religion is voluntary stupidity" to mean "all those with religious faith are choosing to be stupid".
    - Labelle 17y ago
      Could you be more precise about your experience of God ?
      - pbhjpbhj 17y ago
        Yes, but I don't have time right now - suffice to say I have as much faith in the external existence of the world as in the existence of God. I'm quite skeptical (in the metaphys sense, not quite pyrrhonic though) but as much as I experience through sense data the world and by extension other minds; as much as that I believe in the triune God of Christianity (but not all the details, many I'm agnostic on).
mynameishere 17y ago
A female fox is a "vixen" and not a "bitch".
- dmix 17y ago
  From the article: "The females came on heat every six months like a bitch, instead of every year like a vixen." He understands the difference.
- sscheper 17y ago
  That is absolutely hilarious.
chipsy 17y ago
I feel that dogs are somewhat of a plighted animal in modern society. They have a strong desire to wander and be social within their neighborhood, but our living environments today are so heavily bisected along property lines and car traffic that for the most part, they are not allowed outside except in very restricted ways at specific, supervised times. So the modern dog owner has to work extra hard to keep their instinctual needs satisfied, and most owners can't manage this. Hence, the dogs will bark, and bark, and bark, or try to escape or misbehave, because that's the next best thing they can do when they want to communicate and get attention.
- ricosroughnecks 17y ago
  I'm raising a high content wolf hybrid and a Shiba-ken. I can see the plight you speak of daily. However, the strange thing is that it affects my dog more than it does my wolf. During their walks, the little Shiba just wants to run wild, play with everyone, and generally explore his world. The wolf just wants to run to every shadowy corner he finds, and generally avoids people. He is happiest when back home. A strange thing I've noticed is that, while at home, both of the animals behave as though they were the same species. Only when outdoors, do the differences become pronounced. It's interesting having both these guys, I can easily identify which traits of the wolf have been suppressed, and which have been amplified.
electromagnetic 17y ago
Finally, Dawkins at his prime, not preaching anti-god bullshit. The man is a complete genius when it comes to explaining natural selection, yet he wastes so much of his time preaching atheism. IMO any intelligent person should come to the logical conclusion: God cannot be proved or disproved, so stop wasting your time! It's as useless as discussing whether a glass is half-full or half-empty, it's a glass with liquid in it! Dawkins' massive waste of time preaching atheism like it's the Papacy 2.0 is retarded. It loses him all his credibility to everyone except the atheist wackos who are holding him in infallible regard like it's the second coming of Jesus. Dawkins is a scientist, and as such should be working to teach people to conquer ignorance. Yet he'd rather spend his time alienating the people he could be enlightening. It's, quite frankly, a pitiful waste of such genius. Edit: I repeatedly hear Dawkins being praised as highly as Feynman, and he is far from Feynman. Feynman was a pure genius, possibly the greatest scientist to grace the earth, but he was so great because he had the ability to relate to the common person, to every person and he had the ability to explain even the most complex ideas to the simplest of people.
- cema 17y ago
  I certainly agree about Feynman. I sometimes miss his clarity and honesty. (Among other things, I think he would have been so helpful in untangling the global warming controversy. But also explaining what evolution is and is not, to a layman.)
- Herring 17y ago
  >God cannot be proved or disproved, so stop wasting your time! http://lesswrong.com/lw/i8/religions_claim_to_be_nondisprovable/ http://lesswrong.com/lw/i8/religions_claim_to_be_nondisprova... (tldr: skip to the last paragraph)
  - electromagnetic 17y ago
    Yes, yes: 'On critical examination it can be disproved', so where is the critical examination there? Nowhere. This is simply someone saying, I'm anti-religion and I want my argument to be relevant, which it isn't, which is why it's on lesswrong a 'community blog' rather than somewhere legitimate or relevant. The argument over the existence of god is simply put, pointless. Religions are irrelevant to the existence of god, they're a construct placed around an idea. You've got to disprove the idea, which places you squarely into philosophical debate, which as I already said is akin to debating whether a glass is half-full or half-empty: fucking pointless.
akamaka 17y ago
I think the most important truth about dog evolution is that we still don't know how it happened. Dawkins only discusses one of many plausible theories that have been put forward (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Origin_of_the_domestic_dog http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Origin_of_the_domestic_dog). We still live in a mysterious world, with lots of unanswered questions and plenty of avenues of exploration open to anyone curious enough to pursue them!
- fnid 17y ago
  I think we kind of know. I mean, wolves and dog like creatures live along side humans all over the world. They hunt with us and eat what we leave behind and we use things or did for a long time, things they left behind. It's only natural that the ones that shared knowledge with each other among the group benefited more along the direction of a shared ability to communicate amongst themselves than would members of groups that did not care to share such a bond. ref: http://tolweb.org/treehouses/?treehouse_id=3804 http://tolweb.org/treehouses/?treehouse_id=3804 We see avatar and see how far into the future he saw those animals and they had evolved these complicated neuronal cross species connections. Now if you believe in evolution, then you can't argue with that as a potential reality in the future. In a way, it does exist across species now in more trivial forms, including, if you will allow me, eye contact. I would offer to suggest that eye contact may actually be one of the first forms of cross species and even family. Birds, fish, all kinds of mammals... You can make eye contact and communicate with them if you have the patience. The more primitive the organism, the more patience is required to communicate with it -- if it can communicate.
michael_dorfman 17y ago
When you notice a characteristic of an animal and ask what its Darwinian survival value is, you may be asking the wrong question. It could be that the characteristic you have picked out is not the one that matters. It may have _come along for the ride_, dragged along in evolution by some other characteristic to which it is pleiotropically linked. I wish the evolutionary psychology folks would paste this sentence to their wall.
- berntb 17y ago
  You find bad research in all areas, also in evolutionary psychology. BUT -- most of that type of criticism of evol psychology also painted Dawkins, which you quote here, with the exact same brush... :-) (For some fun, go read Dawkins' criticism of "Not in our genes" http://dba.fc.ul.pt/evo/textos/Dawkins.pdf http://dba.fc.ul.pt/evo/textos/Dawkins.pdf)
radu_floricica 17y ago
This is just a taste of what this guy can write. If you liked this, do yourself a favor and check out couple of his books. (They're pretty evenly divided between atheism and evolutionary biology. If it's first published before 2000, it's probably the latter. And don't be afraid of older dates, The Selfish Gene was published in the 70s and it's still probably the best).
ShardPhoenix 17y ago
Wow, the end of this article really brought home to me in a visceral way something that I already intellectually knew - that I (and the rest of us) really do have distant past ancestors that were fish, mouse-like creatures, etc.
- jeromec 17y ago
  Whip up some minnow soup and algae salad, Aunt Edna is coming over. ;)

43 points by bootload 17y ago

"... We can imagine wild wolves scavenging on a rubbish tip on the edge of a village. Most of them, fearful of men throwing stones and spears, have a very long flight distance. They sprint for the safety of the forest as soon as a human appears in the distance. But a few individuals, by genetic chance, happen to have a slightly shorter flight distance than the average. Their readiness to take slight risks — they are brave, shall we say, but not foolhardy — gains them more food than their more risk-averse rivals. ..." I see flight distance every day outside with birds but have never seen it explained well. There are some birds like Coots (Purple Swamphen, Pukeko ~ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pukeko http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pukeko or Porphyrio porphyrio) who's flight distance is about 20m. I cannot take an photo from the front ~http://www.flickr.com/photos/bootload/492391687/in/set-72157600195774723/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/bootload/492391687/in/set-72157... The same with the little Corella (Cactua Gymnopis) ~ http://www.flickr.com/photos/bootload/3594879014/in/set-72157600195774723/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/bootload/3594879014/in/set-7215... No matter how careful the approach they always fly away at a set distance. Now compare this to the common everyday Magpie (Cracticus tibicen ~ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_Magpie http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_Magpie) who even a young age ~ http://www.flickr.com/photos/bootload/3046710061/in/set-72157600195774723/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/bootload/3046710061/in/set-7215... don't seem too concerned how close I get ~ http://www.flickr.com/photos/bootload/3993808413/in/set-72157600195774723/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/bootload/3993808413/in/set-7215... The Sulphur Crested Cockatoos (Cacatua galerita ~ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sulphur-crested_Cockatoo http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sulphur-crested_Cockatoo) also seem to have evolved a shortened flight distance ~ http://www.flickr.com/photos/bootload/490365274/in/set-72157600195774723/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/bootload/490365274/in/set-72157... Now the question I'd really be interested in is, "could ideas like 'flight distance' be explained in Startups with respect to risk?", "Can you think of Startups in business evolutionary terms? where founders take more risks to obtain more personal reward?", "What are the 'pleiotropy' traits associated with Startups? and are they close to what's described in 'Startups in 13 sentences'?" ~ http://paulgraham.com/13sentences.html http://paulgraham.com/13sentences.html

seldo 17y ago
The most obvious pleiotrope that I can think of associated with startups (possibly all businesses) is that CEOs tend to be, putting it bluntly, jerks. The same qualities that make for a successful CEO -- ruthlessness, tenacity, the ability to play fast-and-loose with the facts when necessary -- also make for the kind of person you don't want to hang around with much. The better CEOs I've seen are able to compartmentalize this ability: they can be likeable, loyal friends, and restrict their ruthlessness to their business relationships. In the close-knit startup world, where the lines between business partners and friends blur, this is less practical. I'm not saying I would change this -- I need a CEO who is ruthless -- but the side-effects are unfortunate.
- Brushfire 17y ago
  I disagree. There are those people out there, and some of them are successful, but I dont believe that being a jerk makes you successful, and while I dont have any hard data on this, I do know a number of highly successful business owners who are also decent human beings. It turns out, if your model makes sense, you are selling things to people that they want, and they like you for it. There is no need to be ruthless in these types of scenarios, just effective. Look at Zappos. It may be true that 'Jerks' get ahead many times because they are willing to cut throats to do so, but that doesnt mean that you need to be a jerk to succeed, especially if you learn to define success a little differently.
- andymism 17y ago
  > The better CEOs I've seen are able to compartmentalize this ability: they can be likeable, loyal friends, and restrict their ruthlessness to their business relationships. I've been thinking about an idea in this vein a lot recently due to a less than ideal business transaction. It seems to me that the idea of a ruthless CEO is a myth constructed and put up on a pedestal by a largely male business community (combative/competitive instincts, right?). A successful business person need not be ruthless in the strict dictionary definition. What they need to be is persistent in pursuing their own economic goals or those of their organization. From the outside, this might look like ruthlessness, especially in a transaction between friends, but experience has shown me that applying social norms to a situation where market norms should rule can end badly.

seldo 17y ago

This kind of clear, accessible relation of everyday observation to real science is what Dawkins became known for, excels at, and what I wish he would stick to. His strident anti-God rhetoric elsewhere does much to damage the reputation of evolutionary science, turning it from a widely-accepted theory into a symbol of the inevitable triumph of rationality over irrationality, to be fought tooth-and-nail by religious zealots everywhere.

CamperBob 17y ago
I'll be more sympathetic to your point of view when 40% of Americans no longer believe the Earth is <= 6,000 years old and that humans were created in their present form. Religion is voluntary stupidity, and stupidity has consequences for civilization. Dawkins understands that, having seen it firsthand.
- pbhjpbhj 17y ago
  I don't describe myself as religious as that to me has connotations of order and regulation that I don't ascribe to. However, I am a man of faith (I believe we all rely on faith in some way) - I've directly experienced God and as a Christian most people would pigeon-hole me as "religious". I have not directly experienced or observed evolution. I find macroevolution to be too large a leap based on the evidence I've seen. You describe me¹ as adopting voluntary stupidity. Could you give me some pointers as to where I'm being stupid. --- ¹ I'm assuming "religion is voluntary stupidity" to mean "all those with religious faith are choosing to be stupid".
  - Labelle 17y ago
    Could you be more precise about your experience of God ?
    - pbhjpbhj 17y ago
      Yes, but I don't have time right now - suffice to say I have as much faith in the external existence of the world as in the existence of God. I'm quite skeptical (in the metaphys sense, not quite pyrrhonic though) but as much as I experience through sense data the world and by extension other minds; as much as that I believe in the triune God of Christianity (but not all the details, many I'm agnostic on).

mynameishere 17y ago

A female fox is a "vixen" and not a "bitch".

dmix 17y ago
From the article: "The females came on heat every six months like a bitch, instead of every year like a vixen." He understands the difference.
sscheper 17y ago
That is absolutely hilarious.

chipsy 17y ago

I feel that dogs are somewhat of a plighted animal in modern society. They have a strong desire to wander and be social within their neighborhood, but our living environments today are so heavily bisected along property lines and car traffic that for the most part, they are not allowed outside except in very restricted ways at specific, supervised times. So the modern dog owner has to work extra hard to keep their instinctual needs satisfied, and most owners can't manage this. Hence, the dogs will bark, and bark, and bark, or try to escape or misbehave, because that's the next best thing they can do when they want to communicate and get attention.

ricosroughnecks 17y ago
I'm raising a high content wolf hybrid and a Shiba-ken. I can see the plight you speak of daily. However, the strange thing is that it affects my dog more than it does my wolf. During their walks, the little Shiba just wants to run wild, play with everyone, and generally explore his world. The wolf just wants to run to every shadowy corner he finds, and generally avoids people. He is happiest when back home. A strange thing I've noticed is that, while at home, both of the animals behave as though they were the same species. Only when outdoors, do the differences become pronounced. It's interesting having both these guys, I can easily identify which traits of the wolf have been suppressed, and which have been amplified.

electromagnetic 17y ago

Finally, Dawkins at his prime, not preaching anti-god bullshit. The man is a complete genius when it comes to explaining natural selection, yet he wastes so much of his time preaching atheism. IMO any intelligent person should come to the logical conclusion: God cannot be proved or disproved, so stop wasting your time! It's as useless as discussing whether a glass is half-full or half-empty, it's a glass with liquid in it! Dawkins' massive waste of time preaching atheism like it's the Papacy 2.0 is retarded. It loses him all his credibility to everyone except the atheist wackos who are holding him in infallible regard like it's the second coming of Jesus. Dawkins is a scientist, and as such should be working to teach people to conquer ignorance. Yet he'd rather spend his time alienating the people he could be enlightening. It's, quite frankly, a pitiful waste of such genius. Edit: I repeatedly hear Dawkins being praised as highly as Feynman, and he is far from Feynman. Feynman was a pure genius, possibly the greatest scientist to grace the earth, but he was so great because he had the ability to relate to the common person, to every person and he had the ability to explain even the most complex ideas to the simplest of people.

cema 17y ago
I certainly agree about Feynman. I sometimes miss his clarity and honesty. (Among other things, I think he would have been so helpful in untangling the global warming controversy. But also explaining what evolution is and is not, to a layman.)
Herring 17y ago
>God cannot be proved or disproved, so stop wasting your time! http://lesswrong.com/lw/i8/religions_claim_to_be_nondisprovable/ http://lesswrong.com/lw/i8/religions_claim_to_be_nondisprova... (tldr: skip to the last paragraph)
- electromagnetic 17y ago
  Yes, yes: 'On critical examination it can be disproved', so where is the critical examination there? Nowhere. This is simply someone saying, I'm anti-religion and I want my argument to be relevant, which it isn't, which is why it's on lesswrong a 'community blog' rather than somewhere legitimate or relevant. The argument over the existence of god is simply put, pointless. Religions are irrelevant to the existence of god, they're a construct placed around an idea. You've got to disprove the idea, which places you squarely into philosophical debate, which as I already said is akin to debating whether a glass is half-full or half-empty: fucking pointless.

akamaka 17y ago

I think the most important truth about dog evolution is that we still don't know how it happened. Dawkins only discusses one of many plausible theories that have been put forward (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Origin_of_the_domestic_dog http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Origin_of_the_domestic_dog). We still live in a mysterious world, with lots of unanswered questions and plenty of avenues of exploration open to anyone curious enough to pursue them!

fnid 17y ago
I think we kind of know. I mean, wolves and dog like creatures live along side humans all over the world. They hunt with us and eat what we leave behind and we use things or did for a long time, things they left behind. It's only natural that the ones that shared knowledge with each other among the group benefited more along the direction of a shared ability to communicate amongst themselves than would members of groups that did not care to share such a bond. ref: http://tolweb.org/treehouses/?treehouse_id=3804 http://tolweb.org/treehouses/?treehouse_id=3804 We see avatar and see how far into the future he saw those animals and they had evolved these complicated neuronal cross species connections. Now if you believe in evolution, then you can't argue with that as a potential reality in the future. In a way, it does exist across species now in more trivial forms, including, if you will allow me, eye contact. I would offer to suggest that eye contact may actually be one of the first forms of cross species and even family. Birds, fish, all kinds of mammals... You can make eye contact and communicate with them if you have the patience. The more primitive the organism, the more patience is required to communicate with it -- if it can communicate.

michael_dorfman 17y ago

When you notice a characteristic of an animal and ask what its Darwinian survival value is, you may be asking the wrong question. It could be that the characteristic you have picked out is not the one that matters. It may have _come along for the ride_, dragged along in evolution by some other characteristic to which it is pleiotropically linked. I wish the evolutionary psychology folks would paste this sentence to their wall.

berntb 17y ago
You find bad research in all areas, also in evolutionary psychology. BUT -- most of that type of criticism of evol psychology also painted Dawkins, which you quote here, with the exact same brush... :-) (For some fun, go read Dawkins' criticism of "Not in our genes" http://dba.fc.ul.pt/evo/textos/Dawkins.pdf http://dba.fc.ul.pt/evo/textos/Dawkins.pdf)

radu_floricica 17y ago

This is just a taste of what this guy can write. If you liked this, do yourself a favor and check out couple of his books. (They're pretty evenly divided between atheism and evolutionary biology. If it's first published before 2000, it's probably the latter. And don't be afraid of older dates, The Selfish Gene was published in the 70s and it's still probably the best).

ShardPhoenix 17y ago

Wow, the end of this article really brought home to me in a visceral way something that I already intellectually knew - that I (and the rest of us) really do have distant past ancestors that were fish, mouse-like creatures, etc.

jeromec 17y ago
Whip up some minnow soup and algae salad, Aunt Edna is coming over. ;)