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Reminds me of that forbidden experiment in Siberian Soviet Russia concerning breeding. What they were trying to do is breed a dog based on wolves. All they were
by Fnoord 7y ago
Reminds me of that forbidden experiment in Siberian Soviet Russia concerning breeding. What they were trying to do is breed a dog based on wolves. All they were doing to achieve that, was choosing the most friendliest wolves. Lo and behold, after a few generations they succeeded already. Selective breeding is a form of genetic modification in itself. Which is a reason to not be (at least pur sang) against gentech / genetic modification. Knowingly or not, we've already been doing it for ages.
[EDIT]Foxes indeed; not wolves.[/EDIT]
- beagle3 7y agoI know of the tame silver fox experiment[0] (not wolf), and it wasn't forbidden. Are you referring to a different one? [0] http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20160912-a-soviet-scientist-created-the-only-tame-foxes-in-the-world http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20160912-a-soviet-scientist-c...
- Fnoord 7y agoMy bad, it was a fox experiment, indeed. Regarding "banned", the article mentions: > The study of genetics had been essentially banned in the USSR, as the country's dictator Joseph Stalin sought to discredit the genetic principles set out by Gregor Mendel. Stalin's death in 1953 gave scientists more freedom, but in the early years Belyaev nevertheless worked under the cover that he was breeding foxes to make better fur coats. Also, it mentions 50 generations: > "The fox farm experiment was crucial, in that it told us that domestication can happen relatively quickly in the right circumstances," he says. "The fact that in fifty generations, they were wagging their tails and barking, this is really incredible."
- lowdose 7y agoMakes me wonder if we could do the same with a tiger.
- weberc2 7y agoIIRC (from some documentary on the subject) canids are somewhat unique in their “genetic plasticity” (I don’t recall the precise term).
- democracy 7y agoEven more: Stalin hated generic scientists so much that named a town after one of them: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michurinsk https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michurinsk
- Grue3 7y agoMichurin's work was appropriated by the antiscientific ideology of Lysenkoism which Stalin favored. Also there are lots of places named after Michurin, for example there are multiple neighborhoods named "Michurin's gardens" in the city I'm from.
- 75dvtwin 7y agoThey 'culled' (which means killed) the animals that were not tame enough. And continued doing it for 40 years, it seems. this is a kind of experiment I would have prohibited totally. "... Only those foxes that showed tolerance for the nearness of people were selected and bred to produce the next generation, while fearful or aggressive animals were culled. ..." https://slate.com/technology/2012/03/domesticated-foxes-in-siberia-an-experiment-in-peril.html https://slate.com/technology/2012/03/domesticated-foxes-in-s...
- Fnoord 7y agoThank you for mentioning that. I got part of this story from a Dutch book "De meeste mensen deugen" by Rutger Bergman. > this is a kind of experiment I would have prohibited totally. You mean it'd be prohibited or that you'd prohibit it? What we do hourly to the population of chicken and cow is much more violent and genocidal than the culling you mention. It serves no scientific purpose either; only because 1) we've grown accustomed to eating so much meat 2) there are so many humans on Earth.
- mkl 7y agoNot exactly. They bred an aggressive population alongside the tame one, and it's now 60 years: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/2018/08/fox-dogs-wild-tame-genetics-study-news/ https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/2018/08/fox-dogs-... "Researchers have bred more than 40 generations of friendly and aggressive foxes." I read a really interesting article mainly about the aggressive ones, but I just spent a few minutes looking for it unsuccessfully.
- saiya-jin 7y agoHiding the research as breeding 'better' foxes for fur is fine with you? That's what those culled have been used for. Now we can discuss whether such an approach is immoral on its own, but we should probably get off our high modern horses and judge things from perspective of given era. And breeding animals for fur was totally acceptable. In fact, it still is in all countries on earth and for some time will be. Btw are you vegan to have at least some grounds to claim any moral superiority to that research?
- badrabbit 7y agoYes...naturally breed them and let genes modify in accordance of naturality. It is intellectually dishonest to compare that with an educated guessing game of modifying select genes and hoping it turns out OK. The very obvious difference being humans selected which genes to modify with gene editing while selective breeding allowed the reproductive process to select which combination of genes are passed and which are not. The obvious ethical objection is that human error can happen with gene editing and is intolerable while selective breeding allows for the reproductive system to make errors which are not a responsibility of man but of nature. Ethical slippery sloping to justify ends sucks!
- PhasmaFelis 7y ago> The obvious ethical objection is that human error can happen with gene editing and is intolerable while selective breeding allows for the reproductive system to make errors which are not a responsibility of man but of nature. It seems like you're saying, either way you can get errors, but if you do it through breeding you can claim it wasn't your fault because, really, Nature did it. I can't tell if you're serious or not.
- perl4ever 7y agoI don't know how accurate it is, but I remember reading that (the first time was a very long time ago) some varieties of plants/crops were developed through literally bombarding them with radiation and then breeding the mutants that were improved, and the results are not considered to be GMOs, because nobody was manipulating specific genes. They were just basically firing a shotgun at them.
- riffraff 7y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_gardening https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_gardening EDIT: you may be thinking of this article specifically http://www.ediblegeography.com/strange-and-beautiful-seeds-from-the-atom/ http://www.ediblegeography.com/strange-and-beautiful-seeds-f... > For example, a mutagenic Ruby Red grapefruit grown without the use of pesticides can be labeled as organic and thus be sold for a premium, despite the fact that organic foods by definition cannot be genetically modified.
- sorenjan 7y agoThe most interesting thing about that experiment IMO is that as the foxes got friendlier towards humans, they looked more like puppies even as adults. If I remember correctly this is because the trait of trusting strangers is associated with being infantile, so when selectively breeding for that trait you get the puppy like looks too. So not only are they nicer, they're also cuter.
- z3t4 7y agoI wonder if it got more difficult to kill them for the furs when they got cuter, more friendly and loving.
- sundarurfriend 7y ago> pur sang \ (ˈ)pu̇(ə)r¦säⁿ\ : being such beyond a doubt or to the utmost degree Etymology: French pur-sang thoroughbred animal, from pur pure + sang blood, from Latin sanguis (from https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/pur%20sang https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/pur%20sang )
- MrsPeaches 7y agoDid they not also breed an aggressive line as well? Anyone know what happened to them?
- GarvielLoken 7y agoOf course we need selective breeding. How else are we going to achieve the golden path?
- peter303 7y agoWe have been breeding housecats for 3,000 years and they arent as friendly as dogs or foxes yet.