3 ms·

I'm not sure what's bothering me about this article. Maybe... When was common-thing first done with X during the last 15 ky? Given that X was obvious once under

I'm not sure what's bothering me about this article. Maybe... When was common-thing first done with X during the last 15 ky? Given that X was obvious once understood, and not hard to note? When the first existent written record mentions X. That... seems a fraught triple? I guess if "humanity [...] discover" has a scale or continuity requirement, that's clearly kept in mind. Eg, "the first clinical use of antibiotics was in the 1890's", the "first existent record of external cephalic version is from Hellenistic Greece".

anonymouskimmer 3y ago
The focus on animals also ignores the obvious evidence of selective breeding in food plants for 10k+ years. Specialized breeds of dogs have also existed for a very long time. This may be an accurate critique of the written science of animal breeding, and gives good examples of the reification of bad practices, but some techniques were obviously working over long periods of times whether they were recorded, or not. What ultimately bothers me about it is the same things about the "discovery" of America. Ignorance that plant cultivation and ecosystem engineering was prevalent in the Americas (it wasn't a savage, untamed, wild land at all, but had been carefully cultivated). And, in general, the idea that things didn't exist until written down by those in power. > Inventors who lived in a neighborhood with a high per capita patent rate are themselves more likely to file a patent. Future inventors might correspond with their heroes (shades of the ‘college of letters’) and, if they then meet them in person, they are more likely to go on to innovate, even if it was only a single short meeting and the hero was in an entirely different field and so it is difficult to see what key fact, skill, or wealth/object they could have transmitted which might make any difference. Conflating the credential with the skill (or here, the patent with the inventiveness).
- Robotbeat 3y ago
  You’re missing a critical insight: Artificial selection can and does occur unintentionally, ie without methodical intent.
  - jvanderbot 3y ago
    Rather, both can be true.
- s1artibartfast 3y ago
  I would expect selective breeding of animals to coincide with domestication with no lag. Ancestral humans were innately familiar with animal breeding because they practiced it with humans first. They would understand that strong parents give rise to strong children and weak parents often give rise to weak children. On the other hand, the reproductive interactions of plants are less apparent.
  - brnaftr361 3y ago
    Not necessarily. There is a slew of complication that exists atop simple mendelian genetics that occur quite frequently, not to mention gametes themselves can undergo mutations. And that all assumes fertility of the select couple in the first place. And the real key here is generation times. A human takes 9 months to gestate, our natural replacement rate is 5, even now about 50% of all conceptions result in spontaneous abortion. Then 20-25 years to fully mature, and some genetic conditions only show later in life. Other animals mature far faster, mice are considered aged at 18 months, dogs are mature at a year. Teosinte apparently matures in only 180 days. Each of these has in common that within those generations there are many progeny on top of the short generation time so you can very rapidly select, even inadvertently, by picking the best and coincidentally growing them in middens. From there I think its safe to say that our ancestors weren't the dullards they are often made out to be.
082349872349872 3y ago
I think the article is not saying "selective breeding" in general was late, but that actually selecting for characteristics which correlate highly with ultimate yield, rather than for merely subjectively* impressive characteristics, occurred very late in the whole "selective" breeding fancy. * eg, here bulls were evaluated on (among other things) muscling until very recently, whereas in the States bulls of the same race were already being evaluated solely upon how many litres their daughters produced. Moneyball with straws. Edit: of course, if one is far from a (local) optimum, just about any breeding program will tend to produce improvements. It's only when one is so near to an optimum that most changes make things worse that one needs to get properly (statistically vs. optically?) selective...

anonymouskimmer 3y ago

The focus on animals also ignores the obvious evidence of selective breeding in food plants for 10k+ years. Specialized breeds of dogs have also existed for a very long time. This may be an accurate critique of the written science of animal breeding, and gives good examples of the reification of bad practices, but some techniques were obviously working over long periods of times whether they were recorded, or not. What ultimately bothers me about it is the same things about the "discovery" of America. Ignorance that plant cultivation and ecosystem engineering was prevalent in the Americas (it wasn't a savage, untamed, wild land at all, but had been carefully cultivated). And, in general, the idea that things didn't exist until written down by those in power. > Inventors who lived in a neighborhood with a high per capita patent rate are themselves more likely to file a patent. Future inventors might correspond with their heroes (shades of the ‘college of letters’) and, if they then meet them in person, they are more likely to go on to innovate, even if it was only a single short meeting and the hero was in an entirely different field and so it is difficult to see what key fact, skill, or wealth/object they could have transmitted which might make any difference. Conflating the credential with the skill (or here, the patent with the inventiveness).

Robotbeat 3y ago
You’re missing a critical insight: Artificial selection can and does occur unintentionally, ie without methodical intent.
- jvanderbot 3y ago
  Rather, both can be true.
s1artibartfast 3y ago
I would expect selective breeding of animals to coincide with domestication with no lag. Ancestral humans were innately familiar with animal breeding because they practiced it with humans first. They would understand that strong parents give rise to strong children and weak parents often give rise to weak children. On the other hand, the reproductive interactions of plants are less apparent.
- brnaftr361 3y ago
  Not necessarily. There is a slew of complication that exists atop simple mendelian genetics that occur quite frequently, not to mention gametes themselves can undergo mutations. And that all assumes fertility of the select couple in the first place. And the real key here is generation times. A human takes 9 months to gestate, our natural replacement rate is 5, even now about 50% of all conceptions result in spontaneous abortion. Then 20-25 years to fully mature, and some genetic conditions only show later in life. Other animals mature far faster, mice are considered aged at 18 months, dogs are mature at a year. Teosinte apparently matures in only 180 days. Each of these has in common that within those generations there are many progeny on top of the short generation time so you can very rapidly select, even inadvertently, by picking the best and coincidentally growing them in middens. From there I think its safe to say that our ancestors weren't the dullards they are often made out to be.

082349872349872 3y ago

I think the article is not saying "selective breeding" in general was late, but that actually selecting for characteristics which correlate highly with ultimate yield, rather than for merely subjectively* impressive characteristics, occurred very late in the whole "selective" breeding fancy. * eg, here bulls were evaluated on (among other things) muscling until very recently, whereas in the States bulls of the same race were already being evaluated solely upon how many litres their daughters produced. Moneyball with straws. Edit: of course, if one is far from a (local) optimum, just about any breeding program will tend to produce improvements. It's only when one is so near to an optimum that most changes make things worse that one needs to get properly (statistically vs. optically?) selective...