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It's because dogs are wolf with the Williams Syndrome. A DNA deletion syndrome which reduces aggression and increases empathy. In humans the syndrome produces i

It's because dogs are wolf with the Williams Syndrome. A DNA deletion syndrome which reduces aggression and increases empathy. In humans the syndrome produces individuals with characteristic facial features, a big smile and friendly traits. Edit: visibly dog lovers are not too keen on learning that their best friends have a genetic abnormality. But that doesn't make it less true, it's pretty well documented. It doesn't mean that dogs are lesser somehow, they are still perfectly viable it the wild (well not the races resulting from the most extreme genetic selections, but most of them)

codexb 3y ago
Williams syndrome is only in humans. It's not even a particularly hereditary condition. If what you said was true, we would expect to see modern day wild Wolves with this same genetic abnormality. Or we would expect to see wolves (and other predators, too) domesticated many different times in many different places, whenever this animal version of "Williams Syndrome" naturally occurred. We don't see that. There are plenty of other genetically similar canine species that aren't domesticated. There are plenty of related animal (seals, ferrets, skunks) that aren't been widely domesticated, but are completely capable of being domesticated on an individual level, and none of them possess genetic abnormalities One thing that many of these animals have in common is that they are fairly comfortable and adaptable to living in very close proximity to humans. That's true of modern day coyotes, raccoons, etc. Humans have 99.9% identical DNA. All the variation you see in humans is explained by just 0.1% genetic differences. There's no reason to believe that the same isn't true for dogs without having to resort to a rare genetic deformity.
panopticon 3y ago
Dogs have a few genes that are implicated in hyper-social tendencies of people with Williams Syndrome; they do not have Williams Syndrome. WS causes a lot of other mutations that dogs don't have. It's more likely that the social phenotype that is present with many WS patients emerged in dogs due to evolutionary pressures (explicit and implicit breeding) than dogs emerging due to WS.

codexb 3y ago

Williams syndrome is only in humans. It's not even a particularly hereditary condition. If what you said was true, we would expect to see modern day wild Wolves with this same genetic abnormality. Or we would expect to see wolves (and other predators, too) domesticated many different times in many different places, whenever this animal version of "Williams Syndrome" naturally occurred. We don't see that. There are plenty of other genetically similar canine species that aren't domesticated. There are plenty of related animal (seals, ferrets, skunks) that aren't been widely domesticated, but are completely capable of being domesticated on an individual level, and none of them possess genetic abnormalities One thing that many of these animals have in common is that they are fairly comfortable and adaptable to living in very close proximity to humans. That's true of modern day coyotes, raccoons, etc. Humans have 99.9% identical DNA. All the variation you see in humans is explained by just 0.1% genetic differences. There's no reason to believe that the same isn't true for dogs without having to resort to a rare genetic deformity.

panopticon 3y ago

Dogs have a few genes that are implicated in hyper-social tendencies of people with Williams Syndrome; they do not have Williams Syndrome. WS causes a lot of other mutations that dogs don't have. It's more likely that the social phenotype that is present with many WS patients emerged in dogs due to evolutionary pressures (explicit and implicit breeding) than dogs emerging due to WS.