3 ms·

[flagged]

082349872349872 3y ago
Selective breeding applied to humans has been tried, eg the line bred https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_II_of_Spain#Ancestry https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_II_of_Spain#Ancestry (personally I suspect we are the highly bred cooperative variant and the wild-type hasn't been a significant part of the population since [tens of?] thousands of years ago)
- saargrin 3y ago
  that is absolutely not what selective breeding is none of the habsurgs spouses have been selected for any of their traits
  - 082349872349872 3y ago
    > none of the habsurgs spouses have been selected for any of their traits Why would you think that? (rot13: gurl jrer nyy fryrpgrq, sbe gurve crqvterr) Why else would XVII aristocracy have been so concerned with their family lines? (as late as the XX, we can find fictional characters referring to Burke's Peerage* as "the stud book". I rather doubt that usage arises just because both were to use abbreviations and black type.) * back in print! I guess the XXI is bound and determined, not only to repeat the mistakes of the XX, but also those of the XIX.
    - sickofparadox 3y ago
      Most noble marriages in Europe were done for political reasons. Why marry for love (or genetic traits) when you can marry to inherit the Duchess of Burgundy's land?
      - 082349872349872 3y ago
        Exactly: they thought that holding land over several generations was indicative of good "blood" (what we would call genetic traits). Just because they turned out to be in error about the value of their selections doesn't mean they hadn't been selectively breeding. (an example in cattle: we had local bulls who had been bred for conformation for a long time, and luckily the breeders in the US instead were breeding for "liters of milk produced by the bulls' daughters", so now many [most?] locals inseminate with straws from the US lines)
        dragonwriter 3y ago
        > Exactly: they thought that holding land over several generations was indicative of good "blood" (what we would call genetic traits). While, yes, “good blood” was the social narrative, I think it was a lot more about institutional power (both wealth and connections) than what we would consider “genetic traits”.
        082349872349872 3y ago
        This is an interesting question. If both institutional power and "good breeding" nearly completely overlap, how should we tell the difference? At the moment, the best I can think of is to look at how important older ancestors were in a pedigree: if one cares only about institutional power, then one probably only cares about two* generations at most; if one cares about showing sustained evidence of good breeding, pedigrees would include ancestors who are dead and hence hold no temporal power whatsoever. How does that sound? * maybe 3 if you had a 15, 30, and 45 year old all as warlords in their own rights, but that's not a generic situation. My understanding is that the usual tenure was to have a single generation holding as much as possible, with the older generations retiring to monasteries to keep the land in the hands of military-age men. EDIT: the balance of these concerns probably change between peace and war. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_the_Conqueror https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_the_Conqueror had trouble early in his career due to his illegitimacy, but by Nov 1066, he had a clear argument that, in matters of logistics and manoeuvre, he was puissant.
        3y ago

[flagged]

Selective breeding applied to humans has been tried, eg the line bred https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_II_of_Spain#Ancestry https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_II_of_Spain#Ancestry (personally I suspect we are the highly bred cooperative variant and the wild-type hasn't been a significant part of the population since [tens of?] thousands of years ago)

saargrin 3y ago
that is absolutely not what selective breeding is none of the habsurgs spouses have been selected for any of their traits
- 082349872349872 3y ago
  > none of the habsurgs spouses have been selected for any of their traits Why would you think that? (rot13: gurl jrer nyy fryrpgrq, sbe gurve crqvterr) Why else would XVII aristocracy have been so concerned with their family lines? (as late as the XX, we can find fictional characters referring to Burke's Peerage* as "the stud book". I rather doubt that usage arises just because both were to use abbreviations and black type.) * back in print! I guess the XXI is bound and determined, not only to repeat the mistakes of the XX, but also those of the XIX.
  - sickofparadox 3y ago
    Most noble marriages in Europe were done for political reasons. Why marry for love (or genetic traits) when you can marry to inherit the Duchess of Burgundy's land?
    - 082349872349872 3y ago
      Exactly: they thought that holding land over several generations was indicative of good "blood" (what we would call genetic traits). Just because they turned out to be in error about the value of their selections doesn't mean they hadn't been selectively breeding. (an example in cattle: we had local bulls who had been bred for conformation for a long time, and luckily the breeders in the US instead were breeding for "liters of milk produced by the bulls' daughters", so now many [most?] locals inseminate with straws from the US lines)
      - dragonwriter 3y ago
        > Exactly: they thought that holding land over several generations was indicative of good "blood" (what we would call genetic traits). While, yes, “good blood” was the social narrative, I think it was a lot more about institutional power (both wealth and connections) than what we would consider “genetic traits”.
        082349872349872 3y ago
        This is an interesting question. If both institutional power and "good breeding" nearly completely overlap, how should we tell the difference? At the moment, the best I can think of is to look at how important older ancestors were in a pedigree: if one cares only about institutional power, then one probably only cares about two* generations at most; if one cares about showing sustained evidence of good breeding, pedigrees would include ancestors who are dead and hence hold no temporal power whatsoever. How does that sound? * maybe 3 if you had a 15, 30, and 45 year old all as warlords in their own rights, but that's not a generic situation. My understanding is that the usual tenure was to have a single generation holding as much as possible, with the older generations retiring to monasteries to keep the land in the hands of military-age men. EDIT: the balance of these concerns probably change between peace and war. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_the_Conqueror https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_the_Conqueror had trouble early in his career due to his illegitimacy, but by Nov 1066, he had a clear argument that, in matters of logistics and manoeuvre, he was puissant.
        3y ago