Researchers have compared dog mutations to genetic changes in humans that trigger reduced intelligence. Looking at my dog, I can believe that.
That's really interesting. Can you tell me more?
The genetics of domestication is really interesting because we are able to choose desirable traits and breed specifically for them. Maybe we like our dogs dumb.
I don't know I think dogs can be pretty smart....
I actually agree. I have had very smart dogs as well. I really recommend researching the study of domesticating foxes. It is incredibly interesting and was a research project started by Dmitry Konstantivovich Belyayev
That's interesting. Do you know why foxes?
the man most responsible for our understanding of the process by which wolves were domesticated into our canine companions.”
Beginning in the 1950s, in order to uncover the genetic basis of the distinctive behavioral and physiological attributes of domesticated animals, Belyayev and his team spent decades breeding the wild silver fox ("Vulpes vulpes") and selecting for reproduction only those individuals in each generation that showed the least fear of humans. After several generations of controlled breeding, a majority of the silver foxes no longer showed any fear of humans
fact, they're not really species, they all interbreed, but the names exist to express a real phenomenon which is this incredible morphological diversity. Some are shaped like golf balls, some are shaped like pencils. ... Now my main subject is the evolution of form, and the problem of how it is that you can get this diversity amid so little genetic difference, so far as we can tell, is a very interesting one. And if we could solve this we'd learn something general about the evolution of form