Gadagkar, R (2017) A Tale of Science, Passion and Politics - A Review of - How to Tame a Fox (and Build a Dog) Visionary Scientists and a Siberian Tale of Jump-Started Evolution by L.A.Dugatkin and L.Trut, The University of Chicago Press, Chicago and London (2017). In: Proceedings of the Indian National Science Academy, 83 (4). pp. 973-975.
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PDF (Gadagkar, R. 2017. A Tale of Science, Passion and Politics - A Review of - How to Tame a Fox (and Build a Dog) Visionary Scientists and a Siberian Tale of Jump-Started Evolution by L.A.Dugatkin and L.Trut, The University of Chicago Press, Chicago and Lon)
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Abstract
I have just finished reading How to Tame a Fox and feel an irresistible urge to write about it and canvass for it. But there is a problem. The book reads like a thriller, and it is hard to say anything without giving away spoilers. Since I don’t have the persuasive powers of a religious preacher and don’t expect my readers to follow my advice blindly, I will try my best to describe the book in a manner that will provoke rather than satisfy your curiosity. The book tells the saga of an audacious scientific experiment that has been running continuously for over sixty years. The aim of the experiment was to see if we can domesticate foxes by selective breeding and produce a ‘dog’. The main protagonist of the tale is the late Russian scientist Dmitri Belyaev who found the domestication of dogs a great puzzle. He wondered how humans had managed to artificially breed wild wolves who are rather aggressive and either attack or run away from humans. Moreover, domestic dogs have a number of characteristics distinct from their wolf ancestors, such as patches of colouring on their fur, floppy ears, curly tails and babyish faces - characteristics that are also seen in other domesticated mammals. It did not seem reasonable to Belyaev to assume that humans had deliberately selected for each of the many unique traits of domesticated dogs. Instead, he surmised that humans might have selected for just one trait namely tameness and that selection for tameness had resulted in the appearance of all the remaining traits, by somehow destabilizing the wellbalanced genetic instructions for making a wolf. To test this bold idea, Belyaev began an experiment in Russia, to selectively breed wild silver foxes (Vulpesvulpes) selecting in each generation, the tamest individuals to sire the next generation of experimental foxes. Belyaev hoped that this should eventually produce not only tame foxes but also foxes that mimicked the signature characteristics of domestic dogs – spots on their fur, floppy ears, curly tails, baby faces and all.
| Item Type: | Journal Article |
|---|---|
| Publication: | Proceedings of the Indian National Science Academy |
| Publisher: | Indian National Science Academy |
| Keywords: | Book review; Jump-started evolution; Passion and politics |
| Department/Centre: | Division of Biological Sciences > Centre for Ecological Sciences |
| Date Deposited: | 15 Mar 2021 11:22 |
| Last Modified: | 15 Mar 2021 11:25 |
| URI: | http://eprints.iisc.ac.in/id/eprint/67660 |
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