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Can people be bred for tameness in a similar way to Russian foxes?

Biology Asked on December 31, 2021

Russian foxes were selectively bred for tameness. Can a similar process happen to humans, under the right conditions — say, extreme political pressure to obey ?

One Answer

Setting aside the eugenic implications of what are you suggesting (short answer: yes it is theoretically possible, but no it is practically impossible), a more interesting observation is that evolutionary anthropologists think that humans might have "self-domesticated" during our evolutionary history.

There is a wide literature on this topic, but a recent paper summarizes the main ideas and addresses the question from a genomic point of view. Theofanopoulou and coauthors find credible genomic evidence for similar patterns of genetic evolution in humans and other domesticated animals.

Self-domestication

Answered by kmm on December 31, 2021

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