Human Domestication

On weekend mornings we usually take our dog, Zev, an almost 2-year-old standard poodle, to the dog park.  Gets him running around, good socialization, and tired for most of the rest of the day.  

It is an interesting place to watch, both dogs and people.  

Dogs are so tuned to each other’s body language…  

Sometimes there is growling, usually in play, occasionally a vocal warning to keep away…  

There is sometimes whining, particularly to encourage a human to throw a ball…    

People watching is fascinating as well.  

Some people love and try to pet all the dogs, some small children too.  

Some people have small dogs, and some, seem to be fearful of the larger dogs.  

Zev has to greet every dog and every human, but he is not one to jump up on adults or children.  

But he is pretty tall, and does weigh almost 70 pounds. 

He does not have fancy poodle cut, he gets a “sport cut,” some mistake him for a doodle…  

I recently was reading an article about a guy in Russia who was domesticating foxes, they seem cute, however, apparently, their urine really stinks, and they can be very difficult.  

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domesticated_silver_fox

http://crittercamp.weebly.com/pet-foxes--the-truth.html

Apparently, foxes may be becoming semi-domesticated naturally as well: 

https://www.science.org/content/article/urban-foxes-may-be-self-domesticating-our-midst

Watching our domesticated dog and his canine companions, I wondered about us humans…  

What a different life we lead from our early ancestors.  

Hunters and gatherers… perhaps that has morphed into shopping…  

Some do still hunt, and not only for sport, for food as well… 

Many garden, some farm, sometimes for subsistence…  

And there was early art and music, perhaps, grown more complex over the ages..  

So, have we humans been domesticated? 

There seems to be social and genetic evidence to this possibility…    

https://www.science.org/content/article/early-humans-domesticated-themselves-new-genetic-evidence-suggests:  

“When humans started to tame dogs, cats, sheep, and cattle, they may have continued a tradition that started with a completely different animal: us. A new study—citing genetic evidence from a disorder that in some ways mirrors elements of domestication—suggests modern humans domesticated themselves after they split from their extinct relatives, Neanderthals and Denisovans, approximately 600,000 years ago.

Domestication encompasses a whole suite of genetic changes that arise as a species is bred to be friendlier and less aggressive. In dogs and domesticated foxes, for example, many changes are physical: smaller teeth and skulls, floppy ears, and shorter, curlier tails. Those physical changes have all been linked to the fact that domesticated animals have fewer of a certain type of stem cell, called neural crest stem cells.

Modern humans are also less aggressive and more cooperative than many of our ancestors. And we, too, exhibit a significant physical change: Though our brains are big, our skulls are smaller, and our brow ridges are less pronounced. So, did we domesticate ourselves?

As for why humans might have become domesticated in the first place, hypotheses abound. Wrangham favors the idea that as early people formed cooperative societies, evolutionary pressures favored mates whose features were less "alpha," or aggressive. "There was active selection, for the very first time, against the bullies and the genes that favored their aggression," he adds.”   

A more in-depth analysis here:

https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.00134/full

“In summary, we regard the social, gene-cultural evolution of humans as more similar to the social evolution of other highly social mammals that display enhanced cognitive and affective plasticity and sophisticated social structures, than to the evolution of socially impoverished domesticates. These similarities however, pale in comparison to the unique features of human social evolution, which has been guided by cumulative cultural changes that led to increased cognitive and affective plasticity, allowing feats of saintly cooperation and sadistic cruelty that go far beyond those of any other animal.”  

Speaks to the evolution of multiple intelligences…  

http://enlightenedmdphd.blogspot.com/2013/02/just-stranger-in-strange-land-part-1.html

Perhaps some of our failures are related to living in groups that might be too large.  

Perhaps, so large that people get lost, do not feel seen, valued, loved…  

As for me, I am most interested in how we could evolve further… 

http://enlightenedmdphd.blogspot.com/2013/02/just-stranger-in-strange-land-part-2.html

Perhaps some methods here:  

http://enlightenedmdphd.blogspot.com/2013/04/enlightenment-part-5-final-secret.html

and here:

http://enlightenedmdphd.blogspot.com/2015/06/so-you-want-to-become-integralist.html

Seems that we, as a species, still have a long way to go…  

Namaste