So, the foxes have really taught us that you can have selection against aggression.
Lead to changes in morphology, physiology,
behavior, but also in potentially psychology and
the preferences that animals show towards human gestures versus nonhuman things.
And I think it really helps potentially support the domestication
hypothesis the idea that dogs actually experience something very similar.
As early wolves started to evolve into dogs I don't think it was the humans went
as we talked about earlier in lecture two.
I don't think humans went and said oh isn't a great idea to bring some wolves
in and have them together with our kids as we go hunt and gather.
I think it was more likely that dogs actually, or I should say early wolves,
chose us, that wolves started living close to us.
That they started relying on people, and
that the only wolves that could do that were the wolves that weren't aggressive,
that weren't fearful, were actually interested in people.
And what you see with the Galiah fox experiment is when you start
selecting a canid, to be friendly and interested in people,
you end up with a fox like this, that has pie ball coat.
A very high frequency in a population of curly tails, and
all sorts of other changes including being very good at reading human gestures.
So, I think the foxes really for me solved
the mystery of why dogs are remarkable at using human gestures.
It was, they were selected to be interested in people, and
they were selected to wanna interact with people.
And that allows them to use the old cognitive skills that we see in wolves.
And using gestures, or I shouldn't say gestures, but using social cues with
each other, but they can use it in a new context, they can use it now with people.
They're not afraid of people, they're not aggressive towards people,
they want to actually use the same skills they use with each other
with their same species social partners.
They wanna use it with people.
But it ends up that people are obviously using gestures.
And they're intentionally communicating and
trying to help in a way that an individual of your same species wouldn't.
And because you're interested, and then because you're interacting with people,
you as a species start to use a new type of communicative behavior.
And potentially develop an understand of communicative intention.
In summary, the Russian geneticist lead by Dmitry Belyaev and Lyudmila Trut and
Irina Plyusnina selected a population of foxes to be interesting and
friendly to humans.
This experimental line was compared to a control line that was not selected based
on their behavior towards humans.
The experimental line shows the expected behavioral change.
They're interested in people, not fearful, but they also showed a high degree of
accidental changes including the morphology and
changes beyond that that are typically seen in domesticated animals.
Things like floppy ears, curly tails.
The experimental populations based on my own work,
working with my colleagues in Russia.
They also, interesting enough, use human gestures more than the control line,
even though they were never selected based on this trait.
So what then got us excited was, remember I promised you we were gonna bring this
back to humans, what does this mean for us?
Is it that if you select against aggression and for interest,
not just in dogs, wolves, and
foxes, what about in primates or even humans?
What would it mean for us?
So that's what we'll address next.
Brian HareAssociate Professor
