[ExI] The ugly Neanderthal

Dan TheBookMan danust2012 at gmail.com
Wed Dec 9 20:45:26 UTC 2020


On Dec 9, 2020, at 12:33 PM, Anton Sherwood via extropy-chat <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
> On 2020-12-08 23:19, Rafal Smigrodzki via extropy-chat wrote:
>> "The Goodness Paradox" by Richard Wrangham offers the opposite perspective - Neanderthals were untamed, violent, reckless and dangerous. We know that because their skulls do not show signs
>> of the domestication syndrome. [...]
> 
> I recently enjoyed that book.
> 
> I wonder: if you were to repeat the Belяev fox experiment, but selecting for some irrelevant feature of the domestication syndrome (e.g. white spots) rather than for tameness, would tame animals result?

IIRC, it’s sort of the accidental linkage between certain genes controlling development parts of the brain with those for other traits such as ear shape and coloration in mammals. Probably stuff on the same chromosome.

By the way, it’s an old observation, but recall this:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC387823/

I have yet to enjoy the book you’re discussing. I wonder if it discusses that humans seem to have bred faster than other apes. (I’m presuming this is true and that my memory of it is true.)

Regards,

Dan
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