LiegentHow to Tame a Fox (and Build a Dog): Visionary Scientists and a Siberian Tale of Jump-Started Evolution
In Stalin's Soviet Union, a scientist dared to conduct forbidden genetic research that would forever change our understanding of domestication. This short chronicles Dmitri Belyaev's revolutionary experiment to transform aggressive silver foxes into friendly companions through selective breeding for tameness alone. As foxes began wagging tails and seeking human affection within just a few generations, the project revealed how domestication's physical and behavioral changes emerge from a single selection criterion. Despite political persecution, economic collapse, and personal tragedy, the experiment survived to reveal the genetic foundations of domestication. Lee Alan Dugatkin's work not only documents this remarkable scientific journey but offers valuable insights into how wolves became dogs and how humans might have domesticated ourselves.
Lee Alan Dugatkin is an evolutionary biologist and behavioral ecologist who serves as a professor of biology at the University of Louisville. His research focuses on animal behavior and the genetic basis of social evolution across species. Dugatkin's collaboration with Russian scientists on the silver fox domestication experiment has brought crucial scientific work to Western audiences, bridging cultural divides during and after the Cold War.
Chapters
Similar books
If you liked this book, you'll probably like these books as well.
Why Machines Will Never Rule the World: Artificial Intelligence without Fear
Barry Smith, Jobst Landgrebe
Artificial general intelligence cannot be achieved, because computers cannot be trained on infinite variance.
24:05 min
The g Factor: The Science of Mental Ability
Arthur Jensen
Multiple intelligences and environmental determinism? You've been sold a bag of goods.
40:30 min
Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst
Robert Sapolsky
Human behavior reflects biological and social influences working across microseconds and millennia.
19:28 min
Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams
Matthew Walker
Every living being evolved to sleep — can humans survive the sleeplessness of modernity?
14:18 min
Outlive: The Science and Art of Longevity
Peter Attia
We have the power to extend our lives — if we make the right choices.
18:02 min
Cognitive Capitalism: Human Capital and the Wellbeing of Nations
Heiner Rindermann
Understand the relationship between cognitive capital and human capital.
14:08 min
The Structure of Scientific Revolutions
Thomas Kuhn
The road to scientific progress blinds us to inconvenient truths.
19:55 min
The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness
Jonathan Haidt
Safetyism and digital isolation is mentally crippling the next generations.
20:28 min
The Blind Watchmaker: Why the Evidence of Evolution Reveals a Universe without Design
Richard Dawkins
Nature's apparent complex and purposeful design is only explained by one miraculous process.
20:06 min
Human Compatible: Artificial Intelligence and the Problem of Control
Stuart Russell
If we aren't careful, we could subordinate to AI much like gorillas have to us.
19:50 min
Creating Future People
Jonathan Anomaly
Human genetic enhancement is here, and it's time to confront the moral questions it raises.
13:59 min
The Bell Curve: Intelligence and Class Structure in American Life
Charles Murray
Addressing intelligence may be scary, but not addressing it is even scarier.
26:37 min
Who We Are and How We Got Here
David Reich
Ironically, ancient DNA provides the answers to our long-standing, modern day quandaries.
20:47 min
Blueprint: How DNA Makes Us Who We Are
Robert Plomin
Embracing the power of our genes sets the stage for a global renaissance.
21:26 min
T: The Story of Testosterone, the Hormone that Dominates and Divides Us
Carole Hooven
Beyond aggression and libido: How deeply does testosterone shape our social fabric?
18:25 min