Crying Wolf (Life Sciences)

[Chad]

Domestication syndrome

The genetic explanation at the end is interesting.

[Boreades]

Err...
If you want to be cuddled, you have to have white eyes?

That let's me out then, my eyes match the sunset.

I'm going to commit suicide soon.

[Roger Stone]

I believe the importance of white sclera may be to do with our ability to interpret the intentions of others better, if we can see clearly where they are looking. It would explain why, as we domesticated animals, we would select for those whose 'expressions we could read'. It does not follow that humans were domesticated (by anyone other than ourselves).

[Hatty]

Pointing or indicating a direction is what I was thinking, only you put it better. Could there be a water-y connection going way back when? Eyesight may have evolved slightly differently in an aquatic environment though presumably direction-finding is just as important in water as on land.

Welcome to the funny farm, Roger.

[Chad]

Welcome Roger.

The question isn't how we use our white sclerae (that's been done to death by orthodoxy) l'm more interested in why we ALL have them when NONE of our closest relatives do.

It is not an isolated genetic trait... it is part of a more complex set of genetically linked traits that form a syndrome, probably associated with the development of the neural crest at embryonic stage (not too dissimilar to the leopard complex syndrome found in appaloosas).

This is an indicator for domestication not an indicator for Darwinian "Survival of The Fittest".

[Chad]

A cousin of mine has a daughter with Williams syndrome.

If you were to call in at PetsRus for a pet human, she is the one you would choose.

Total absence of aggression... She simply loves everybody she encounters... She trusts everyone without question... She would be eaten in the wild.

She has an extreme form of Domestication Syndrome.

Williams is one of a number of genetic disorders associated with neural crest development.

[Mick Harper]

[Ishmael]

[Ishmael]

Note that the Indian Elephant, in addition to having floppy ears, is also smaller.

I have a reason for bringing this to your attention.

[Ishmael]

Until last week, I had no idea that there was any difference between the Mastodon and the Woolly Mammoth. I thought these were two words for the same animal.

They are not. These labels are applied to two different animals.

Here is the Wooly Mammoth:


Here is the Mastodon...


Note these Mastodon differences:

• Back doesn't slope like a mammoth
  
• About the size of an Asiatic Elephant

I submit that the Mastodon is a domesticated Woolly Mammoth. Its stature has been reduced as part of the domestication process and also perhaps to facilitate less dangerous riding by humans. Its straight back has been engineered for affixing a platform, just as we see here:

[Ishmael]

Here are the two beasts in comparison.



Here is an alternate size comparison, which suggests the above is not to scale.


Another size comparison (Wooly Mammoth, African Elephant, Mastodon, Indian Elephant)...

[Ishmael]

This is a thesis that has never been proposed.

[Ishmael]

Here then is the story of the Wooly Mammoth.

Humans domesticated the mammoth and then exterminated the wild breeds to insure against genetic drift. Civilization changed and the domestic, "mastodon" breeds were abandoned to run feral. They were unable to function in the wild and died out.

[Mick Harper]

Stirring stuff! Add it to the list. By the way rats and mice should be investigated.

[Ishmael]