Domesticated: Evolution in a Man-Made World

by Richard C. Francis

We would still be living at subsistence level as hunter-gatherers if not for domestication. It is no accident that the cradle of civilization--the Middle East--is where sheep, goats, pigs, cattle, and cats commenced their fatefully intimate association with humans.

Before the agricultural revolution, there were perhaps 10 million humans on earth. Now there are more than 7 billion of us. Our domesticated species have also thrived, in stark contrast to their wild ancestors. In a human-constructed environment--or man-made world--it pays to be domesticated.

Domestication is an evolutionary process first and foremost. What most distinguishes domesticated animals from their wild ancestors are genetic alterations resulting in tameness, the capacity to tolerate close human proximity. But selection for tameness often results in a host of seemingly unrelated by-products, including floppy ears, skeletal alterations, reduced aggression, increased sociality, and reduced brain size. It's a package deal known as the domestication syndrome.

Elements of the domestication syndrome can be found in every domesticated species--not only cats, dogs, pigs, sheep, cattle, and horses but also more recent human creations, such as domesticated camels, reindeer, and laboratory rats. That domestication results in this suite of changes in such a wide variety of mammals is a fascinating evolutionary story, one that sheds much light on the evolutionary process in general.

We humans, too, show signs of the domestication syndrome, which some believe was key to our evolutionary success. By this view, human evolution parallels the evolution of dogs from wolves in particular.

A natural storyteller, Richard C. Francis weaves history, archaeology, and anthropology to create a fascinating narrative.

Genres: Science, Nonfiction, Animals, Biology, Evolution, History, Nature

496 pages, Hardcover

First published May 25, 2015

About the author

Richard C. Francis is a writer who has a PhD in biology from Stanford University. He is the author of Why Men Won't Ask for Directions. He lives in New York City.

Reviews

[Petra X]

Update White animals are rare in nature (outside snow environments) but are a feature of domesticated animals. White rabbits, cats, dogs, sheep, horses, none of these, apart from albinos, have white in the wild form. Interesting feature of breeding for other characteristics.
__________

Some very, very good reasons not to buy a pedigree dogs: they die young.

Virtually all purebred dogs have a host of genetic ailments, from narcolepsy to skeletal defects. Cancer is also rampant among purebred dogs, occurring at frequencies that in humans would be considered epidemic. Any account of a breed’s characteristics includes the defects, including the particular form of cancer, to which it is prone. This is why purebred dogs have much shorter life spans than outbred dogs (mutts and mongrels) living under the same conditions.

What do you want a dog for, it's beautiful looks or a loving companion? Too many people want the beautiful animal with the a guaranteed temperament. More people should be willing to take a chance and get a dog or puppy that needs a home. They will be your companion for many more years.

This was interesting,

This genetic burden may also help explain why dog breeds are exceptions to what is otherwise the rule among mammals: larger species live longer than smaller species. Elephants live longer than cats, which live longer than mice, and so on. Among dogs, however, large breeds die younger.87 Irish wolfhounds, Great Danes, and Newfoundlands live only 6–8 years; dogs in the 50-pound range generally live 10–12 years; some toy breeds live 15–20 years.

The book is in part very heavy on the science and completely mystifies me, "The genetic changes resulting from both the Baldwin effect [the premise that phenotypic plasticity is the way for individuals to adapt to their environment within a generation in a novel environment] and genetic assimilation are facilitated by disruptive selection and the cryptic genetic variation it unveils."

What he means is something like how plants attempt and often succeed in adapting to whatever environment they find themselves in, also applies to animals. Or that's what I think he means. Let's move on now...

[Jim · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a fascinating read, but a bit over my head. It is not a popular science book & Francis uses a lot of words that he quickly defined & I had to look back for. Others I had to look up. I'm sure no biologist would have needed to, but I'm not one & would really have appreciated a glossary.

He broke out some digressions into an appendix for the chapter & some footnotes (listed at the back of the book) were worth reading. I really didn't see the need for most of the appendices, though. They were just a few pages long with some duplicated material, so they read like short chapters. Very interesting & the material wouldn't have been out of place in the main text.

I started reading this as an ebook, but then bought a hardback because I couldn't flip back & forth easily enough on my Kindle. Too many places & shifting targets. This isn't a quick read, but a book I had to study. Even so, some of the material was of little interest. I really didn't care what gene complex did what, but I guess a real biologist might find it of interest. Some are well known & even I understood how wild it was that slight changes could cause such significant affects.

Don't let the above gripes turn you off, though. There was plenty of really great material & Francis often points out how & why hypothesis have changed, where some are shaky, & how others are evolving. Too often popular science makes it seem as if some of these hypothesis are facts. They're not. They're our best guess based on current data & that data is getting better all the time as our tools evolve.

1) HOUSE FOX: A lot on Dmitry Belyayev's fox experiments in Siberia. Incredible how breeding for "tameness" changed them so much so fast & how. In 50 years they went from wild to house pets.

He starts here & continues to get deeper into the genome than I'm really interested in. Still, it's cool how we're picking apart the genome & understanding it better. So called 'junk DNA' isn't really. It's non-coding, but often controls how the coding areas are expressed which is a really important point to remember.

2) DOGS: is a continuation of the previous chapter in many ways. Again, it's incredible how much we've changed the wolf in such a short amount of time.
...the genetic distance between a wolf and a Pekingese is minuscule, far less than that between a wolf and a coyote, which much more closely resemble each other...olves, it turns out, were not at all like clay in the hands of the evolutionary potter that is humankind; in many ways dogs came preformed. For this reason, the story of dog domestication opens long before wolves began hanging
around the camps of human hunter-gatherers in the Pleistocene.

Still, most 'breeds' didn't show the extreme variation we see today until the kennel clubs of the 1870s. While I've known some of the horrors of all this inbreeding, Francis lists a few that I wasn't aware of. I'm less of a fan of the AKC than ever.

3) CATS: an interesting discussion of the difference between wild, feral, & domesticated. Cats aren't as domesticated as dogs or haven't been until recently. I had no idea that the fancy breeds were so young, the second half of the 20th century. It's a shame. I couldn't believe what people have done to the Siamese.

I'm not much of a cat person, but the domestic ones & I coexist peacefully in the house. I'm not a fan of feral ones around the farm. They're pure hell on birds & other small mammals. In some areas they're a large factor driving some small species towards extinction. He doesn't mention that, IIRC. It's interesting that they're so close to wild cats.

4) OTHER PREDATORS: Most of the chapter discusses raccoons & how they're self-domesticating much like early dogs & cats. They've moved in to take advantage of human trash & pet food which means they're changing from solitary to dealing with many others as they use the same resources such as a dumpster. They've also spread a lot further & very recently. They're a prime example of “Phenotypic plasticity,” a key concept in evo devo, refers to the capacity to respond adaptively to the environment without any genetic change.

He also discusses other related members such as weasel, mongoose, & polecat. Very successful family &, as usual, he goes into a lot more about the genetics behind it than I'm really interested in.

5) EVOLUTIONARY INTERLUDE: He points out that while we emphasize the creative side of evolution we tend to forget how much it also retains. He takes Dawkins to task for making it seem as if some changes spring into being quickly, not an impression I've ever taken away from one of his books, though. Still, his point is well made. At the family level, millions of years of evolution can take place before changes are noticeable.

He uses this point to define phenotypic changes that rapidly appear in domesticated animals & points out their similarity. It is pretty amazing. Smaller brain size (probably from loss of senses, not intelligence), reduced size (other than in rodents), increased socialability, color variation, & they also often become sexually active all year round. There are exceptions, but he sums it up as the 'domesticated phenotype' or 'domestication syndrome' all due to some key homologies in mammals & so he introduces 'Evo Devo' & genomics.

6) PIGS: aren't given the respect in our culture that they have in other places & times. He gets into their history & genetics. Interesting stuff. I had no idea how close they sit to hippos, camels, & cattle on the tree given their teeth & eating habits.

7) CATTLE: He starts with aurochs, the progenitor of cattle & the biggest mammal we've ever domesticated. I found the attempts to get back to the original wild strain interesting, although that's better handled in the horse section.

8) SHEEP AND GOATS: He, like so many others, lump these 2 together. Having dealt with both, I find that tough to swallow. He makes a good point for it since they often shared the same niche in domestication, though.

9) REINDEER: aren't very domesticated for the most part. There's a lot of information about their part in our myths. Their antlers remind me a bit of a peacock tail. I wonder why they went for disposable headgear? I didn't find them particularly interesting, though.

10) CAMELS: were fascinating. They have eye teeth which makes their bites really bad & they like to. Their evolution in the Americas & survival by migrating west across the Bearing Strait land bridge is odd & interesting. He explains the differences between dromedaries & bactrians well. He doesn't spend much time on alpcas & llamas, though.

11) HORSES: is one of the few areas where I already knew something about their evolution. I still learned some really interesting things like wild equus have straight, bristle manes. If you see a laid over mane, it's feral or domesticated.

12) RODENTS: Mice & rats fit an interesting domestic niche. Very successful from any evolutionary standpoint. They really demonstrate phenotypic variation without genetic variation, thus are great to study epigenetics. There's a short chapter in the appendix about that. Identical DNA (isogenic) & environmental conditions, yet there is still quite a variation in their phenotype. Why? We don't really know yet. Somatic epigenetic inheritance is from one cell to it's daughters, but there is also transgenerational epigenetic inheritance from parents. I hadn't realized that star patterns in the farm foxes is one such. Wow!

13) HUMANS—PART I: EVOLUTION: is a good thumbnail sketch of this very complex process. New information has debunked many of the old myths & it's pretty clear that modern humans contain some genetic material for what were once thought to be separate species. There isn't much of the Neanderthal & Denisovan genome left in us, but it's there in enough quantity to see.

14) HUMANS—PART II: SOCIALITY: Francis believes we self-domesticated & a large part of our intelligence is based on our hyper-sociability. He mentions the number of neurons, so I was interested to read this article about that exact issue. I wondered about the accuracy of counting neurons & it turns out it wasn't very accurate. Now I wonder just how much the branching on neurons contributes, though. I think this is very much guess work at this point, but some very smart people are getting there.

15) THE ANTHROPOCENE: I love the way he takes the perspective of an alien biologist looking at the earth & how insignificant humans were until so recently. It's pretty mind blowing. He gets into the various theories on what sparked out intelligence & I liked his take on it.

All in all, a great book. Highly recommended!

[Rossdavidh · Rating 4 out of 5]

Before I talk about the actual contents of the book, I have to compliment whoever made the (I assume Photoshopped) picture on the front cover, of a tiny white fluffy dog sitting in front of (or slightly underneath) a large grey wolf. It perfectly raises the question that the book's actual contents try to answer: how did the one, descend from the other?

There are chapters on wolf/dog, cat, auroch/cow, horse, camel, goat and sheep, and so forth. In some cases, such as the dog, the wild ancestor is still available for comparison (if only just). In other cases, such as the cow, the wild ancestor has gone extinct (although recently enough that modern genetic science might be able to resurrect it someday). In all cases, Richard Francis does an expert and friendly job of taking us through the historical, genetic, and archaeological evidence for how we got from one to the other.

In the case of dogs, this was a story I had heard before (although it is well told here as well). In other cases, such as the camel, I had not. Did you know that all camel-like species are descended from ancestors in North America? It was also interesting to hear him describe raccoons in the very initial states of domestication, with measurable differences in the behavior of city and forest raccoons that probably mirrors what happened with the very first wolves to circle around the cavemen's firelight and feed on scraps.

The crescendo of the book which the rest is all leading up to, of course, is humanity itself. Have we been self-domesticated? That is, did we impact our own evolution (i.e. genetics) in a way similar to what we have wrought upon other species? It's not too much of a spoiler to say that the answer turns out to be, "maybe", but it casts a shadow over all that comes before it, since you can tell that's where Francis is headed. For your consideration, here are the traits common to most domesticated species (relative to their wild forebears):

1) increased tolerance of each other, and of humans, being in close proximity
2) increased ability to read the intentions of humans, perhaps related to...
3) increased ability to tolerate the human gaze, and notice where we are looking
4) smaller brains, especially the parts involved in sensory perception
5) more variable coloration
6) reduced sex differences

The answer for humans, of course, depends on what ancestor you compare us to, and what they were like. Some things, like brain size, we can make a reasonable guess at based on fossils, but most of the rest we cannot. Instead, we can look at chimpanzees and bonobos (our two closest living relatives), and guess that wherever chimpanzees and bonobos are alike in a way that we are not, then our common ancestors were probably more like chimpanzees and bonobos, than us.

The details are arguable, but the overall pattern is fairly clear (I think). We may not have intentionally changed our own genetics, as we did with cows and pigs and horses, but we have changed them nonetheless. People who are "wild type", behaving more like chimpanzees or even bonobos, do not get along well in human society; they end up in jail or dead. This was probably equally true a hundred or a thousand or five thousand years ago, when standards of decorum may have been lower, but the severity of the punishment for misbehavior was much more often a quick death.

Some of the marks of domestication, like more variable coloration, may have been accidental, the accidental result of a reduced need for camouflage once humans became the apex predator in their environment. Some of them, like an increased tolerance of humans for each other's company, have positively been selected for; any who tried to make their way in Viking, Mongol, or Aztec society without the ability to fight in close formation with others of your kind would soon have had their intolerant-of-others genes removed from the gene pool. Like ants or other social insects, we have clearly been increasing our specialization as we increased the size of our societies, and if we were removed from it entirely it is the rare member of our species that would survive for long.

In the end, of course, we are still uncertain as to how much we have changed (genetically, or otherwise) in the last 20,000 years or so, or even in the last 200,000. We certainly have changed in our ability to tolerate milk, alcoholic beverages, wheat gluten, and so forth, which is more obvious because that change is still in progress. It may be that there are other, behavioral changes (e.g. a reduced tendency to lash out in violence at other humans when they cross us) are still incompletely spread through the population as well. It hardly needs stating that we have, generally speaking, discomfort at the idea of imagining our own species changing genetically, even if it is in ways like greater ability to tolerate each other's presence peacefully. As gene sequencing becomes cheaper and cheaper, though, it may become harder and harder to avoid facing up to those awkward facts. Several of the chapters in this book (e.g. the ones on dogs, cows, cats) make reference to what has been learned in recent years from genetic sequencing about how wild ancestors of the past became today's domesticated breeds. It seems inevitable that we will learn the same kind of thing about ourselves.

Best to give yourself a bit more time, I think, to get accustomed to thinking about ourselves this way, as a species that evolution is still working on, at an ever-accelerating pace. By starting with dogs and cats and the rest, Francis eases us into a potentially discomforting topic, which sooner or later we will all come face to face with.

[Tanja Berg · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book takes a look at both domestication and evolution. In a way, domestication and different breeds shows evolution in a time frame that human minds more easily can understand. An English bull-dog looks very different today than it did a mere 100 years ago. At the same time, in terms of DNA, there is very little difference between a wolf and a dog - but behaviorally the difference is massive. There is even less difference, genetically, between a great dane and chihuahua, but the difference in size is massive - in behavior, much less.

The book is about much more than dogs, it also takes a look at the domestication of other species as well. It also explores how species self domesticate - such as dogs and cats did, starting some thousands of years past, because it was beneficial for them to do so. Many traits follow when breeds are domesticated - or self-domesticate - for tameness. Curly tales, different coats. Coats of wild animals have the colors best suited for camouflage. In other cases, domestication starts with controlling wild or semi-wild flocks of horses, reindeer and other ungulates.

The author also explores the thought whether humans have self-domesticated themselves, in a sense. We tolerate close proximity to each other exceedingly well, compared to many other mammals, particularly some of our closest relatives. Humans have adapted the environment to our needs, rather than the other way around. We have created our own niches for a long time already.

This is one of the best books on the topic of domestication that I have read. Easily accessible and very interesting. Aside from domestication, the author does some deep dives into evolution and its process as well.

[Jeanette · Rating 4 out of 5]

The more you know about evolutional for specific characteristic breeding and the chemical genetic material or forms for inheritance- the more you will get out of this. So many posters say it is for the layman or laywoman. Yes, it is. But you will truly be within context cognition more savvy if you know the pure science tenets and definitions within the field first.

It was good. It has depth in several species. And the fox experiment itself was truly intriguing. SO FAST were significant changes REAL and sustained. It doesn't take centuries (true time measure)of generations at all. But with many aspects the domestication of so many varied animal forms? I have some reserve and outlier opinion on this. But for sure, the animals whose species have the longest futures will most probably be those solidly within the domesticated numbers.

This is NOT just about dogs at all. I actually liked the camel forms section very much.

But this is NOT easy read either. It has nuance and context of very defined terms. The more you know about delayed or extended periods of youthful characteristics and syndromes of inheritance (primarily as side/ adjacent traits) already- the better you will "get" this book.

But at times, well, I think (the author seems to lean in this direction too) - humans tinker too much in dicey territory.

[Atila Iamarino · Rating 5 out of 5]

Entra como um dos melhores livros desse ano, só não é o melhor por causa de Sapiens. Excelente, daqueles que recomendo para muita gente. Reconta a domesticação de quase todos os bichos, falando de paleontologia, evolução humana e animal, história, genética e mais. Adorei descobrir que o cachorro serviu (e serve) de comida por muito tempo, que gatos ainda são bem selvagens, que renas vêem no espectro UV, que camelos tem uma senhora resistência física e muito mais coisa legal.

[Brian Griffith · Rating 4 out of 5]

Francis explores both historical and live-action evidence on how domestication of animals happens, how it has changed over time, and what that has done to both us and them. He focuses a lot on the story of dogs, showing how “phenotypic plasticity” led wild dogs to adapt major shifts in mentality and lifestyle without specific genetic mutations, but then these shifting patterns of life led to obvious physical diversification. Other creatures are also examined in terms of divergence between the tame the the wild, with assessments of the benefits or serious costs to the animals themselves. The focus expands to creeping trends of domestication among animals forced to live near us, such as raccoons and foxes, whose growing familiarity follows patterns in the first stages of tameness. Questions abound concerning healthy paths forward in our increasingly interdependent life.

[Cheryl · Rating 3 out of 5]

First example animal is 'house foxes' aka the Russian foxes bred for tameness. I have a question about all the reports I've seen on these fascinating animals, though: why don't videos of them show them looking more doglike? To both me and my son, they still look like foxes; they do not have the shorter snouts or the piebald coats or the other markers mentioned in various secondhand reports.

Also, if you've been starting to follow the story, do note that they are chosen and bred simply for their willingness to be near humans. Not for friendliness, not for intelligence.... though those sometimes are mentioned conflationarily. Also, they are not socialized further (unless bought by crazy rich ppl).

Francis' argument in this book depends on "Belyaev's view that domesticated traits come in packages." I (currently) live in Missouri, and you have to got to Show Me!
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Btw, the 100+ pages of notes annoys me. The book is too heavy to be sturdy; I'm damaging it a bit even though I'm reading with both hands & care. Really, the notes should be online. Almost none of them are anything more than bibliographical. Other authors have set a precedent.
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Ok, now I'm finally done reading. I recommend the first few pages of each chapter, and the intro. and the epilogue, if you're truly interested and have some background. Not for newbies or casual readers. There are some tidbits that many will find interesting. For example, he disses "evolutionary psychologists" including Steven Pinker, who I just did read.

But you need more biology than I have to fully appreciate this exploration. For example, I had to learn to read cladograms, and I still feel like I'm missing something because each 'T' shaped split is supposed to indicate something, but none in the book are labeled. Lots more illustrations would have helped. And a glossary.

Well, I did insert lots of bookdarts. Let's see how many I have patience to transcribe:

A "theme of the book is "to consider some recent and current developments in evolutionary biology through the lens of domestication." Iow, no need to try to follow his arguments perfectly, or to fret too much about evaluating his theories and perspectives in comparison to others... it's ok to read it lightly.

"The paramount theme of this book, though, is the conservative nature of the evolutionary process.... The Pekingese is a tinkered wolf, not redesigned wholesale from its wolf ancestors."

(I need to investigate a reference to 'the sense of the sublime' by Edmund Burke.)

"It is noteworthy that the most important meat source at that time [the cave paintings of Lascaux], reindeer, was not depicted at all." because they were more or less taken for granted, the author presumes, not revered as the aurochs and other depicted animals were. (And look up pix of Aurochs... they were indeed literally awesome.)

"[D]omestication creates its own momentum and is not easily reversed." (Author does not expect success in attempts to breed for auroch or wild horses.)

"[B]rain size reduction in domestic animals need not involve cognitive regions. In fact, it more likely involves areas of the brain related to sensory capacities and motor skills."

Lactose and gluten tolerance and some diseases like tuberculosis and measles are "culturally-driven biological evolution." Perhaps our brain-size and our smaller teeth are, also.

I never did get a definition of human self-domestication. It was discussed, but what it actually *is* I don't understand. Very unsatisfactory.

[Socraticgadfly · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'd read Francis' "Why Men Won't Ask for Directions," and saw it as a solid rebuke of the worst of evolutionary psychology, and now think I need to raise my rating a star higher.

I've read two other books in the past year about animal domestication, but Francis goes so much deeper into evolutionary biology.

To give one example: Francis notes that evolutionary developmental biology is a much "deeper" layer of evolution than that involved with domestication of animals. However, he takes time to give a clear, lucid, basic description of just what "evo devo" is and why it's important. (This reminds me that I need to look to read his book before this one, "Epigenetics.")

Second, he talks about how "conservative" evolution is, and how so much of animal domestication is tinkering at the evolutionary edges.

Third, he talks about the role of neoteny and similar issues such as paedomorphosis in domestication. From that, he tackles the issue of how much we homo sapiens may be self-domesticating ourselves.

Fourth, he talks about the need for a new evolutionary synthesis, and indicates he stands close to the posture of an online acquaintance or more, biologist and philosopher Massimo Pigliucci.

[Steve Donoghue]

This terrific book presents a very readable overview of the history of humans domesticating other species - and the future of both those species and all the thousands of species that haven't been channelled into some kind of quotidian use by the current masters of the planet. Naturally, the focus is on dogs, but the concepts raised throughout are applicable across the board. My full review: https://www.stevedonoghue.com/review-...

[Kam · Rating 4 out of 5]

Three years ago, I made the decision to adopt a pet of my own—specifically, a cat. In my mind, a cat was the ideal companion for someone like me: independent enough that I could leave it alone while I was at work, but companionable enough to pet and play with when I was at home. I had actually managed to talk my mother around to the idea, and had begun to lay down some fairly concrete plans (including which rescue organisation I was going to adopt the cat from, as well as a budget for food, toys, vaccinations, and so on) but the plan was sunk when my father refused to have a cat in the house—not because of any health concerns, but simply because of dislike (or, as I like to think, unwarranted prejudice).

But I still wanted a pet of my own, and since I couldn’t get a cat, I decided to go for a dog. In this regard, I had to be a bit more thorough: it would have been all right to bring a kitten of unknown heritage into the household, but dogs were another thing entirely due to size and temperament concerns (more so, since we already had two other dogs in the house). In the end, I wound up adopting the offspring of my aunt’s Shih Tzu: a sensible move, since I didn’t have to pay a breeder for the privilege of adopting the puppy, plus we already had two other Shih Tzu in the house; one more would fit in perfectly.

The experience I’ve outlined above—particularly the questions about size and temperament—are questions responsible pet owners ask themselves before they adopt an animal to bring into their home. Whether a person winds up bringing home a cat or a dog (or something else entirely), long-haired or short-haired (or feathered or scaled), purebred or mixed-breed, really depends on the owner’s preferences and requirements (and in my case, the preferences and requirements of the other household residents). However, the only reason such choices can be made, and made with relative confidence, is because of the long history of domestication that both the cat and the dog have undergone. It is this process of domestication that Richard C. Francis tackles in his book Domesticated: Evolution in a Man-made World.

Domesticated is divided into fifteen chapters, plus a preface and an epilogue. Chapters 2 to 12 focus on familiar domesticated animals such as dogs, cats, and various familiar farm animals like cows and pigs. There is also a chapter devoted to reindeer, another dedicated to the camel, and one dedicated to rodents (which include not just pet rats and lab mice, but also rabbits and guinea pigs). One chapter, titled “Other Predators”, focuses on raccoons, ferrets, and minks. The last three chapters are dedicated to us: humans. In these chapters, Francis suggests that humans might be “self-domesticated”, a process that allowed our species to rise to its current level of dominance.

Throughout the book, Francis emphasises the role of “tameness”. While most people understand it as a particular behavioural trait that makes animals more pliant to human presence and influence, Francis offers an alternative definition for tameness, one that is rooted in genetics. In the first chapter, he explains this by discussing Russian geneticist Dmitry Belyaev’s long-term experiment on farm foxes:

[N]oteworthy is the way the fox —> fox-dog transition parallels the wolf —> wolf-dog transition, especially in the correlated by-products of selection for tameness, from floppy ears to shorter snouts. At bottom, this parallel response reflects shared developmental processes in the fox and the wolf, which you might expect, given their genealogical proximity on the tree of life. But many of these correlated responses occur in other domesticated mammals as well, some quite distantly related to canines. Some are even found in domesticated birds and fishes. So consistent is this suite of changes, in fact, that it has a name: the “domesticated phenotype”.

From here, Francis launches into an exploration of the evolutionary history of common domesticated mammals, following the concept that the domesticated phenotype existed in the wild ancestors of domesticated species, but through a combination of natural and artificial selection, those animals with the highest propensity for tameness were given preference over those with a lower propensity, and therefore became the domesticated species we know today. For instance, in “Chapter 2: Dogs,” Francis explains how self-taming might have been the very first step towards domesticating the wolf, an otherwise deadly predator of humans:

Wolf domestication was initiated by wolves, and it required that an evolved psychological barrier be surmounted, or at least eased, such that they tolerated closer human proximity than did their forebears.

This process of self-taming was accomplished by standard natural selection. Among the wolves that hung around human encampments, those that better tolerated human proximity got more scraps and hence left more offspring than did their “wilder” cohorts. This naturally selected tameness was the first step towards dogness, and it may have taken thousands of years.

Self-taming also explains why there are still wild wolves: not all wolves had the necessary genetic makeup to become tame, and so remained as they were, while the tamer wolves were taken in by humans and, through artificial selection, transformed into the many breeds that exist today.

Francis clarifies, however, that the self-taming process didn’t occur in the same way for all domesticated animals, and therefore didn’t always produce animals with the same behavioural traits as dogs. Cats, for example, were domesticated through a somewhat-different route from dogs, which explains why, despite their domesticated status, they remain far more independent than canines:

The genetic evidence…indicates that Near Eastern wildcats were first domesticated in the cradle of agriculture, called the Fertile Crescent, around 10,000 BP [Before Present]. It was here that humans first began to store grains. These stored grains proved vulnerable to a recent invader from northern India, called the house mouse (Mus musculus). For the wildcats in the area, these house mice were a new reliable food source, so some wildcats began hanging around human settlements. …

In essence, human agrarian settlements provided the wildcats in the area a new niche, which required different behavioural dispositions than the old relatively human-free niche had required. Through natural selection for tameness, a subset of the wildcats was able to increasingly thrive in this new niche. But in contrast to dogs, which also exploited this niche, even the more tame wildcats retained their previously evolved hunting skills and equipment.

While self-taming is largely governed by natural selection and therefore takes a very long time, domestication and artificial selection occur in a much shorter time frame. This is due to the fact that the domesticated phenotype includes a tendency towards individuals reaching breeding age earlier in their lifespan, as well as gaining the ability to breed year-round; as a result, it is easy for humans to breed for specific traits and see results quickly (evolutionarily speaking).

Unfortunately, domestication has not necessarily been good for the animals that have undergone the process. Given the time span at which natural selection occurs, artificial selection must be sped up as much as possible in order to get results within a human’s life span. However, this can only be achieved by inbreeding, which has created some very negative effects. Dogs best exemplify those negative effects, as Francis points out when talking about the history of dog breeds and why there are so many of them:

[A]rtificial selection will rapidly get you large phenotypic changes, but at a cost. First there is the cost of inbreeding and the inevitable accumulation of deleterious mutations. Virtually all purebred dogs have a host of genetic ailments, from narcolepsy to skeletal defects. …

… Under the auspices of the kennel club, the Cavalier King Charles spaniel recently evolved a brain that is too large for its skull—a condition known as syringomyelia. The effects are variable but often involve excruciating pain and ultimately paralysis and death. You would think dogs with this condition would not be bred, but you would be wrong. The problem is that the symptoms often do not become manifest until three or four years of age, and breeders don’t wait that long. Several recent dog show champions that died of this disease sired numerous offspring, sometimes through mating with their daughters. This is truly perverse, both evolutionarily and morally.

He later goes on to explain that the same is happening to cats, though the intensive breeding for felines has been fairly recent compared to dogs. However, despite the fact that most breeders are now currently trying to breed out pre-existing genetic disorders, as well as avoid introducing more, there are still some people who still insist that it’s all right to breed animals with debilitating physical features in the name of “cuteness”:

There is another mutation, called radial hypoplasia (RH), or “hamburger feet,” which results in a different form of polydactyly, of a spiralling nature. A creative breeder in Texas sought to build on this deformity by constructing a “Twisty cat” breed, in which the spiralling extends to the bones of the forelimb. Twisty cats also have extremely short forelimbs and relatively long hind libs, which cause them to sit up like a squirrel—hence an alternative name, “squitten.” Twisty cats are banned in Europe on humanitarian grounds, but not in the United States; the same is true of the Munchkin. … The deliberate breeding of skeletally deformed breeds is unconscionable.

Again, in the subsequent chapters, Francis makes clear that, though the intensity of artificial selection under the auspices of domestication varies from species to species, it hasn’t always been good for the animals subjected to it. The same might be said of their wild ancestors: after all, the auroch (the ancestor of all domesticated cow breeds) is extinct, and so is the wild dromedary camel. While domestication has proven useful for the survival of those few fortunate species that have been selected for it, it has also proven detrimental, both to the animals themselves, and their wild ancestors.

Now, while I don’t expect any non-fiction book to be easy (after all, I read these books partly to learn new things, and learning new things isn’t going to be easy), I do expect the language to be approachable by the average reader. Francis’ language is not that: he tries, but there is a lot of jargon in his text that only a biologist would understand, and even when he tries to explain the jargon, his language can still be confusing—an inability to use “small words”, as it were. While it won’t stop the determined reader from finishing the book (as I did), it does make for very, very slow reading. I found myself having to reread passages from time to time, sometimes entire sections. I would also have to go online every so often to look up what certain terms meant. While doing those things is no great hardship, it did slow me down significantly.

However, despite that issue, Domesticated is well-organised and thought out. Francis takes time to provide all the information at his disposal (the Notes and References section is substantial, to say the least), and organises it in a logical manner. This neatness of organisation and logic makes the book tolerable to read despite the difficulties the reader may have with the language. Francis also includes some personal anecdotes (the most charming include one about his cats, and another about the first time he rode on a camel), but he doesn’t focus on them overmuch; instead, he uses them as lead-ins to other, more important ideas and histories—which is precisely how any non-fiction writer worth their salt ought to use personal anecdotes in the first place, if they are not writing a memoir.

Overall, Domesticated: Evolution in a Man-made World is a fascinating and insightful read. Francis takes the time to lay out his premise, and build upon it in a logical fashion, so that by the time he makes the main point of his argument, the reader understands how he arrived at that conclusion. He is also very careful to present both sides of an argument (particularly in the last three chapters, which focus on human evolution), and although he makes it clear which side of an argument he prefers, he takes the time to outline why he thinks the way he does, and to present the other side’s points fairly and clearly.

However, despite Francis’ clear (and deeply appreciated) academic integrity and scientific insight, he doesn’t quite have the ability to write in an accessible way. His writing is riddled with jargon, and though he does try to explain that jargon in the simplest possible words, his idea of “simple” probably only applies to people with Biology degrees. While it is possible for the layperson to make it through the book with a lot of help from the Internet or a friend with the necessary knowledge, it’s still a very slow read. This may or may not put potential readers off, but I think that if one is interested—and stubborn—enough, this is a book might prove to be remarkably enjoyable.

[Igor · Rating 5 out of 5]

Книжка про те, як окремі тварини стали домашніми і які зміни у їхній генетиці, фізіології та поведінці стались у зв'язку з цим. Мені було дуже цікаво. Інколи забагато складних наукових термінів, але в перших розділах є всі визначення, треба просто надалі не забути відмінності між неотенією, педоморфізмом та гетерохронією :)

[Sara · Rating 3 out of 5]

This one was definitely a mixed bag.

I particularly enjoyed chapters on carnivore domestication (dogs, cats, foxes). Some chapters were dull and bogged down in the minutiae of genealogy and biogeography history. There were a ton of phylogenetic trees embedded in the book that weren't particularly interesting to the lay reader.

More interesting are the chapters that focus on adaptation and development and the 'how' of domestication. However, even these are bogged down a bit with unnecessary vocabulary that force you to flip back to chapters to remember what the heck he's talking about. I'm not quite sure why the author couldn't have used 'neotony' and accelerated growth instead of every iteration of 'morphosis' you can think of.

He's also bogged down by digressions and tangents about what's scientifically valid and what isn't. So and so says blah blah, do be do says yak yak, but I side with yak yak.

Some cool topics he brings up: why are raccoons semi domesticated? Why are breeds so varied? Are we self domesticated apes? (Conspicuously absent are non mammalian species- especially birds. Not sure why.)

I would recommend this if you are an animal lover and maybe can skim through the excess and tedious bits... May be challenging at times if you're not biology savvy.

[Matthew Galloway · Rating 5 out of 5]

I found this one utterly fascinating and I learned a ton. I'm not sure what to say because the summary and table of contents explain it all pretty well. It discusses the domestication of different groups of animals and how this can vary, and what traits emerged. It even discusses a theory than humans basically domesticated themselves. Of course, I was most pleased with the ferret facts. ;)

[Troy Blackford · Rating 4 out of 5]

Intriguing and deep exploration of the effects of domestication in animals, with the structure largely dictated by species. I really enjoyed this, but there were a few elements which marred my complete enjoyment and resulted in the taking of a star. Francis seems to have a beef with anybody selling more books than him, and exudes loads of skepticism about evolutionary psychology, which is his right of course. But he made claims that someone had just 'disproven' the idea of the evolvability of a 'language module,' while failing to understand (as did the people he cited) that Pinker addresses the supposed 'disproof' in a single section of a scholarly paper on the evolvability (via natural selection) of a language module: a paper that is, at this point, something like twenty-five years old. How he expects us to take his skepticism seriously when he is vociferous on topics he hasn't even looked deeply into is beyond me. If the people he cites were so bent on making a name for themselves by disproving an entrenched theory, you'd think they would have at least read one of the seminal papers advocating for the position they claim to have 'dismantled.' It would have prevented them from seeming like arrogant blowhards who didn't even understand what they were talking about.

Similarly, he demonstrates the kind of knee-jerk skepticism of the value of anything in evolutionary psychology typical of people who are evolutionists but not psychologists. Again, understandable. Totally his right to do so. But I think he would actually see the irony if a psychologist wrote a long, masterful work on some important aspect of psychology, and then ruined the quality of said book by suddenly and arbitrarily attacking some core principle of biology, making many rueful and naive mistakes about biology along the way. That he doesn't see that he has done precisely that here, in reverse, is rather grating.

Yet, shockingly, all the incredulousness he shows towards Pinker and Dawkins flies out the window when he mentions the new and constantly overblown field of 'epigenetics.' Suddenly, major claims with no supporting evidence are cool. One suspects that if the epigenetic researchers sold as many books as Dawkins, Coyne, and Pinker, however, Francis would suddenly become very skeptical about their claims, too. Remarkably, after bleating on in one of the infuriating appendices about how the new findings in epigenetics turn everything in purely gene-sequence based genetics on their head, and giving the impression that there is a massive revolution underway that will refute the importance of DNA to life, favoring instead the view that events happening to an organism throughout the lifespan 'switch on and off' huge chunks of code and thus have a profound effect, he then proffers, at the very end of the appendix, the wimpy caveat that 'Preliminary findings suggest this is more important and pronounced in plants and bacteria than animals.' The man just wrote an entire book about only animals. No domesticated plants, no domesticated bacteria. Animals. So why even talk about the revolutionary importance of epigenetics? Everybody who gets all gaga over 'epigenetics' certainly derives their excitement from the implication for animal, namely human, genetics. Yet Francis happily stokes the fires of this misapprehension, almost as if he hopes people are misinformed so that they will, in their excitement, rush to tell their friends about this shocking new theory in this crazy new book, and help him sell a few more copies.

Which is too bad, because his documentation of actual facts--not crackpot, unasked-for opinions on topics outside his domain or full-throated embracing of hairy, untested new ideas--that makes up the body of this work represents a masterful archiving of the history of domestication in animals. It is certainly worth the price of putting up with some well-meaning but off-target babblegab. I don't mean to suggest otherwise.

One other mild issue pertains to his style. His tone alternates dizzyingly between chatty and personable--relating anecdotes about his cats and camping trips--to bone-dry and technical, dropping dense professional jargon that requires attention and care from the non-specialist reader in order to decipher. I appreciated the respect for the reader that this latter quality displayed, and the information was worth working for. And his personable moments were inviting and pleasant. But one got the sense that he didn't really have an ear for transitioning between these two modes, and instead seemingly flipped some kind of 'tone switch.' It was the poor transitioning, rather than the effect of either style individually, which grated. Also, he didn't always have a deftness with turns of phrase, with many clunky sentences.

Yet, even these elements don't stop this book from being worth your time. Sure, it's not perfect, but the reason he wrote this book is his masterful knowledge on the topic of domesticated animals, and on this front--the one that really matters--Francis delivers. 'Domesticated' is a very interesting, if flawed, exploration of a topic that is fascinating and important on many levels, and I do recommend it.

You just might want to have a squeezy stress ball and a couple of pinches of salt handy when you read it.

[Sandra · Rating 5 out of 5]

A really great overview of how domestication occurred across a number of different animals (including humans). The author goes in-depth into genealogical changes that these animals experienced (some of which went over my head), along with discussing phenotypes that have emerged.

[Brendan · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5

I was drawn to this book by the cover, make no mistake here, I judge a book by its cover. My initial wonder was soon pushed aside as I realised the book moves away from the dogs evolution after the initial bulk introduction. I honestly leaped before I realised what this book was actually about, sorry Richard C. Francis.

The book moves into different domestication of species and you'll find yourself fascinated by some and utterly bored in the others. It covers a wide variety of species and I found the book a little hit and miss here, purely my opinion. The dog section was the longest, but I still wanted to focus more on this era, even the cat section could have been a little longer. I tend to enjoy books that cover more terrain and while this has some science heavy data, I felt it moves onto a new topic without allowing the reader time to digest.

Richard C. Francis clearly knows his stuff and we are met with all sorts of graphs and heavy terminologies. I won't fault the author for using words dominantly used in the field, but it does alienate your readers as you can see by the amount of reviews and ratings. The book is thick and it throws a lot of heavy science at the reader and this will be fine for the various readers in the field, but for the casual audience who unlike myself might buy the book, might feel disengaged.

Why the 3.5?

There is some interesting stuff here and after my annoyance with the lack of dog evolution, it was generally okay. I sometimes found myself yawning on certain species and to be honest the book could have been split. The finale is where I was shocked as it yet again covered my journey of man storylines, this rating went up as I was utterly engaged with this section. It was superb and a shock. If you are in the market for some interesting animal domesticated science this book will appeal to you. I enjoyed aspects of the book and for the best parts, it was interesting. I have not reviewed based on my own misgivings, that's to the side. I felt the book swayed and bored when it could have soared with a split in the middle. e.g. another book. Worth reading for certain topics, but reading everything was time consuming and in my opinion not worth it. Pick your battles and you may end up giving this book a five.

[Rena Sherwood · Rating 2 out of 5]

Well, this was a huge disappointment. The cover claims that Francis is a "natural born storyteller." No, he's not. If this was supposed to be a pop science book aimed at the masses, it missed by a country mile. It's dry as sand, full of jargon and aimed at biologists and not much else. He also has a thing against Richard Dawkins which just reads like bitching and not constructive criticism. Most of the photos are from Wikimedia Commons.

I hope someone who knows how to write winds up tackling this topic. Despite how incredibly long this book lasts (it seems to go on forever) Francis just barely scratches the surface of domestication in mammals (but not birds or fish.) He spends a long time on tangents such as his hypothesis that in 100 years raccoons will be domesticated, but there's not much other than sketchy looks at dogs, cats, cattle, reindeer, camels, sheep, goats, pigs, rats, mice, guinea pigs, ferrets and horses. Notable domesticated mammals ignored include chinchillas and rabbits.

[Asha Stark · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book made me realise how little I actually knew about my pets, despite previously thinking I knew a fair bit.

Though a little wordy at times- necessarily, given the topic; genetics- this was such an interesting book, and for anyone out there with even the most vague interest in the history of domesticated animals (and a few others!) then I would recommend this.

[Cindy Dyson Eitelman]

Dogs, cats, cows, goats, horses, mice--even mice? All were domesticated by mankind. Or more often, domesticated themselves in order to make an easy living off mankind--we may never know for sure. A certain set of physical and mental changes happened in all these animals--tameness, tolerance for crowding, neoteny, coloration changes, etc. You wouldn't think just to look at them...but there you have it. Another mammal, the racoon, may be just beginning the process of domesticating itself. Can mankind himself have undergone a similar process, as he learned to live with other humans in larger and larger societies?

Fascinating stuff, I say. He didn't include chickens or other domestic birds, but just doing mammals, gave him a heck of a lot of material to synthesize into a book. And 15 appendices. For a scientist, this guy really likes to write.

It was spiced with anecdotes and material not strictly on topic, but fascinating nonetheless. Like,

Virtually all purebred dogs have a host of genetic ailments, from narcolepsy to skeletal defects. Cancer is also rampant among purebred dogs, occurring at frequencies that in humans would be considered epidemic. Any account of a breed's characteristics includes the defects, including the particular form of cancer to which it is prone.

Why? The kennel club. The mandate of the kennel club was to

"maintain" breed standards through registries. In this it utterly failed. Rather, the effect of the kennel club was to massively scale breed divergence, by means of competitive dog shows, in which the most extreme examples of a given breed type were selectively rewarded and hence selectively bred.

The chapter on raccoons and their early steps to domestication is my favorite. And with humor,

...raccoons may have the most varied diet of any North American mammal. One consumed an entire jar of spicy mustard obtained from my campsite.

And here's a question for you--would you ever have thought of rats or mice as domesticated? Why not? A few species of them live with man and pretty much can't thrive without him. One definition of domesticate is "to adapt to live with humans." I guess the body louse goes without saying.

One of his central points is that mankind's unique success among the mammal world lies less to his intelligence than to his cooperativeness. Being smart isn't enough--it's the ability to get together and work on a common goal that made the difference. Another, less central idea (that happened to interest me), is his reminder that often biology follows culture. Consider the reduction in the muscles of the jaw and molar size that occurred after cooking caught on--biological responses to the cultural invention of cooking are examples of biological evolution driven by cultural evolution.

And for a final word of humor,

Brown rats are burrowers; black rats are arboreal and good climbers. If you find a rat in your basement, it is probably a brown rat; if you find one in the attic, it is probably a black rat. If you find an extremely small rat in either place, it is probably a mouse.

[Julia · Rating 4 out of 5]

When thinking of domesticated mammals today, you probably don't give much thought to how or why such domestication occurred. As you gaze into the eyes of your pet dog or cat you likely aren't thinking of their wild ancestors. Why were some species better candidates for domestication than others? What was the ancestral cow? Would you be surprised to learn that ferrets and guinea pigs were both domesticated more than 2,500 years ago? What species today are believed to be still in the middle of the domestication process? Though some of the genetics language undoubtedly went over my head, for fans of natural history this book is a fascinating peek into the relationships humans have forged with other mammals over millennia.

[Jaq {Gwen} · Rating 4 out of 5]

Letto per le sfide
1. Scaffali traboccanti 2022
2. Esimio sconosciuto 2022
3. Sfida libera 2022

[Dalton · Rating 4 out of 5]

Domesticated is a fascinating and engrossing read that dives into numerous subjects surrounding evolutionary traits, lineage, body physiology, and more to offer a well rounded and thoroughly researched read on the stress induced process that is man-made evolution, i.e. domestication. Still, keep a thesaurus near by as those of us not fully ingrained in the upper echelons of the scientific community may have to pause to figure out select terminology.

[Murilo Forte · Rating 5 out of 5]

“In a mere 15,000–30,000 years the selection imposed on dogs by their association with humans has caused evolutionary alterations never experienced in the canine family during the previous 40 million years.”
― Richard C Francis

[Shane Phillips · Rating 3 out of 5]

I only listened to the chapters on the animals of interest. The dog, cat and cattle were interesting. The writing is kind of dry but kinda of expected when you just list various genes, species. It does mention a lot of attributes that were over my head on details.

[Steven Meyers · Rating 3 out of 5]

If you have a keen interest in understanding how certain animals became domesticated, Mr. Francis’s ‘Domesticated’ will do the trick. However, the writing is academic and occasionally challenging for lesser mortals such as me. A dictionary or easy access to the internet will come in very handy. For example, instead of writing something like “I like both dogs and cats. Most people I know have stronger feelings for one or the other,” the author penned the following, “I have roughly equal affection for cats and dogs, which puts me in a distinct minority among people of my acquaintance; most are quite partisan in their allegiances.” It’s that kind of sentence structure throughout the thing. ‘Domesticated’ is also loaded with important scientific supercalifragilisticexpialidocious-length-like terms. It does not appear that Mr. Francis is trying to show off but simply how he typically communicates. The subject matter he is addressing does require a swim in the deeper side of the vocabulary pool even though the author is presenting a general overview of evolution in domesticating certain animals.

The book is purely a science-based look at the subject matter. He does address the how and why each animal came into the human orbit. The animals covered include dogs, cats, ferrets, pigs, cattle, sheep, goats, reindeer, camels, horses, guinea pigs, mice, rats, and… wait for it… humans. Except for people, all of them began as a meat source. Mr. Francis explains how religious beliefs affected our view of animals as well as how various cultures changed throughout the millennia. Many of our feelings about these animals depend upon where you live in the world. Some of the writing was amusing such as when he described his first (and only) travel by camel and the history behind Christmas traditions, especially flying reindeer. The man is not sarcastic but his analytical approach will likely tick off more religiously inclined readers and will likely cause Creationists to think Mr. Francis is a tool of the devil. The book includes photos, illustrations, and charts that are scattered throughout the work. Sizeable chunks of ‘Domesticated’ involve chemical explanations and evolutionary nomenclature like commensalism, phenotypic plasticity, and paedomorphosis. While the book shows there is oodles of solid evidence supporting evolution and the body of evidence continues to grow, there is also quite a bit of disagreement between scientists involving various scientific hypotheses… as it should be. 'Domesticated' was published in 2016.

I found the book highly informative but outside my intellectual comfort zone. I don’t pretend to be the smartest guy in the room but I’m not hovering around with a Homer-Simpson-level of intelligence either. ‘Domesticated’ was work for me. On the plus side, it answered a lot of questions I had about domesticated animals. On the minus side, I think all that effort reading it broke my brain. I need a new one.

[P.S. I also recommend two other nonfiction works that you may find interesting. In the area of human evolution, Yuval Noah Harari’s ‘Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind’ is excellent. Also, in Chapter 14, the author mentions a story about a Mainer named Christopher Knight who left his home in 1986, walked into the nearby woods, and intentionally avoided human contact for the next 27 years. A more detailed account is given about Mr. Knight in Michael Finkel’s wonderful ‘A Stranger in the Woods: The Extraordinary Story of the Last True Hermit.’]

[Buck Wilde · Rating 3 out of 5]

Dense and too long, but very interesting. I learned a lot of big-kid science, which you don't always get with pop science books. The chapters on dogs, horses, and primates were easily the most interesting, although it seemed to lose a little steam toward the end.

I'm over the self absorbed academic jargon, too. I understand it when you need to use vocabulary specific to the subject, but shoehorning it into what's supposed to be relatable accounts in your life is pompous and embarrassing.

"We had camel drivers with sticks with us. They employed the latter to go down the rocky escarpments."

I'm okay with escarpments, but "the latter"? We get it, Neil Tyson. You're smart. Rein it the fuck in.

[Daphne · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've been waiting for this book to be released, and grabbed it the first day. I savored each chapter - one a day. The exploration of each type of domesticated animal (humans included) was very well done. It was smart to give each their own chapter. Just enough of the personal life/experience researching the book was added by Francis.

I must admit - I really, really disliked the narrator chosen. He has a quite annoying and nasally voice. It sounded like it was practically read by a computer.

Narration aside, AWESOME book. Highly recommend this one to my science minded Goodreads friends.

[Elentarri · Rating 5 out of 5]

Extremely interesting, beautifully written book about the domestication of animals - dogs, cats, cattle, camels, reindeer, rodents, sheep, goats, horses and humans. Author anecdotes are kept to a minimum and when included are actually relevant to the science being discussed. Now the author just needs to do a similar book on the domestication of plants. :)

[Dewayne Stark · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very interesting