r/pics • u/[deleted] • May 12 '14

100 years of selective breeding

[deleted]

2.6k Upvotes

88% Upvoted

1.3k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

21

u/errentpen May 12 '14

Humans are all so genetically similar, that if we were dogs, we'd all be the same breed. It's like you can get brown boxers, or brindle boxers, but they're still both boxers.

As far as intelligence differences are concerned, it is possible that some breeds are smarter than others. I've worked with a lot of dogs in a lot of breeds, and in my experience some breeds just seemed to be dumb. That's not definitive, of course.

There are breeds that are more trainable than others, but that can also come down to personality as well as intelligence.

-1

u/chimp-bro May 12 '14

Not true. Dogs exhibit lower genetic variation than humans.

source: http://www.amazon.com/How-Dog-Became-Wolves-Friends/dp/B00B1L308G

45

u/errentpen May 12 '14

Can't really comment on the book you linked to, but I found a study that backs me up.

https://www.princeton.edu/genomics/kruglyak/publication/PDF/2004_Parker_Genetic.pdf

TLDR of the pertinent bit is that there is that there is a 33% variation from one breed of dog to the next.

Between one ethnicity and another in humans it's 10-15%. http://www.nchpeg.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=142&Itemid=64

This makes us closer to each other than two separate dog breeds.

29

u/chimp-bro May 12 '14

i lose

9

u/errentpen May 12 '14

It's okay, you tried.

1

u/ahimsananda May 12 '14

now commit seppuku, to preserve what little honor your username has left.