Dogs invented modern humans.

[three4jump]

Dogs domesticated themselves 15,000 years ago. Wolves would have been impossible to domesticate. (As an experiment, you might try to tame a wild wolf.) When humans began to live in settlements, after the advent of agriculture, they also invented the garbage pile. Wolves that could tolerate proximity to humans were selected for, and gradually--although it was very rapid in evolutionary terms, possibly less than fifty years--a new species of wolf was born: the dog.

This dog helped humans in many ways. He offered protection: dog ears can detect an intruder long before a human. Help with hunting: a dog can locate and track prey much better than a human. Then the human uses tools to kill the animal, resulting in more succesful hunting for both the human and the dog. Domesticating other animals: sheep and goats would have been impossible to domesticate by humans alone. The agility of dogs is necessary to herd them in their natural rocky, hilly terrain.

Jared Diamond's book Guns, Germs, and Steel is really based on the work that dogs did to make guns, germs and steel possible. Europeans owed their resistance to disease to their long association with domesticated animals, and none of the other animals would have been domesticated if dogs hadn't domesticated themselves first. Similarly, humans wouldn't have had the free time to make steel or guns if they didn't have an economy based on domesticated livestock.

So, everything you enjoy about life would never have been possible if not for some wolves who chose to become dogs. It's only fitting that dogs rule the world today, sleeping on the couch all day while humans work to provide them with comfy homes and treats and toys. It's a dog's world, and you're just living in it.

[llanitedave]

I'd give it longer than a 50 year transition, but other than that, I think you have a pretty fine argument!

[three4jump]

I would have guessed a much longer period, too. According to the very interesting Nature program, Dogs that Change the World, (http://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/dog/)Dimitri Bulayev (sp?) tamed russian foxes in less than ten years, and as he selected for tameness, various other traits changed along with the tameness, such as coat color and ear length. So, when the wolves "selected themselves" for tameness, many of the dog-like features were incidentally selected at the same time.

[Clivedurdle]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unclean_animals

Dogs
Dogs are considered unclean according to some who study Islamic law. However, a Saluki, such as above, is in some cases cherished by Muslims.
Dogs are considered unclean according to some who study Islamic law. However, a Saluki, such as above, is in some cases cherished by Muslims.

Dogs are mentioned in the holy book of Islam the Quran several times e.g. in the main story of sura 18 where a dog is a companion of the dwellers of the Cave. The Quran also tells that it is permissible to eat what trained dogs catch (5:4). Nevertheless, many Islamic teachers state dogs should be considered unclean and that Muslims licked by them must perform purification. According to Hadith, anything a dog touches must be washed seven times, the final time in dust[12]. Some religious traditions hold that if a dog passes in front of someone preparing to pray, that it pollutes their purity and negates the prayer.

This view is contested by many modern scholars of the Qu'ran. Dr. Khaled Abou El Fadl, professor of Islamic Law at UCLA, says this zealous adherence to doctrine led one religious authority to advise a Muslim that his pet dog was evil and should be driven away by cutting off its food and water.[13]

Another exception appears to be made by the Bedouin in the case of the Saluki. They are allowed in the tents and considered special companions. It has been said that the Bedouin will never sell a Saluki, but will give one as a special and precious gift.[14]

[edit]

Different cultures have very different attitudes to dogs. What cultures have considered them gods?

[Boro Nut]

Different cultures have very different attitudes to dogs. What cultures have considered them gods?Korean I think.

Boro Nut

Oh sorry, I thought you said a bit chewy.

[skepticalbip]

Different cultures have very different attitudes to dogs. What cultures have considered them gods?Well the ancient Egyptians did have the god Anubis and they mummified dogs and buried dogs with some ceremony:

http://home.att.net/~mysticalgate/graphics/SANUBIS9.jpg

And there are many in the US who consider and treat their dogs as family members.

[David B]

You could also make a case - could you not? - for claiming that cows invented modern humans.

Those who are not milk intolerant, anyway.

Those who have a degree of immunity to smallpox, as well.

David B

[three4jump]

You could also make a case - could you not? - for claiming that cows invented modern humans.

Those who are not milk intolerant, anyway.

Those who have a degree of immunity to smallpox, as well.

David B

That is the case that Jared Diamond makes, basically. The dog invented the cow, or the possibility of the cow, by first becoming tame and then helping humans to herd and protect cows from other predators.

[David B]

That is the case that Jared Diamond makes, basically. The dog invented the cow, or the possibility of the cow, by first becoming tame and then helping humans to herd and protect cows from other predators.

Co-evolution is a wonderful thing - but so complex it's really hard to quantify.

David B

[Chuck Rightmire]

Actually, dogs didn't wait until we settled in villages to make friends with us. They settled in with hunter-gatherers first and only came into the villages when we did. And, according to some, they helped stave off hunger by becoming food at times. Some people still eat dog, but I find that something I would only do, if at all, to stave off death. And who wrote "A Boy and His Dog" (I'm not sure the title is right).:notworthy:

[toth8]

Dogs domesticated themselves 15,000 years ago. Wolves would have been impossible to domesticate. (As an experiment, you might try to tame a wild wolf.) When humans began to live in settlements, after the advent of agriculture, they also invented the garbage pile. Wolves that could tolerate proximity to humans were selected for, and gradually--although it was very rapid in evolutionary terms, possibly less than fifty years--a new species of wolf was born: the dog.

This dog helped humans in many ways. He offered protection: dog ears can detect an intruder long before a human. Help with hunting: a dog can locate and track prey much better than a human. Then the human uses tools to kill the animal, resulting in more succesful hunting for both the human and the dog. Domesticating other animals: sheep and goats would have been impossible to domesticate by humans alone. The agility of dogs is necessary to herd them in their natural rocky, hilly terrain.

Jared Diamond's book Guns, Germs, and Steel is really based on the work that dogs did to make guns, germs and steel possible. Europeans owed their resistance to disease to their long association with domesticated animals, and none of the other animals would have been domesticated if dogs hadn't domesticated themselves first. Similarly, humans wouldn't have had the free time to make steel or guns if they didn't have an economy based on domesticated livestock.

So, everything you enjoy about life would never have been possible if not for some wolves who chose to become dogs. It's only fitting that dogs rule the world today, sleeping on the couch all day while humans work to provide them with comfy homes and treats and toys. It's a dog's world, and you're just living in it.

Modern humans evolved in Africa circa 150,000 years ago. What did dogs have to do with that?

Maybe you mean that dogs led to human technology. But that's different from saying dogs created humans.

[SophistiCat]

Dogs may have invented husbandry, but cats invented cultivation, which is when things really got going - so there :p

[Copernic]

Dogs may have invented husbandry, but cats invented cultivation, which is when things really got going - so there :p

Yes, because once you can learn to tame and manage a cat, you're not far away from conquering the known galaxy.

[David B]

Yes, because once you can learn to tame and manage a cat, you're not far away from conquering the known galaxy.

Hmm. I suspect that conquering the galaxy is more likely to occur than taming and managing a cat.

David B

[espritch]

Actually, dogs didn't wait until we settled in villages to make friends with us. They settled in with hunter-gatherers first and only came into the villages when we did. And, according to some, they helped stave off hunger by becoming food at times. Some people still eat dog, but I find that something I would only do, if at all, to stave off death. And who wrote "A Boy and His Dog" (I'm not sure the title is right).:notworthy:

Harlan Ellison (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harlan_Ellison).

[fromdownunder]

Yes, because once you can learn to tame and manage a cat, you're not far away from conquering the known galaxy.

Taming a cat? I have been owned by enough cats in my life to know that I would be more likely to accept the Christian god than believe that this is remotely conceivable.

Norm

[EricK]

Dogs domesticated themselves 15,000 years ago. Wolves would have been impossible to domesticate. (As an experiment, you might try to tame a wild wolf.)

According to the very interesting Nature program, Dogs that Change the World, (http://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/dog/)Dimitri Bulayev (sp?) tamed russian foxes in less than ten years, and as he selected for tameness, various other traits changed along with the tameness, such as coat color and ear length.

Would wolves have been impossible to domesticate? This guy managed it with foxes.

Note that creating a domesticated version of the wolf by selective breeding (equivalent to the experiment done with silver foxes) is not the same thing as taming a wild wolf.

[Iacchus]

It's only fitting that dogs rule the world today, sleeping on the couch all day while humans work to provide them with comfy homes and treats and toys. It's a dog's world, and you're just living in it.Not in my house.

[travc]

Would wolves have been impossible to domesticate? This guy managed it with foxes.

Note that creating a domesticated version of the wolf by selective breeding (equivalent to the experiment done with silver foxes) is not the same thing as taming a wild wolf.

It would probably be "possible", but it wouldn't be easy. There are certain traits, mostly behavioural, which make some species easy to domesticate/tame, others very difficult. Anyway, the predicesor to the "dog" was almost certainly a "wolf", but a central asian species which almost certainly no longer exists and probably had a different temperament from most extant wolf species.

An example given by Diamond is the zebra vs the horse. Zebras are just too high strung to make domestication practical. You would have to go through several generations of hard selective breeding before getting a "useful" animal. You can imagine why this would not be very likely to happen in a pre-scientific society, and even in today it is too troublesome to be practical.

One interesting aspect is that the vast majority of domesticated species come from the middle east or central asia. Anyway, I don't buy Diamond's theory on this... instead it is probably an artifact of where agriculture first arose combined with good luck with respect to the native species (which is probably why that is where agriculture first arose, chicken meet egg).

Anyway, back to dogs... Dogs seem really good at reading and conveying emotions to humans. I used to think this was just people projecting / anthropomorphizing, but now I'm of the opinion it is real. The co-evolutionary history is long enough, and the benefits significant enough.

Oh, one more point. Humans and dogs are both pack animals. So incorporating each other into social groups and hunting parties doesn't take too much. The hunting thing is a bit odd though... people (obviously I'm talking about primitive, not dudes with guns) and dogs hunt in very very similar ways. I wonder just how much hunting tactics people learned from dogs and how much is just convergent... dogs don't differ too much from wild wolves with respect to hunting, so it appears they didn't really learn too much from humans.

[Clivedurdle]

Romulus and Remus

The story of the twins, sons of the god of War, Mars. In the legend Romulus and Remus are orphaned when their mother, Silvia is imprisoned and the infants are cast into the Tiber River. They are set ashore under a fig tree and found by a she wolf and a woodpecker, animals that are sacred to Mars. The twins are fed and nursed by the animals, until Faustulus, the king's herdsman finds them and raises them with his wife. They left home to found their new kingdom on the shores of that same river where they had many years before begun their legendary lives.

As children will often do, Romulus and Remus could agree upon neither the location of the new city nor a name for it. It was during this strife that Romulus killed his twin, and thereupon built the new settlement.


So Rome, and its delinquent child - xianity - are the result of wolves...

http://www.wolfcountry.net/information/myth_stories/romulusandremus.html

[Underseer]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unclean_animals



Different cultures have very different attitudes to dogs. What cultures have considered them gods?

I think the Ainu people of northern Japan consider all animals to be gods (although obviously their concept of "gods" is radically different given that they eat animals :) ).

[Vampyroteuthis]

I think the Ainu people of northern Japan consider all animals to be gods (although obviously their concept of "gods" is radically different given that they eat animals :) ).

Don't Christians eat their god too? :devil1:

[Smohg]

So, everything you enjoy about life would never have been possible if not for some wolves who chose to become dogs.

Chose to become dogs? You make it sound like evolution is a choice.

[Underseer]

Don't Christians eat their god too? :devil1:

I'm pretty sure that's just Catholics and Anglicans.

[three4jump]

Chose to become dogs? You make it sound like evolution is a choice.

Are you saying that you can't figure out my meaning from the context of the post? Or are you just reveling in the opportunity to point out an imprecise use of language?

By saying that it was their choice, I am emphasizing that it wasn’t a case of us targeting a species for domestication and forcing them to submit, as was the case with many subsequent domestications. I am of course not suggesting that wolves were aware of how evolution works.

[Catherine Bain]

It isn't just dogs. Cereals and many other plants evolved to encourage homo sapiens to devote a huge amount of effort dispersing their seeds around the globe at the expense of less adaptable species.

Read The Botany of Desire: A Plant's-Eye View of the World by Michael Pollan (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Botany_of_Desire)
to explore this theme in fascinating detail.