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Study of pet dogs shows breed does not predict behaviour

nature.com

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Re: Study of pet dogs shows breed does not predict behaviour

#121

Post by astrange »

daenz wrote: post #51
InitialLastName wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For sure, but again, that's a characteristic that is enabled by a physical difference. Literally nobody here is saying there's no physical difference between breeds of dog.

You would be surprised. I worked with a fellow that wouldn't acknowledge that there is a height difference in the average man's height and the average woman's height, because "everyone is different and there's no such thing as an 'average' man and an 'average' woman." To people that reason that way, anecdotes trump averages, and a very small pitbull and a very large corgi are proof that patterns are meaningless.

It's quite true that some distributions have no members of their average value.

https://www.thestar.com/news/insight/2016/01/16/when-us-air-...

Re: Study of pet dogs shows breed does not predict behaviour

#122

Post by barry-cotter »

TameAntelope wrote: post #118
User23 wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It absolutely is if there is a severe population bottleneck that selects for some trait in the survivors.

...which has never happened in human history. Bottlenecks? Yes. Bottlenecks that selected specifically for a specific gene? No.

Tibetans and Andeans both have adaptations for living at high altitudes. The Tibetan ones are better because they come from Denisovans, predating the existence of modern humans. There’s been massive positive selection on lactose persistence. 5,000 years ago no human adults could digest lactase. The differences in diabetes among human populations track closely with length of time they have been using agriculture.

Re: Study of pet dogs shows breed does not predict behaviour

#123

Post by TameAntelope »

barry-cotter wrote: post #117
TameAntelope wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 5,000 years ago there were no people who looked like Swedes. Now there are because of selection pressures. 100% false. You need to realize that. 5,000 years is not enough time to do anything significant, genetically.

Are you saying that there have always been people who looked like Swedes in Sweden? Because from my reading of the literature 5,000 years ago there people living there had blue eyes but dark hair and a complexion we’d associate with Mediterranean peoples. Most dog breeds were created in less than 150 years. Call it 150 generations. 5,000 years is 200 generations at 25 years per generation. Enough time to change quite…

There is no such thing as a genetic "Swede". Literally every trait you could name is neither exclusive on its own or in any particular combination with Swedish people.

And no, humans were not bred like dogs, so your math is both offensive and completely useless.

At this point I'm beginning to think you're being intentionally hateful.

Re: Study of pet dogs shows breed does not predict behaviour

#124

Post by TameAntelope »

barry-cotter wrote: post #122
TameAntelope wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

...which has never happened in human history. Bottlenecks? Yes. Bottlenecks that selected specifically for a specific gene? No.

Tibetans and Andeans both have adaptations for living at high altitudes. The Tibetan ones are better because they come from Denisovans, predating the existence of modern humans. There’s been massive positive selection on lactose persistence. 5,000 years ago no human adults could digest lactase. The differences in diabetes among human populations track closely with length of time they have been using agriculture.

That is not an example of a bottleneck, nor is it an example of a genetic adaptation occurring recently, as both happened more than ten thousand years ago.

And none of this has anything whatsoever to do with the cultural concept of race. There are people who are not "Tibetans" who have this genetic adaptation, and there are "Tibetans" who do not have this genetic adaptation.

Further, the pairing of this genetic trait with other genetic traits does not exist. Having this genetic trait does not make you more likely to have a set of other genetic traits, and none of the genetic traits add up to a specific "Tibetan" set of features or traits, all of which you would need to have to be called "Tibetan".

There is no such thing as "genetic race".

Re: Study of pet dogs shows breed does not predict behaviour

#125

Post by astrange »

barry-cotter wrote: post #105
tsol wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see how one leads to another. The effect of living in Australia on a population of humans is entirely different than the effect of selectively being breeding dogs to be small and obedient. Just because both circumstances can exert selective pressure does not mean they are the same. Humans the world over, despite different geographies, have the same problems to contend with-- that's not the same thing as what…

I’m not saying there are differences in (pick a trait, any trait). I’m saying that anyone who tells you that differences don’t exist has to prove it. Rice farming is a very different way of life to pastoralist is very different to hoe agriculture is very different to hunting and gathering. Some populations have been following the ~same lifestyle for over a thousand years. There’s no principled reason that can’t cause…

The main reason differences don't exist is that the group of people they always want to claim has the differences (black people) aren't genetically related to each other and have more diversity than the rest of humanity.

Re: Study of pet dogs shows breed does not predict behaviour

#126

Post by User23 »

TameAntelope wrote: post #124
barry-cotter wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tibetans and Andeans both have adaptations for living at high altitudes. The Tibetan ones are better because they come from Denisovans, predating the existence of modern humans. There’s been massive positive selection on lactose persistence. 5,000 years ago no human adults could digest lactase. The differences in diabetes among human populations track closely with length of time they have been using agriculture.

That is not an example of a bottleneck, nor is it an example of a genetic adaptation occurring recently, as both happened more than ten thousand years ago. And none of this has anything whatsoever to do with the cultural concept of race. There are people who are not "Tibetans" who have this genetic adaptation, and there are "Tibetans" who do not have this genetic adaptation. Further, the pairing of this genetic trait…

Please stop violating the HN guidelines. I get that you're emotional about the subject and have a religious zeal for it, but that's no excuse for name-calling.

There is no evidence that anyone you're replying to is writing in bad faith. They may be wrong, although you've failed to show that in any way that satisfies intellectual curiosity, but that doesn't justify personal attacks and slimy rhetoric[1].

[1] http://coolhaus.de/art-of-controversy/erist32.htm

Re: Study of pet dogs shows breed does not predict behaviour

#127

Post by randomblast »

0x737368 wrote: post #110
randomblast wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Correlation is not causation. There could be plenty of reasons why pitbulls feature highly in the dog attack stats (severity making attacks more noteworthy, type of owner increasing likelihood, stigma causing human behavioural changes making a self-fulfilling prophecy). There is no evidence that genetics is a direct cause of dangerous behaviour.

> There is no evidence that genetics is a direct cause of dangerous behaviour. Haha, I'm sorry but this is hilariously false. All other working-dog breeds have genetically ingrained behaviours that no one teachers them - retrievers retrieve without anyone teaching them, border collies corral ducks and children without anyone teaching them, pointers point without anyone teaching them. However pitbulls are always the o…

Kind and caring != understands dog behaviour. 99.999% of agonistic behaviour is driven by fear. What a normal person thinks is a kind & caring behaviour can be terrifying for a dog.

Non-pointers point. Some pointer don't.

Non-retreivers retrieve. Some retreivers don't.

Non-herding dogs herd. Some herders don't.

Most dogs play-fight. "Fighting dogs" have to be trained to fight to kill.

Breeding is clearly a fantastic determinant of physical characteristics which pair well with the desired behaviour, and does contribute a little bit towards behavioural instinct, but (as per the *peer-reviewed long term study* in question) isn't on its own a good predictor of behaviour.

The ~.001%, by the way, is termed idiopathic aggression (sometimes called cocker rage, but again is NOT actually well-correlated with cocker spaniels). Idiopathic means of unknown cause.

Re: Study of pet dogs shows breed does not predict behaviour

#128

Post by kbelder »

TameAntelope wrote: post #21
bpodgursky wrote: post #11

This is one of those studies where the conclusion is so obviously wrong that I don't even want to open it, and it makes me discount the credibility of Nature overall.

Trusting your gut over a paper published in Nature. Bold move! Some people would use this as a moment to question what they know about dog breeds, but you choose to double down on your beliefs. Very human of you! [0][1][2][3] [0] https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-pathways-experie... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belief_perseverance [2] http://aphilosopher.drmcl.com/2015/12/11/doubling-down/ [3] https://…

>Trusting your gut over a paper published in Nature. Bold move!

Not really bold, just sensible and rational when there is a large amount of evidence the paper is wrong. After all, many papers are found to be wrong. I believe there was even a study that measured the ability of people to predict which papers would turn out to be not replicable... I'll try to find a link to that and post it here.

Re: Study of pet dogs shows breed does not predict behaviour

#129

Post by thephyber »

I’m curious how the method of collecting data is biased away from dogs who are less likely to be talked/bragged about by their owners. Also, that suggests it is likely more likely to represent a person’s/family’s _current_ dog and to ignore previous dogs. Dogs which are given back, thrown away, currently homeless, in a rescue organization, or were put down are likely to not be represented in this survey. Those are likely to have less breed-predictable temperaments, so I would assume the results here are a ceiling, not necessarily accurate.

Re: Study of pet dogs shows breed does not predict behaviour

#130

Post by astrange »

User23 wrote: post #112
TameAntelope wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All of those people you've named can and do look like one another, depending on circumstance. Every trait you can think of that you'd list as a "characteristic" of one of the groups you've named can be found in abundance in numerous other places as well, or accounted for due to environmental factors. There is no "canonical" "Swede" or "Arab". Your reliance on stereotype is not only racist but it's factually wrong. Th…

> Race does not exist, genetically. Period. And yet ancestry.com can comfortably tell anyone which continental scale human population or populations they are descended from and that happens to map pretty neatly to the US Census Bureau's notion of race. Being aware that major geographic features of the Earth such as the Atlantic Ocean, the Himalayas, and the Sahara Desert were more or less impermeable barriers to gene…

It can tell you which ancestral population you come from decently well, not totally accurately - on 23andMe "French & German" is a group but has really poor recall, and "Latin American" is not a group nor "Aboriginal Australian" despite how possible they look.

But that's just clustering and it would work on any random groups you chose. In particular, it would still work if they picked a group where none of the members were related to each other (and indeed that's how it works now). As long as you're related to one of them it'd still be able to show you're a member of it.

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