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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

#141

Post by astrange »

barry-cotter wrote: post #137
astrange wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Skin color is a useful adaptation to getting enough Vitamin D and folate but predicts approximately nothing else about you or your genes, or how related you are to people with different skin color. A single generation more of population mixing and you can have a direct sibling with a completely different appearance.

All that is true. How does it relate to the possibility or not of large differences between human populations? Interbreeding will reduce variation extremely quickly but we know reproductive isolation was very high between continents for a very long time. Even individual villages in India have jatis that have been living next to each other for centuries that haven’t interbred for over 1,000 years.

Genes run in families, not villages. How are the traits spreading across the entire population in that 1000 years enough to make the "large difference" instead of being averaged out again? Existing cases of that are founder effects or mating with someone truly different like a Denisovan[0].

More importantly this knowledge would be useless if you found it, because the only reason to know things is to make predictions, and this doesn't let you predict anything about the next generation. We're in modernity now and they can just move somewhere else.

[0] which funny enough isn't considered a subspecies and doesn't have a Latin name because the scientist who discovered them thinks Latin names are pretentious.

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

#142

Post by TameAntelope »

barry-cotter wrote: post #139
TameAntelope wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> And none of this has anything whatsoever to do with the cultural concept of race. Quite true. Race is a useless and imprecise term and it’s a pity you felt the need to start talking about it. The clustering of traits among human ancestry population groups and the reasons for that don’t need that baggage.

I didn't start talking about it, you did when you started talking about "Swedes" and "Tibetans".

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

#143

Post by barry-cotter »

User23 wrote: post #138
barry-cotter wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> humans were not bred like dogs That the selection pressures on dogs were due to humans performing artificial selection and those on humans due to the environment does not mean that they weren’t both selection pressures. Thus brown ancestors to the very pale Swedes.

Many, if not most, human populations spent the majority of their existence with some kind of arranged marriage system. I wouldn't say "bred like dogs" because it's insulting, but human mating and procreation isn't remotely random. This is true even in societies that no longer practice arranged marriages.

> Many, if not most, human populations spent the majority of their existence with some kind of arranged marriage system.

We’re only confident agriculture has existed for ~5,000 years. Hunter gatherers don’t have the kinds of complex societies that can do organized coercion in a sustained way over generations. Even if you restrict yourself to post agriculture arranged marriage is far from universal and there’s no evidence I’m aware of of a sustained breeding programme selecting for some trait among humans.

Not random and selectively bred work at very different speeds.

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

#144

Post by ensan »

randomblast wrote: post #127
0x737368 wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

"peer-reviewed long term study"

This is not a silver bullet, even for recently published Nature/Science papers. You need to convince 3-4 people to get your paper published in the end. For many controversial papers, there is a lot of back and forth about the validity of the results (e.g., "Matters Arising" in Nature).

The biggest flaw of this study is relying on subjective reports by the owners. Almost all dog owners I know are used to playing down the severity of their dog's aggressiveness.

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

#145

Post by giantg2 »

synaesthesisx wrote: post #29

To be frank, this "study" is absurd & invalid, and there is 100% an association between breed and behavior (we literally breed dogs for certain behavioral traits!). On that topic, I realize it's controversial but think pitbulls should be banned outright - they are responsible for the majority of fatal dog-related attacks and there is a wealth of evidence indicating that they are not a desirable breed. https://www.red…

If you want to ban pitbulls, look at the others in the study about risk rates by breed. If you ban pitbulls they'll likely be replaced by some of these and they would need to be banned as well. Of course, in the name of the environment we could ban dog ownership altogether making this a moot discussion, right?

"Number of different breeds with similar risk rates for dog bite-related fatalities (DBRFs) including: Malamutes, Chow Chows, Saint Bernards, Huskies, Great Danes, Rottweilers, Doberman Pinschers, Mastiffs, Pitbull-Type dogs, Akitas, German Shepherds, and Bulldogs."

https://www.fataldogattacks.org/

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

#146

Post by tsol »

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…

>Religion works on faith. Scientists bring facts.

What does religion have to do with this? I didn't say to to rely on faith, rely on the scientific institution that already came to a concensus a long time ago. The studies are out there, if you want to see proof. Just because I don't have them on hand doesn't mean they don't exist and need to be taken on faith

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

#148

Post by robonerd »

astrange wrote: post #119
_aavaa_ wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe that means something different to me than it does to you, but you definitely can make predictions about individuals. Is that not what a prior? If I hear that someone is 12 years old and I know nothing else about them, then assuming their height is the mode for that age group is as good of a prediction as you can make.

A more important point is that the instant you meet someone, you have far more information about them than knowing their genetics would give you. So it'd be strange to meet a Dutch person and go "hah, by your genetics I predict you're 190cm tall" if you're looking at them and they're short.

Yeah, but sometimes friendly looking dogs aren't so friendly. There are some general signs you can look for in a dog's body language and behavior, but unless you've spent a lot of time with that dog you just don't know for sure.

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

#149

Post by 0x737368 »

randomblast wrote: post #127
0x737368 wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

I was going to write up a lengthy reply arguing each of your points and then I realised your argument is just sophisms and nitpicking.

If you have to argue that:

- you actually need a PhD in dog psychology(or whatever "understanding dog behaviour" means) to have this specific breed

- that pretty much "yes breed determines traits and behaviours but also doesn't!"

- conflating play fighting with very pit bull specific action of biting down and shaking(a technique bred into them for bloodsports) to prove that no, pit bulls are actually not so dangerous and just like any other breed

...to prove that pitbulls aren't potentially inherently dangerous then I can't take your argument seriously.

Just the fact that pitbulls being a minority of the dog population in the US and UK and still causing the majority of maulings and dog attack fatalities should be evidence enough that something's fishy.

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

#150

Post by robonerd »

TameAntelope wrote: post #108
dymk wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it just means the breed ban isn't being enforced.

How does a dog that isn't a banned breed killing someone mean a breed ban isn't getting enforced?

The dogs are banned but the bans are flagrantly flaunted and because of that, the dogs are still killing people.
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