> The study of genetics had been essentially banned in the USSR, as the country's dictator Joseph Stalin sought to discredit the genetic principles set out by Gregor Mendel. Stalin's death in 1953 gave scientists more freedom, but in the early years Belyaev nevertheless worked under the cover that he was breeding foxes to make better fur coats.
Also, it mentions 50 generations:
> "The fox farm experiment was crucial, in that it told us that domestication can happen relatively quickly in the right circumstances," he says. "The fact that in fifty generations, they were wagging their tails and barking, this is really incredible."
Michurin's work was appropriated by the antiscientific ideology of Lysenkoism which Stalin favored. Also there are lots of places named after Michurin, for example there are multiple neighborhoods named "Michurin's gardens" in the city I'm from.
They 'culled' (which means killed) the animals that were not tame enough. And continued doing it for 40 years, it seems.
this is a kind of experiment I would have prohibited totally.
"...
Only those foxes that showed tolerance for the nearness of people were selected and bred to produce the next generation, while fearful or aggressive animals were culled.
..."
Hiding the research as breeding 'better' foxes for fur is fine with you? That's what those culled have been used for.
Now we can discuss whether such an approach is immoral on its own, but we should probably get off our high modern horses and judge things from perspective of given era. And breeding animals for fur was totally acceptable. In fact, it still is in all countries on earth and for some time will be.
Btw are you vegan to have at least some grounds to claim any moral superiority to that research?
I do eat meat. And I understand where it comes from.
I should not be judging hunters, live stock growers, or breeders culling unsuccessful breeds, or wale hunters...
I guess part of me was thinking why could not they just relocate the other foxes like 500 miles away and let them live. Russia (even without USSR) still has like 11 time zones of land. It is enormous.
Perhaps, for a moment, I assumed that I had a know-how and was asked to be a 'moral authority', 'ethics luminary' and a re-born principles activist (especially when it affects others, but not me)
I am probably not the only one who fell into that mind set, even momentarily.
But @saya-jin you are right,
there is nothing that indicated that animals were tortured, and I should not have judged how they were 'culled'.
Thank you for mentioning that. I got part of this story from a Dutch book "De meeste mensen deugen" by Rutger Bergman.
> this is a kind of experiment I would have prohibited totally.
You mean it'd be prohibited or that you'd prohibit it?
What we do hourly to the population of chicken and cow is much more violent and genocidal than the culling you mention. It serves no scientific purpose either; only because 1) we've grown accustomed to eating so much meat 2) there are so many humans on Earth.
Dogs have 76 chromosomes whereas tigers (and most other cats) have only 38. That makes it far easier for breeders to target specific characteristics in dogs.
Regarding "banned", the article mentions:
> The study of genetics had been essentially banned in the USSR, as the country's dictator Joseph Stalin sought to discredit the genetic principles set out by Gregor Mendel. Stalin's death in 1953 gave scientists more freedom, but in the early years Belyaev nevertheless worked under the cover that he was breeding foxes to make better fur coats.
Also, it mentions 50 generations:
> "The fox farm experiment was crucial, in that it told us that domestication can happen relatively quickly in the right circumstances," he says. "The fact that in fifty generations, they were wagging their tails and barking, this is really incredible."