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Are Dogs Friendly Because of a Genetic Defect? Article Says Yes, I Say No

jbg

Active Member
This article (link) takes this position
Inside Science said:
(Inside Science) -- When it comes to sheer friendliness, few humans can match the average dog. But people with Williams syndrome may come close, their unusual genetics granting them a puppyish zeal for social interaction. Now, scientists have found that extreme friendliness in both species may share common genetic roots.

A friendly condition
Williams syndrome, also known as Williams-Beuren syndrome, occurs when people are missing of a chunk of DNA containing about 27 genes. The syndrome affects about one in 10,000 people, and it is associated with a suite of mental and physical traits, including bubbly, extroverted personalities, a broad forehead, full cheeks, heart defects, intellectual disability and an affinity for music.

*********

One gene that popped out was WBSCR17, suggesting that it or other genes near it were important in dog evolution. This region of the genome is similar in dogs and humans, and the human version of WBSCR17 is located near the sequence that is deleted in people with Williams syndrome.
This experimenter may do great things in a lab but obviously he doesn't know dogs or cats. Dogs can sense in a minute if a person likes or dislikes dogs. Dogs, in general, warm up fast to the former. This scientist also has not met too many people with Williams Syndrome. I have met some. They are oblivious to people's reactions to them and their behavior.

Most dogs are hardly oblivious. Certain breeds will handle it differently. A Golden Retriever will just look for people more willing to engage with them. Other breeds are more likely to get aggressive.
The trouble with science is that what works in the lab often fails miserable outside.
 

PureX

Veteran Member
That "defect" has increased their numbers and their longevity by leaps and bounds. And isn't that how the reproductive system is supposed to work?
 

jbg

Active Member
That "defect" has increased their numbers and their longevity by leaps and bounds. And isn't that how the reproductive system is supposed to work?
I think that whatever evolutionary trick happened worked. Humans were just better to form a pack with than other wolves. Humans of course unwittingly accelerated the process by driving of or killing wolves that attempted to prey on them. Humans of course fed and nurtured the "friendly" among them, leading to the adorable, useful animals we now know..

Williams Disease does not confer an evolutionary advantage, since that would render the dog friendly to any mortal enemies it has.
 

Valjean

Veteran Member
Premium Member
Is there a link to the original article?

Behavior may be influenced by experience, but nurture-based behavior is written onto a hard-wired, inborn psychology. Your comments on different breeds having different tendencies tacitly concedes this.

Canine friendliness does seem to be a thing. We don't see it in other domestic animals to the extent we do with dogs, and it's likely multi-factoral. I'd be interested in reading the Inside Science article to see how the author ties WBSCR17 into it.

It's well known that friendliness can be bred for pretty easily and quickly, as the Belyaev foxes illustrate.
 

Dan From Smithville

What's up Doc?
Staff member
Premium Member
I think that whatever evolutionary trick happened worked. Humans were just better to form a pack with than other wolves. Humans of course unwittingly accelerated the process by driving of or killing wolves that attempted to prey on them. Humans of course fed and nurtured the "friendly" among them, leading to the adorable, useful animals we now know..

Williams Disease does not confer an evolutionary advantage, since that would render the dog friendly to any mortal enemies it has.
I think you need to reread the article. There is no contention that dogs have Williams Disease or are missing the same region of DNA that those with the human condition are. They have variants of genes within and near what is the missing region of the DNA found in people with Williams Disease.

This is the genetic basis for the "genetic trick" that you say worked and lead to humans nurturing those friendly dogs with the genetic variants.

I haven't read it, but I think this may link to the science article, the popular one in the OP is based on.

https://www.science.org/doi/pdf/10.1126/sciadv.1700398
 

Subduction Zone

Veteran Member
Is there a link to the original article?

Behavior may be influenced by experience, but nurture-based behavior is written onto a hard-wired, inborn psychology. Your comments on different breeds having different tendencies tacitly concedes this.

Canine friendliness does seem to be a thing. We don't see it in other domestic animals to the extent we do with dogs, and it's likely multi-factoral. I'd be interested in reading the Inside Science article to see how the author ties WBSCR17 into it.

It's well known that friendliness can be bred for pretty easily and quickly, as the Belyaev foxes illustrate.
Yes, the linked article has this link to the original paper in Nature:

Genome-wide SNP and haplotype analyses reveal a rich history underlying dog domestication | Nature
 

PureX

Veteran Member
I think that whatever evolutionary trick happened worked. Humans were just better to form a pack with than other wolves. Humans of course unwittingly accelerated the process by driving of or killing wolves that attempted to prey on them. Humans of course fed and nurtured the "friendly" among them, leading to the adorable, useful animals we now know..

Williams Disease does not confer an evolutionary advantage, since that would render the dog friendly to any mortal enemies it has.
But even that is false. And let's call the trait cooperation, because that's what originally enabled wolves to coexist with humans: their instinct for cooperating. Docility was bread into SOME of them way later, by humans imposing selective breeding. But cooperation as not necessarily or originally docility. It's just part of the innate hierarchic nature of any cooperative pack species.
 

Valjean

Veteran Member
Premium Member
All behavior, anatomy and physiology is based in genetics. Specific features may be coded on a single gene or multiple clusters and multiple genes.

Both Himalayan and Andean natives have genetic adaptations for low oxygen levels, for example, but the adaptive genetic coding and resulting physiology is completely different.
 

Dan From Smithville

What's up Doc?
Staff member
Premium Member
This article (link) takes this position
This experimenter may do great things in a lab but obviously he doesn't know dogs or cats. Dogs can sense in a minute if a person likes or dislikes dogs. Dogs, in general, warm up fast to the former. This scientist also has not met too many people with Williams Syndrome. I have met some. They are oblivious to people's reactions to them and their behavior.

Most dogs are hardly oblivious. Certain breeds will handle it differently. A Golden Retriever will just look for people more willing to engage with them. Other breeds are more likely to get aggressive.
The trouble with science is that what works in the lab often fails miserable outside.
Geneticists and molecular biologists use a number of techniques to understand which genes or what changes in genes are responsible for traits. Comparative genomics (in this case, dogs, wolves and people), gene knockout (knock out a gene and see what changes result), genetic diseases and other genetic testing like common ancestry between species or among species (paternity, familial relationships).

I think it is fascinating that we are to the point where we can use what we learn about the genetics of one species and use that to learn about genetics of a relatively unrelated species.
 

Subduction Zone

Veteran Member
Dogs don't have defects. :cool::)

Creationists may have poisoned the well a bit for the OP. They tend to try to claim that mutations are mistakes or even defects. They do not realize that they have on the order of 100 mutations per generation. Most of them are benign. A few may be detrimental over the generations, but natural selection will take care of those and a few less are beneficial. Those tend to be kept. The changes in dogs appear to be in the last class. Beneficial, not a defect.
 

jbg

Active Member
Creationists may have poisoned the well a bit for the OP. They tend to try to claim that mutations are mistakes or even defects. They do not realize that they have on the order of 100 mutations per generation. Most of them are benign. A few may be detrimental over the generations, but natural selection will take care of those and a few less are beneficial. Those tend to be kept. The changes in dogs appear to be in the last class. Beneficial, not a defect.
Creationism had nothing to do with this author as I am hardly a creationist. Maybe the author of the article; I don't know.

I am assuming that whoever wrote the article on which I based the OP doesn't like dogs very much. I had a friend who's brother has a daughter with Williams Disease. There is no way that condition would help perpetuate any social species.

I am no scientist but I would assume that the ability of a keystone predator to form a "pack" with humans or their progenitors would be a beneficial change since humans have the ability to dominate even over predators such as wolves. Wolves are an endangered species for a reason. While they rarely prey on humans, they compete for carcasses of other domestic animals and for wild game animals. While wolves ranged widely in pre-Colonial days they were not particularly abundant. Paradoxically their numbers grew, temporarily, when Native Americans' numbers were decimated by smallpox and other imported diseases and the bison, deer and antelope temporarily exploded in number. White inhabitation brought that era to a close. Wolves and mountain lions were bountied.

Dogs, having been by then for thousands of years "man's best friend" did not suffer this fate. Indeed, I would argue that humans gained the ability to form large-scale settlements initially based on agriculture and animal husbandry since dogs performed the "watchman" function quite well. This means that humans and dogs "co-evolved." See Something to Bark About: Humans and Dogs Co-Evolved and/or Dogs “Co-evolved” to Live with Humans - Cottesloe Vet.
 

Subduction Zone

Veteran Member
Creationism had nothing to do with this author as I am hardly a creationist. Maybe the author of the article; I don't know.

I am assuming that whoever wrote the article on which I based the OP doesn't like dogs very much. I had a friend who's brother has a daughter with Williams Disease. There is no way that condition would help perpetuate any social species.

I am no scientist but I would assume that the ability of a keystone predator to form a "pack" with humans or their progenitors would be a beneficial change since humans have the ability to dominate even over predators such as wolves. Wolves are an endangered species for a reason. While they rarely prey on humans, they compete for carcasses of other domestic animals and for wild game animals. While wolves ranged widely in pre-Colonial days they were not particularly abundant. Paradoxically their numbers grew, temporarily, when Native Americans' numbers were decimated by smallpox and other imported diseases and the bison, deer and antelope temporarily exploded in number. White inhabitation brought that era to a close. Wolves and mountain lions were bountied.

Dogs, having been by then for thousands of years "man's best friend" did not suffer this fate. Indeed, I would argue that humans gained the ability to form large-scale settlements initially based on agriculture and animal husbandry since dogs performed the "watchman" function quite well. This means that humans and dogs "co-evolved." See Something to Bark About: Humans and Dogs Co-Evolved and/or Dogs “Co-evolved” to Live with Humans - Cottesloe Vet.
But the author did not say it was a defect or even imply that. He noticed mutations in the same area as the defect has in humans.
 

jbg

Active Member
But the author did not say it was a defect or even imply that. He noticed mutations in the same area as the defect has in humans.
I read the article as implying that it was an induced defect, along the lines of people who say domesticating dogs is cruel by suppressing their "true nature."
 

Subduction Zone

Veteran Member
I read the article as implying that it was an induced defect, along the lines of people who say domesticating dogs is cruel by suppressing their "true nature."
I do not think that he was implying that at all. There was a change in the genome, but it was almost certainly not purposefully done. What he noticed was a behavior in humans caused by a defect. Please note he did not imply that dogs have all of the traits that go along with the defect. He was only concentrating on why they are so nice to humans. And the mutations he found were in the same general area in the genome that the defect holds. His hypothesis, and it is probably still in need of further support, is that the mutations to dogs had the beneficial effect, to both dogs and humans, of making them friendlier to people.
 
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