26th October 2011
Dog Story
“Darwinism begins with dogs. In the opening pages of “On the Origin of Species,” Darwin describes the way breeders can turn big dogs into small ones, through selective breeding, and he insists that all dogs descend from wolves. This was proof of the immense amount of inherited variation, and of the ability of inheritance, blended and directed, to take new directions. “Who will believe that animals closely resembling the Italian greyhound, the bloodhound, the bull-dog or Blenheim spaniel, etc.—so unlike all wild Canidae—ever existed freely in a state of nature?” Darwin wrote. Out of one, many.
