Creationism in Crisis
How Elephants Are Helping Us Understand Human Evolution
How Elephants Are Helping Us Understand Human Evolution
Creationism in Crisis
How Elephants Are Helping Us Understand Human Evolution
How Elephants Are Helping Us Understand Human Evolution
Creationism in Crisis
How Elephants Are Helping Us Understand Human Evolution
How Elephants Are Helping Us Understand Human Evolution
Creationism in Crisis
How Elephants Are Helping Us Understand Human Evolution
How Elephants Are Helping Us Understand Human Evolution
Creationism in Crisis
How Elephants Are Helping Us Understand Human Evolution
How Elephants Are Helping Us Understand Human Evolution
Elephants as a new model for understanding human evolution | Max Planck Institute
I've recently written about 'Domestication Syndrome' , how it can be seen in several of our domesticated animals, and how it probably played a part in our own evolution by a process of self-domestication.
Now a group of researchers led by Limor Ravi of the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, Nijmegen, The Netherlands, have found that elephants also appear to have self-domesticated and have proposed that they could form a model for understanding how prosocial behaviour evolved.
Domestication Syndrome refers to a suite of physical and behavioral changes observed in domesticated animals as a result of artificial selection by humans. These changes can include reduced brain size, smaller teeth and jaws, reduced aggressiveness, and changes in coat color and texture.'Domestication syndrome' includes behaviour that is less aggressive and more prosocial, such as playfulness and other behaviour which encourages group cohesion. Limor Raviv's team which included researchers from the City University of New York, New York, NY, USA, the University at Buffalo The State University of New York (SUNY), Buffalo, NY, USA and The University of Seville, Seville, Spain, have identified elephants as another species, in addition to humans and bonobos that have self-domesticated in their evolutionary history and so show evidence of 'domestication syndrome'.
The concept of Domestication Syndrome was first proposed by Russian geneticist Dmitri Belyaev in the mid-20th century. Belyaev conducted an experiment in which he selectively bred silver foxes for tameness, based on their willingness to approach humans without showing fear or aggression. Over several generations, the foxes developed a range of physical and behavioral changes that resembled those seen in domesticated dogs, including floppy ears, curly tails, and a greater tolerance for human interaction.
Since then, studies have shown that similar changes occur in many other domesticated species, including dogs, cats, pigs, cattle, and chickens. These changes are thought to result from a combination of genetic and environmental factors, with genetic changes driving physical traits and behavioral changes resulting from the animals' exposure to human environments.
References:
- Trut, L. N. (1999). Early canid domestication: The farm-fox experiment. American Scientist, 87(2), 160-169.
- Wilkins, A. S. (2014). Wrangling over domestication syndrome. BioScience, 64(11), 1021-1028.
- Driscoll, C. A., Macdonald, D. W., & O'Brien, S. J. (2009). From wild animals to domestic pets, an evolutionary view of domestication. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 106(Supplement 1), 9971-9978.
ChatGPT. (2023, April 6). Tell me about "Domestication Syndrome", with references, please.
Retrieved from https://chat.openai.com/chat
The process of self-domestication refers to the theory that humans have undergone a form of self-domestication over the course of our evolutionary history, in which we have become more cooperative, less aggressive, and more tolerant of each other. This process is thought to have led to the development of complex social structures and the ability to work together to achieve common goals.
One of the key researchers in this area is Richard Wrangham, a biological anthropologist at Harvard University. Wrangham has argued that the process of self-domestication in humans was driven by the selection for less aggressive and more cooperative individuals. This selection was likely driven by a number of factors, including the need to work together to secure food and defend against predators, as well as the benefits of cooperation in social groups.
Other researchers have supported the idea of self-domestication in humans, and have proposed various genetic and neurological mechanisms to explain the process. For example, some researchers have suggested that self-domestication may have been driven by changes in genes associated with the regulation of the neurotransmitter serotonin, which is involved in regulating mood, social behavior, and aggression.
References:
- Hare, B., & Wrangham, R. W. (2017). The self-domestication hypothesis: Evolution of bonobo psychology is due to selection against aggression. Animal Behavior and Cognition, 4(3), 307-318.
- Jensen, P. (2010). The self-domestication hypothesis: evolution of humane behavior. Current Zoology, 56(3), 338-346.
- Wrangham, R. W. (2018). Two types of self-domestication, and what they tell us about humanity. Current Anthropology, 59(2), 151-162.
- Wrangham, R. W. (2018). How cooking made us human. In H. LeVine (Ed.), Handbook of Evolutionary Psychology (pp. 139-156). Wiley.
ChatGPT. (2023, April 7). Tell me more about the process of self-domestication, with references, please.
Retrieved from https://chat.openai.com/chat
They therefore conclude that elephants may be a model species for the study of the evolution of prosociality.
As the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics news release explains:
Human culture and language may be the result of ‘self-domestication’: an evolutionary process that leads to less aggressive and more prosocial individuals. A research team led by the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics in Nijmegen argues that elephants—like humans and bonobos—may also be self-domesticated. Elephants show many traits associated with self-domestication, such as prosocial behaviour, playfulness and complex communication skills. This makes elephants an interesting new animal model for the evolution of prosociality.
Humans have complex social behavior, diverse communication skills, and a capacity for highly developed tool use. Researchers argue that human evolution may resemble the process of animal domestication, where less aggressive animals are favoured. In the same way, human evolution may be the result of natural selection for more prosocial and cooperative individuals. Such individuals are more likely to interact with others and form complex communities, in which they can learn from each other.
Could elephants be the first non-primate animal model for self-domestication? Raviv and her colleagues set out to study the similarities between elephants, bonobos, and humans, and followed up with a genetic analysis.The theory of self-domestication is hard to test. This is because only one other species besides humans has been argued to be self-domesticated: bonobos.
[Their massive size and relative strength] means that elephants are generally less worried about evading or fighting other animals for their survival. This kind of ‘safe environment’ could relax selective pressures for aggression, free cognitive resources, and open up more opportunities for exploration, communication, and play.
Our hypothesis of self-domestication in elephants has exciting potential for future research in other species. It can inform our understanding of the evolution of prosocial behaviour across evolutionarily distant species, providing important insights into convergent evolution.
Limor Ravi, first author
The Language Evolution and Adaptation in Diverse Situations (LEADS) Group
Language & Genetics Department
Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, Nijmegen, The Netherlands.
Hallmarks of domestication
The team found that elephants show many hallmarks of domestication. Similar to humans and bonobos, they have low levels of aggression, high levels of empathic and prosocial behaviour, an extended juvenile period, and increased playfulness and curiosity. Elephants form coalitions, ‘babysit’ calves, offer protection and comfort to others, and help dying or ill members of their herds—and even the occasional outsider. There is also evidence that elephants are both self-aware and sensitive to the needs and wants of others. Another important hallmark is elephants’ ability to learn from each other. Behaviours that are often innate in other animals—such as what to eat or how to raise offspring—are socially transmitted in elephants. Elephants also have a sophisticated multimodal communication system with an extensive vocal repertoire, ranging from trumpets and roars to low-frequency rumbles. For example, elephants in Kenya have different alarm calls for humans and for bees. Their varied and combined calls even show signs of grammar. Finally, the team found several candidate genes associated with domestication in elephants.
The team's open access paper in PNAS gives more detail:
SignificanceThe paper also includes information on the Human Self-Domestication Hypothesis (HSD) which Creationists might like to find strategies for ignoring or dismissing:
Why did humans, and no other animal, develop the complement of complex cultures, languages, and tools? Answering this question is one of the most important endeavors of modern science, which can shed light not only on our distinctive cognitive and behavioral phenotype, but also on the evolutionary pressures that gave rise to it. A promising theory, the human self-domestication hypothesis, suggests that humans’ uniqueness is the outcome of an evolutionary process of selection against aggression. While compelling, this theory is hard to test: Besides humans, only one other species (bonobos) has been argued to be self-domesticated. Our work suggests that elephants may also be self-domesticated, leading to exciting future research on the evolutionary similarities between humans and other species beyond the primate order.
Abstract
Humans are unique in their sophisticated culture and societal structures, their complex languages, and their extensive tool use. According to the human self-domestication hypothesis, this unique set of traits may be the result of an evolutionary process of self-induced domestication, in which humans evolved to be less aggressive and more cooperative. However, the only other species that has been argued to be self-domesticated besides humans so far is bonobos, resulting in a narrow scope for investigating this theory limited to the primate order. Here, we propose an animal model for studying self-domestication: the elephant. First, we support our hypothesis with an extensive cross-species comparison, which suggests that elephants indeed exhibit many of the features associated with self-domestication (e.g., reduced aggression, increased prosociality, extended juvenile period, increased playfulness, socially regulated cortisol levels, and complex vocal behavior). Next, we present genetic evidence to reinforce our proposal, showing that genes positively selected in elephants are enriched in pathways associated with domestication traits and include several candidate genes previously associated with domestication. We also discuss several explanations for what may have triggered a self-domestication process in the elephant lineage. Our findings support the idea that elephants, like humans and bonobos, may be self-domesticated. Since the most recent common ancestor of humans and elephants is likely the most recent common ancestor of all placental mammals, our findings have important implications for convergent evolution beyond the primate taxa, and constitute an important advance toward understanding how and why self-domestication shaped humans’ unique cultural niche.
Raviv, Limor; Jacobson, Sarah L.; Plotnik, Joshua M.; Bowman, Jacob; Lynch, Vincent; Benítez-Burraco, Antonio
Elephants as an animal model for self-domestication
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 120(15) e2208607120. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2208607120
Copyright: © 2023 The authors.
Published by PNAS. Open access
Reprinted under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license (CC BY 4.0)
1.1. The Human Self-Domestication Hypothesis (HSD)Not only are the scientists making use of the Theory of Evolution (TOE) to explain the concept of self-domestication and why the hypothesis explains much about our social structures and characteristics that make us human, and showing that this process is not unique to humans, but they are also, quite incidentally and without intent, refuting the creationist lie that the TOE is being rejected by mainstream biologists in favour of their childish, magic-based, evidence-free notion.
What makes us humans unique? Humans possess many remarkable traits such as sophisticated culture and social dynamics, complex communication abilities, and extensive tool use. While none of these traits are uniquely human per se, their combination seems to be distinct to our species (1). Researchers have long attempted to explain why this is the case – why did humans, but not other animals, develop this combination of complex traits? Answering this question is an important endeavor of modern science, and can shed light not only on our distinctive cognitive and behavioral phenotype, but also on the evolutionary pressures that gave rise to these complex traits. A new theory, the HSD hypothesis, suggests that humans’ distinctiveness is, to a large extent, the outcome of an evolutionary process similar to that of nonhuman animal domestication (2–4).
The HSD hypothesis builds on the finding that humans display many of the biological and behavioral features that typically characterize the outcome of domestication in other mammals such as dogs, pigs, and sheep – aka the “domestication syndrome” (2, 5–7), including smaller skulls/brains, childish facial features, less hair, prolonged childhood, increased play behavior, and particularly, less aggressive behaviors (8–11). According to the HSD hypothesis, human evolution in the middle and late Paleolithic was characterized by selective pressures for having less aggressive partners, in sexual or other social relationships. This resulted in more prosocial individuals who were more prone to interact with others (not just with their kin, but also with strangers), giving rise to increased contacts and complex community structure as well as more sophisticated teaching, learning, and experimentation (mostly through playing). Ultimately, these properties may have enabled the cultural evolution of many distinctive human traits (2), and most notably, the emergence of our complex linguistic abilities (12–15).
However, while animal domestication is directly and intentionally guided by humans via artificial selection for tameness, humans’ self-domestication is suggested to have been an organic process, likely triggered by external changes in our environment as well as internal, nondirected pressures favoring within-species prosocial behavior over aggression. In other words, domestication-like traits in humans evolved as a by-product of natural selection that favored increased in-group prosociality over aggression (2). As such, self-domestication can be defined as the exhibition of the typical features commonly associated with domestication in other animals, but without the obvious presence of another species serving as a domesticator (16–19). Out of the many factors that were suggested to trigger this selection for less aggressive behaviors in humans, the two most prominent explanations for HSD are a) changes in our foraging ecology, where humans began relying on more diverse and nonlocal food sources that resulted in a need to move around and/or share resources with others (20), and b) climate deterioration and harsh environmental conditions during the last glaciation, which have increased the need for exchanging and sharing resources between groups (21). In both cases, selection for intergroup tolerance and less aggressive individuals would have benefitted the survival of the entire population, and as such may have triggered the process of self-domestication in humans. All in all, self-domestication can be seen as a sort of cultural niche construction, in which a species (in this case, humans) reduces or redirects the impact of selective pressures that individuals experience via gene-culture coevolution (22).
[figures in parentheses relate to the bibliography at the end of the paper]
Raviv, Limor; Jacobson, Sarah L.; Plotnik, Joshua M.; Bowman, Jacob; Lynch, Vincent; Benítez-Burraco, Antonio
Elephants as an animal model for self-domestication
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 120(15) e2208607120. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2208607120
Published by PNAS. Open access
Reprinted under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license (CC BY 4.0)
The bad news continues for creationists with practically every biomedical science paper published. Only by remaining ignorant of real science can they be fooled by their cult leaders into believing such absurdities.
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