Talk:Artificial selection

message: Artificial Selection and Selective Breeding are distinguished both by process and outcome.
Artificial Selection is a process by which humans or other organisms, through a process of elimination or reproductive restriction, select which members of a population of organisms will reproduce.  This process differs from Natural Selection in that the individuals selected to survive and reproduce do not necessarily possess traits that would be beneficial or provide any reproductive advantage in the "natural" environment outside the protection of the humans or other "selectors".  It is this process that domesticates organisms.
Selective Breeding is a process by which individual organisms with certain traits preferred by the breeder are deliberately chosen to produce offspring with these desired traits.  This differs from Artificial Selection in that the organisms chosen to breed are removed from the general population to establish a new breeding population, whereas in Artificial Selection those individuals with undesired traits are simply removed from the original population.  It is the process of Selective Breeding that produces distinctive breeds of domestic animals and plants.
In general, Selective breeding produces a population with a particular trait.  Artificial selection produces a population lacking an undesireable trait.
:There is no evidence given to support this. As the article and Darwin himself defined the concept, it includes both intentional and unintentional selection; selective breeding would therefore be a type of artificial selection, not another side of the human-based selection coin. Richard001 08:03, 11 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Differentiating

message: I did some cleanup of this article and removed the following text:
Controversially, profound examples of artificial selection are often said to be seen in humans themselves, who employ substantial cultural bias in mate selection, most obviously in the preference of human females for socially powerful mates - a factor which is not directly related to natural ecology or to simple secondary sexual characteristics. Critics of this view argue that sexual selection in all mammal species favors aggressive males, and that males of other primate species trade food for sex - and that aggression and food-gathering capacity are causally related to social power in any social species. This argues for a fuzzy line between ecological, artificial and sexual selection, especially in a highly cognitive and highly social species.
In many societies, institutions such as polygamy and the harem have served to permit some of the most successfully aggressive and logistically competent males to father drastically more offspring than others. Similar historical observations are made of harems of the Ottoman Empire and Siam, and of polygamy in Islam and among Mormons. 
There is substantial controversy as to whether these are truly artificial selections, or examples of ordinary sexual selection, or even (when the economics predominate) natural selection, carried to extremes in human beings. Controversies of this sort lead some to make a careful distinction between ecological selection and sexual selection, i.e. to differentiate which of the two aspects of natural selection can be said to apply to humans in what circumstances, and what "artificial" aspects are perhaps "environmental" but neither naturally ecological nor wholly sexual.
Another way to resolve the controversy is to suggest that when humans act on humans, as when other animals act to select any of their own species as mate or when members of their species are harmed as a part of the mating rituals, the entire process should be considered part of sexual selection, and that only man acting on non-human species is a true "artificial" selection. 
In this view, even such complex matters as economics may be considered wholly "sexual" (by certain green economists) or even wholly "natural" (by some anthropologists using the neoclassical political economy). This begins to intersect with Social Darwinism and fascism to a degree, both of which held that dominant human societies optimized, but did not alter, the fundamental factors driving selection of individuals to propagate a species.
Predictably, such assumptions also conflict with Marxist or feminist views which hold rather that an imposed political economy, i.e. capitalism (classical and neoclassical economics) or patriarchy/feudalism/militarism (as in the harem case above), are creating artificial conditions drastically at odds with what is of highest survival utility for the human species as a whole. But, as other cases of runaway sexual selection demonstrate, individuals or cliques within a species do not in general act for species-wide utility, and individuals and even whole species are sometimes extincted due to excesses of their species' sexual selection process. Were a Marxist or feminist view to predominate, then their shared humanism would be artificial selection.
Some believe the term artificial selection should be employed only to make a distinction between the human-chosen "artificial" factors and the combination of instinct and ecology that is "natural" without human choice. To describe more deliberate influences on human behavior they may refer to moral selection or ethical selection, e.g. as in the prison case.  
These terms, too, often recur in moral philosophy and in arguments regarding influences on the evolution of societies deemed "desirable". The central focus in many religious traditions of suppressing sexual desire seems to suggest that what is usually deemed desirable for the society as a whole may well be exactly the opposite of what is desirable for the individual under normal natural selection, e.g. a human male who learns he has Human Immunodeficiency Virus could attempt to impregnate the maximum number of females hoping to have one born without the virus, or could choose to forgo sexual activity entirely due to the suffering it could cause. Or, alternatively, could choose to reveal the deficiency to partners, exactly the type of acquired trait that males in natural sexual selection would conceal. Removing oneself from the mating pool or drastically limiting mating choices in these ways would seem to constitute both morally sound and reasonably ethical behavior, and also clearly exemplify artificial selection. 
However, most biologists and evolutionary theorists employ the term artificial selection only to make a distinction between the intentionally human-chosen "artificial" factors and the combination of instinct and ecology that is "natural" without human choice.  To describe more deliberate influences on human behavior they may refer to sociobiology, moral selection or ethical selection.
... which is sort of POV-ish, poorly written, and not terribly useful. Anyone have an attachment to this text or some of the ideas it contains? Opabinia regalis 22:19, 13 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  cleanup of this article 

message: Quote from OriginOS:
"Slow though the process of selection may be, if feeble man can do much by artificial selection,
I can see no limit to the amount of change, to the beauty and complexity of the coadaptations between all 
organic beings,  one with another and with their physical conditions of life, which may have been effected in the long course
of time through nature's power of selection, that is by the survival of the fittest." 
Darwin only used the phrase once. The phrase was not in use before he published it. How did Darwin formally establish that
man is "feeble"? Feeble in relation to what. I am looking for something on par with http://en.wikipedia.com/Astronomia_nova where
Kepler established the laws of planetary motion , which was used by Newton to derive calculus which led to the Fourier Transfrom
without which the Internet would not exist. In what way did Darwin formally establish the concept of Artificial Selection. How did
he derive it from first principles. Where did he establish the principle of SoFittest, Artificial Selection must be independantly 
specified because in the quote he seems to define AS in terms of SoF. He seemed to conflate Natural Selection, SoFittest, never making clear what is the distinction. Darwin did'nt formally define AS, and ever since everybody has simply assumed it to be
somehow formally established like the Laplace Transform is established. Artificial has a pejorative meaning as his use of "feeble"
indicates. And survival of the fittest is an obvious tautology. It should be deeply embarrasing for Evolutionists to keep on stating
that those that are fit survive and those that are not fit won't. 
 TongueSpeaker 17:26, 18 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Origin of Species quote 

message: Maybe the article doesn't need it, but I do.  My previous understanding of the terms Eugenics and Artificial selection were that they were the same.  I've read the respective articles, and I'm not any clearer on this. Maybe someone could explain it?
Is it that Eugenics is Artificial Selection practiced on humans, and carries negative connotations? The negative connotations are easy to account for.  Is this the only distinction? Eugenics isn't practiced on sheep, is it? Cheers.--The Chairman (talk · contribs) 08:40, 5 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Eugenics is a form of voluntary selective breeding to improve the quality of society, at least in Galton's sense. Artificial selection is much broader, including, for example, antibiotic resistance. Richard001 05:45, 7 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't know how voluntary it might be, I still remember the mentally challenged adults that spoke to my High School civics class and how they complained about being forcible sterilized. Hardyplants 12:31, 7 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Differentiation with Eugenics 

message: Can we merge this here? I don't see any logic splitting off something like this from an article as underdeveloped as this one. Richard001 23:00, 13 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: MERGE FROM [[Negative selection (artificial selection)]]

message: There's a misisng image on this page, info below:
File:Corn selection.jpg
Selective breeding transformed teosinte's few fruitcases (left) into modern corn's rows of exposed kernels (right).  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Smartse (talk • contribs) 00:14, 5 March 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  lost picture 

message: In the "Contrast to natural selection" section it says:
"Indeed, many evolutionary biologists view domestication as a type of natural selection and adaptive change that occurs as organisms are brought under the control of human beings."
Which evolutionary biologists say this?  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.32.84.204 (talk) 03:53, 28 March 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Who? 

message: In another magnificent example of Jagged85 islamocentric bias, we are given the impression that artificial selection began in the medieval islamic world, when in fact it can be traced to the ancient world (as practically everything in medieval Islam). See Here , here and here. Biruni´s description is utterly irrelevant. He was just telling a very old story--Knight1993 (talk) 21:06, 20 June 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Given that there is something of a personal attack on another editor in your tone, the deletion of properly sourced material seems to reflect an assumption of bad faith.  So I suggest this be discussed a bit before being cut. I'll look at your sources, and you can explain things a bit in a non-attacking tone.  Montanabw(talk) 03:48, 21 June 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Biruni and atificial selection 

message: I find it somewhat contradictory that in the introduction, artificial selection of domesticated crops and animals is described as largely unintentional, but immediately in the next section, mentions how Romans practiced artificial selection.  I find it difficult to believe that a complex and advanced civilization practiced artificial selection largely unintentionally...when it comes to a complex society, food supply is one of the most important, if not the most important things (as is today).  In my personal opinion, artificial selection is undertaken in order to improve, diversify, increase, etc. one's food supply.
The ancients might not have known exactly what they were going to get from doing these "proto-experiments," and they may have at first wandered blindly in the dark, but after a while they clearly must have recognized some patterns...and by the time humans got to Rome, I'm sure they were doing things with a particular end in mind.
In other words, this is primarily a semantic issue - I am inclined to believe that the author used the word "unintentional" to mean that the domestication process wasn't carried out in a formulaic, completely informed, etc. way...but it gives the impression that voila!!!  There are these wonderful crops and domesticated animals...how in the world did that happen?  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 169.232.173.19 (talk) 08:49, 15 December 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Artificial selection largely unintentional?