Russian scientist Dmitri Belyaev
Tuesday 14 March
The speed at which genetic evolution can occur is best illustrated by an extraordinary study by Dmitri Belyaev, a Soviet scientist who had been demoted in 1948 for his belief in Mendelian genetics. (Soviet morality required the belief that traits acquired during one’s lifetime could be passed on to one’s children.)
Belyaev moved to a Siberian research institute, where he decided to test his ideas by conducting a simple breeding experiment with foxes. Rather than selecting foxes based on the quality of their pelts, as fox breeders would normally do, he selected them for tameness.
Whichever fox pups were least fearful of humans were bred to create the next generation. Within just a few generations the foxes became tamer. But more important, after nine generations, novel traits began to appear in a few of the pups, and they were largely the same ones that distinguish dogs from wolves. For example, patches of white fur appeared on the head and chest; jaws and teeth shrank; and tails formerly straight began to curl. After just thirty generations the foxes had become so tame that they could be kept as pets. Lyudmila Trut, a geneticist who had worked with Belyaev on the project and who ran it after his death, described the foxes as “docile, eager to please, and unmistakably domesticated.”—Haidt, referencing Trut.
Trut, L. N. 1999. “Early Canid Domestication: The Farm Fox Experiment.” American Scientist 87:160–69.
A Russian scientist who made progress despite the repressive nature of the country he had to live in.