• Question: I can understand how wolves evolved into huskies, but how did they evolve into chiwa-wa?

    Asked by anon-208302 to Tori, Titus, Stuart, Hannah, Gill on 14 Mar 2019.
    • Photo: Stuart Higgins

      Stuart Higgins answered on 14 Mar 2019:

      Humans have been breeding dogs for a long time, to try and encourage different characteristics. So maybe one dog was randomly a bit smaller than the rest, humans might try and breed that with another small dog so that hopefully they make a smaller dog and so on. If you keep going for long enough, over many years, you end up with all the different types of dog you see today. The downside is that you can also end up with some genetic diseases in different types of dog too.

      PBS article about dog breeding: https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/evolution/library/01/5/l_015_02.html

    • Photo: Tori Blakeman

      Tori Blakeman answered on 15 Mar 2019:

      Great question. Evolution is soooo long and complex! Evolution doesn’t just happen in a linear fashion (i.e. in a straight line where this type of dog became this other type of dog). It involves lots of years of completely mixing genetics and traits! If you’re interested in evolution I’d recommend reading Sapiens: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Sapiens-Humankind-Yuval-Noah-Harari/dp/1846558239

Comments

  • Photo: anon-208436

    anon-208436 commented on :

    what if evolution just didn’t happen, it seems impossible for humans to have evolved from a single cellular being which, I assume doesn’t have a soul , consciousness or morals or any of our complex social systems, how could these possibly be produced through evolution? I understand how we evolve within our species , but it just seems impossible that we could have come from primates, especially as there seems no physical evidence of any stage in between, which you would have thought would be found by now.