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Originally Posted by JasonTitan  I dont believe that instincts can be modified. Drives that are species specific maybe. |
Do you mean that you don't believe that instincts can be modified by training, or that you don't believe that instincts can be modified by breeding?
I wouldn't care to argue either way on the first idea, since I've never thought about it much, but I really don't think that the second idea is accurate. If instincts can't be modified by breeding, then how did they evolve in the first place?
I mean, dogs have a strong "pack instinct", whereas domestic cats generally don't have much of a "pack instinct" at all. These two species are quite closely related: both of these species developed from the same ancestral species. So the pack instinct of one of these types of animals
must have changed since the time of their common ancestor - otherwise, our modern cats and dogs couldn't have different "pack instincts" today.
So I think it's undeniable that instincts
can evolve and change through breeding. A different question is - are the 15,000 years that have passed since the domestication of the dog been long enough for his instincts to change at all?
I personally think that this time period must have been long enough for some of the dogs' instincts to change. There are clear differences in instinct between dogs and wolves, for example your typical adult dog is much less nervous around strangers than your typical "tame" adult grey wolf is. And the silver fox study in Russia (can't remember the authors right now) showed clearly that these foxes' natural instinctive wariness towards humans could be changed, relatively rapidly, by selective breeding for tame behaviour.