No I’m not a fascist (at least I hope not…)

I’m trying to understand why we’ve normalised the idea of eugenics in dogs (e.g. golden retrievers are friendly and smart, chihuahas are aggressive, etc.)¹ but find the idea of racial classification in humans abhorrent.

I can sort of see it from the idea that Nurture (culture and upbringing) would have a greater effect on a human’s characteristics than Nature would.

At the same time, my family tree has many twins and I’ve noticed that the identical ones have similar outcomes in life, whereas the fraternal ones (even the ones that look very similar) don’t really (N=3).

Maybe dog culture is not a thing, and that’s why people are happy to make these sweeping generalizations on dog characterics?

I’m lost a little

1: https://i.pinimg.com/originals/df/74/f7/df74f716c3a70f59aeb468152e4be927.png

  • WhatAmLemmy@lemmy.world
    17·
    9 months ago

    It’s also worth noting that much of the selective breeding applied to cats and dogs, is actually through the INBREEDING of parents and grandparents with children, and should be illegal. It’s frankly disgusting, and not much better than eugenics. We allow them to be inbred for visual traits we find cute, even though it causes a range of health issues that reduce their quality of life, and lifespan. Many pure breeds have 20-30% shorter average lifespans than mixed/mongrels.

      • TeryVeneno@lemmy.ml
        4·
        9 months ago

        Yes, but not very often at all, I believe most species have evolved to not mate with their relatives. Interbreeding causes significant problems if done for long enough.

        • Omega_Haxors@lemmy.mlEnglish
          2·
          9 months ago

          The fun fact why inbreeding causes issues is because rare mutations which on their own are harmless and have a cosmologically small chance of ever being expressed as a trait. Inbreeding ups the chance of these mutations meeting up and actually getting to run their garbage code.

    • intensely_human@lemm.ee
      36·
      9 months ago

      Applying our own filtering to animals, and hence taking them away from the path of natural selection, produces horrific suffering.

      If you think about it, by mapping “God” to “evolution by natural selection”, ie “the force that made our world”, it becomes apparent that “God is merciful” in that way.

      Pugs for example are abominations, forced to live outside “God’s” kingdom, and hence living in hell.

      • MotoAsh@lemmy.world
        3·
        9 months ago

        Humans mostly pick their partners so it’s all selective breeding for us. Hell, arranged marriages are STILL a norm in some cultures.

        Saying one path or the other is god’s plan is assuming you know what god’s plan even is.