How to Tame Foxes

Foxes are pretty cute. Except that they are wild animals and do not relate well to humans.

In 1959 a Russian geneticist, Dmitri Belyaev, decided to do something about it. He took a bunch of wild foxes that he had captured from the wild and started to breed them.

Starting with a population of caged wild animals, he selected from each generation the puppies who were friendliest (or, initially, least hostile) to humans, breeding only from them.

After 35 generations of breeding he obtained nice tame foxes. Actually what he had was dogs.

The tamed foxes wagged their tails, whined for affection, were submissive, barked like dogs and their ears flopped.

Perhaps Dmitri could have saved himself the trouble. I was out for a walk yesterday and passed by a dog that looked very much like a fox.

There was one curious thing about the tame foxes.

[T]he tame foxes’ brains were smaller. Domestic animals generally do have small brains. On average, domestic dog, cat, sheep and pig brains weigh 25 per cent less than those of wild animals.

Similarly, the brains of women are about 100 grams lighter than the brains of men. Does this mean that women are “tamer” than men?

Who knows? The writer Terence Kealey is vice chancellor of the University of Buckingham in Britain, and he advises caution.

But what I do know is that such speculations are dangerous in the academic world. Lawrence Summers, the President of Harvard, lost his job when he conjectured that women might not scale the same intellectual heights as men, so for me to continue this theme might be perilous.

So you’ll have to work it out for yourself.