Breeding and Evolution

Breeding and Evolution

The most obvious theory of animal existence is one I have never heard mentioned. The standard theories are (i) that a divine being created all the species independently and (ii) that the existing species all evolved by natural selection from earlier species with no rational agency involved. We now know that the second theory is true. But there is a third alternative that never seemed to gain any adherents or even proponents, viz. that all the species are the result of intentional breeding. Darwin drew attention to the human breeding of animals and made an analogy to evolution by natural selection, but what about the idea that someone in the distant past bred all the animals that now exist? Wouldn’t that be the natural way to think before we knew much about world history? Some enterprising animal breeder decided to breed a massive variety of animal types, perhaps starting with something pretty unimpressive, say a mongoose (a pair of them). This theory is highly explanatory and fits the facts of breeding as we know it. Prima facie it is better than the two theories we are familiar with—less speculative and gappy. Why wasn’t this the dominant theory up till the time of Darwin? It would be possible to combine it with a religious theme: the original breeder was a type of god, perhaps on the level of the Greek gods (special but not that special). This theory doesn’t seem difficult to figure out. We could call it “breederism”. There could be a myth about how the breeder came up with the idea—say, his wife grew bored with mongooses and craved some variety in her animal companions, so she petitioned her powerful husband, Xeus, to do something about it. It all happened underground and then the species were let loose on the planet’s surface. I rather like this myth and I wonder why it was never invented. It’s not true, of course, but when did that ever deter people from framing and accepting theories? We have a puzzle in the history of ideas—why people didn’t come up with breederism.