Coppinger, Derr, Pierotti and Fogg: when and how did dog become dog? Episode 2!

Why are dogs dogs, and not wolves? First of all, pretty much everybody who has ever dealt directly with wolves, coyotes, or dog-hybrids agrees: the animals are wild. They are not domesticated, nor tame. They are. not. dogs.

Pierotti and Fogg (last post) try to convince us that the First Nations, the aboriginal Americans, regarded dogs and wolves as the same thing. But wait a sec - they didn't use wolves to lug the travois, did they? No, they didn't. They used dogs. Ipso facto, Pierotti and Fogg are full of it.

I have a number of other issues with the Pierotti and Fogg book. They portray the First Nations as monolithic in belief regarding dogs and wolves. They weren't. Good science shows that the First Nations of the Americas had just as wide a variety of response to dogs as did European and Asian cultures. Some ate them, some revered them. Some buried them with their dead. And some scorned them as dirty.

They also portray "Western" culture as monolithic. And it was not.

The Pierotti and Fogg book is persuasively written. It reads well, and fairly easily. But, unlike Coppinger, or even Derr, they don't really present us with anything more than their own ego-stroking and bias confirmation.

However, the idea that man and wolf (which wolf was NOT the grey wolf we know today) had a commensal (mutually beneficial) relationship prior to the dawn of agriculture and permanent communities has backing in what little science there is. And, it is a logical concept. Personally, I find this concept just as good, rationally, as Coppinger's thesis that dogs developed as a result of the dawn of permanent human communities. All this does is deliver a variety of wolf, which is pre-disposed to be friendly to humans, to the scene at the dawn of agriculture, some 10k to 25k years ago.

Good science tells us that dogs are not descended from grey wolves, but rather that grey wolves and dogs are "sisters" in evolution - likely descending from a single "parent" type of wolf, a wolf that does not exist today.

By the way, although I've said this before elsewhere, Derr focuses on this same concept - that wolves developed a mutual relationship with humans prior to the advent of agriculture. Derr, I think, allows for the possibility of human control over the interaction.  Which I doubt, but it is possible.

And, again, I close with this thought: the advent of agriculture and permanent communities saw a distinct change in the physical appearance of the wolves we now call dogs. That significant development in the history of mankind was accompanied by a significant change in the animals we now call dog. Regardless of how dogs became dogs - they came to us through that filter of village dogs.

Coppinger, Derr, Pierotti and Fogg: when and how did dog become dog?

Thoughts on the evolution of dogs, according to the Coppingers, Derr, Pierotti and Fogg.

The Coppingers, Laura and Ray, led the way. At least in public pronouncement, about how wolves probably self-domesticated, and man likely did little or nothing.¹ Up until the 1980's, the common presumption was that man somehow managed the domestication process. Somewhere around the 80's or 90's, people actually started looking into the archeological and anthropological records to figure out what dogs were, and how they got here. In retrospect, it seems almost odd, but very little research had been done, earlier than that, about what dogs were, and how they came to be domesticated. A research black hole, if you like - certainly something of a vacuum. Since then everybody and their brother has been rushing to fill the gap.

The Coppingers' primary thesis on the evolution of dogs is that, (a) dogs are wolves who adapted (evolved) to fit into the space alongside human communities, and (b) that this was precipitated by humankind's development of permanent communities at the dawn of agriculture, and (c) that it was the wolves themselves who evolved to fit this niche environment (not humans, shoehorning wolves into domestication). All animals, including people, are opportunistic. If they see a niche they can occupy safely, they do. So the Coppingers think that some wolves saw the opportunity to live alongside man, and live off the easy pickings of mankind's scraps and leftovers.

But some people don't like that idea². Most notably to date, Mark Derr, who published, ten years after Coppingers' first book, How the Dog Became the Dog: From Wolves to Our Best Friends. Derr is vehemently opposed to the idea of dogs as "dumpster-divers". And, he presents a lot of good arguments that the domestication process, or, at the least, a mutually beneficial commensal relationship, began prior to mankind's establishment of permanent communities at the dawn of the age of agriculture.

Pierotti and Fogg's more recent book, The First Domestication. How Wolves and Humans Coevolved (2018) expands on Derr's thesis. They take it in a slightly different direction, and they expand on Derr slightly, going so far as to speculate that wolves and mankind entered a mutually cooperative relationship at some point in the stone age. (That's paleolithic and mesolithic if you prefer 25-cent words. )

My book review on GoodReads:
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Another entry in the "dogs are wolves" category, this book suffers from extreme bias and mischaracterization of other scientists' recent work. In particular the authors represent the Coppingers' views as 180 degrees opposite of what the Coppingers said. For instance, on page 21, they represent the Coppingers' views as "the process of domestication began with wolves being dominated by humans", when the Coppingers' view was precisely the opposite - wolves self-domesticated into an opportunistic commensalism with humans, i.e. taking advantage of leftover human resources. At a couple of points, they represent the Coppingers as arguing for the scientific reclassification of dogs as wolves, when Ray Coppinger was precisely opposed to that move. It makes me wonder if the authors have treated others of their sources, with whom I am less familiar, as cavalierly.

They also oversimplify and generalize both "Eurocentric" or "western" influence and conquest, and indigenous peoples. Neither of those categories were culturally monolithic, but the authors would like you to believe they are.

However, one of their ultimate points is that the domestication of dogs began prior to the advent of agriculture and permanent communities, and in this regard, there is science that backs them up. This is pretty much the same thesis that Mark Derr proposes in his books and articles on the topic. And, while they are both dismissive of Coppinger, they both propose a similar conclusion - it was not man who domesticated wolf, but wolf who domesticated himself into dog.

Pierotti and Fogg, and Derr all suffer from ignoring, or attempting to ignore, the elephant in the room: the village dog. Whether the process of domestication began 250,000 years ago, or 10,000 does not change the fact that the physiology of dogs changed markedly at about the same time that mankind began inhabiting permanent villages. And our dogs of today, even if they still occasionally crossbreed with wolves, are not wolves, but dogs, and they come to us through the filter of the village dog. Every dog that we call dog today exists primarily because of village dogs. The occasional interbreeding that Derr, Pierotti, and Fogg would like us to believe is of primary concern are minor eddies on the banks of a great and massive river.

My conclusion and recommendation: take a pass on this one. It adds little to the conversation, although in some ways Pierotti and Fogg do a better job of persuading the reader than Derr. If you are determined to learn more, it can be worth reading, so that you have some idea of the breadth of viewpoints that are currently out there, but be mindful that this is only one. If we revisit this topic in ten years time, I believe there will be other books, with better science on the topic. Just as an example, Science magazine published an article in 2015 on how dogs utilize the oxytocin feedback loop (and wolves don't). There is serious and major science going on in this field right now.
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One corrollary question I did not address in detail in the review (avoiding TLDR), is why I am so sure that dogs are dogs and wolves are wolves, and while the twain shall meet, they are NOT the same.

First of all, that Science article I mentioned in the review, back in a 2015 issue, on the oxytocin loop and dogs? I have a strong hunch that is a groundbreaking study, on defining what dogs ARE. One of the reasons cited for revising the scientific classification of dogs to wolves (subcategory dogs), was the inability to put a finger on what made dogs different. Dog vary widely in body types and behavior - and the argument goes "With all those body types, what IS a dog?". Well - that oxytocin loop may just provide the answer. It's not the size of the dog in the fight . . .

TO BE CONTINUED!

1. You'll find a review of his books earlier in another blog post, found here.
2. "Oh, there's a big surprise!" -- Iago, the parrot

Adam Smith's invisible hand

When Adam Smith talked about an invisible hand, he was assuming that the basic infrastructure of society was in place - or that market participants would provide the infrastructure to maintain a peaceful market through rational self-interest. What history repeatedly schools us on that is that people are not rational, except secondarily. A “free” market requires rules of behavior. IMO, Ostrom’s work regarding the “commons” proved this. The problem arises, often, in balancing rules and freedom, but complete freedom doesn’t work. Some market actor WILL take advantage - happens every time. Too many rules are also stifling - or rules written by the wrong set of participants. Like a king - not a good person to write the rules, as they are disconnected from the market.

Alita: Battle Angel, pre-review

I can't say it's a review - I haven't seen the film yet! But I've viewed every trailer and clip I can find, because this one looks exciting!

A lot of the complaints I see seem based on characteristics of the film that parallel characteristics of manga.

Manga is not for everyone. It is juvenile and sometime puerile. It's philosophical and psychological depths are often stereotypes, and simplifications.

Much like Marvel and DC comic story lines we've seen in the past decade or so of story/movie conversions. AMOF, I've often seen similar negative comments on that spate of Marvel and DC comic/movie conversions. So, hey, the original stories were not Hemingway or Conrad deep. And any good movie conversion, that is honest to the original stories, won't be, either. But they can be deep, introspective, and philosophical in their own way. Spiderman and X-men are good examples of comics depth.

If you can accept and enjoy the original stories on their own merits - then you might also be able to enjoy the movie conversions - when they are good. The recent "Ghost in the Shell" movie is a good example of a BAD adaptation - lord love a duck, it's bad. Alita, on the other hand (I've only had access to clips so far), seems to be quite the opposite - as good a conversion to movie as you can expect - when moving a story from print to screen.

And it looks to me like a damn good story, and a ton of fun!