Re: <nettime> Planet destroyed; film at 11

[nettime-l-request@bbs.thing.net]

>> under the impression that we created the species by inter and cross
>> breeding wolves, with the intent of domesticating them. 
> Are you saying we also "created" poodles from wolves?
As a matter of fact, we did. Poodles are, zoologically speaking, a breed 
(or variety) of Canis familiaris, domestic dog. And the common scientific 
opinion says that dog is domesticated from the grey wolf, so - in 
conclusion - all of the 400 or so breeds of today are descended from Canis 
lupus. Estimations of wolf-human alliance dates back at least 12.000 years, 
selective breeding began about 10.000 years ago, and palaeontological 
evidences of noticeable differences in size from the Beaverhead Mountains 
in Idaho are 9.000 years old. 
The same story can be told about more or less all domestic animals, inner 
or cross breed (like, most likely, cats), and I believe that botanists can 
reveal in details such a pattern inside the plant kingdom - which have a 
more complex taxonomy and phylogenies to which I'm not especially familiar.
On non-deliberate creation of new species through habitat changes, use of 
chemicals (like pesticides) and other human activities is still little 
known - excluding microbiology and virology, where one can find many fine 
researches about recent evolutionary changes of different species (Virology 
Arena at Elsevier's web site [www.elsevier.com], for example).

So, if we put possible metaphysical discussion about meaning of "creating" 
aside, human beings actually created plenty of today's species, subspecies, 
varieties, and hybrids.

ciao
igor

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