> "They are also bigger, lay larger eggs and have smaller brains than their wild cousins - differences that are also seen in chickens. ...Pets tend to have floppier ears and curlier tails than their wild ancestors. They also have smaller jaws and teeth, white patches on their fur and breed more frequently. This phenomenon is known as 'domestication syndrome'."<p>I am not being glib, but I wonder if this is what happened to humans. allow me to explain. As short as 5,000 years ago, our brains were 10% bigger, our jaws were bigger, and our size was smaller. The former 2 have been associated with diet, but the shrinking brain is still debated. Maybe its simple though. Maybe humans domesticated humans.
> Successful escapes by smarter fruit flies may have left scientists breeding from a less intelligent pool of lab subjects.<p>This line of reasoning has really got a lot of geneticists concerned their findings may not be generalizable.
Dogs might be so friendly because they have their version of Williams syndrome: <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/19/science/dogs-genes-sociability.html" rel="nofollow">https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/19/science/dogs-genes-sociab...</a>
Why so many headlines of really common-sense "duh" science?<p>Who would have possibly imagined that creatures on this earth would evolve to endure their surroundings?
> They are also bigger, lay larger eggs and have smaller brains than their wild cousins - differences that are also seen in chickens.<p>I wonder if something similar is also happening in amongst some humans in some selection process. Breeders with less cognitive material than others, the others being seen as less sexually attractive (like as seen in Idiocracy, and I posit: real life)<p>I wonder how long it will remain controversial to consider that
Of course, tho I would like to stop making ourselves superior from them, and fix the headline with something like "Animals change by proximity with other animals". I think this "human exceptionalism" is changing nature for the wrong.