《HOW TO TAME A FOX》作者: Lee Alan Dugatkin【EPUB】

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Tucked away in Siberia, there are furry, four-legged creatures with wagging tails & floppy ears that are as docile & friendly as any lapdog. But, despite appearances, these are not dogs—they are foxes. They are the result of the most astonishing experiment in breeding ever undertaken—imagine speeding up thousands of years of evolution into a few decades.
In 1959, biologists Dmitri Belyaev and Lyudmila Trut set out to do just that, by starting with a few dozen silver foxes from fox farms in the USSR & attempting to recreate the evolution of wolves into dogs in real time in order to witness the process of domestication. This is the extraordinary, untold story of this remarkable undertaking.

Most accounts of the natural evolution of wolves place it over a span of about 15,000 years, but within a decade, Belyaev & Trut’s fox breeding experiments had resulted in puppy-like foxes with floppy ears, piebald spots, & curly tails. Along with these physical changes came genetic & behavioral changes, as well. The foxes were bred using selection criteria for tameness, & with each generation, they became increasingly interested in human companionship. Trut has been there the whole time, & has been the lead scientist on this work since Belyaev’s death in 1985, & with Lee Dugatkin, biologist & science writer, she tells the story of the adventure, science, politics, & love behind it all.  In How to Tame a Fox, Dugatkin and Trut take us inside this path-breaking experiment in the midst of the brutal winters of Siberia to reveal how scientific history is made and continues to be made today.

To date, fifty-six generations of foxes have been domesticated, & we continue to learn significant lessons from them about the genetic & behavioral evolution of domesticated animals. How to Tame a Fox offers an incredible tale of scientists at work, while also celebrating the deep attachments that have brought humans and animals together throughout time.

关于作者

Lee Dugatkin, Ph.D., is an evolutionary biologist, historian of science, and science writer. The Wall Street Journal describes his 2022 book, "Power in the Wild: The Subtle and Not-So-Subtle Ways Animals Strive for Control over Others" (The University of Chicago Press) as a "scrupulously scientific but highly accessible tour of power’s manifestations...readable and intellectually satisfying...Dugatkin’s depiction of power in the wild yields a stunningly provocative reflection." The New York Times Book Review calls his 2017 University of Chicago Press book "How To Tame a Fox (and Build a Dog)," co-authored with Lyudmila Trut, a “Sparkling ...Part science, part Russian fairy tale and part spy thriller... It may serve - particularly now - as a parable of the lessons that emerge from unfettered science, if we have the courage to let it unfold.”