Well I know this much, there was a video on here of a sheepherder dog who had never herded sheep before, and likely had never been around sheep it’s whole life, got out and it had brought someone else’s flock back to its owners. This kind of dog was bred to herd sheep, yet this particular dog was never trained to do it. How did it know what to do, and why did it feel the need to? There must be some genetic element in memory
Same experience, we had a Newfoundland which are bred as water rescue dogs. We took it to a lake for the first time, where everyone was swimming and she immediately jumped in the water and started trying to pull people out. She did this all day and she invented the process herself where she would get you to take her leash then she would take her leash in her mouth and paddle to shore. Kids had fun but she was a basket case.
I have a rat terrier, and when we moved to the country, it was unbelievable. He can find exactly where a mole is hiding in their tunnels, dig them out with his snout and kill them. Our Pyrenees tries, but he just ends up biting and pawing at dirt . . . it's pretty funny to watch him try to do what the other instinctively knows.
Not even epigenetics is needed. Selection exerts enormous influence on genes. It essentially designs them to be appropriate for environment. Genes are a record of what our genome has experienced. They are the memory it uses to learn from experience.
Yeah but I think the point is is that there is no animal that does this naturally, so the first dog that was bred for this purpose had to be trained how to do it. And now all of The other dogs in it’s genetic succession also somehow carry that training
Sounds like the argument that an eye couldn't have formed because there are supposedly no intermediate forms that are useful. Same argument. Choose the best of the litter to breed, and slowly they have characteristics you want. Not saying it must have been selection, but selection is more capable than suddenly popping behaviors out fully formed in one generation.
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