Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
the ability to tolerate the milk sugar lactose in the diet, have been aided by
the consequences of animal domestications, which have infl uenced many
aspects of how we live.
But, as we have seen over and over again in these chapters, at the same
time as our own lives have changed and become richer, we have dangerously
degraded our environment.
Just in the area of animal domestication alone, our ancestors have driven
to extinction the closest wild relatives of cattle, horses, goats, and camels.
Much of the store of genetic variation that might have contributed to the
future evolution of the species on which we depend has been lost.
And we have fl ooded fragile ecosystems with unsustainably large num-
bers of our domesticated animals. As a result, deserts are invading grasslands
in Africa and central Asia. In the lands that surround the Mediterranean Sea
entire ecosystems have been “goated” into oblivion. Because of overgrazing
and unsustainable agricultural methods, the people living on Madagascar's
central plateau can only eke out a precarious existence.
Despite all these ecological disasters, I cannot help but wonder whether
our long association with domestic animals may have had some positive
ef ects. The process of domestication may have put a premium on behav-
iors such as patience and empathy. Perhaps someday soon, as we continue
to analyze how our genes have changed, we will fi nd out which of our own
recent evolutionary changes have been driven by our intimate association
with the many other animals on our planet that we have tamed and even
befriended. Has there been, as a result, an evolutionary increase in kindness?
I hope so.
