Lightning seldom strikes twice, they say, but if it strikes twice you may be damned that it'll strike you the third time. I don't know much about lightning, but internet jokes that are forwarded by mails sure do strike you so many times that most people look at the subject and delete. This post originates from one such forwarded mail that claimed (under point 31) that no new animals have been domesticated in the last 4000 years.
On the face of it such a claim seems totally false since we do come across eccentric people who tame exotic creatures every now and then. However if you consider large scale domestication the forwarded mail sounds correct. Doesn't it seem odd then that humans who have been domesticating for millennia suddenly lose interest in domesticating altogether? Here's a concise list of human achievements in the field of domestication that I extract from wikipedia:
Dog: Domesticated around 15,000 BC
Sheep: Domesticated around 10,000 BC
Bottle gourds: Domesticated around 10,000 BC (first plant form to be domesticated leading to the agricultural revolution later)
Pig: Domesticated around 9,000 BC
Goat: Domesticated around 8,000 BC
Cow: Domesticated around 7,500 BC
and from then there's a flurry of animals domesticated for the next 6,000 years as though it was the rage of those millennia. And then it stopped. Almost like an abolition law had been passed, but already domesticated animals and plants continued to be domesticated. The religious revolution set in - the good lord was a shepherd (Krishna), so was Jesus Christ. And much as they exhibited domestication, there wasn't much progress - had the human race run out of animals to domesticate? Or has humans domesticating other humans put an end to all new domestication?
Seemingly not. If there had been a lull in the advances in domestication, it has been put to rest in the age of information. Seemingly strange, but it is in this age of advanced technological achievements that man has turned again towards domestication. The largest ever domesticated animal - the Guinea Pig! There are indeed several other animals used for research, but none as popular the guinea pig. Laboratory rats and monkeys are well known for experiments conducted on them. Here are a couple of items fresh from the newspapers this week - monkeys experimented for obesity and another where wasps are taught to recognise smells so that they can be used to detect explosives.
The principles of domestication hasn't changed - the day may not be far when we domesticate babel fish and we can all be rid of having to learn so many languages. All the best Babel fish, the humans will hunt you down until you're domesticated or extinct.
On the face of it such a claim seems totally false since we do come across eccentric people who tame exotic creatures every now and then. However if you consider large scale domestication the forwarded mail sounds correct. Doesn't it seem odd then that humans who have been domesticating for millennia suddenly lose interest in domesticating altogether? Here's a concise list of human achievements in the field of domestication that I extract from wikipedia:
Dog: Domesticated around 15,000 BC
Sheep: Domesticated around 10,000 BC
Bottle gourds: Domesticated around 10,000 BC (first plant form to be domesticated leading to the agricultural revolution later)
Pig: Domesticated around 9,000 BC
Goat: Domesticated around 8,000 BC
Cow: Domesticated around 7,500 BC
and from then there's a flurry of animals domesticated for the next 6,000 years as though it was the rage of those millennia. And then it stopped. Almost like an abolition law had been passed, but already domesticated animals and plants continued to be domesticated. The religious revolution set in - the good lord was a shepherd (Krishna), so was Jesus Christ. And much as they exhibited domestication, there wasn't much progress - had the human race run out of animals to domesticate? Or has humans domesticating other humans put an end to all new domestication?
Seemingly not. If there had been a lull in the advances in domestication, it has been put to rest in the age of information. Seemingly strange, but it is in this age of advanced technological achievements that man has turned again towards domestication. The largest ever domesticated animal - the Guinea Pig! There are indeed several other animals used for research, but none as popular the guinea pig. Laboratory rats and monkeys are well known for experiments conducted on them. Here are a couple of items fresh from the newspapers this week - monkeys experimented for obesity and another where wasps are taught to recognise smells so that they can be used to detect explosives.
The principles of domestication hasn't changed - the day may not be far when we domesticate babel fish and we can all be rid of having to learn so many languages. All the best Babel fish, the humans will hunt you down until you're domesticated or extinct.
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