Abstract
Over the past 11,000 years, humans have domesticated a wide range of animals for different purposes designed to serve the human economy, society, and religious activities. The resulting mutual dependence between humans and their domestic partners created anthropogenic landscapes designed to sustain and protect their members. In this paper, we review the literature on the latest insights in interdisciplinary anthropological research on the evolution of animal domestication and breeding and put them in the context of the contemporary ethical debate on animal welfare and the application of modern biotechnology to animal breeding. Opponents of the use of animal biotechnology tend to see breeders often as enablers of industrial farming that would seek selective business advantage at the expense of the environment and animal welfare. Many applications of animal biotechnology may, however, also help to address environmental and animal welfare concerns in an effective way. Moreover, recent archeological and genetic research findings on the history of animal domestication reveal a distinctive kind of mutualism in the human–animal relationship based on a gradual co-evolutionary process with clear benefits for both parties in the relationship. These insights challenge the popular Neo-Darwinian account of unilateral adaptation only benefiting the more powerful party. Instead, they support the hypothesis that humans do not just adapt, but actively shape the environment through cultural niche construction (CNC) that also involves care and protection for domesticated animals. These empirical findings should also be taken into account in the contemporary ethical debate on animal welfare, which has become increasingly detached from the real-world efforts to improve animal welfare through best practices.
Highlights
Over the past 11,000 years, humans have domesticated a wide range of animals for different purposes designed to serve the human economy, society, and religious activities
Prime mover accounts that claim to have identified a main single cause continue to dominate the discourse on the causes and impact of the origins of agriculture, not least because they are compatible with the Standard Evolutionary Theory (SET) derived from
One popular ‘prime mover’ account argues that animal and plant domestication took place in response to external factors related to resource depletion, climate change and population growth [72]
Summary
Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Large-scale improvements that could improve animal welfare in low-income countries are more likely to come from technological change designed to eliminate harmful practices, increase disease resistance, and promote sustainable intensification. In this context, animal biotechnology may eventually make a substantial contribution [9]. Gene editing has been successfully applied to produce hornless cows [19] or to ensure that pigs do not develop boar taint [20] This allows the respective domesticated animals to avoid painful procedures such as dehorning and castration without losing any of the prior preferred characteristics. Shriver [11] deduces from this principle that if we have an opportunity to prevent suffering or to avoid the creation of new suffering at little or no cost, and we fail to act on that opportunity, we have done something wrong
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
