Dogs that have been taught over and over to retrieve have puppies that automatically have already got that sense
Keith S. Taber
Bert was a participant in the Understanding Science Project. In Y11 he reported that he had been studying about the environment in biology, and done some work on adaptation. he gave a number of examples of how animals were adapted to their environment. When asked to explain how this occurred he initially used an example of selective breeding in dogs.
…our homework we did about adapting, like how polar bears adapt to their environments, and camels….
And so a polar bear has adapted to the environment?
Yeah.
So how has a polar bear adapted to the environment?
Erm things like it has white fur for camouflage so the prey don't see it coming up. Large feet to spread out its weight when it's going over like ice. Yeah, thick fur to keep the body heat insulated.
What about a camel then?
Well it has long eyelashes to keep the sand out of it. It has pretty much all its fat stored in its hump so that it can erm, so all the body, so that not much body heat is produced from everywhere else. It doesn't have hair on its belly to increase heat loss. And yeah, oh yeah, they're quite big so it has quite a lot of grip on the sand.
…
No, okay. So do you have any other examples of adaption?…
Oh well, well there's humans isn't there. Because like they started off like with an arched back and they went on all-fours and everything. And well their minds obviously have adapted and evolved, yeah. Erm (pause) and dogs, they have different … because people who are actually breeders, they, when they breed dogs they breed them to be like, like Retrievers. Because they've like been taught over and over to retrieve. And so when they have puppies then they automatically have already got that sense. That's not really adapting though is it?
So somebody has trained these dogs to go and, when they shoot birds or something, they're trained to go and get the birds they've shot and bring them back?
Yes.
Okay. And if you do that enough, baby puppies bred from those dogs will just know to do that?
Well they won't know to do that, but they'll already have that kind of sense. And like, well my dog that I have, it's a Chocolate Labrador, and I said look, she had webbed feet which is adapted for swimming, for retrieving, I don't know, retrieving birds from water or something.
Although Bert was aware of how traits could be passed on to offspring he was thinking in terms of the inheritance of acquired characteristics – a Lamarkian model of evolution – rather than the selection of qualities that vary across a population. For some pupils the notion of evolution makes sense, but in terms of changes that occur in an individual in response to environmental challenges being somehow passed on to their offspring. The inheritance of acquired characteristics is a scientific concept, that is a historical (scientific) concept, but not a canonical (current scientific) concept, so Bert's understanding of evolution would be considered an alternative conception.
(Bert then went on to consider an example of a naturally occurring adaptation, the polar bear's fur, however he again considered this in terms of an acquired characteristic being passed on to future generations.)
