From Richard Cragg
Dmitry Belyaev did not only work on aggression in rats (13 August, p 24). His experiments in Siberia also included foxes, which, in a mere 20 years of selective breeding became dog-like in temperament, actively seeking human company, in contrast to their wild ancestors (3 October 2009, p 40). Belyaev was effectively exiled to Siberia in the 1950s, because Joseph Stalin required humans to be malleable, not hard-wired by their genes.
The collapse of the Soviet Union was not just the defeat of a discredited political system, but a victory for genetics over the “blank slate” or behaviourism.
Kingston-upon-Thames, Surrey, UK
