Darwin supported by Beethoven!!
Darwin’s theory of evolution has gained significant support as a result of a study and report that has come out of the University of Manchester where biologists have determined that changes in the shape of the dogs’ heads over time are as a result of human directed evolution through selective breeding. Selective breeding is when animals within a breed who possess the most dominant and positive traits are brought together(through the efforts of humans) to reproduce in order to spawn the “best of the breed”. This is a simplified explanation without getting into a detailed discussion of genetics.
It was found that the traits that significantly identified the St. Bernard became more pronounced over time as breeders selected the dogs that had the strongest evidence of these traits and ultimately bred them together. This resulted in those traits becoming more exaggerated in these dogs. You can see from the skulls above that the angle of the head to the nose of the St. Bernard has become much more defined in the younger dog (1976, the bottom skull) versus the one on the top. The older dog (1892, the top dog) had a much less defined angle and the head to the nose is less representative of what we commonly see of the St. Bernard of today. The dogs of today also have broader skulls and more distinct ridges above the eyes than those of their ancestors of the same breed. These evolutionary changes are the traits by which the breed standard is evaluated.
The findings of this study can be found in the Proceedings of the Royal Society of Biological Sciences and were based on studies that examined 47 skulls of St. Bernards that spanned over 120 years. The skulls that were used in the study were donated by Swiss breeders.
This isn’t the place where I wish to get into a discussion of evolution vs. creationism, but the evidence revealed in this study leads to the conclusion that evolution, whether natural or artificial, does occur and the results can be seen over significant periods of time when animals of the same breed are compared.
So the Beethoven that we have grown to love in all of his movies would have looked a bit different 100 or more years ago. Would we have loved him any less? I doubt it. But there is something really cool about that big head and and the large nose that seems to want to sniff everywhere it is not wanted!!!
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