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The surprising thing is, we don't ordinarily regard species like the cow and the potato, the tulip and the dog, as nature's more extraordinary creatures. Domesticated species don't command our respect the way their wild cousins do. Evolution may reward interdependence, but our thinking selves continue to prize self-reliance. The wolf is somehow more impressive to us than the dog.
Yet there are fifty million dogs in America today; only ten thousand wolves. So what does the dog know about getting along in this world that its wild ancestor doesn't? The big thing the dog knows about -the subject it has mastered in the ten thousand years it has been evolving at our side- is us: our needs and desires, our emotions and values, all of which it has folded into its genes as part of a sophisticated strategy for survival. Michael Pollan, from The Botany of Desire
Yet there are fifty million dogs in America today; only ten thousand wolves. So what does the dog know about getting along in this world that its wild ancestor doesn't? The big thing the dog knows about -the subject it has mastered in the ten thousand years it has been evolving at our side- is us: our needs and desires, our emotions and values, all of which it has folded into its genes as part of a sophisticated strategy for survival. Michael Pollan, from The Botany of Desire