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[zombat]

Has anyone done any dorf science on selective breeding programs since the change of animal reproduction from spores to proximity?
Has anyone had any luck making bigger and tougher war animals for instance, is this possible?

Have you applied any of these techniques to produce a breed of Unterdorfs?

[Larix]

Such a beautiful word. Such a nice concept that never had unfortunate consequences.

Good thing you already set it on fire, so i don't have to do it. (In other words: yes, that's a definite trigger word for me.)

[TheFlame52]

(In other words: yes, that's a definite trigger word for me.)

This is Dwarf Fortress, where it's perfectly acceptable to talk about chaining up merpeople, forcing them to breed, then air-drowning their children and leaving the bodies to rot into bones which are then turned into high-value crafts. In other words, calm down.

[k33n]

"trigger words" not being used ironically .... 

As for genetics and inheritance, I actually do not know what system dwarf fortress applies if any.

[Larix]

"Eugenics" used as if it weren't an utterly objectionable concept and a movement built around harming actual people...

No, it's not enough to call it "dwarf breeding program", it's important to use a word that causes a gag reflext in people who've read up a bit on this kind of stuff.

This is Dwarf Fortress, where it's perfectly acceptable

Nope.

In other words, calm down.

I am calm.

[TheHossofMoss]

Such a beautiful word. Such a nice concept that never had unfortunate consequences.

Good thing you already set it on fire, so i don't have to do it. (In other words: yes, that's a definite trigger word for me.)

What is this, Tumblr?

[Urist Arrhenius]

"Eugenics" used as if it weren't an utterly objectionable concept and a movement built around harming actual people...

No, it's not enough to call it "dwarf breeding program", it's important to use a word that causes a gag reflext in people who've read up a bit on this kind of stuff.

Eugenics literally means good breeding and was initially established by looking at the extended family tree of Charles Darwin. His family had an unusually high concentration of academic excellence, and somebody posited that traits such as this could be brought about by selective marriage into so called "good families." This idea did result in all sorts of atrocities, and none of them are supported by science (if you look at the actual decrease in negative recessive traits that are already scarce in a population, its essentially negligible). That the word is adopted, in this case, to discuss the positive breeding of animals and dwarfs is a better reflection of its Greek roots than of the practice as it occurred in the United States.

For what it's worth I haven't seen anyone looking into selective breeding in DF.

Finally, please do not call any objectionable word a trigger word. It perpetuates misunderstandings in what trigger words actually are. "gag reflex" is not enough. If you are genuinely triggered, I'm deeply sorry and suggest you read a different post.

[Kuriak]

Good thing you already set it on fire, so i don't have to do it. (In other words: yes, that's a definite trigger word for me.)

Can you please stop? My muffins died in an oven fire, and you're really triggering me with this language.

[damnit,urist,youhadonejob]

can we get to the science of this?

[Larix]

<Checks wikipedia "trigger *".>

I apologise. That's what i get for learning vocabulary from the interwebs.

A title of "Eugenics" _does_ give me a strong "kill the thread with fire" reflex.  It's not "any" objectionable word, it's a pretty damn severe one.(Etymology doesn't explain what a word means, only where it comes from. The real-world use it has seen makes it unredeemable for me.)

Above: No.

[Urist Arrhenius]

can we get to the science of this?

I think the first step would be to determine if there is any degree of inheritance, which would probably mean keeping only two breeding animals of a single species on the map at a time, and seeing if you can select for traits and establish a true breeding line. After that you could figure out if proximity matters, though I suspect that will be much more difficult.

<Checks wikipedia "trigger *".>

I apologise. That's what i get for learning vocabulary from the interwebs.

A title of "Eugenics" _does_ give me a strong "kill the thread with fire" reflex.  It's not "any" objectionable word, it's a pretty damn severe one.(Etymology doesn't explain what a word means, only where it comes from. The real-world use it has seen makes it unredeemable for me.)

Above: No.

Please don't kill a perfectly valid thread because you dislike the title. People could make the claim that atrocities have occurred in the name of religion with as much justification, but you don't (usually) see people trying to tank the thread for that reason. And keep in mind that the first rule of posting on this forum is to not pick a fight, and I'm pretty sure intentionally disrupting a thread counts.

That being said the title of this thread could easily be changed to "Selective Breeding" without compromising the purpose of the thread, while at the same time removing a word which has a problematic history.

[Skullsploder]

Well we know proximity matters because Toady said so. The up to date versions all feature breeding requiring adjacency, which should make selective breeding ( ) far easier in animals. In dwarves it's about the same I think, but homosexuality may make for some inconveniences, and I've seen many reports of people struggling to get dwarves to marry and pop out dwarflings.

The ideal creature to test on would be chickens I think, since they have large litter sizes, are available on embark, and reach maturity in a single year. Other poultry should work fine too, and dogs or pigs would be good test subjects as non egg layers. I would test the base attribute gain attainable in basic animals before moving on to dwarves, as dwarves take 12 years to reach breeding age and are very annoying for every one of those 12 years.

Simple enough to do on a mature fort.
Just isolate your best pair of animals in terms of attributes, and your worst. Make sure that neither pair has ever seen  combat (since we're testing base attributes). They should start popping out ooffspring in very short order, and when they do, isolate them from he young and check said young for attributes. Record your findings, and if the best pair consistently produce offspring of a higher standard, then true selective breeding is possible in DF

[taptap]

Please don't kill a perfectly valid thread because you dislike the title.

If you look for genetics or breeding or husbandry, you might even find sth. on the forum. But let us not pretend this project is anything but an excuse to push dwarf babies into magma... if you want to research, take a bunch of geese or whatever other bird you like, isolate breeding pairs and note the results over multiple generations.

[Skullsploder]

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Please don't kill a perfectly valid thread because you dislike the title.

If you look for genetics or breeding or husbandry, you might even find sth. on the forum. But let us not pretend this project is anything but an excuse to push dwarf babies into magma... if you want to research, take a bunch of geese or whatever other bird you like, isolate breeding pairs and note the results over multiple generations.

AHEM.

The ideal creature to test on would be chickens I think

Has anyone had any luck making bigger and tougher war animals for instance, is this possible?

I think the first step would be to determine if there is any degree of inheritance, which would probably mean keeping only two breeding animals of a single species on the map at a time, and seeing if you can select for traits and establish a true breeding line.

We are talking about animals, not dwarves. And if we were talking about dwarves, we're all too pragmatic to chuck babies in magma. It's better and easier to lock two dwarves in a room until they marry each other than to kill off half your population as "undesirable, " unlike what unfortunately happened in real life.

Now please stop derailing a perfectly valid thread for the sake of the perceived violations of the percieved rights of randomised collections of data in a computer program.

[TheHossofMoss]

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Please don't kill a perfectly valid thread because you dislike the title.

If you look for genetics or breeding or husbandry, you might even find sth. on the forum. But let us not pretend this project is anything but an excuse to push dwarf babies into magma... if you want to research, take a bunch of geese or whatever other bird you like, isolate breeding pairs and note the results over multiple generations.

THIS.


AHEM.

The ideal creature to test on would be chickens I think

Has anyone had any luck making bigger and tougher war animals for instance, is this possible?

I think the first step would be to determine if there is any degree of inheritance, which would probably mean keeping only two breeding animals of a single species on the map at a time, and seeing if you can select for traits and establish a true breeding line.

We are talking about animals, not dwarves. And if we were talking about dwarves, we're all too pragmatic to chuck babies in magma. It's better and easier to lock two dwarves in a room until they marry each other than to kill off half your population as "undesirable, " unlike what unfortunately happened in real life.

Now please stop derailing a perfectly valid thread for the sake of the perceived violations of the percieved rights of randomised collections of data in a computer program.