I think I stated my original question rather poorly. there is no doubt that domestication is not a result of "regression to the means". what I should have stated is if anybody has looked into whether the secondary characteristics such as piebald patterns (which I actually do believe is a result from domestication), can be explained by "regression to the means" instead. I will also say that I think the experiments they did are amazing, and I'm asking not because I question their work, but because I want to extend my understanding of it. Bob stated very clearly why tamenss is increased --> the population tamness is being skewed towards one end of a bell curve. there is a very strong selective pressure that is imposed on the population. at the same time that tameness is increased, the population also showed characteristics such as piebald patterns, curled tails, floppy ears etc. these characteristics are quite common in domesticated animals, but seldom seen in the wild. now, wild animals are also under very strong selective pressures (e.g. if you are an albino moose, you'll be the first to go because predators can single you out easily). so the question is, are these secondary characteristics due to tameness, or due to the population regressing towards the means? keep in mind no one knows what the means is. in the article I read, there is very little mention of the group of control farm foxes. to rule out "regression to the means" as an explanation of secondary characteristics, the control group should be bred from one starting group of foxes, be subject to the same human contact and tests, bred for a low inbreeding coefficient, but NOT selected for tameness. if the resulting foxes at the same generation also show similar characteristics in similar frequencies, then selecting for tameness alone does not account for piebald patterns, regression to the means does. so knowing the setup for the control group of foxes would eliminate this explanation. personally, I don't believe the secondary characteristics are a result of regression to the means, but I was wonderinf if there is an experimentation related reason to eliminate the regression to the means, not an alternative explanation for the appearance of secondary characteristics that make sense. another thing I didn't find from the article is whether the domesticated foxes have more health problems than farm foxes. reason I'm curious, of course, is whether we can domesticate polecats and get a healthier breed of ferrets out. Bob, do you have thoughts on this? // *************************************** // Selina, Sprite, Sand, Bear, Dart & Clef // in spirit - Birch, Dief & Storm // http://www.cgl.uwaterloo.ca/~ssiu [Posted in FML issue 4128]