The concepts of “domestication” and “artificial selection” and their significance in the work of Charles DarwinThis analysis examines the terms “domestication” and “selection” presented in Darwin’s The variation of animals and plants under domestication, and the significance he gave to these concepts. This approach focuses on how Darwin drew upon knowledge generated centuries earlier by experts in breeding and cultivation to modify prevailing definitions and use this semantic shift as a primary instrument to defend his theory. The construction of the “analogy” between natural and artificial selection was not merely a heuristic resource, but rather the result of an inductive generalization grounded in irrefutable evidence. Both concepts were reinterpreted based on Darwinian transmutationism, as specific evolutionary scenarios.
Keywords:
Domestication; Artificial selection; Hybridization; Crossing; Close interbreeding