Dog Breeds and Race

Frank Miele has a fun article in VDARE.com on "The K9 Comparison: What Dog Breeds Can Tell Us about Humans." An excerpt:

The classic study was carried out by Daniel G. Freedman for his doctoral dissertation. Freedman spent every day and evening rearing four dog breeds—Beagles, Wire-haired Fox Terriers, Shetland Sheepdogs, and Basenjis—from age two to twelve weeks.

He noticed that as soon as their ears and eyes opened, the breeds differed in behavior. Little Beagles were friendly from the moment they detected him. Shetland Sheepdogs were the most sensitive to a loud voice or the slightest punishment. The Wire-haired Fox Terriers were so tough and aggressive, even as clumsy three-week olds, that Freedman had to wear gloves in playing with them The Basenjis, barkless dogs from central Africa, were aloof and independent….

But what does this have to do with humans? Professor Freedman wrote that

"I had worked with different breeds of dogs and I had been struck by how predictable was the behavior of each breed. A breed of dog is a construct zoologically and genetically equivalent to a race of man. To look at us, my wife and I [Freedman is Jewish; his wife Chinese], my wife and I were clearly of two different breeds. Were some of our behavioral differences determined by breed?"

Freedman and his wife set about designing experiments to test that hypothesis. …

The Freedmans decided to observe the behavior of newborns and infants of different races using the Cambridge Behavioral and Neurological Assessment Scale. Unlike the typical reflex tests performed by pediatricians, these tests, called the “Brazelton" after their developer, measure social and emotional behavior.

The Freedmans found that European American and Chinese American newborns reacted differently even though hospital conditions and prenatal care were the same.

White babies started to cry more easily, and once they started, they were more difficult to console. Chinese babies adapted to almost any position in which they were placed. When placed face down in their cribs, they tended to keep their faces buried in the sheets rather than immediately turning to one side, as did the Whites.

In a maneuver called the "defense reaction" by neurologists, the baby's nose was briefly pressed with a cloth, forcing him to breathe with his mouth. Most Caucasian and black babies fight the maneuver by immediately turning away or swiping at the cloth with their hands. Not surprisingly, this is listed in Western pediatric textbooks as the normal, expected response.

But not so the average Chinese babies in the study. They simply lay on their back, breathing from the mouth, "accepting" the cloth without a fight.

There were other more subtle differences. While both Chinese and Caucasian infants would start to cry at about the same point in the examination, especially when they were being undressed, Chinese babies stopped crying immediately, while Caucasian babies quieted only gradually.

The Freedman noted that the film of their finding left audiences awestruck by the group differences.

[More]

This study is about four decades old. To keep it from disappearing even further down the memory hole, somebody should contact Dr. Freedman about putting his film on Youtube.

My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer