Domestication - proof of behaviour being passed on genetically.

Domestication is selective breeding in order to create animals that are less dangerous to humans, have a better temperament, or desirable characterstics (some of which might contradict my first couple of suggested traits). By getting the "nicest" animal of one litter, breeding it with the "nicest" animal or another, we can be sure at least the majority of animals from the coupling will be nice.

Certain animals fear certain things. Certain animals have aversions to things. Animals are attracted to things, and have instincts to kill others. I've seen it said that all fears are learned, but this only works if you define fear in a certain way. When fear is seen as closer in synonymity to aversion, we see that species, regardless of how they are brought up, will have the save aversions across a species. We are instinctively afraid of certain creatures because we are born with an aversion to a certain object, behaviour or circumstance. Heights, water, etc, they all make sense evolutionarily. What I found really interesting is the idea of why so many people are afraid of mice/rats. They are not dangerous, at least directly, but as disease-carriers... By this logic, we should be most afraid of mosquitoes. They are the only species that have seriously been looked at by scientists as candidates for speciecide (or whatever the word is for the intentional wiping out of an entire species). This makes me thing of a whole tangent about the ethics of keeping species alive, preserving them. Why is it wrong for a species to go extinct? Why is it any more wrong for a species to go extinct because of human intervention? Humans have this laziness in that they regard what "is" as what "should be". That's not how ethics work, logically. The nature card for preserving species only works if you see nature as: a) a pantheistic deity that will get angry if we start trying to take over its normal killing cycle or b) a mystery, ie in this case if we lose x number of species we don't know what could happen, but it's likely to fuck us all up. But anyway, mosquitoes suck and carry a lot of disease and kill millions every year. The most virulent of species should be made infertile. Also, behaviour is as easily passed on as any other genetic trait, though is obviously extremely more complicated in humans, due to upbringing, self-consciousness and other shit. Phobias are what are learned, not fears.