unnatural selection

English

Etymology

Play on natural selection.

Noun

unnatural selection (uncountable)

1. (evolutionary theory, rare, sometimes humorous or derogatory) The selection of certain genes caused by the actions of humans, especially the intentional intervention in the breeding of plants or animals in order to preserve selected genetic traits; eugenics, selective breeding or culling.
   • 2000, John Postgate, Microbes and Man, →ISBN, page 335:

     Is the startling variety of dogs, brassicas and the like, which our unnatural selection has generated, a sort of compensation, I wonder?

   • 2005, Daylanne K. English, Unnatural Selections: Eugenics in American Modernism and the Harlem Renaissance, →ISBN:

     Rachel demonstrates that America's racism and its tolerance of lynching (not public health measures, as white supremacist and elitist eugenicists from Spencer to Wiggam had argued) have resulted in unnatural selection for both blacks and whites.

   • 2009, Francisco J. Ayala, John C. Avise, In the Light of Evolution: Volume III: Two Centuries of Darwin, →ISBN:

     Unnatural selection generally acts at cross purposes to the long-term goal of sustainable harvest of wild populations and can reduce the frequency of phenotypes valued by humans. Harvest can affect sexual selection because it tends to remove individuals with particular characteristics, such as large size or elaborate weapons from those of the breeding pool.

   • 2012, John Tyler Bonner, The Ideas of Biology, →ISBN:

     There has often been talk of eugenics, of breeding humans in such a way as to improve their gene pool—a kind of unnatural selection or self-domestication.

Synonyms

• artificial selection