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Book ID: CBB892989234

Beauty Or Statistics: Practice and Science in Dutch Livestock Breeding, 1900-2000 (2020)

Theunissen, Bert (Author)

University of Toronto Press
Publication date: 2020
Language: English

ISBN: 9781487535384

Publication Date: 2020
Physical Details: 288

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Science and economics Modernization Animals Agriculture Veterinary medicine Breeding Livestock 20th century Netherlands

In the 1970s, scientists claimed that farm animal breeding was finally evolving from an art into a science. In their view, the switch to scientific breeding was as inevitable as the ongoing process of agricultural modernization. However, the art-to-science scenario is too simplistic to do justice to the complex dynamic that characterized the transformation of the field.The livestock breeds that take centre stage in this book – dairy cattle, chickens, pigs, sheep, and horses – were products of the twentieth century. The methods used by breeders to improve their animals, however, were much older. Tracing the history of practical stockbreeding, the role of Mendelism in scientific breeding, and the emergence of quantitative genetics, Beauty or Statistics shows that the story of the scientific modernization of livestock breeding can be more fruitfully analysed from the perspective of changing cultures of breeding, taking practical, commercial, normative, and aesthetic considerations into account.

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Reviewed By

Review Margaret E. Derry (2022) Review of "Beauty Or Statistics: Practice and Science in Dutch Livestock Breeding, 1900-2000". Agricultural History (pp. 313-315). unapi

Review Tarquin Holmes (2021) Review of "Beauty Or Statistics: Practice and Science in Dutch Livestock Breeding, 1900-2000". History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences (p. 98). unapi

Review Rebecca J. H. Woods (2022) Review of "Beauty Or Statistics: Practice and Science in Dutch Livestock Breeding, 1900-2000". Isis: International Review Devoted to the History of Science and Its Cultural Influences (pp. 887-888). unapi

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