Are dog breeds substantial evidence of evolution?

I agree with “yes and no”. The selection at work is artificial selection, not natural selection. Humans are acting as the environment and selecting traits they want. Artificial and natural selection are subsets of what I call “Darwinian selection”. Despite what I say next, I would not use dogs in a debate. read more

Yes, they are substantial evidence of some aspects of evolution: inherent variability in offspring and the accumulated effect of selection of desired traits. The different dog breeds that exist to date are the results of meticulous selection of desired traits by breeders. read more

Dogs are but one example of evidence supporting evolution, or rather one specific pillar of evolution, namely selection. It is estimated that the domestication of dogs started around 30,000 to 40,000 years ago. read more

The example of dogs being bred from wolves does provide a nice example of (un)natural selection of traits (no different from Mendel’s original experiments with breeding peas, but it does not provide evidence of the evolution of one species from another. read more