Artificial selection

Is natural selection all metaphor - http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v59/n1529/abs/059369a0.html

THE Duke of Argyll, in his reply to Mr. Herbert Spencer, says â€œin the Darwinian theory there is no selectorâ€ (NATURE, February 2, p. 317). Though we have not yet discovered a principle or factor which plays the part of the breeder in nature, it by no means follows that â€œnatural selectionâ€ is â€œall metaphor,â€ nor yet, as has been often stated, an altogether misleading phrase. The rÃ´le of the breeder or artificial selector is, I believe, often misunderstood. If we consider what the art of breeding mainly consists in, we may come to the conclusion that even the phrase â€œartificial selectionâ€ is, to a considerable extent, misleading and metaphorical. It seems to me the art of breeding consists mainly in two things, viz. (1) producing prepotency, and (2) preventing intercrossing. Prepotency is produced and maintained by inbreeding. The object of preventing intercrossing is to arrest, as far as possible, variation and reversion. If it can be shown that in nature prepotency often arises either as a sport or through inbreeding, and that prepotency by arresting the â€œswamping effects of intercrossingâ€ plays the part of the fences of the breeder and the cages of the fancier, we shall be justified in looking upon prepotency as a â€œselector,â€ and in finding more than metaphor in the phrase â€œnatural selection.â€ We already know that amongst insects a sport may displace the parent form; and if, instead of searching for evidence of intersterility as suggested by Romanes, we search diligently for evidence of prepotency, we may ere long discover the â€œselectorâ€â€”the factor that in nature, under the control of utility, plays the part of the breeder.

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we note a correlation in patterns and can exploit such intentionally as in pigeon breeding.