Theory and Method: An Analysis of European and American Animal Breeding Practices, from the Eighteenth to the Twenty-First Century

In the twentieth century a conflict arose between geneticists and practical breeders over which theory of heredity should direct animal breeding strategies and methods. Two different approaches existed and competed with each other over how to develop a breeding methodology for the livestock industries. This article addresses strategies on the basis of theoretical outlooks by explaining the way they arose over the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, what brought them into conflict with each other after the rise of Mendelian genetics in 1900, and ultimately how and why the differing systems emanating from them affected animal industries over the twentieth and into the twenty-first century. Looking at methodology through the lens of its theoretical roots provides an enriched appreciation of the interrelationship between science and practice, and also shows that the intellectual disagreements between geneticists and practical breeders rested on foundations that far predated the science of genetics.