“Origins of Innovation: Bakewell & Breeding”, 2018-10-28 (; backlinks):
A review of 1986’s Like Engend’ring Like: Heredity and Animal Breeding in Early Modern England, describing development of selective breeding and discussing models of the psychology and sociology of innovation.
Like anything else, the idea of “breeding” had to be invented. That traits are genetically-influenced broadly equally by both parents subject to considerable randomness and can be selected for over many generations to create large average population-wide increases had to be discovered the hard way, with many wildly wrong theories discarded along the way. Animal breeding is a case in point, as reviewed by an intellectual history of animal breeding, Like Engend’ring Like, which covers mistaken theories of conception & inheritance from the ancient Greeks to perhaps the first truly successful modern animal breeder, Robert Bakewell (1725–701795229ya).
Why did it take thousands of years to begin developing useful animal breeding techniques, a topic of interest to almost all farmers everywhere, a field which has no prerequisites such as advanced mathematics or special chemicals or mechanical tools, and seemingly requires only close observation and patience? This question can be asked of many innovations early in the Industrial Revolution, such as the flying shuttle.
Some veins in economics history and sociology suggest that at least one ingredient is an improving attitude: a detached outsider’s attitude which asks whether there is any way to optimize something, in defiance of ‘the wisdom of tradition’, and looks for improvements. A relevant English example is the English Royal Society of Arts, founded not too distant in time from Bakewell, specifically to spur competition and imitation and new inventions. Psychological barriers may be as important as anything like per capita wealth or peace in innovation.