It began in England. Out of Darwinism. Once people had to accept that the Ancient Greek philosophies of “the ideal form” couldn’t exist. (Because of evolution, everything is always evolving) But you could use Darwin and Mendel and genetics to engineer the biology you preferred.

And where did the Romans get it from? Egypt? I guess it couldn’t have been China, because they were also doing their own version of this several thousand miles away.

It’s good to have an alternate perspective. But this one is pretty bad. Cars and freeways are terrible. But many “bugs” aren’t so great either. Carrying diseases like malaria, destroying trees and crops. Infecting other animals. Then to anthropomorphize them and talk about their “families”, just seems like an odd analogy. Maybe one could make a similar analogy about viruses.