Livestock improvement: Art, science, or industry?

The shift in perspectives about livestock improvement over a 70-yr period is reviewed. The view changes from livestock improvement as an art, through its becoming a science, to its application as a technology in industry. The use of scientific tools in corporate settings for poultry, dairy, and swine breeding usually involves a strong focus on the economics of production, and this focus determines that selection indexes should be used. Such focus has seemed to not have been present in breeding for the extensively managed species and livestock classes but seems needed in order to provide a basis for organization and direction of positive contributions of the breeding segment to the production segment.