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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind production of iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 2: Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My name

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Speaker 2: is Robert Lamb.

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Speaker 3: And I'm Joe McCormick, and we're back with part two

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Speaker 3: of our series on the horse hoof. Now. In part one,

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Speaker 3: we discussed the anatomical form of the horse hoof, with

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Speaker 3: an emphasis on the alarming fact that the hoof is

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Speaker 3: essentially a highly specialized form of the tetrapod middle finger.

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Speaker 3: So when you see a horse galloping around, yes, it

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Speaker 3: is running around on all middle fingers and toes. We

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Speaker 3: talked about an ancient legend about the horse ridden by

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Speaker 3: Julius Caesar, which some artists have depicted as having dock

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Speaker 3: and hair and human feet instead of hoofs, at least

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Speaker 3: on the first two legs. Rob's idea, I think was

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Speaker 3: that this it's possible that these stories could be based

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Speaker 3: on observations of what are called polydactyl horses, horses born

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Speaker 3: with extra hooflets on the sides of the primary hoof,

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Speaker 3: which do in fact exist.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, this seems to be the more sensible interpretation that

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Speaker 2: you see taken by folks, and I don't think anyone's

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Speaker 2: actually arguing that these horses had like human fore feet,

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Speaker 2: but it looks hilarious in the illustrations. It does.

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Speaker 3: And we finally talked about the evolution of the horse hoof,

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Speaker 3: with the commonly accepted narrative being that millions of years ago,

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Speaker 3: the ancestors of modern horses lived in more forested environments,

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Speaker 3: maybe warmer, wetter environments. They were much smaller, maybe about

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Speaker 3: the size of dogs, and had multiple toes per feet. Then,

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Speaker 3: due to climate and habitat changes, they became grassland dwellers,

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Speaker 3: which drove them to evolve larger body sizes and select

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Speaker 3: for galloping speed. And these changes coincided with the law

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Speaker 3: of peripheral toes until you end up with the modern

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Speaker 3: horse and its relatives in the genus equis, so that

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Speaker 3: would include the zebra and the ass, all having only

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Speaker 3: one toe per foot, the columnar hoof. Now today, we

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Speaker 3: wanted to continue the series on the horse hoof, getting

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Speaker 3: into a couple other things about horsecof evolution as well

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Speaker 3: as the invention of the horseshoe. But before we do that,

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Speaker 3: I wanted to take a brief detour into a metaphorical

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Speaker 3: connection to the hoof, which concerns medical diagnostics, and more generally,

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Speaker 3: the realm of statistical reasoning. So there's a famous aphorism

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Speaker 3: widely used in medical education, often invoked by practicing physicians,

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Speaker 3: and it goes like this, when you hear hoof beats,

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Speaker 3: look for horses, not zebras. Rob. I think this saying

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Speaker 3: may have come up on the show in the past,

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Speaker 3: though I couldn't remember when, but I'm sure you've heard

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Speaker 3: this before, right, Yeah.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, basically is what it sounds like, right, it's, you know,

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Speaker 2: whatever the evidence seems to indicate, go for the more

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Speaker 2: likely and more statistically reasonable explanation for the evidence. Right.

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Speaker 3: So I was looking up the history of this quote

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Speaker 3: in a chapter on medical aphorisms in a book called

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Speaker 3: White Coat Tails Medicine's Heroes, Heritage and Misadventures by Robert B.

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Speaker 3: Taylor published by Springer. So I'll refer back to that

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Speaker 3: chapter in a second. But yeah, Rob, like you said,

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Speaker 3: the point of this aphorism is that when a patient

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Speaker 3: presents with symptoms X, Y, and Z, you should start

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Speaker 3: by thinking about the most common conditions within the population

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Speaker 3: associated with that cluster of symptoms, rather than jumping to

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Speaker 3: assumptions about rare diseases. So, for example, if a patient

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Speaker 3: presents at a US clinic with flu like symptoms, it's

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Speaker 3: better to start by investigating the possibility that they have

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Speaker 3: the flu or common cold, or now maybe COVID, rather

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Speaker 3: than to by investigating whether they have contracted the hindra

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Speaker 3: virus from a flying fox in Australia. Taylor traces this

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Speaker 3: saying back to an American medical researcher named Theodore E.

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Speaker 3: Woodward who lived nineteen fourteen to two thousand and five,

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Speaker 3: who taught at the University of Maryland School of Medicine.

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Speaker 3: And it seems actually the common form of this aphorism

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Speaker 3: might be a paraphrase, and the more accurate original quote

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Speaker 3: may have been don't look for zebras on Green Street.

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Speaker 3: That might be a little perplexing, but it makes sense

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Speaker 3: in the context because Green Street was the location of

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Speaker 3: the University of Maryland hospital in Baltimore, and he was

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Speaker 3: teaching at the University of Maryland two students there, So

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Speaker 3: of course you can see why it would need to

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Speaker 3: be rephrased to make more sense outside of its original locality.

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Speaker 3: But I also think the localization to Baltimore geography highlights

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Speaker 3: something important, which is that this aphorism is only useful

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Speaker 3: when you're talking about a no own population of patients

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Speaker 3: in which the frequency of certain diseases or conditions is

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Speaker 3: fairly well understood. Because if you were talking to a

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Speaker 3: group of medical students, maybe in a region of southern

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Speaker 3: Africa where zebras are abundant, it might make sense to

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Speaker 3: use the aphorism inverted, I guess, depending on how many

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Speaker 3: horses there are around as well. But in the same sense,

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Speaker 3: you have to know what the frequencies are in the

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Speaker 3: population you're looking at before deploying this.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, that's true.

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Speaker 3: Now, I find this the reasoning behind the saying actually

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Speaker 3: kind of interesting, because if you interpret it in the

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Speaker 3: usual way, it's a piece of advice that can seem

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Speaker 3: rather obvious, like common explanations are more common than rare ones.

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Speaker 3: But I think as a general rule, when looking for explanations,

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Speaker 3: we do have to be reminded to start by considering

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Speaker 3: what is most likely in terms of frequency, because there

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Speaker 3: are all kinds of mental biases that constantly tempt us

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Speaker 3: to start looking for highly unusual causes for unexplained phenomena

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Speaker 3: before we've exhausted all of the extremely commonplace candidates for

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Speaker 3: one thing. Unusual causes and explanations are usually more exciting.

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Speaker 3: They kind of stick in the mind because of our

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Speaker 3: level of interest in them, and they can quite easily

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Speaker 3: then come to mind when we start searching around for

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Speaker 3: an explanation. They're sort of at the top of the

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Speaker 3: toy box right now. In this section of the book

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Speaker 3: I was talking about, Taylor makes an interesting point about

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Speaker 3: the zebra aphorism, which I hadn't quite considered. I was

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Speaker 3: just thinking at the first order level of more common

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Speaker 3: explanations and less common explanations. But Taylor also writes quote

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Speaker 3: as a clinical corollary, experienced diagnosticians look first for uncommon

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Speaker 3: manifestations of common conditions rather than common manifestations of uncommon diseases.

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Speaker 3: Now that seemed really interesting to me. I hadn't quite

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Speaker 3: thought about it that way. And of course it would

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Speaker 3: depend on exactly how uncommon you mean in each clause

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Speaker 3: of that sentence, Like if you were to represent them

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Speaker 3: as actual percentage chances and stuff, the math might break

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Speaker 3: out in different ways. But if a certain set of

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Speaker 3: symptoms appears in I don't know, only three percent of

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Speaker 3: cases of an extremely common condition that affects you, know,

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Speaker 3: millions of people every year. It is probably still worth

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Speaker 3: investigating that diagnosis, the uncommon manifestation of the extremely common

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Speaker 3: condition before you look at the possibility of a condition

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Speaker 3: that matches the symptoms very closely. But you know, you

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Speaker 3: might only see only a couple of cases in the

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Speaker 3: world per year, it's extremely rare. You'd still get way

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Speaker 3: more hits of confirmation on the on the uncommon version

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Speaker 3: of the common condition.

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Speaker 2: It reminds me of various discussions we've had about cryptozoology

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Speaker 2: and the interpretations and misinterpretations of dead animals and in

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Speaker 2: some cases dead human beings, where you're looking at some

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Speaker 2: rate of decay and yeah, are you looking at it

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Speaker 2: as an uncommon manifestation of a common condition? In other words,

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Speaker 2: are you looking at is kind of like a novel

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Speaker 2: pattern or appearance in decay of just a normal, mundane animal,

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Speaker 2: or are you going to jump to that extreme level

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Speaker 2: and think, well, no, this is just how it looks

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Speaker 2: and we've just never seen this creature before. Yeah.

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Speaker 3: Yeah. However, I want to come back on the other end,

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Speaker 3: because if you search for medical case reports citing this aphorism,

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Speaker 3: which I was doing a lot of times, it will

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Speaker 3: be specifically to discuss cases where it was a zebra

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Speaker 3: on Green Street, the rare and unexpected diagnosis that turned

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Speaker 3: out to be correct. So just one example I was

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Speaker 3: looking at this was a case report published in Clinical

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Speaker 3: Practice in Cases in Emergency Medicine in twenty nineteen by

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Speaker 3: Loupez at All called Beware of the Zebra nine year

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Speaker 3: old with Fever. I believe this incident took place in

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Speaker 3: the US state of North Carolina. So it was a

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Speaker 3: nine year old girl whose family spoke only French, and

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Speaker 3: they presented at the hospital with the patient having an

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Speaker 3: abdominal pain, vomiting, intermittent fevers, fatigue, and headache, and because

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Speaker 3: there was a language barrier, everything had to be done

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Speaker 3: with the help of an interpreter, and it seems that

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Speaker 3: this led to some maybe some original misunderstandings about the

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Speaker 3: case history. So the doctors tried to diagnose based on

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Speaker 3: all the normal explanations that they would be likely to

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Speaker 3: see in their patient population, but none of the common

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Speaker 3: diagnoses really fit her case. Her condition continued to get worse,

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Speaker 3: it even became life threatening, and the breakthrough seemed to

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Speaker 3: come when the doctors began looking outside the normal slate

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Speaker 3: of conditions encountered in their practice in the United States. Finally,

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Speaker 3: they learned that the girl's family had just in the

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Speaker 3: wa weeks before, arrived from the Congo, where malaria is common.

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Speaker 3: The care providers eventually ordered a test that would put

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Speaker 3: them on the right track. They write in their report, quote,

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Speaker 3: this test was a peripheral blood smear, specifically a thick

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Speaker 3: and thin smear, which revealed Plasmodium falciparum. And this is

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Speaker 3: one of the protozoa responsible for causing malaria, leading to

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Speaker 3: a final diagnosis of cerebral malaria. And then they write

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Speaker 3: from here they contacted the twenty four hour CDC hotline

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Speaker 3: to immediately get the appropriate anti malarial medication. They put

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Speaker 3: the girl on a quinine drip and admitted her to

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Speaker 3: the pediatric intensive care unit. And then they say, quote remarkably,

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Speaker 3: within four weeks she made a full recovery and returned

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Speaker 3: home with her family. So thankfully, the patient was all

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Speaker 3: right in the end, but she potentially could have died

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Speaker 3: if doctors hadn't made the locally unusual but correct diagnosis

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Speaker 3: and given her the right treatment. And so the authors

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Speaker 3: say in their conclusion quote, many of us are taught

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Speaker 3: the common aphorism in medical school. When you hear hoof beats,

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Speaker 3: think horses, not zebras. When approaching a nine year old

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Speaker 3: with fever, we hear the hoof beat symptoms and tend

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Speaker 3: to think of the typical diagnoses that are commonly seen

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Speaker 3: in our pediatric population. Yet if we are not thinking

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Speaker 3: about the zebras, we will miss this common presentation of

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Speaker 3: a disease that is uncommon north of the equator, which

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Speaker 3: could lead to high morbidity and possibly even mortality for patients.

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Speaker 3: So it's very good that they were able to discover

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Speaker 3: this intervene and probably save the girl's life. But it

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Speaker 3: highlights how there's a difficult balance, Like if you go

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Speaker 3: looking for zebras before you look for horses on Green Street,

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Speaker 3: you will waste a lot of time and resources and

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Speaker 3: potentially cause frequent misdiagnoses that could harm people. But if

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Speaker 3: you never consider the possibility of zebras on Green Street,

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Speaker 3: there will be rare but very real cases where you

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Speaker 3: could save somebody's life but you don't.

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Speaker 2: So that's a great point. Yeah, certainly looking at the

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Speaker 2: like the professional end of the scenario, because on the

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Speaker 2: other end, like say the user end and the media end.

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Speaker 2: I mean, zebra on Green Street. That's a great headline.

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Speaker 2: You're gonna that's this headline that's gonna stick in your mind,

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Speaker 2: and then when you're going to see the doctor, you're

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Speaker 2: gonna be like, hey, doc, is it possible that a

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Speaker 2: rare amiba is eating my flesh? Or something to that effect,

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Speaker 2: because that's what you saw in the headline, that's what

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Speaker 2: you saw on the the documentary series that that that

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Speaker 2: sensationalized a rare case, right.

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Speaker 3: I mean, the the difficult thing is like, because of

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Speaker 3: the way we emotionally react to stories like this, I

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Speaker 3: feel like it kind of tends to have the effect

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Speaker 3: of making us think, well, maybe then I should start

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Speaker 3: looking for diagnoses of unusual diseases in patient populations. So

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Speaker 3: it just highlights like diagnosis in the specific case of medicine,

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Speaker 3: and searching for explanations for unknown phenomena generally is really difficult.

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Speaker 3: It involves a balance between prioritizing likely explanations, which are

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Speaker 3: you know, by very definition, almost always going to be correct,

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Speaker 3: but also being open minded enough to catch the unusual

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Speaker 3: ones when they arise. And obviously, I think a big

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Speaker 3: part of the art of medicine is gaining good intuition

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Speaker 3: and establishing sound processes to prioritize explanations in a reasonable

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Speaker 3: way based on what we know about frequency, but then

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Speaker 3: also to be able to catch the cases that are

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Speaker 3: unusual and intervene appropriately to help people. All right, you

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Speaker 3: want to talk a little bit about the evolution of

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Speaker 3: the horse hoof?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, we should probably talk a little bit more

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Speaker 2: about how they came to run about in their middle fingers.

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Speaker 3: We talked in the last episode about a pretty commonly

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Speaker 3: accepted story of how that evolutionary process occurred, but there

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Speaker 3: was still some uncertainty about exactly why the one toe

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Speaker 3: making contact with the ground is favored over keeping the

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Speaker 3: larger number of toes that the ancestors of horses used

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Speaker 3: to have, And to some degree, I think that question

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Speaker 3: is still not fully settled. There are still some questions

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Speaker 3: about why exactly the one toe was favored. We do

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Speaker 3: know that the ancestors of horses and zebras and asses

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Speaker 3: had multiple toes per foot, But what is gained by

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Speaker 3: going quad bird, you know, the middle fingers across all

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Speaker 3: four feet. So the evolution of is called monodactyly having

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Speaker 3: one toe Monodactyly, it has long been assumed that that

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Speaker 3: was useful for allowing a large animal like a modern horse,

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Speaker 3: to achieve greater running speed. But I came across an

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Speaker 3: interesting alternative idea explored in a paper called the Evolution

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Speaker 3: of equid monodact a review including a new hypothesis published

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Speaker 3: in Frontiers and Ecology and Evolution by Christine M. Janis

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Speaker 3: and Raymond Bernor. And basically here the authors ask what

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Speaker 3: if the evolution of the modern equine hoof was a

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Speaker 3: product of selection for endurance rather than speed, meaning that

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Speaker 3: the primary advantage conferred was in the evolution of an

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Speaker 3: efficient and energy efficient spring foot that would support long

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Speaker 3: distance trots at medium speed to locate better food resources. So,

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Speaker 3: under their hypothesis, the loss of extra toes may have

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Speaker 3: been a coincidental byproduct of the selection for the more

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Speaker 3: efficient spring foot, which helps the horse conserve energy while foraging,

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Speaker 3: rather than an adaptation for top speed running, which again

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Speaker 3: is assumed to be primarily for the purpose of escaping

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Speaker 3: the jaws of predators. Now, I cite this not to

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Speaker 3: say that I think their hypothesis is definitely correct. I

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Speaker 3: have no expertise to decide between which explanation of the

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Speaker 3: horstof evolution better fits the evidence. But this possibility made

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Speaker 3: me think back again to the Zebras on Green Street

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Speaker 3: saying about how sometimes certain explanations seem more likely to us,

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Speaker 3: not because they're actually more common, but because they're more

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Speaker 3: mentally salient. It reminds me I've talked before about this

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Speaker 3: idea that I have the sort of sex and violence

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Speaker 3: principle in evolutionary reasoning, where what I think I've observed

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Speaker 3: is that when people without or sometimes even with biological training,

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Speaker 3: are trying to think of possible evolutionary explanations for a

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Speaker 3: trait in an organism, we are a little too quick

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Speaker 3: to resort to explanations involving either predation or mating, and

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Speaker 3: we often overlook extremely common mechanism in nature, like temperature

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Speaker 3: regulation and energy efficiency, which play a huge role in

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Speaker 3: the success of a life form. But I think maybe

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Speaker 3: they're not as interesting to our brains as sex or violence,

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Speaker 3: so we're less likely to think of them. They do

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Speaker 3: not bleed, so they do not lead in the mind.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, it kind of reminds me of past discussions we've

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Speaker 2: talked about concerning the Stegosaurus, For example, you know, and

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Speaker 2: memory serves you know that there have been various interpretations

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Speaker 2: over the years, for there are those curious plates on

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Speaker 2: their back, as well as very interpretations of just how

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Speaker 2: they're positioned. But yeah, you can with something like that,

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Speaker 2: you can. You're inevitably you're going to find those explanations

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Speaker 2: that have to do with mating, or protection from predators,

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Speaker 2: or protection when they're in conflict with others of their kind.

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Speaker 2: But yeah, I guess sometimes these ideas that they're used

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Speaker 2: for temperature regulation or something like that may may feel

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Speaker 2: less excite, may feel more mundane. Though I guess you

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Speaker 2: could also argue that maybe the more exotic or mysterious

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Speaker 2: the feature is, like say those backridges on the stegosaurus,

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Speaker 2: maybe that cancels it out to some degree. I don't know,

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Speaker 2: but it's hard to imagine a like a seven year

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Speaker 2: old or an eight year old playing with the toy

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Speaker 2: Stegasaurus and be like, look, Mom and dad, this guy's

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Speaker 2: warming up in the sun watching. That's not what bathtub

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Speaker 2: dinosaurs do. They bite each other.

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Speaker 3: But again, I want to make clear, I'm not saying

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Speaker 3: I think that the the trotting foraging spring hoof explanation

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Speaker 3: is necessarily better than the high speed running explanation for

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Speaker 3: the horse hoof. I don't know, but I think it's

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Speaker 3: important to remember to consider those types of explanations as well. Now,

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Speaker 3: another question that has come up in several things I

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Speaker 3: was reading is about should we really say that the

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Speaker 3: horse only has one toe? I mean, it really does

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Speaker 3: basically have only one toe that makes contact with the

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Speaker 3: with the ground, But in what sense did it really

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Speaker 3: quote lose the other toes. One example of this counter

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Speaker 3: narrative I was reading is in an article in The

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Speaker 3: New York Times by Veronique Greenwood published February eighth, twenty twenty,

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Speaker 3: called a horse has five toes and then it doesn't.

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Speaker 3: And this article tells the story of a researcher named

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Speaker 3: Catherine Kavanaugh, a biologist at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth,

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Speaker 3: who was looking at preserved horse embryos in the lab

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Speaker 3: when she discovered something very interesting, which is that during

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Speaker 3: the earliest stages of gestation, the area of the embryo

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Speaker 3: that will eventually develop to become the foot become the hoof.

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Speaker 3: In that area, the embryonic horses have five toes. So

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Speaker 3: this period during development only lasts for a couple of

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Speaker 3: days before the extra toes begin to sort of fuse

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Speaker 3: and vanish. But to read from the article briefly, quote

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Speaker 3: the discover reimplies something profound about how anatomical development works.

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Speaker 3: As an embryo puts itself together, growing from a tiny

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Speaker 3: wad of cells into multiple specialized tissues, fed by blood

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Speaker 3: vessels and linked by the winding threads of nerves, it

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Speaker 3: is following a template. That template is subject to evolution,

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Speaker 3: just like other things about the animal. But some moments

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Speaker 3: in the process or some routes that development takes may

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Speaker 3: not easily be altered. And so the researcher here, Catherine Kavanaugh,

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Speaker 3: is quoted saying something about the early steps in toe

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Speaker 3: development is stabilized. We don't know why, but that's what

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Speaker 3: we think is going on. So I found this also

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Speaker 3: interesting because it's an example of how stages in development

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Speaker 3: can become evolutionarily fixed even when they differ from the

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Speaker 3: final form. So like, for some reason, as the horse

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Speaker 3: is growing as an embryo, it needs to develop five

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Speaker 3: fingers before or five toes before it can lose four

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Speaker 3: of the toes per hoof, so you know, eventually it

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Speaker 3: will have functionally one toe making contact with the ground,

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Speaker 3: but the development process has to go through this other

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Speaker 3: stage first.

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Speaker 2: For some reason, it reminds me of something we discussed

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Speaker 2: in our whale episodes about the blowhole of the whale

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Speaker 2: being seen to, of course, through the fossil record, travel

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Speaker 2: up the snout up to the top of the head.

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Speaker 2: But we can also observe this movement in the womb

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Speaker 2: as the fetal whale is developing.

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Speaker 3: Yeah. Another interesting thing about the horse hoof is that

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Speaker 3: there are some people who have pointed out how vestiges

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Speaker 3: of the missing toes can still sort of be found

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Speaker 3: as little sort of ridges on the sides of the hoof.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. I ran across this a lot in some of

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Speaker 2: the veterinary sources I was looking at.

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Speaker 3: But don't let this take away from your mental enjoyment

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Speaker 3: of thinking about the horses running around on its middle fingers,

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Speaker 3: which functionally is it is?

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Speaker 2: I mean to me, it makes it even more weird.

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Speaker 2: It's kind of like if you were to It's kind

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Speaker 2: of like if you're looking at Kermit the frog and

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Speaker 2: someone were to tell you, like there's a difference in saying, hey,

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Speaker 2: there's somebody's hand in there and and someone saying, actually,

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Speaker 2: all the bones of a human hand are present in

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Speaker 2: Kermit the frog, but they have been repurposed and formed

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Speaker 2: into the skeletal structure of this bipedal frog creature. Like

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Speaker 2: that's even crazier, and I feel like that's more in

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Speaker 2: line with what we know about the horses.

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Speaker 3: Splendid analogy.

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Speaker 2: Bravo.

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Speaker 3: All right, are we ready to talk about the horse shoe?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, this is something that originally I didn't think we

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Speaker 2: were going to cover, or if we were to cover,

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Speaker 2: we might come back, but I felt like it's kind

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Speaker 2: of so closely linked to our understanding of the horse

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Speaker 2: and the human use of the horse. And at the

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Speaker 2: same time, in discussing this, we are going to be

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Speaker 2: kind of blowing through the domestication of the horse rather quickly.

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Speaker 2: Like this is a topic that has received a lot

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Speaker 2: of attention over the years in varying fields. I mean,

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Speaker 2: there's genetic research, there's archaeology, there's you know, various cultural inquiries.

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Speaker 2: It's kind of all over the place, and there are

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Speaker 2: a lot of unanswered questions about you know, especially when

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Speaker 2: you get into you know, the exact who's and winds

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Speaker 2: and wares, say horse domestication, and even the development or

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Speaker 2: the horseshoe. But I feel like covering the horseshoe also

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Speaker 2: helps us understand the hoof a little bit more so,

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Speaker 2: briefly talking about the modern horse, the modern horse has

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Speaker 2: a long and pivotal history as a human steed. Many

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Speaker 2: animals have, of course served as mounts for human riders,

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Speaker 2: and many have served as a pack and draft animals.

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Speaker 2: I know that, at least on the Artifact and perhaps

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Speaker 2: elsewhere in some core episodes, we've touched on the importance

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Speaker 2: of the camel and the donkey, But the horse, the

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Speaker 2: horse is just a whole different matter, both in terms

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Speaker 2: of like the impact that it's had, like I think

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Speaker 2: the larger impact that it's had globally, and also just

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Speaker 2: how it has captured the imagination. Not to diminish the

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Speaker 2: camel or the donkey, because in particular regions, the camel

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Speaker 2: and the donkey have been far more important. Whole books

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Speaker 2: have been written about the camel and the donkey, and

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Speaker 2: I've read parts of them. If you want to hear

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Speaker 2: a little bit more about that, go back to the

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Speaker 2: Monster Fact episode that I did on Donkeys of Dune,

401
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Speaker 2: which touched on this a little bit. Now, as we've discussed,

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Speaker 2: the modern horse evolved over the course of fifty to

403
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Speaker 2: sixty million years from a diminutive ancestor, and then it

404
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Speaker 2: would have reached identifiable form somewhere around four to four

405
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Speaker 2: point five million years ago, then migrating across the Bearing

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Speaker 2: Straight via some sort of a primitive land bridge into

407
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Speaker 2: Eurasia about eleven thousand years ago, and becoming stinct in

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Speaker 2: North America after that, and it would not come back

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Speaker 2: around the globe to North America until it was reintroduced

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Speaker 2: the European conc West in the fifteenth century see now.

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Speaker 2: Of the wild horse's three ancestors, two when extinct, and

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Speaker 2: a third the takei or Mongolian wild horse or Preswalski's horse,

413
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Speaker 2: these are all the different names for the same creature. Essentially,

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Speaker 2: this survived only in captivity and then was subsequently has

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Speaker 2: been subsequently reintroduced into the wild, though with some important

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Speaker 2: caveats worth discussing. Should we come back around to talk

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Speaker 2: about the reintroduction of a species. There are lots of

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Speaker 2: sort of ups and downs with that particular story, as

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Speaker 2: there are with some other species reintroduction tales. Now much

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Speaker 2: has been written about the role of the horse in

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Speaker 2: the history of human conflict, and there is indeed just

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Speaker 2: so much that we we could and I guess should

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Speaker 2: one day discuss about that, you know, the use of say,

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Speaker 2: chariot technology, even the saddle like, they're just so many

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Speaker 2: different angles to take. Now. Its pointed out by equine

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Speaker 2: warfare expert A Highland and this is in Brian fahe

427
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Speaker 2: against the Seventy Great Inventions of the Ancient World. DNA

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Speaker 2: evidence suggests that the domestication of the horse took place

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Speaker 2: independently in several different places and times. And according to them,

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Speaker 2: and this was this book came out in two thousand

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Speaker 2: and four, so I'm going to touch in a more

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Speaker 2: recent source on all this in just a second. They

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Speaker 2: were talking about the earliest domestication having possibly taken place

434
00:26:24,440 --> 00:26:28,760
Speaker 2: on the Eurasian Step somewhere around four thousand BCE, though

435
00:26:28,800 --> 00:26:32,520
Speaker 2: they did highlight that the proof was inconclusive. I've also

436
00:26:32,640 --> 00:26:35,119
Speaker 2: seen other sources just put it that the geographic origin

437
00:26:35,160 --> 00:26:38,439
Speaker 2: of horse domestication is simply an unknown and there of

438
00:26:38,480 --> 00:26:41,760
Speaker 2: course a handful of likely areas and times, based on

439
00:26:41,800 --> 00:26:45,800
Speaker 2: different findings, spread across Eurasia from as far west as

440
00:26:45,840 --> 00:26:49,720
Speaker 2: Iberia to as far east as Siberia now more recently.

441
00:26:49,760 --> 00:26:51,680
Speaker 2: The more recent source I was looking at on this though,

442
00:26:51,800 --> 00:26:55,320
Speaker 2: was a twenty twenty one analysis of ancient horse DNA,

443
00:26:56,080 --> 00:26:57,800
Speaker 2: and this seemed to narrow it down to the Eurasian

444
00:26:57,840 --> 00:27:01,720
Speaker 2: step the Volga Dawn region, so that would seem to

445
00:27:01,840 --> 00:27:05,760
Speaker 2: possibly be the strong contender for where the who. That's

446
00:27:05,760 --> 00:27:08,879
Speaker 2: a little bit more complex, is pointed out by Amber

447
00:27:09,040 --> 00:27:12,160
Speaker 2: Dance in a solid twenty twenty two article for Smithsonian

448
00:27:12,200 --> 00:27:15,919
Speaker 2: Magazine titled When Did Humans Domesticate the Horse? The region

449
00:27:16,080 --> 00:27:18,960
Speaker 2: was home to diverse peoples who may have engaged in

450
00:27:19,000 --> 00:27:22,919
Speaker 2: horse domestication, and the earliest time period the win in

451
00:27:22,960 --> 00:27:26,680
Speaker 2: all of this sounds like it was maybe four two

452
00:27:26,720 --> 00:27:30,160
Speaker 2: hundred years ago, pushing us back to the twenty one

453
00:27:30,200 --> 00:27:33,080
Speaker 2: hundred s BCE. Based on all of this, though, Dance

454
00:27:33,119 --> 00:27:36,240
Speaker 2: also points out that quote clear evidence of horse domestication

455
00:27:36,359 --> 00:27:40,120
Speaker 2: doesn't appear in the archaeological record until about five five

456
00:27:40,160 --> 00:27:43,840
Speaker 2: hundred years ago, and that would push things back obviously now.

457
00:27:43,840 --> 00:27:47,160
Speaker 2: As Highland and Fagan pointed out, stud records from twenty

458
00:27:47,200 --> 00:27:49,760
Speaker 2: three hundred BC and what is now a RAQ include

459
00:27:49,920 --> 00:27:54,040
Speaker 2: data on donkeys, mules, and some horses. There are Sumerian

460
00:27:54,119 --> 00:27:57,440
Speaker 2: proverbs that refer to horse riding during this time period.

461
00:27:58,440 --> 00:28:00,680
Speaker 2: But yeah, like I say, this is topic we could

462
00:28:00,720 --> 00:28:04,359
Speaker 2: go on about at some length, but suffice to say

463
00:28:04,400 --> 00:28:08,439
Speaker 2: that the evidence points to this general time period, but

464
00:28:08,520 --> 00:28:20,560
Speaker 2: it has still long been a topic of dispute. Now,

465
00:28:20,960 --> 00:28:23,480
Speaker 2: one thing that I liked in Dance's article is that

466
00:28:23,520 --> 00:28:27,439
Speaker 2: they point out that horses were coexisting alongside human beings

467
00:28:27,840 --> 00:28:31,439
Speaker 2: long before we were able to ride them or really

468
00:28:31,480 --> 00:28:35,080
Speaker 2: do anything with them. They were around during the time

469
00:28:35,080 --> 00:28:38,680
Speaker 2: of Stone Age human beings. They no doubt inspired Stone

470
00:28:38,720 --> 00:28:43,160
Speaker 2: Age human beings and human populations. Our ancestors depicted them

471
00:28:43,160 --> 00:28:45,560
Speaker 2: in their cave art, but it would have been a

472
00:28:45,600 --> 00:28:48,560
Speaker 2: long time before they could figure out how to master

473
00:28:48,720 --> 00:28:52,120
Speaker 2: these beasts and truly harness the power of the horse. Yeah.

474
00:28:52,160 --> 00:28:54,080
Speaker 3: I don't know if this is still the dominant view,

475
00:28:54,200 --> 00:28:58,800
Speaker 3: but I recall reading years ago that many researchers thought

476
00:28:58,840 --> 00:29:04,000
Speaker 3: that humans probably hunted horses for food before they domesticated them.

477
00:29:04,280 --> 00:29:07,560
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's that's what I saw indicated, and these sources

478
00:29:07,560 --> 00:29:09,480
Speaker 2: I was looking at as well, you know, I mean,

479
00:29:09,720 --> 00:29:11,720
Speaker 2: you see them from afar. They look cool, They looked

480
00:29:11,720 --> 00:29:13,800
Speaker 2: really neat. Look at that those flowing manes. I mean,

481
00:29:14,000 --> 00:29:17,000
Speaker 2: it's kind of interesting to think that some of the

482
00:29:17,080 --> 00:29:20,680
Speaker 2: some of the impressions we have watching a horse running

483
00:29:20,720 --> 00:29:24,520
Speaker 2: about with its kind, you know, across the field. You know,

484
00:29:25,200 --> 00:29:27,920
Speaker 2: maybe we're feeling some of the same things our ancient

485
00:29:27,960 --> 00:29:30,280
Speaker 2: ancestors would have felt, you know, these sort of deep

486
00:29:30,320 --> 00:29:34,400
Speaker 2: down impressions, but with the added level of we probably

487
00:29:34,400 --> 00:29:37,840
Speaker 2: don't think about maybe running them down with our spears

488
00:29:38,000 --> 00:29:41,200
Speaker 2: and cooking them up later and making things out of them.

489
00:29:41,200 --> 00:29:43,280
Speaker 2: But of course this would have been This was how

490
00:29:43,360 --> 00:29:47,959
Speaker 2: we interacted with pretty much everything in the natural world

491
00:29:48,480 --> 00:29:51,040
Speaker 2: during that time period. And of course if we were

492
00:29:51,080 --> 00:29:52,760
Speaker 2: going to hunt a horse, we would have to depend

493
00:29:52,840 --> 00:29:58,640
Speaker 2: on human ingenuity, human strategy, human tool use, and eventually

494
00:29:58,680 --> 00:30:01,800
Speaker 2: when humans figure out about how to truly harness the horse,

495
00:30:02,640 --> 00:30:07,000
Speaker 2: they also had to employ various tools. So if anyone

496
00:30:07,000 --> 00:30:10,560
Speaker 2: out there, if you're like me, most of your experience

497
00:30:10,680 --> 00:30:13,560
Speaker 2: with horses is probably in video games where you you

498
00:30:13,600 --> 00:30:16,840
Speaker 2: break a wild horse or train a wild horse by

499
00:30:16,880 --> 00:30:19,080
Speaker 2: doing something like I don't know, whistling at it, or

500
00:30:19,880 --> 00:30:22,120
Speaker 2: you know, you jump up on its back. I was

501
00:30:22,120 --> 00:30:23,760
Speaker 2: asking my son, how do you how do you get

502
00:30:23,800 --> 00:30:25,480
Speaker 2: a horse and Zelden, He's like, oh, you just jump

503
00:30:25,480 --> 00:30:27,000
Speaker 2: on its back and I don't know, you do something

504
00:30:27,000 --> 00:30:28,120
Speaker 2: else and then you're good to go.

505
00:30:28,520 --> 00:30:31,080
Speaker 3: Yeah, And Breath of the Wild is kind of a

506
00:30:31,080 --> 00:30:33,400
Speaker 3: bucking Bronco thing. You jump on the horse and if

507
00:30:33,440 --> 00:30:35,520
Speaker 3: you can hold on long enough while it's trying to

508
00:30:35,600 --> 00:30:37,200
Speaker 3: kick you off, then it becomes your friend.

509
00:30:37,600 --> 00:30:40,240
Speaker 2: There you go. Yeah, then that's fine for video game,

510
00:30:40,320 --> 00:30:42,880
Speaker 2: but the reality is a lot more complex. If you

511
00:30:42,920 --> 00:30:47,440
Speaker 2: read any like serious westerns about breaking horses and so forth,

512
00:30:47,480 --> 00:30:51,480
Speaker 2: you get into a little Cornick McCarthy, you're gonna you know,

513
00:30:51,520 --> 00:30:55,920
Speaker 2: it's it's it's a longer process, a lot more more kicking,

514
00:30:56,600 --> 00:31:00,560
Speaker 2: maybe a few more busted ribs in the process. And

515
00:31:00,640 --> 00:31:03,160
Speaker 2: so one thing that Highland and Fagan point out is

516
00:31:03,200 --> 00:31:07,800
Speaker 2: that as humans were mastering horses, they inevitably turned to

517
00:31:07,960 --> 00:31:13,160
Speaker 2: bovine control mechanisms, so cows were domesticated much earlier. Humans

518
00:31:13,200 --> 00:31:15,720
Speaker 2: had much earlier figured out some of the ways that

519
00:31:15,720 --> 00:31:20,520
Speaker 2: they could use tools and things they built to control

520
00:31:20,800 --> 00:31:24,360
Speaker 2: these large and powerful creatures, and they were able to

521
00:31:24,360 --> 00:31:27,000
Speaker 2: adapt some of those for the domestication of the horse,

522
00:31:27,440 --> 00:31:29,720
Speaker 2: and they evolved from there to include things like metal

523
00:31:29,760 --> 00:31:33,920
Speaker 2: bits and harnesses, ultimately things like armor, horse armor for battle,

524
00:31:34,640 --> 00:31:38,600
Speaker 2: chariot technology, and of course things like the saddle and

525
00:31:38,680 --> 00:31:41,840
Speaker 2: stirrup loops. But all of this discussion thus far has

526
00:31:41,880 --> 00:31:44,280
Speaker 2: been in service of the horse hoof and of course

527
00:31:44,720 --> 00:31:49,160
Speaker 2: the horseshoe. As we mentioned already in the previous episode

528
00:31:49,200 --> 00:31:52,320
Speaker 2: on the horse hoof, the hoof, while certainly an amazing adaptation,

529
00:31:53,000 --> 00:31:56,360
Speaker 2: is not indestructible, and the domestication of the horse took

530
00:31:56,480 --> 00:31:59,160
Speaker 2: this creature out of its sort of normal environment and

531
00:32:00,280 --> 00:32:03,880
Speaker 2: in activities and placed it in those that suited us best,

532
00:32:04,320 --> 00:32:09,320
Speaker 2: especially in the use of things like agriculture, travel, ultimately warfare,

533
00:32:09,760 --> 00:32:12,880
Speaker 2: and at some point, and much like horse domestication itself,

534
00:32:13,040 --> 00:32:17,680
Speaker 2: likely various points in various times in ancient history, humans

535
00:32:17,720 --> 00:32:20,720
Speaker 2: who made use of the horse realize that hoofs require

536
00:32:21,000 --> 00:32:24,400
Speaker 2: special care, and that this care could in fact be

537
00:32:25,160 --> 00:32:29,000
Speaker 2: preventative care, so the hoof, like the human foot, could

538
00:32:29,080 --> 00:32:31,160
Speaker 2: be protected and reinforced.

539
00:32:31,600 --> 00:32:35,320
Speaker 3: This is one of those things like drinking animal milk.

540
00:32:35,440 --> 00:32:38,360
Speaker 3: That's the questions like, who's the first person who tried

541
00:32:38,400 --> 00:32:41,160
Speaker 3: to do this? You really got to wonder.

542
00:32:41,120 --> 00:32:43,240
Speaker 2: Yeah, and again this kind of gets into sort of

543
00:32:43,280 --> 00:32:47,960
Speaker 2: the everyday nature of the horse and horse related technology.

544
00:32:48,240 --> 00:32:51,280
Speaker 2: It just seems so common. You know, it's the stuff

545
00:32:51,280 --> 00:32:55,400
Speaker 2: of Westerns and fantasy shows, fantasy shows in which the

546
00:32:55,480 --> 00:32:58,600
Speaker 2: horse is not the most fantastic element. You know, we're

547
00:32:58,600 --> 00:33:02,600
Speaker 2: focusing on the dragon, but while here's this animal running

548
00:33:02,600 --> 00:33:05,800
Speaker 2: around on its on its single toes, and we have

549
00:33:06,240 --> 00:33:10,840
Speaker 2: augmented this creature with various contraptions and straps and bits.

550
00:33:10,920 --> 00:33:16,280
Speaker 2: And also we have we have nailed these these shoes.

551
00:33:16,440 --> 00:33:17,800
Speaker 2: We call them a shoe, but you know, it's like

552
00:33:17,920 --> 00:33:21,040
Speaker 2: it's like an iron loop onto the bottom of their

553
00:33:21,080 --> 00:33:25,080
Speaker 2: their hoof walls in order to make them more capable

554
00:33:25,120 --> 00:33:27,280
Speaker 2: of keeping up with what we need them to do.

555
00:33:28,080 --> 00:33:33,400
Speaker 2: Technologically enhanced. Is the horse cyborgs? Yeah, yeah, yeah, and

556
00:33:34,080 --> 00:33:38,760
Speaker 2: in some respects now, there have been many different approaches

557
00:33:38,800 --> 00:33:41,120
Speaker 2: to to this over the ages, because again, like the

558
00:33:41,160 --> 00:33:44,640
Speaker 2: basic nut of it is the realization that oh man,

559
00:33:44,680 --> 00:33:47,920
Speaker 2: we're rough on these horses. We should we're having to

560
00:33:48,040 --> 00:33:50,560
Speaker 2: like clean up and and take care of them after

561
00:33:50,600 --> 00:33:53,960
Speaker 2: we we use them too hard. Let's try and protect

562
00:33:53,960 --> 00:33:55,880
Speaker 2: that hoof a little bit. And there have been various

563
00:33:55,920 --> 00:33:58,600
Speaker 2: ways to sort of address this again in different times,

564
00:33:58,600 --> 00:34:02,080
Speaker 2: in different places. Some early examples from parts of Asia

565
00:34:02,120 --> 00:34:07,200
Speaker 2: have been based in apparently in medicinal organic wrappings to

566
00:34:07,280 --> 00:34:11,000
Speaker 2: treat injuries. So you're working your horse too hard, the

567
00:34:11,040 --> 00:34:15,240
Speaker 2: horse is suffering various injuries or ailments of the hoof,

568
00:34:15,440 --> 00:34:18,160
Speaker 2: so you start wrapping it up in things to protect

569
00:34:18,239 --> 00:34:22,080
Speaker 2: it and to heal it. And then it seems to

570
00:34:22,080 --> 00:34:26,359
Speaker 2: be a case of treatment becoming preventative, where it's realized, oh,

571
00:34:26,400 --> 00:34:29,200
Speaker 2: you know, let's just keep something wrapped around the hoof

572
00:34:30,000 --> 00:34:32,160
Speaker 2: or at least when we're using the horse, or at

573
00:34:32,239 --> 00:34:36,439
Speaker 2: least in certain environmental circumstances, and that can help make

574
00:34:36,480 --> 00:34:37,760
Speaker 2: the hoof last longer.

575
00:34:38,120 --> 00:34:38,960
Speaker 3: That's interesting.

576
00:34:39,400 --> 00:34:43,960
Speaker 2: Then there's this whole area of early hoof boots. Now

577
00:34:44,160 --> 00:34:46,240
Speaker 2: these are not to be confused with the hoof boots.

578
00:34:46,520 --> 00:34:50,600
Speaker 2: Humans make and wear themselves so that their own feet

579
00:34:50,680 --> 00:34:53,279
Speaker 2: can look like hoofs. If you're not familiar with these,

580
00:34:53,320 --> 00:34:56,319
Speaker 2: treat yourself, go do an image search. A lot of

581
00:34:56,320 --> 00:35:00,480
Speaker 2: them are cloven hoofs for like sator costumes. Other times

582
00:35:00,480 --> 00:35:03,400
Speaker 2: they are horse hoofs for horse related dress.

583
00:35:04,440 --> 00:35:06,560
Speaker 3: When you first, I didn't realize. At first you meant

584
00:35:06,600 --> 00:35:10,319
Speaker 3: like that these were for costumes, are recreational. I was like,

585
00:35:10,360 --> 00:35:13,200
Speaker 3: what is the functional reason to make your foot into

586
00:35:13,239 --> 00:35:14,440
Speaker 3: a hoof to.

587
00:35:14,440 --> 00:35:17,880
Speaker 2: Be a satyr or to be a horsey, and you find,

588
00:35:18,239 --> 00:35:20,080
Speaker 2: you know, some of them are very goth looking, some

589
00:35:20,120 --> 00:35:21,640
Speaker 2: of them more and more on the furry end of

590
00:35:21,640 --> 00:35:24,760
Speaker 2: the spectrum. But yeah, I saw some of these recently

591
00:35:24,880 --> 00:35:27,200
Speaker 2: at a at a Renaissance festival that I went to

592
00:35:27,239 --> 00:35:30,600
Speaker 2: with my family. There's a sador guy over there walking

593
00:35:30,600 --> 00:35:31,640
Speaker 2: around on hoof boots.

594
00:35:32,000 --> 00:35:34,040
Speaker 3: Man, you think being in high heels for a long

595
00:35:34,080 --> 00:35:36,879
Speaker 3: time is rough? It turn your foot into a hoof.

596
00:35:37,200 --> 00:35:41,120
Speaker 2: I know it does. It looks it looks unpleasant, I

597
00:35:41,160 --> 00:35:43,880
Speaker 2: mean it, but it's I guess it's like really awesome

598
00:35:43,960 --> 00:35:47,040
Speaker 2: high heels, right, I mean, nobody's wearing those for comfort.

599
00:35:47,040 --> 00:35:50,120
Speaker 2: You're wearing them to look cool. And the same goes

600
00:35:50,160 --> 00:35:52,560
Speaker 2: for those those weird goat boots you might be wearing

601
00:35:52,560 --> 00:35:54,839
Speaker 2: to the ren fest. All right. So what we're talking

602
00:35:54,880 --> 00:35:57,040
Speaker 2: about here not not those to sorts of hoof boots.

603
00:35:57,040 --> 00:36:00,200
Speaker 2: These are basically different approaches where you would take like

604
00:36:00,880 --> 00:36:05,600
Speaker 2: essentially like a leather sheath for the hoof, sometimes augmented

605
00:36:05,640 --> 00:36:08,400
Speaker 2: with metal studs on the bottom, essentially making you know,

606
00:36:08,440 --> 00:36:12,560
Speaker 2: you think about basically the same sort of adaptations you

607
00:36:12,600 --> 00:36:14,799
Speaker 2: would make to a human boot. You know, well, it's like,

608
00:36:15,440 --> 00:36:17,759
Speaker 2: let's wrap that foot up in leather, or it's a

609
00:36:17,760 --> 00:36:20,400
Speaker 2: little slippery, let's put some studs on the bottom of

610
00:36:20,400 --> 00:36:23,120
Speaker 2: that so it doesn't slip around. And it's also worth

611
00:36:23,160 --> 00:36:28,279
Speaker 2: noting that modern hoof boots exist as horseshoe alternatives. You

612
00:36:28,320 --> 00:36:30,759
Speaker 2: see a lot of this, particularly in the realm of

613
00:36:30,840 --> 00:36:36,640
Speaker 2: natural horsemanship, sort of like modern backing away from some

614
00:36:36,719 --> 00:36:42,560
Speaker 2: of the the aspects of horsemanship that might be, you know,

615
00:36:42,560 --> 00:36:45,440
Speaker 2: considered a little bit too rough or unnecessarily rough, especially

616
00:36:45,520 --> 00:36:47,400
Speaker 2: for what we might be asking of our horses in

617
00:36:47,440 --> 00:36:50,960
Speaker 2: the modern age, and so you might see a hoof boot,

618
00:36:51,120 --> 00:36:52,880
Speaker 2: which in many of these cases they look like like

619
00:36:53,080 --> 00:36:57,000
Speaker 2: little like sports shoes for a horse. They can slip

620
00:36:57,040 --> 00:36:59,239
Speaker 2: those on, and I'm to understand that also sometimes they're

621
00:36:59,320 --> 00:37:03,000
Speaker 2: used in a dish to a normal horseshoe. Equestrians out

622
00:37:03,000 --> 00:37:05,800
Speaker 2: there listening to the episode, if you have some thoughts

623
00:37:05,800 --> 00:37:08,759
Speaker 2: on hoof boots right in, we would love to see them.

624
00:37:09,880 --> 00:37:12,520
Speaker 2: Same goes for people who just like dressing like satyrs.

625
00:37:12,920 --> 00:37:15,120
Speaker 2: We also want to see your hoof boots. Nobody needs

626
00:37:15,120 --> 00:37:17,840
Speaker 2: to feel left out. But then there's also the hippo

627
00:37:17,960 --> 00:37:20,640
Speaker 2: sandal and this is exactly what it sounds like. It

628
00:37:20,719 --> 00:37:25,480
Speaker 2: is a sandal of sorts for horse hoofs These were

629
00:37:25,560 --> 00:37:30,359
Speaker 2: especially common in the Northwestern Roman Empire and it was

630
00:37:30,719 --> 00:37:33,360
Speaker 2: I think largely a temporary solution. So the idea is

631
00:37:33,400 --> 00:37:35,319
Speaker 2: this is not something that was nailed on. It was

632
00:37:35,360 --> 00:37:38,840
Speaker 2: something that was strapped on, and if you look at examples,

633
00:37:38,880 --> 00:37:41,600
Speaker 2: it looks like basically like a strap on horse hoof.

634
00:37:41,640 --> 00:37:44,319
Speaker 2: You can see that like these were generally made out

635
00:37:44,320 --> 00:37:47,680
Speaker 2: of iron. They would cover the bottom of the hoof

636
00:37:47,719 --> 00:37:51,000
Speaker 2: wall and then you would strap it on, but it

637
00:37:51,040 --> 00:37:54,319
Speaker 2: wasn't going to be on their long term. Once you

638
00:37:54,400 --> 00:37:56,839
Speaker 2: got wherever you were riding to, or I don't know,

639
00:37:56,880 --> 00:38:00,000
Speaker 2: after battle or whatever the scenario is, then it's time

640
00:38:00,080 --> 00:38:03,840
Speaker 2: to take these hippo sandals off. And then eventually we

641
00:38:03,920 --> 00:38:07,480
Speaker 2: get to the proper iron horseshoe, which everyone knows what

642
00:38:07,520 --> 00:38:11,040
Speaker 2: this looks like. Because it exists in the public mind

643
00:38:11,160 --> 00:38:15,200
Speaker 2: outside of mere equestrian interests, and even outside of its

644
00:38:15,320 --> 00:38:18,080
Speaker 2: use on the horse, it has become an artifact of

645
00:38:18,120 --> 00:38:22,080
Speaker 2: some significance across multiple cultures. It is this U shaped

646
00:38:22,080 --> 00:38:26,960
Speaker 2: twist of iron that is actually nailed into place in

647
00:38:27,000 --> 00:38:32,040
Speaker 2: the horse's hoof falls. The origin of this particular invention

648
00:38:32,239 --> 00:38:36,000
Speaker 2: or artifact is also difficult to well nail down, I

649
00:38:36,440 --> 00:38:40,160
Speaker 2: guess you could say, with different possibilities emerging. I've read

650
00:38:40,200 --> 00:38:43,520
Speaker 2: that the gulls are thought to have possibly innovated this.

651
00:38:43,760 --> 00:38:47,360
Speaker 2: Others have said the Celts may have done it, or

652
00:38:47,400 --> 00:38:50,839
Speaker 2: being among the first to do it, and there's some

653
00:38:50,920 --> 00:38:54,640
Speaker 2: evidence stemming from ancient grave sites. But one thing to

654
00:38:54,680 --> 00:38:57,480
Speaker 2: keep in mind here is that initially you might think, oh, well,

655
00:38:57,480 --> 00:38:59,680
Speaker 2: they're made out of iron, at least they're going to

656
00:38:59,760 --> 00:39:02,680
Speaker 2: keep longer. But then we have to realize iron would

657
00:39:02,680 --> 00:39:06,560
Speaker 2: have been precious, and therefore iron would often be reused

658
00:39:06,680 --> 00:39:10,759
Speaker 2: or even re forged, thus robbing us of evidence in

659
00:39:10,800 --> 00:39:15,440
Speaker 2: many cases of these particular artifacts. But it's possible that

660
00:39:15,480 --> 00:39:19,520
Speaker 2: the use of iron horseshoes go back to perhaps four

661
00:39:19,600 --> 00:39:22,680
Speaker 2: hundred BCE. But like a lot of this, the use

662
00:39:22,719 --> 00:39:25,680
Speaker 2: of iron horseshoes is rather broadly difficult to define and

663
00:39:26,400 --> 00:39:30,080
Speaker 2: nail down because their use often bumps up against and

664
00:39:30,120 --> 00:39:35,360
Speaker 2: coexists with other forms of protecting the hoof. So you

665
00:39:35,440 --> 00:39:38,080
Speaker 2: might have like a period of time and a part

666
00:39:38,080 --> 00:39:40,880
Speaker 2: of the world where some people are using a horseshoe,

667
00:39:41,160 --> 00:39:46,200
Speaker 2: some are using the hippo sandal or some other innovation,

668
00:39:46,760 --> 00:39:49,400
Speaker 2: or indeed where there'll be a whole culture that's not

669
00:39:49,520 --> 00:39:53,439
Speaker 2: using anything and they're depending on stage just switching out

670
00:39:53,480 --> 00:39:56,520
Speaker 2: horses and find you know, realizing that they can't and

671
00:39:56,560 --> 00:40:00,640
Speaker 2: shouldn't just run the horse to death, but they realize, well,

672
00:40:00,640 --> 00:40:02,319
Speaker 2: we just need to switch them out more, and this

673
00:40:02,400 --> 00:40:04,160
Speaker 2: is going to be our approach to making the most

674
00:40:04,160 --> 00:40:06,040
Speaker 2: out of a given hoof and making the hoofs and

675
00:40:06,080 --> 00:40:20,640
Speaker 2: therefore the horse itself lasts longer for us. Now the

676
00:40:20,680 --> 00:40:24,680
Speaker 2: horse shoe itself has a life all its own at

677
00:40:24,680 --> 00:40:28,200
Speaker 2: this point outside of merely nailing it in place in

678
00:40:28,280 --> 00:40:32,400
Speaker 2: the bottom of a horse's foot. As we've touched on

679
00:40:32,440 --> 00:40:35,120
Speaker 2: a bit already, the horseshoe has long been seen as

680
00:40:35,160 --> 00:40:38,399
Speaker 2: a good luck icon in many different cultures, in many

681
00:40:38,400 --> 00:40:41,720
Speaker 2: different times, and it's only kind of interesting to chase

682
00:40:41,800 --> 00:40:45,600
Speaker 2: down like why this is? Like why did people start

683
00:40:46,200 --> 00:40:49,960
Speaker 2: admiring the horseshoe and nailing it up and attracting some

684
00:40:50,120 --> 00:40:51,520
Speaker 2: level of significance to it?

685
00:40:51,960 --> 00:40:55,440
Speaker 3: Very good question. I often find myself wondering about things

686
00:40:55,480 --> 00:40:59,000
Speaker 3: like this, like how did a certain item or image

687
00:40:59,040 --> 00:41:02,880
Speaker 3: come to have good magic or bad magic associated with it.

688
00:41:03,640 --> 00:41:06,799
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, so I One of the first places I

689
00:41:06,880 --> 00:41:09,560
Speaker 2: turned to for an answer on this is the book

690
00:41:09,640 --> 00:41:13,920
Speaker 2: Magical House Protection by Brian Hoggard, a former guest on

691
00:41:13,960 --> 00:41:17,120
Speaker 2: the show. I think he was on last October while

692
00:41:17,560 --> 00:41:20,600
Speaker 2: you were on a printal leave. But the book deals

693
00:41:20,640 --> 00:41:22,960
Speaker 2: with various things that people have hidden away in their

694
00:41:23,000 --> 00:41:27,799
Speaker 2: walls and under their floorboards throughout Europe, in the US predominantly,

695
00:41:27,840 --> 00:41:29,560
Speaker 2: but also just throughout the world as a way of

696
00:41:29,600 --> 00:41:32,799
Speaker 2: protecting the house from bad luck, evil spirits, and what

697
00:41:33,000 --> 00:41:37,239
Speaker 2: have you. And Hoggard wrote that, yeah, you find horseshoes

698
00:41:38,040 --> 00:41:41,120
Speaker 2: being associated with good luck throughout the British Isles, Europe,

699
00:41:41,440 --> 00:41:44,400
Speaker 2: the United States, quote, and it would seem the rest

700
00:41:44,400 --> 00:41:47,480
Speaker 2: of the world. He writes that the horseshoe is sometimes

701
00:41:47,520 --> 00:41:51,520
Speaker 2: displayed pointing upward quote, so that the luck doesn't run out,

702
00:41:52,360 --> 00:41:53,960
Speaker 2: which I thought was fun. You know this idea that

703
00:41:53,960 --> 00:41:56,200
Speaker 2: it's like, well, don't have it facing down, because then

704
00:41:56,239 --> 00:41:57,640
Speaker 2: all the luck's going to run out of the ends

705
00:41:57,640 --> 00:42:02,640
Speaker 2: of the horseshoe. While in other areas other traditions, it

706
00:42:02,760 --> 00:42:05,760
Speaker 2: is common to display the horseshoe with the points down.

707
00:42:06,200 --> 00:42:07,960
Speaker 3: I think of it with the points down. I think

708
00:42:08,000 --> 00:42:10,319
Speaker 3: because I think of it hanging up just by a

709
00:42:10,400 --> 00:42:11,320
Speaker 3: nail through the middle.

710
00:42:11,640 --> 00:42:13,799
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's the easiest to do, right. If you hang

711
00:42:13,840 --> 00:42:16,160
Speaker 2: it the other way, you've it's a little more complicated

712
00:42:16,680 --> 00:42:18,359
Speaker 2: or well, I guess it depends. I mean you cause

713
00:42:19,360 --> 00:42:21,120
Speaker 2: the thing about the horseshoe I guess too, is it

714
00:42:21,160 --> 00:42:24,920
Speaker 2: is made to be nailed in place, and therefore it

715
00:42:24,960 --> 00:42:27,400
Speaker 2: can be nailed in its intended place, the bottom of

716
00:42:27,400 --> 00:42:30,160
Speaker 2: a horse's hoof, or it can be nailed in place

717
00:42:30,320 --> 00:42:33,000
Speaker 2: on a barn wall or above your door or what

718
00:42:33,120 --> 00:42:36,480
Speaker 2: have you. Anyway, Haggard highlights two main reasons for the

719
00:42:36,480 --> 00:42:40,120
Speaker 2: horseshoes perceived power. One, and it's certainly a big one,

720
00:42:40,239 --> 00:42:44,040
Speaker 2: is the closer relationship between humans and their horses. You know,

721
00:42:44,120 --> 00:42:48,320
Speaker 2: these are animals that were highly important to the people

722
00:42:48,560 --> 00:42:52,360
Speaker 2: who owned them and or used them. They were animals

723
00:42:52,400 --> 00:42:55,560
Speaker 2: that we ultimately cared about, and we also had various,

724
00:42:56,640 --> 00:42:59,799
Speaker 2: you know, supernatural traditions concerning them. And if not you're

725
00:43:00,320 --> 00:43:02,799
Speaker 2: mundane horses, you have these ideas of mythic horses and

726
00:43:02,840 --> 00:43:05,800
Speaker 2: so forth. And this is something that also influenced the

727
00:43:05,920 --> 00:43:09,879
Speaker 2: use of horse skulls and things like that in other traditions.

728
00:43:10,960 --> 00:43:13,279
Speaker 2: The other key fact that he highlights is that these

729
00:43:13,280 --> 00:43:16,200
Speaker 2: are made of iron, and iron was thought to provide

730
00:43:16,239 --> 00:43:21,080
Speaker 2: protection against quote, witchcraft and the fairy folk. Yes, and

731
00:43:21,360 --> 00:43:24,280
Speaker 2: as Hoggard chronicles in that book, iron horseshoes and iron

732
00:43:24,360 --> 00:43:28,000
Speaker 2: nails were often used in these household productive magics, hidden

733
00:43:28,000 --> 00:43:31,120
Speaker 2: in walls and so forth. I also looked at this

734
00:43:31,200 --> 00:43:33,640
Speaker 2: was an older paper, but I thought it highlighted some

735
00:43:34,040 --> 00:43:37,120
Speaker 2: interesting concepts. This is an eighteen ninety six paper by

736
00:43:37,239 --> 00:43:40,000
Speaker 2: Robert M. Lawrence published in the Journal of American Folklore

737
00:43:40,040 --> 00:43:43,879
Speaker 2: titled The Folklore of the Horseshoe, and Lawrence points out

738
00:43:43,880 --> 00:43:46,799
Speaker 2: that the horseshoe, though shaped the way it's shaped for

739
00:43:46,840 --> 00:43:51,000
Speaker 2: practical reasons, obviously it would have essentially stood in or

740
00:43:51,040 --> 00:43:55,360
Speaker 2: resembled pre existing and potent symbols in different traditions and

741
00:43:55,400 --> 00:43:58,279
Speaker 2: in different cultures. And he highlights some of the key

742
00:43:58,320 --> 00:44:02,200
Speaker 2: ones here. So sure the horseshoe just a standard horseshoe,

743
00:44:02,880 --> 00:44:05,360
Speaker 2: and then think about these. The first one he mentions

744
00:44:05,520 --> 00:44:08,239
Speaker 2: is the idea of a of an arch, just a

745
00:44:08,280 --> 00:44:11,359
Speaker 2: protective arch, something that would be even in an age

746
00:44:11,400 --> 00:44:15,160
Speaker 2: before horseshoes positioned above a doorway or you know, on

747
00:44:15,200 --> 00:44:18,160
Speaker 2: a threshold. I believe he highlights the I want to

748
00:44:18,160 --> 00:44:22,560
Speaker 2: say a Scottish tradition of having an arch shaped from

749
00:44:23,040 --> 00:44:26,000
Speaker 2: from just the branch of a tree would sometimes be

750
00:44:26,120 --> 00:44:26,640
Speaker 2: used like this.

751
00:44:27,320 --> 00:44:29,359
Speaker 3: Well, this may be saying the same thing as saying

752
00:44:29,400 --> 00:44:31,239
Speaker 3: that it sort of resembles an arch, but it also

753
00:44:31,280 --> 00:44:33,520
Speaker 3: sort of resembles a doorway, which is like an arch

754
00:44:33,920 --> 00:44:36,600
Speaker 3: and good luck. Symbols of various kinds are often put

755
00:44:36,640 --> 00:44:37,960
Speaker 3: on or around a doorway.

756
00:44:38,560 --> 00:44:41,000
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I think that's that's a pretty solid one.

757
00:44:41,360 --> 00:44:43,759
Speaker 2: The next one he brings up is that a horseshoe

758
00:44:43,800 --> 00:44:46,919
Speaker 2: is also reminiscent of a serpent, and therefore it could

759
00:44:47,000 --> 00:44:51,920
Speaker 2: tie into various traditions and it involve the use of

760
00:44:51,960 --> 00:44:54,560
Speaker 2: some sort of a serpent symbol, be that a serpent.

761
00:44:54,600 --> 00:44:56,800
Speaker 2: That's you know, I guess it depends what your snack

762
00:44:56,920 --> 00:44:58,880
Speaker 2: is doing. It may be it may be straight, it

763
00:44:58,920 --> 00:45:01,120
Speaker 2: may be coiled up, it may eating its own tail.

764
00:45:01,200 --> 00:45:03,080
Speaker 2: I mean, there's so many different ways the snake has

765
00:45:03,120 --> 00:45:08,480
Speaker 2: been utilized in different iconography over the ages, but this

766
00:45:08,520 --> 00:45:11,279
Speaker 2: one seems sensible. The idea of like the horseshoe as

767
00:45:11,280 --> 00:45:16,200
Speaker 2: a serpent. Another big one the horseshoe is the crescent moon. Now,

768
00:45:16,239 --> 00:45:18,799
Speaker 2: the next one is one that he writes that he

769
00:45:18,800 --> 00:45:21,040
Speaker 2: thinks the evidence is mediocre for this, and he's kind

770
00:45:21,040 --> 00:45:23,239
Speaker 2: of begrudgingly mentioned that. He's like, I'm gonna mention it,

771
00:45:23,239 --> 00:45:26,799
Speaker 2: but I don't like it. And that's the horseshoe could

772
00:45:26,800 --> 00:45:30,960
Speaker 2: also stand in for various ophallic imagery. So the horseshoe

773
00:45:31,000 --> 00:45:32,120
Speaker 2: as thallus.

774
00:45:32,520 --> 00:45:36,200
Speaker 3: Huh, I need to have the case made for that.

775
00:45:36,600 --> 00:45:38,520
Speaker 3: It's not evident to me.

776
00:45:39,440 --> 00:45:41,880
Speaker 2: Yeah. I looked around for more sources on this to

777
00:45:41,880 --> 00:45:43,840
Speaker 2: see if there was anybody advocating for this, and I

778
00:45:43,840 --> 00:45:46,400
Speaker 2: didn't find anything. Maybe it's out there and I just

779
00:45:46,400 --> 00:45:49,000
Speaker 2: couldn't find it. I did see some images of some

780
00:45:49,160 --> 00:45:55,120
Speaker 2: Roman phallic icons and charms that maybe kind of remind

781
00:45:55,200 --> 00:45:57,160
Speaker 2: like I could maybe see it, like there's more than

782
00:45:57,200 --> 00:46:01,400
Speaker 2: one way to create a phallic symbol, and some of

783
00:46:01,400 --> 00:46:04,359
Speaker 2: them are I guess, more horseshoe like than others. But

784
00:46:04,640 --> 00:46:07,680
Speaker 2: still I think maybe Lawrence is right and saying that

785
00:46:07,719 --> 00:46:11,279
Speaker 2: maybe there's not as much sense behind this. This one

786
00:46:11,320 --> 00:46:15,239
Speaker 2: I thought was interesting. The prong shape of the horseshoe

787
00:46:15,440 --> 00:46:17,719
Speaker 2: has a deterrent to evil spirits or as a kind

788
00:46:17,760 --> 00:46:21,520
Speaker 2: of trap. So the idea that the horseshoe is either

789
00:46:21,560 --> 00:46:23,680
Speaker 2: the thing that's going to kind of like catch the

790
00:46:23,719 --> 00:46:27,000
Speaker 2: limb of an evil spirit, you know, you know, like, oh,

791
00:46:27,280 --> 00:46:30,640
Speaker 2: you put your limb, your arm in there, and now

792
00:46:30,680 --> 00:46:32,799
Speaker 2: you can't get it out, or kind of like the

793
00:46:32,840 --> 00:46:34,840
Speaker 2: prongs of some sort of a poking fork.

794
00:46:35,320 --> 00:46:37,920
Speaker 3: Okay, Yeah, that the horseshoe does have a shape that

795
00:46:37,960 --> 00:46:40,760
Speaker 3: seems to contain Yeah.

796
00:46:40,800 --> 00:46:42,920
Speaker 2: And this this lined up with a lot of what

797
00:46:43,239 --> 00:46:47,040
Speaker 2: Hoggard wrote about concerning witch bottles. Witch bottles would often

798
00:46:47,040 --> 00:46:49,320
Speaker 2: have a bunch of nails in them, and the idea

799
00:46:49,360 --> 00:46:51,840
Speaker 2: that like, here's this evil spirit coming into your house

800
00:46:51,880 --> 00:46:54,200
Speaker 2: and then it smells some of your hair that's in

801
00:46:54,239 --> 00:46:57,640
Speaker 2: this bottle that's buried under the floorboards. Oh, it went

802
00:46:57,640 --> 00:47:00,359
Speaker 2: into that bottle after that hair smell, and now found

803
00:47:00,360 --> 00:47:02,920
Speaker 2: a whole bunch of nails. Good luck getting out of

804
00:47:02,960 --> 00:47:03,560
Speaker 2: their spirit.

805
00:47:03,840 --> 00:47:05,520
Speaker 3: Iron nails maybe.

806
00:47:05,320 --> 00:47:07,840
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I believe they would have been in

807
00:47:07,840 --> 00:47:10,480
Speaker 2: most of these cases. Now. Lawrence also points to the

808
00:47:10,520 --> 00:47:13,240
Speaker 2: sacred nature of the horse and the virtues of iron,

809
00:47:13,360 --> 00:47:16,960
Speaker 2: as Hoggart did. He points to examples from various cultures

810
00:47:16,960 --> 00:47:21,920
Speaker 2: and traditions, including the ancient Romans, Arabic traditions, Chinese, and

811
00:47:21,960 --> 00:47:24,480
Speaker 2: Scottish traditions. So again, it's one of these things when

812
00:47:24,520 --> 00:47:28,200
Speaker 2: you start, it's just it's spread all over. Some other

813
00:47:28,239 --> 00:47:30,839
Speaker 2: ideas that he mentions include the horseshoe is a thing

814
00:47:31,000 --> 00:47:37,920
Speaker 2: that captures traps or transmits bad luck. The position is

815
00:47:37,960 --> 00:47:40,720
Speaker 2: sometimes important here, and like it could be a situation

816
00:47:40,760 --> 00:47:43,160
Speaker 2: where it's like, Okay, here's the horseshoe. You got all

817
00:47:43,200 --> 00:47:45,440
Speaker 2: your bad luck in that. Now leave it on the

818
00:47:45,480 --> 00:47:48,800
Speaker 2: ground and see if someone picks it up and catches

819
00:47:48,840 --> 00:47:51,200
Speaker 2: all that bad luck you just put into it. Then

820
00:47:51,239 --> 00:47:55,000
Speaker 2: there's an idea of numerology coming into it, particularly concerning

821
00:47:55,400 --> 00:47:58,240
Speaker 2: the number of nails in a horseshoe versus the number

822
00:47:58,280 --> 00:48:03,520
Speaker 2: of nail holes. He writes, quote, in Northumberland, the holes

823
00:48:03,840 --> 00:48:07,760
Speaker 2: free of nails are counted as these indicate, presumably in years,

824
00:48:07,960 --> 00:48:10,480
Speaker 2: how soon the finder of the shoe may expect to

825
00:48:10,520 --> 00:48:12,960
Speaker 2: be married. And I guess in this case they're like,

826
00:48:13,000 --> 00:48:14,720
Speaker 2: you know, you're out in the field, you find a horseshoe.

827
00:48:14,719 --> 00:48:16,799
Speaker 2: It's like, oh, I found a horseshoe, let's find out

828
00:48:16,840 --> 00:48:20,760
Speaker 2: how long I'm going to be single. Which and again,

829
00:48:20,960 --> 00:48:23,120
Speaker 2: you know we're not familiar with this tradition, and we

830
00:48:23,120 --> 00:48:24,360
Speaker 2: can kind of snicker at it. But I guess there

831
00:48:24,360 --> 00:48:25,799
Speaker 2: are a lot of things like this. I mean it's

832
00:48:25,880 --> 00:48:29,399
Speaker 2: kind of on a very very like slender level. It's

833
00:48:29,400 --> 00:48:31,399
Speaker 2: almost like, you know, not stepping on a crack, right,

834
00:48:31,520 --> 00:48:34,360
Speaker 2: you know, like we know that's not there's not accurate,

835
00:48:34,440 --> 00:48:36,400
Speaker 2: but we can't help but think about it when we

836
00:48:36,480 --> 00:48:38,759
Speaker 2: do it. And so I can imagine it could be

837
00:48:38,800 --> 00:48:41,120
Speaker 2: this tradition whereas, oh I found a horseshoe exciting for me,

838
00:48:41,520 --> 00:48:42,920
Speaker 2: Maybe I'm going to take this home and put it

839
00:48:43,000 --> 00:48:45,319
Speaker 2: up over my over my doorway for good luck. But

840
00:48:45,400 --> 00:48:48,959
Speaker 2: also what if it's right? What if I am three

841
00:48:49,040 --> 00:48:51,440
Speaker 2: years from finding my wife that sort of thing.

842
00:48:51,800 --> 00:48:55,280
Speaker 3: Well, also, I mean things like this are done for fun,

843
00:48:55,440 --> 00:48:59,560
Speaker 3: even if people don't necessarily believe it's literally predictive. I mean,

844
00:49:00,200 --> 00:49:01,880
Speaker 3: you know, she loves me, She loves me, not on

845
00:49:02,120 --> 00:49:03,320
Speaker 3: flower pedals and stuff.

846
00:49:03,400 --> 00:49:06,520
Speaker 2: Yeah, catching the flowers at a wedding and so forth.

847
00:49:06,920 --> 00:49:09,320
Speaker 2: The other thing you mentioned is that you could consider

848
00:49:09,760 --> 00:49:14,480
Speaker 2: the horseshoe in its resemblance to a halo. M Okay, yeah,

849
00:49:14,520 --> 00:49:16,799
Speaker 2: so I don't remember that coming up at all in

850
00:49:16,880 --> 00:49:19,440
Speaker 2: our episodes about the Halo. We did a series on

851
00:49:19,440 --> 00:49:21,400
Speaker 2: the Halo, and it was a lot of fun. But

852
00:49:22,200 --> 00:49:23,880
Speaker 2: I guess again, we might just think of it like,

853
00:49:23,960 --> 00:49:28,200
Speaker 2: what are some major icons and symbols within any given

854
00:49:28,320 --> 00:49:32,160
Speaker 2: culture that could then here comes this artifact, this, here

855
00:49:32,160 --> 00:49:35,919
Speaker 2: comes this horseshoe. What does that horseshoe remind us of? Now,

856
00:49:35,960 --> 00:49:40,200
Speaker 2: outside of all these superstitions and so forth and older traditions,

857
00:49:40,239 --> 00:49:42,680
Speaker 2: the emblem of a horseshoe remains I think really potent.

858
00:49:44,040 --> 00:49:47,040
Speaker 2: One example of this that came to mind is the

859
00:49:47,120 --> 00:49:51,359
Speaker 2: various cartoon interpretations of this, as well as how it's

860
00:49:51,400 --> 00:49:55,959
Speaker 2: presented sometimes in science textbooks. The horseshoe magnet has become

861
00:49:55,960 --> 00:49:59,600
Speaker 2: a kind of fixed symbol for magnetism, despite the fact

862
00:49:59,640 --> 00:50:02,680
Speaker 2: that horse shoe magnets are technically obsolete, since like the

863
00:50:02,760 --> 00:50:05,720
Speaker 2: nineteen fifties, you don't you don't need a horseshoe shaped magnet.

864
00:50:06,080 --> 00:50:08,920
Speaker 2: All the magnets on your fridge are likely not horseshoe shaped.

865
00:50:09,280 --> 00:50:12,719
Speaker 3: I was thinking about the horseshoe magnet, and especially when

866
00:50:12,800 --> 00:50:16,399
Speaker 3: you were talking about the various magical powers associated with them,

867
00:50:16,400 --> 00:50:19,359
Speaker 3: because of the way horseshoe magnets are represented in cartoons

868
00:50:19,840 --> 00:50:23,120
Speaker 3: as like emitting beams of magic power or with like

869
00:50:23,280 --> 00:50:27,400
Speaker 3: zigzagging lightning of magnetic I don't know what, you know,

870
00:50:27,960 --> 00:50:30,120
Speaker 3: the like zappiness coming out of them.

871
00:50:30,560 --> 00:50:32,719
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I mean it might be a scenario where

872
00:50:32,719 --> 00:50:34,759
Speaker 2: you stopped to think and maybe you're like, hey, do

873
00:50:34,840 --> 00:50:38,200
Speaker 2: I know how magnets work? And then instantly you're struck

874
00:50:38,239 --> 00:50:41,200
Speaker 2: with that cartoon image or that or that little icon

875
00:50:41,239 --> 00:50:43,520
Speaker 2: from your science textbook growing up, where oh yeah, there

876
00:50:43,600 --> 00:50:46,600
Speaker 2: is horseshoe lightning bolts. Now I got it, Now I

877
00:50:46,600 --> 00:50:50,239
Speaker 2: can move on. Now. Another concept to me that some

878
00:50:50,280 --> 00:50:53,160
Speaker 2: people may be thinking of. There's also this horseshoe theory

879
00:50:53,160 --> 00:50:57,560
Speaker 2: of politics, which I'm to understand. I don't. I didn't

880
00:50:57,560 --> 00:50:59,640
Speaker 2: know a lot about it previously, but it's my understanding.

881
00:50:59,680 --> 00:51:02,319
Speaker 2: It's all so it's not something that's really that much

882
00:51:02,320 --> 00:51:05,120
Speaker 2: of a thing within actual political science, but you sometimes

883
00:51:05,120 --> 00:51:09,240
Speaker 2: see it in a lot of popular discourse about people's

884
00:51:09,280 --> 00:51:14,600
Speaker 2: political leanings and their ideologies. This idea that instead of

885
00:51:14,640 --> 00:51:18,800
Speaker 2: it being like a sliding linear scale between on one

886
00:51:19,160 --> 00:51:22,279
Speaker 2: on one end, like leftist extremism and on the other

887
00:51:22,400 --> 00:51:24,680
Speaker 2: end right wing extremism, and then in the middle, you know,

888
00:51:24,800 --> 00:51:28,080
Speaker 2: just just you know, middle of the road, you know,

889
00:51:28,239 --> 00:51:31,600
Speaker 2: neutrality and so forth, then instead of it being shaped

890
00:51:31,600 --> 00:51:33,719
Speaker 2: like that, we should really curve it, and then it's

891
00:51:33,760 --> 00:51:36,000
Speaker 2: more of a horseshoe, and that by virtue of this

892
00:51:36,040 --> 00:51:39,720
Speaker 2: horseshoe shape, it's illustrated that the extremes of either side

893
00:51:39,760 --> 00:51:42,719
Speaker 2: are actually closer than you might think. And this is

894
00:51:42,760 --> 00:51:45,920
Speaker 2: generally generally it's employed to talk about like either like

895
00:51:46,120 --> 00:51:50,399
Speaker 2: an overarching theme, like perhaps that in the extremes there's

896
00:51:50,440 --> 00:51:53,600
Speaker 2: more of a draw towards like a strong leader type

897
00:51:53,680 --> 00:51:58,800
Speaker 2: or totalitarianism or something, or that you might find particular sentiments,

898
00:51:58,800 --> 00:52:01,600
Speaker 2: say like an at anti vac scene sentiment in both

899
00:52:01,640 --> 00:52:04,520
Speaker 2: the far left and the far right, despite these groups

900
00:52:04,520 --> 00:52:07,200
Speaker 2: having little else in common in terms of their ideology.

901
00:52:07,760 --> 00:52:11,200
Speaker 3: Yeah, I've heard people using this analogy in different ways.

902
00:52:11,239 --> 00:52:15,440
Speaker 3: I mean, in I think, in one sense it is

903
00:52:15,480 --> 00:52:19,239
Speaker 3: often used to mean that people think that at the

904
00:52:19,280 --> 00:52:22,560
Speaker 3: far extremes of the political spectrum people actually come to

905
00:52:22,760 --> 00:52:26,000
Speaker 3: share some political ideas. And then I think the other

906
00:52:26,080 --> 00:52:28,400
Speaker 3: ideas that is that at the furthest extremes of the

907
00:52:28,400 --> 00:52:32,600
Speaker 3: political spectrum, people have more i don't know, sort of

908
00:52:32,960 --> 00:52:38,200
Speaker 3: personality based or epistemic things in common apart from political positions.

909
00:52:39,120 --> 00:52:42,319
Speaker 3: And I'm not sure which version of the of the

910
00:52:42,320 --> 00:52:46,040
Speaker 3: model people are really talking about. When they invoke it often.

911
00:52:46,000 --> 00:52:48,640
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I do. It kind of comes back comes

912
00:52:48,719 --> 00:52:51,399
Speaker 2: back to our discussion earlier though about like how do we,

913
00:52:51,480 --> 00:52:54,440
Speaker 2: you know, interpreting data and thinking about like the underlying

914
00:52:54,440 --> 00:52:58,320
Speaker 2: truth of a given situation or a mystery like obviously

915
00:52:58,360 --> 00:53:01,239
Speaker 2: the way people think about the world from ideologies and

916
00:53:01,360 --> 00:53:03,680
Speaker 2: their political viewpoints. I mean, there's a lot of complexity

917
00:53:03,719 --> 00:53:07,000
Speaker 2: going on here, and that complexity can be overwhelming. I mean,

918
00:53:07,040 --> 00:53:09,880
Speaker 2: as we try to make sense of the world's around us,

919
00:53:09,920 --> 00:53:13,160
Speaker 2: the larger world and perhaps even the closer world of

920
00:53:12,239 --> 00:53:16,640
Speaker 2: our friend circles and our families and so forth, and

921
00:53:16,719 --> 00:53:19,319
Speaker 2: it might be tempting to say, but hey, look at

922
00:53:19,320 --> 00:53:22,759
Speaker 2: this horseshoe, Look at this, I think this explains it all.

923
00:53:23,120 --> 00:53:25,680
Speaker 2: You know, it provides maybe a simple model that may

924
00:53:26,320 --> 00:53:30,120
Speaker 2: I mean, maybe it provides some insight, but also a

925
00:53:30,239 --> 00:53:32,239
Speaker 2: level of insight that at least you can sort of

926
00:53:32,719 --> 00:53:34,440
Speaker 2: nod your head at and think like, okay, well this

927
00:53:34,600 --> 00:53:36,840
Speaker 2: kind of lines up with some of the things I'm observing.

928
00:53:37,160 --> 00:53:41,400
Speaker 3: Well, yeah, I think Another twist, for example, is whether

929
00:53:41,520 --> 00:53:44,520
Speaker 3: or not it is useful to think about political beliefs

930
00:53:44,560 --> 00:53:48,800
Speaker 3: as a spectrum at all, meaning that they extend along

931
00:53:48,880 --> 00:53:54,960
Speaker 3: a single dimension or whether it's more useful to decompose

932
00:53:55,080 --> 00:54:00,960
Speaker 3: political beliefs into a number of different types of preferences

933
00:54:01,120 --> 00:54:07,120
Speaker 3: and personality traits. And then in a say, a representative

934
00:54:07,120 --> 00:54:11,120
Speaker 3: democracy with two major parties we represent, we discover that

935
00:54:12,360 --> 00:54:16,840
Speaker 3: political behavior manifests in varying degrees of like or dislike

936
00:54:16,960 --> 00:54:20,040
Speaker 3: for those main two parties. But you know that that

937
00:54:20,080 --> 00:54:24,759
Speaker 3: doesn't fully explain people's the depths of people's beliefs and preferences.

938
00:54:25,400 --> 00:54:29,080
Speaker 2: Yeah, though in isolation it can at least seem to

939
00:54:29,120 --> 00:54:31,480
Speaker 2: make some sense. I had a case of this over

940
00:54:31,480 --> 00:54:33,160
Speaker 2: the weekend. I was in a I was in a

941
00:54:33,160 --> 00:54:35,400
Speaker 2: city that has a lot of crystal stores, so I

942
00:54:35,440 --> 00:54:38,840
Speaker 2: wasn't necessarily out to venture into a crystal store, but

943
00:54:39,200 --> 00:54:41,400
Speaker 2: by virtue of where I was, I just was going

944
00:54:41,440 --> 00:54:44,520
Speaker 2: to wind up in one eventually, and I was looking

945
00:54:44,560 --> 00:54:46,880
Speaker 2: looking around at them. Crystals are beautiful, you know, I

946
00:54:47,600 --> 00:54:49,799
Speaker 2: think they can. They can. They're nice to look at,

947
00:54:49,840 --> 00:54:51,880
Speaker 2: and maybe they're a nice focus sometimes to take you

948
00:54:51,920 --> 00:54:53,200
Speaker 2: out of the past in the future and put you

949
00:54:53,200 --> 00:54:56,280
Speaker 2: into the present. But they have all these little notes

950
00:54:56,280 --> 00:54:58,200
Speaker 2: on them about what they're good for and what focus

951
00:54:58,239 --> 00:55:01,000
Speaker 2: in the crystal will allegedly do for were you, and

952
00:55:01,040 --> 00:55:04,280
Speaker 2: on one table I found one that it was promised,

953
00:55:04,320 --> 00:55:07,680
Speaker 2: would help me connect with quote Christ consciousness, and on

954
00:55:07,760 --> 00:55:12,000
Speaker 2: the other it would help me communicate with extraterrestrials. And

955
00:55:12,040 --> 00:55:14,840
Speaker 2: so generally speaking, I don't know. I would expect that

956
00:55:14,880 --> 00:55:19,640
Speaker 2: people looking to connect with either would have rather different

957
00:55:19,640 --> 00:55:22,320
Speaker 2: world views, you know, the person with the Christ crystal

958
00:55:22,360 --> 00:55:24,799
Speaker 2: and the person with the extraterrestrial crystal, Like maybe they

959
00:55:24,840 --> 00:55:28,399
Speaker 2: want different things out of life. But also they may

960
00:55:28,440 --> 00:55:31,840
Speaker 2: have both wandered into this crystal store, which makes me

961
00:55:31,880 --> 00:55:33,600
Speaker 2: think that think of the you know, the ends of

962
00:55:33,680 --> 00:55:37,359
Speaker 2: the of the horseshoe, you know, arching towards each other.

963
00:55:37,960 --> 00:55:40,080
Speaker 3: Every crystal store I go in, I ask for their

964
00:55:40,200 --> 00:55:44,800
Speaker 3: Nixon consciousness, Christal, what will help me communicate with Nixon?

965
00:55:45,880 --> 00:55:47,120
Speaker 3: He's out there somewhere.

966
00:55:47,360 --> 00:55:49,000
Speaker 2: Oh man, there's got to be a crystal There's got

967
00:55:49,000 --> 00:55:52,560
Speaker 2: to be one that will do it. Unrelated to Nixon, though,

968
00:55:52,800 --> 00:55:54,920
Speaker 2: in discussing this, I am also thinking I don't think

969
00:55:54,960 --> 00:55:58,600
Speaker 2: Lawrence mentioned horns or antlers, but this would seem at

970
00:55:58,719 --> 00:56:01,239
Speaker 2: least just you know, off the the top of my head,

971
00:56:01,280 --> 00:56:03,840
Speaker 2: this would seem to be like a potent symbol to

972
00:56:03,960 --> 00:56:07,200
Speaker 2: jump to. We're interpreting like how people connected with this

973
00:56:07,280 --> 00:56:11,680
Speaker 2: horseshoe with this, you know, for all intensive purposes, this

974
00:56:11,840 --> 00:56:17,640
Speaker 2: new artifact that lines up with various symbols of potents,

975
00:56:17,719 --> 00:56:21,520
Speaker 2: like the horns and antlers have long been and still

976
00:56:21,560 --> 00:56:24,400
Speaker 2: are things of symbolic power.

977
00:56:24,520 --> 00:56:27,360
Speaker 3: In a quite literal sense in their biological context, but

978
00:56:27,400 --> 00:56:29,320
Speaker 3: then in a metaphorical sense to humans.

979
00:56:29,400 --> 00:56:32,640
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, all right, Well, on that note, we're gonna

980
00:56:32,640 --> 00:56:34,440
Speaker 2: ahead and close this episode out, but we'd love to

981
00:56:34,440 --> 00:56:36,320
Speaker 2: hear from everyone out there if you have thoughts about

982
00:56:36,960 --> 00:56:41,759
Speaker 2: the horse hoof the horseshoe, interpretations of the horseshoe, the

983
00:56:41,880 --> 00:56:45,279
Speaker 2: use of hoof boots, be they equine hoof boots or

984
00:56:45,360 --> 00:56:48,520
Speaker 2: human hoof boots. Everything is fair game, right in, we'd

985
00:56:48,560 --> 00:56:50,640
Speaker 2: love to hear from you. In the meantime, you can

986
00:56:50,640 --> 00:56:52,839
Speaker 2: find all of our core episodes, so Stuff to Blow

987
00:56:52,880 --> 00:56:55,120
Speaker 2: your Mind on Tuesdays and Thursdays and the Stuff to

988
00:56:55,120 --> 00:56:57,719
Speaker 2: Blow your Mind podcast feed. On Mondays, we do listener mail,

989
00:56:57,760 --> 00:57:00,000
Speaker 2: Wednesdays we do a short form monster fact or Artifact,

990
00:57:00,120 --> 00:57:02,080
Speaker 2: and on Fridays we do Weird House Cinema. That's our

991
00:57:02,120 --> 00:57:04,480
Speaker 2: time to set aside most serious concerns and just talk

992
00:57:04,520 --> 00:57:05,759
Speaker 2: about a weird film.

993
00:57:05,960 --> 00:57:09,839
Speaker 3: Huge thanks to our excellent audio producer JJ Posway. If

994
00:57:09,840 --> 00:57:11,360
Speaker 3: you would like to get in touch with us with

995
00:57:11,440 --> 00:57:13,920
Speaker 3: feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest a

996
00:57:14,000 --> 00:57:16,440
Speaker 3: topic for the future, or just to say hello, you

997
00:57:16,440 --> 00:57:19,480
Speaker 3: can email us at contact stuff to Blow your Mind

998
00:57:19,640 --> 00:57:27,800
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999
00:57:28,000 --> 00:57:30,920
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1000
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