Horses, Horses, Where are the Horses?

[Tarski]

Sure thing Scottie...

Primary source for the Elephants is bolded...

I went to the University of Utah Library and Photocopied the source material.

http://www.elektrote...s/elephant1.jpg

http://www.elektrote...s/elephant2.jpg

http://www.elektrote...s/elephant3.jpg

Notice on page three above that Cuveronius went extinct approximatley 400 AD.

Cuveronius and horse remains are found together through out the americas. For example...

http://jpaleontol.ge...xtract/76/3/578

Your CFR is satisfied but I very much doubt that you will be.

Critics will accept nothing less than an elephant hide with the branding of "he went to Jareds" on it. and even then they would find a way to dispute it.

Wrong! Critics will accept evidence of sufficient quality to convince top paleontologists, the vast majority of which only say that the extinction of horses around 11,000 BC is as well supported as ever.

I used to look into these evidences one by one and they always turned out to be either false, misleading, anecdotal or clear cases of fraud or junk science.

Paleontologists know what they are doing. Fringe archeologists/hobbyists and apologists do not.

BY the way, as I said elsewhere, if there were to ever be new world horse remains dated to BoM times, it would do nothing much to bolster the BOM in my opinion.

Why?

If I wrote a fake (and fantastic) story about my adventures talking to the animals at a particular zoo and I included my visit with the lions, the actual existence of lions in the zoo would not be evidence for my story being true.

On the other hand, if it were found out that this particular zoo had no lions, then it would count against my story being true.

If lions were shown to be in the zoo after all then we are back again to the unsurprising situation where as before the existence of lions at the zoo does nothing to provide evidence for my fantastic tale (which should be doubted for other more important reasons).

Horse issues can work against the BoM but not so much for the BoM even if there were horses.

To a 19th century person like JS, predicting or just assuming that there were horses is unsurprising.

[cdowis]

"CFR"

Another antimormon myth bites the dust.

[jskains]

Horse issues can work against the BoM but not so much for the BoM even if there were horses.

To a 19th century person like JS, predicting or just assuming that there were horses is unsurprising.

Nice rule. Exactly why we are forced to follow your rule remains to be seen.

Hence why I don't think God pours out evidences. It really doesn't matter for folks who never will see anyways.

JMS

[Mola Ram Suda Ram]

Nice rule. Exactly why we are forced to follow your rule remains to be seen.

Hence why I don't think God pours out evidences. It really doesn't matter for folks who never will see anyways.

JMS

I agree/. The BoM is simply false because Tarski says so. I mean if evidence of horses and elephants were found that would not do anything to support that claims of mormonism. It is false just because it is false.

[cdowis]

To a 19th century person like JS, predicting or just assuming that there were horses is unsurprising.

What may be mildly surprising is that the BOM indicates that horses were used for food, which does not seem to fit 19th century NY cousine.

[Zakuska]

It's simply a matter of translation. Either JS saw what he and anyone else in his neighborhood would call a horse or it came out as the English "horse". Either way, it was an equine or JS did not correctly translate by the gift and power of God or by any personal ability.

Your suggestion falls appart If he were translating what he literally saw on the plates and not inserting divine textual interpretation / correction into the mix. Also in order to measure what you suggest (a bald assertion) we would need the plates to judge the correctness.

[jskains]

I was reading material on the Maxwell Institute website and one of the interesting points is how unimportant horses are to the text. There is only 11 references in the entire book.

JMS

[cinepro]

What may be mildly surprising is that the BOM indicates that horses were used for food, which does not seem to fit 19th century NY cousine.

"Indicates"? Isn't that overstating the issue a tad?

Horses, after all, are mentioned in conjunction with chariots, not hibachis and Tony Chachere's.

[Zakuska]

Wrong! Critics will accept evidence of sufficient quality to convince top paleontologists, the vast majority of which only say that the extinction of horses around 11,000 BC is as well supported as ever.

I used to look into these evidences one by one and they always turned out to be either false, misleading, anecdotal or clear cases of fraud or junk science.

Paleontologists know what they are doing. Fringe archeologists/hobbyists and apologists do not.

BY the way, as I said elsewhere, if there were to ever be new world horse remains dated to BoM times, it would do nothing much to bolster the BOM in my opinion.

Why?

If I wrote a fake (and fantastic) story about my adventures talking to the animals at a particular zoo and I included my visit with the lions, the actual existence of lions in the zoo would not be evidence for my story being true.

On the other hand, if it were found out that this particular zoo had no lions, then it would count against my story being true.

If lions were shown to be in the zoo after all then we are back again to the unsurprising situation where as before the existence of lions at the zoo does nothing to provide evidence for my fantastic tale (which should be doubted for other more important reasons).

Am I a prophet or whatt!? I said earlier...

Critics will accept nothing less than an elephant hide with the branding of "he went to Jareds" on it. and even then they would find a way to dispute it.

Horse issues can work against the BoM but not so much for the BoM even if there were horses.

To a 19th century person like JS, predicting or just assuming that there were horses is unsurprising.

Unsirprising?

Every body knows it was the Spaniards who brought all the horses....

Neither Thomas Jefferson, who received these fossils, nor Caspar Wistar, the anatomist who evaluated them, commented on the horse fossils. Their lack of comment is interesting given the conventional wisdom was that the first horses to appear in the Americas were brought there by the Spanish Conquistadors (2). Subsequent accounts of fossil horses in the Americas were generally dismissed until 1848, when Richard Owen described a fossil horse from South America. He named the fossils Equus curvidens (3).

http://www.ansp.org/...ssils/equus.php

Conventioanl Knowledge of the time was the Spanish brought all the horses. So for Joseph Smith to go agaisnt the grain is really surprising.

I like this quote from Thomas Jefferson:

"It is well known that on the Ohio, and in many parts of America further North, tusks,

grinders, and skeletons of unparalleled magnitude, are found in great numbers, some lying on the surface of the

earth, and some a little below it."

Thomas Jefferson, edited by David Waldstreicher, Notes on the State of Virginia, (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002), 108,

Elephant Bones that are 10000 years old don't just "Lie on the surface" for Thomas & Clarke to pick up.

[Scottie]

Another antimormon myth bites the dust.

LOL

Are you talking about your CFR to me, in which you completely changed what I said, then wanted me to find references for your new statement??? THAT CFR???

Scottie: "I grew up in American Fork"

Chuck: "CFR That you grew up in American Fork during World War II!!!!"

Scottie: "..... huh??? ..."

Chuck: "Another myth bites the dust. Chalk another win up for the apologists."

[Tarski]

Nice rule.

What rule??? It is an observation about the significance of there being horses in the Americas in BoM times.

Exactly why we are forced to follow your rule remains to be seen.

again, what rule? I guess your didn't understand the point and the analogy didn't help. Try to be clearer in your thinking about evidence.

Hence why I don't think God pours out evidences.

No he doesn't. The evidence for the truth is already there. Science doesn't need a supernatural being pouring out evidence as if such a thing even made sense.

(???)

It really doesn't matter for folks who never will see anyways.

You think it is a matter of just seeing? Seeing without considering evidence. Is it perhaps a matter of some "feeling" rather than "seeing"? Could it be "faith". or upbringing" or something else? Seeing?? Really? I refuse to see what is there to see?

What in the world are you talking about?

I will go where the preponderance of evidence and rational thinking leads me. It is utter false that I or other critics like me critic just will not see (despite what??).

Now Mola comes in with this:

I agree/. The BoM is simply false because Tarski says so. I mean if evidence of horses and elephants were found that would not do anything to support that claims of mormonism. It is false just because it is false.

What silliness! It bears no resemblance to anything I said. I said that I judge the BoM false based on "other reasons" (many such). Not simply because I say so.

You also need to sharpen your thinking and your reading.

Let me try again with another analogy.

Suppose that I claim I went to your backyard and moonwalked like M. Jackson across the green grass for six hours straight while you were away.

Do you believe it? Now what if I say, "hey there is grass in your yard right?" You answer yes? Is that considerable evidence for the truth of my story??

No!

But if someone shows that there just is no grass in your yard it does count as evidence against my story.

The unsurprising presence of green grass doesn't count as much positive evidence for my tale but the absence of grass is quite significant. It is not a symmetric situation. So it is with horses. JS assumed there were horses. This is not surprising. If he had claimed that there were Kangaroos, then it might be different.

[Mark Beesley]

What??? CFR for both.

I am going to assume that since Scottie has been silent on this issue since his CFR was satisfied that he will never again argue that the mentioning of elephants and horses in the Book of Mormon is evidence that it is a fabricated account.

[cdowis]

OK, Scottie, I apologize.

I thought we were talking about animals (horses) in the BOM, but I guess you were talking about something else. In the future, if I even bother to respond to your posts, I will ask you to be specific and detailed to make sure that you cannot run away from your comments.

No more assuming that we are talking about the same thing.

OK? We need to get you to be specific and detailed when you make such wild, unfounded statements.

In your post ==>> are you addressing horses in the BOM? Are we talking about mesoamerica, during the BOM time period, or the Romans during 100AD, and whether there were elephants in Cyprus at that time????? What EXACTLY are you posting about when you say that all animals were depicted in art? Michelangelo statues? Picasso?

What the heck were you actually talking about, since you are pretending ignorance of the subject.

On the other hand, don't bother. I don't care, and will probably ignore you in the future.

[Scottie]

OK, Scottie, I apologize.

I thought we were talking about animals (horses) in the BOM, but I guess you were talking about something else. In the future, if I even bother to respond to your posts, I will ask you to be specific and detailed to make sure that you cannot run away from your comments.

No more assuming that we are talking about the same thing.

Tell you what. If I am talking about animals in the BoM (which, btw, I was not), I will make sure to clarify that I am talking about animals in the BoM.

I was talking about horses, which just so happen to be mentioned in the BoM... yet are also mentioned a few places outside of the Book of Mormon. Do you see the distinction there?

If the argument being presented is that horses must have surely existed since the Pleistocene extinction, then my comments about lack of mesoamerican artwork depicting horses goes well beyond the BoM timeframe.

OK? We need to get you to be specific and detailed when you make such wild, unfounded statements.

By all means, please prove me wrong and show me pre-Columbian artwork of a horse. Or are you still asking for pre-Columbian artwork depicting animals other than horses?

On the other hand, don't bother. I don't care, and will probably ignore you in the future.

No... NO..... NOOOOOOOOOO!!! ! PLEASE don't do that!!! * yawn *

[Scottie]

I am going to assume that since Scottie has been silent on this issue since his CFR was satisfied that he will never again argue that the mentioning of elephants and horses in the Book of Mormon is evidence that it is a fabricated account.

I have to admit, Zak's articles gave me pause.

However, when I google Cuveronius and 400AD, I get 4 hits... 2 of which are this board, 1 lds.net and a web site that mentions the book Zak references. (Which, btw, claims that the book is garbage and that it got the 400AD date completely wrong.)

If this were such a widely held theory, shouldn't I find more hits than this??

I'm still researching this.

I'll probably defer to my favorite mesoamerican expert on MDB, who has probably heard of this before. I'll let you know what she says.

[Zakuska]

I have to admit, Zak's articles gave me pause.

However, when I google Cuveronius and 400AD, I get 4 hits... 2 of which are this board, 1 lds.net and a web site that mentions the book Zak references. (Which, btw, claims that the book is garbage and that it got the 400AD date completely wrong.)

If this were such a widely held theory, shouldn't I find more hits than this??

I'm still researching this.

I'll probably defer to my favorite mesoamerican expert on MDB, who has probably heard of this before. I'll let you know what she says.

Tell you what Scotie.

Do a search on Gomphotheris, or Probcidians the Elephantine world is in an uproar at the moment and they are franticly renaming and reclasifying them..

PS. Try this Google Search. There are 95 references to 400 AD and Cuvieronius.

http://www.google.com/search?q=cuvieronius+400AD&rls=com.microsoft:en-US:IE-SearchBox&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&sourceid=ie7&rlz=1I7DMUS_en

[cdowis]

If the argument being presented is that horses must have surely existed since the Pleistocene extinction, then my comments about lack of mesoamerican artwork depicting horses goes well beyond the BoM timeframe.

We all agree that they went extinct before Columbus, so the only issue is when it happened. The last reference to horses in the BOM was prior to 100AD. It makes no claim that horses existed beyond that time.

"...goes well beyond the BOM timeframe" is not supported by the BOM.

[Scottie]

Tell you what Scotie.

Do a search on Gomphotheris, or Probcidians the Elephantine world is in an uproar at the moment and they are franticly renaming and reclasifying them..

Uhh okay... Gomphotheres gave me this article:

http://www.usatoday.com/tech/science/discoveries/2009-11-08-mexicobeast_N.htm

Researchers from the University of Arizona and Mexico's anthropology institute say they found the bones of two young gomphotheres

[Zakuska]

Here are a few more:

The Gomphotheres are a diverse group of elephant-like animals (proboscideans) that were widespread in North America during the Miocene and Pliocene epochs, 12-1.6 million years ago. Some also lived in parts of Eurasia and Beringia, and following the Great American Interchange, in South America. From about 5 million years ago onwards, they were slowly replaced by modern elephants, but the last South American species did not finally become extinct until possibly as recently as 400 CE.^1] Gomphotheres also survived in Mexico and Central America until the end of the Pleistocene.^[2]

http://zipcodezoo.co...idae_Family.asp

Cuvieronius, Florida and Arizona, 400 AD

http://www.worldling...e_United_States

And this from the Encyclopedia Britanica.

In the suborder Mastodontoidea, the family Gomphotheriidae comprises 15 genera, including the earliest members of the order, Phiomia and Palaeomastodon. The former were the size of donkeys, but the latter were as large as a modern Asian cow elephant. In this family the skull and neck are elongated, and the teeth low crowned. The second incisors are enlarged; the upper ones are compressed and vertical, and they retain a band of enamel. In the later evolved genera, the lower pair are bent forward, depressed, and expanded into shovellike structures that do not meet the upper tusks. The canines are absent. Among this family are Cordillerion of North America and Cuvieronius of South America. The latter became extinct as recently as AD 200 to 400. (The New Encyclopedia Britannica, Chicago: Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc., [1993], pg. 437)

I guess these references are Junk too?

[Scottie]

Here are a few more:

http://zipcodezoo.co...idae_Family.asp

http://www.worldling...e_United_States

And this from the Encyclopedia Britanica.

Thanks

I guess these references are Junk too?

I'm just repeating what the other msg board said. I don't know one way or another whether the science is good or not. Still researching.

Zak, why do you suppose there is so much confusion about when these existed?

[Scottie]

Here are a few more:

http://zipcodezoo.co...idae_Family.asp

From the website referenced:

From about 5 million years ago onwards, they were slowly replaced by modern elephants, but the last South American species did not finally become extinct until possibly as recently as 400 CE.¹

Reference for 1: Palmer, D., ed (1999). The Marshall Illustrated Encyclopedia of Dinosaurs and Prehistoric Animals. London: Marshall Editions. pp. 239-242. ISBN 1-84028-152-9.

Same reference as your earlier post...

http://www.worldling...e_United_States

Interesting... when I click on the link for Cuvieronius, it sent me to this page...

http://www.worldlingo.com/ma/enwiki/en/Cuvieronius

Cuvieronius named after the French naturalist Georges Cuvier, stood 2.7m (9 ft) tall and looked like a modern elephant except for its spiral-shaped tusks. The creature initially evolved in North America, but was also one of the few proboscid mammals to colonize South America during the Great American Interchange, reaching there around 2 million years ago and traveling as far south as Argentina. It survived until approximatly 11,000 B.P. in South America

Where in the world did they get 400AD and then 11,000 BP??

[Darth J]

Yep, horses and elephants.

If only we could find those Jaredite and Nephite civilizations that used them.

Instead of, say, finding Olmecs and Mayans and Aztecs and just assuming that relics of these civlizations were related to Jaredites and Nephites, even though there is no evidence of interaction between Olmecs, Mayans, Aztecs, or any other known civilization and Jaredites or Nephites.

But, hey! Horses and elephants!

[Mark Beesley]

I have to admit, Zak's articles gave me pause.

Color me impressed.

(I mean that sincerely.)

[Zakuska]

Thanks

I'm just repeating what the other msg board said. I don't know one way or another whether the science is good or not. Still researching.

Zak, why do you suppose there is so much confusion about when these existed?

For 1,

Archeologists/anatomist/paleobotonists for years trying to make a name for themselves, trying to come up with a "NEW" species to catch everyones ear. and secure funding.

Modern DNA analysis seems to be helping and they are declasifying many "subspecies" in the order. For example the "Pygmy" mammoths seems to be smaller merely because of Habitat not because of DNA differences. Kind of like fish in the open ocean growing larger than their siblings kept in a tank. They where Mammoths, they where just smaller because of a limited food supply and being isolation on an island. Some one finally realized that size of bones does not necessarilly mean different species. Different breed possibly.

[Darth J]

What may be mildly surprising is that the BOM indicates that horses were used for food, which does not seem to fit 19th century NY cousine.

Where is it that is says that again? I keep forgetting.

Oh, by the way, here's a blog from "Ranching mom with kids, cows and horses." http://greenranchingmom.blogspot.com/

Since she lists one animal (cows) that is commonly used as a food source with other things, a "careful reading" will help us understand that this woman clearly uses children, cows, and horses as food sources.

Here's something from the Florida Department of Agriculture discussing cattle and horses in the same article: http://www.florida-agriculture.com/livestock/cracker_cattle.htm

A "careful reading" of this article will help us understand that because cattle and horses are discussed together, horse is a common food source in Florida.

And here's someone talking about their family farm, where they raise cows and horses: http://www.evelandfamilyfarm.com/animals/cows.php

Since cows and horses are discussed together in the context of agriculture, we must naturally conclude that this family is raising horses as a food source.