# Are horse hearts "too small"? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [July 14, 2014, 9:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-horse-hearts-too-small/693108 "2014-07-14T21:47:18Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![leahcim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/b4bc9f/32.png) [@leahcim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/leahcim)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2014, 6:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-horse-hearts-too-small/693108/21 "2014-07-15T18:48:10Z")
> [@Mahaloth](#): > > Well, I said the creationist thing doesn’t come up often, but that wasn’t the best way to put it. He’s super dedicated to proving creation and disproving evolution. He has a website and obsesses on it. It mainly does not come up because I avoid the issue. It feels like a pointless conversation. I am almost positive his statement about horses relates to his website in proving creation. Ironic, because a too-small heart with additional pressure provided elsewhere is just the kind of jury-rigged system evolution would come up with. A creator-god who could design by fiat would have just installed a bigger heart. ---
**Author:** ![md2000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/73ab20/32.png) [@md2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md2000)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2014, 6:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-horse-hearts-too-small/693108/22 "2014-07-15T18:48:13Z")
My thought too - horses have been bred to a bigger size and level of exertion than they were before humans got hold of them. As for the frog being essential to help the heart - Horses stand still for a long time, and don’t keel over. the frog may be effective in helping return some blood to the heart much faster, and is probably quite useful when the horse is in motion to help deliver extra blood through the legs, but the heart seems to work fine when the horse stands motionless. This could be attributable to a system that evolves as necessary as the size and circulation requirements of a horse increased. From what Wikipedia says, it appears this is a decent design; it can be attributed, it seems, to whomever or to whatever process produced the result. I don’t see that an advocate of creationism or evolution could claim it as a plus or minus in their argument. it just is. ---
**Author:** ![Quercus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/7ab992/32.png) [@Quercus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quercus)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2014, 7:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-horse-hearts-too-small/693108/23 "2014-07-15T19:17:27Z")
> [@bob\_2](#): > > The horses we see today are the result of many years of selective breeding. Racehorses for speed, carthorses for strength, ponies to work down mines - you name it. If their hearts are too small - you can surely blame the breeders and neither God nor evolution had a lot to do with it. I’m not sure why you’re separating human breeding from evolution. Human breeding is exactly evolution in action: some individuals reproduce more than others, and which individuals do that is based on at least partly inherited and variable characteristics, so the composition of the group changes over generations. Just because human decisions form a very big part of the environment doesn’t mean the mechanism is any different. ---
**Author:** ![Mahaloth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mahaloth/32/1079_2.png) [@Mahaloth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mahaloth)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2014, 9:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-horse-hearts-too-small/693108/24 "2014-11-14T21:15:42Z")
Slight bump. [I found this article today about the horse toe evolution that ties it to the creation argument.](http://creation.com/what-about-horse-toe-evolution) Just good to know the idea is out there. ---
**Author:** ![MEBuckner](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mebuckner/32/2896_2.png) [@MEBuckner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MEBuckner)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2014, 11:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-horse-hearts-too-small/693108/25 "2014-11-14T23:00:08Z")
Do horses hate Whos? ---
**Author:** ![Ulfreida](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ulfreida/32/8014_2.png) [@Ulfreida](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ulfreida)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2014, 11:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-horse-hearts-too-small/693108/26 "2014-11-14T23:12:57Z")
You can ride a horse to death not because of its physiology but its temperament. Mules partake of the donkey side of their family tree to the extent that rather than exert themselves past the point of no return they will just refuse to go any more. I don’t know about original type horses (they were pony sized) but we have selected horses for thousands of years to want to go until we let them stop. All this stuff about frogs and hearts is really weird new news to me. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2014, 9:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-horse-hearts-too-small/693108/27 "2014-11-15T09:13:35Z")
My former boss (not really a creationist, but oddly, often made creationist arguments) once told me that evolution was false because giraffes are totally unfit for survival. ---
**Author:** ![buddha\_david](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ee7513/32.png) [@buddha\_david](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/buddha_david)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2014, 9:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-horse-hearts-too-small/693108/28 "2014-11-15T09:58:13Z")
> [@bob\_2](#): > > If their hearts are too small - you can surely blame the breeders and neither God nor evolution had a lot to do with it. Same goes for bananas. (Yes, I’m looking at YOU, Kirk Cameron!) ---
**Author:** ![Jragon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e19b73/32.png) [@Jragon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jragon)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2014, 10:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-horse-hearts-too-small/693108/29 "2014-11-15T10:59:12Z")
> [@Quercus](#): > > I’m not sure why you’re separating human breeding from evolution. > Human breeding is exactly evolution in action: some individuals reproduce more than others, and which individuals do that is based on at least partly inherited and variable characteristics, so the composition of the group changes over generations. Just because human decisions form a very big part of the environment doesn’t mean the mechanism is any different. We do have a long history of drawing distinctions between what humans do and what nature does. Of course, you’re completely correct, and this line of thinking causes a lot of problems (if you rule out husbandry and domestication you also implicitly rule out symbiotic organisms in a fashion). Still, I can see what’s meant by “evolution didn’t cause it”, just like we might blame a person rather than “chemistry” for some catastrophe involving dynamite. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-horse-hearts-too-small/693108.md?page=1)