← Back to context

Comment by CRConrad

11 days ago

1) “Easy to imagine”? Idunno... What with the WP article showing how one guy got most of the way there in a single human lifetime (considerably less, actually, since he didn't start the project at birth), isn't it much easier to imagine that it would take just a few human lifespans?

2) Foxes. The plural is “foxes”. “Fox's” is the singular possessive, as in “Wow, look at that fox's beautiful pelt!”.

Fifty horse generations would span about 500 years. You can imagine that this would correspond to a few human lifespans, which could also fall in the range of 500 years, depending on the exact number of few. I think this is a reasonable lower bound.

  • > Fifty horse generations would span about 500 years.

    No, seems fifty horse generations would span about 100-150 years: https://thehorse.com/16463/when-are-fillies-fertile/

    • > Horses typically have an average lifespan of between 25-30 years, but some can live much longer or shorter than this. Some breeds have been known to live up to 40 years or even longer in captivity depending on the breed, management practices, and overall care. Others, as a result of breeding and selection may live much shorter lives.

      Source: https://animalcorner.org/blog/horse-lifespan/

      In the longest case, we could assume 50 x 30 = 1500 years. If you say that every generation came to live after 5 years, then 50 x 5 = 250 years. Again, you want to pick the absolute lowest bound (lowest number of generations) of the lowest bound (shortest years of generations) under labor conditions, which did not happen in reality. But if you think it took only 100-150 years to domesticate horses, then fine. I cannot provide a definite proof that you are wrong.