Unusual question

Hooves

Thekherham said:

Here's a rather unusual question?
Would a person be able to walk if he had hooves like a horse instead of feet? Or would he fall on his face?

If he had these hooves from birth could he learn to walk like a normal person?

Thank you for any answer(s).

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Of course they could walk. Have you ever seen anyone with two artificial legs walk. I've seen people walk who had two peglegs. Besides, it's essentially been tried. A great many people walk very well who have far worse problems than hooves.

Actually there is a genetic disorder that causes hoof or lobster-like apendeges of the hands and feet. A female newscaster has it and she is going to be on HBO's Carnivale as a freak (scorpion woman?) later this year. It has caused a rush of hate mail because she is selling out her disability and making a mockery of the strides handicap people have made.

She said that she's been trying to hide from it for years and now is not afraid of what poeople think and that is why she is doing the show-- to show you shouldn't be assamed.

Good for her.
I wish I could remember her name.

In the news today or yesterday, there is an article about robots that can walk. Some that were pictured had solid feet, yet those walked. Based upon that, it appears that hooves, which are essentially solid feet, would not be an impediment to walking for two-legged creatures.

Have you heard of the term "Hopeful Monster"? This is basically a creature in which an apparently small mutation results in huge changes during development, which alter the animal's body-plan far more drastically than the mutation on its own might lead you to suspect, and result in an organism which has integrated the mutation into its body plan in a new, striking and reasonably efficient way.

I have seen photographs of both a dog *and a goat* (i.e. with hard but cloven hooves) who were born without forelegs, and in both cases the animal learned to walk on its hindlegs alone, and the act of doing so while it was young rearranged its musculature and posture quite substantially, turning a natural quadruped into a reasonably effective biped which was rather different in shape from a normal dog or goat (quite apart from having two limbs missing).

somewhat like WH was onto, i wonder how, or if, hooves would affect the spine.

i'd imagine that off-hand, while people may adapt to an a circumstance, hooves aren't on our evolutionary list any time soon simply as a balance issue. how often do you use your feet to balance? a lot, more than you'd think, probably. of the options mentioned, i'd vote for the three-toed one, like a camel?, as being the best 'viable' option, but even then, because of our top-heaviness, our feet would probably be pretty damn big unless there was a complimentary evolution in human balance to compensate. balance, in fact, i think is the major hurdle in creating robots that walk like humans.

but, sure, if they had them from birth, you learn to use what you've got or you do without, eh? and while you can learn to use two prosthetic legs, you'd still not want to race me in the 100 yard dash, heh heh.

oh, and women would probably suffer the most with hooves, especially those who are top heavy, and they often already have lower back pain *with* normal feet.

i don't know about women's feet and old china, but the japanese used to (and while this practice has died out over the years, it was still done in a small extent within living memory) wrap women's feet to an inhuman degree. the idea was to make the feet very, very small, delicate, and 'womanly.' it worked -- their feet were almost function-less. the photos i've seen of these poor women's feet are indescribable. i say 'poor,' but that's wrong -- women with these feet weren't very useful, obviously, rather a privileged woman's thing.

oh, the torture we've put women through.