How Zoology gave us the Unicorn

Quid est Veritas? · Aug 17, 2017

The Western idea of the unicorn is squarely the invention of Zoology.

The first real Zoologist was Aristotle, who is anyway the grandfather of all Science. Aristotle invented the unicorn.

In Aristotle's Historia Animalium he classifies, describes and discusses various animals. He describes cuttlefish in fine detail. He knows so much about elephants that people wonder if Alexander sent him one to dissect.

Amongst these are two: the 'onos indikos' and the 'oryx'. Both he claims to have one horn, with the former a single hoof and the latter a cloven one. This was likely culled from Ctesias' account of India. These were likely garbled accounts of the Indian rhinoceros and arabian antelope respectively.

Because Aristotle added it to his masterful work that was so correct on so much else that was familiar, no one doubted it. Some of his findings like the placenta of the smooth dogfish, the reproductive tentacle of octopii or the parental care of the 'glanis', a catfish, was only rediscovered by science in the 19th and 20th centuries.

His 'onos indikos' was a perissodactyl, having only one hoof; therefore classed as a horse, and there you go: The unicorn was born.

So next time someone uses unicorns as an example of a silly belief, tell them that is the mea culpa of Zoology.

Kerensa · Aug 17, 2017

That's fascinating! But most medieval European depictions of the unicorn have it with cloven hooves, so I'm not sure where that came from...

Quid est Veritas? · Aug 17, 2017

Kerensa said:
That's fascinating! But most medieval European depictions of the unicorn have it with cloven hooves, so I'm not sure where that came from...

From Aristotle's other unicorn, the 'oryx'. They were often conflated in mediaeval times.

Greg Merrill · Aug 17, 2017

Have you not heard of the discovery of the Siberian Unicorn? Use the following link to read of it and see pictures.
http://www.ancient-origins.net/news...ssil-fragments-kazakhstan-say-creature-020791

Dave-W · Aug 17, 2017

Kerensa · Aug 17, 2017

Dave-W said:

Awww. My mum had that on tape and we used to listen to it in the car when I was little!

Greg Merrill · Aug 17, 2017

Dave-W said:

Possibly why we see no unicorn (as the song mentions us not seeing them) is because they were hanging around with the dinosaurs, the wooly mammoth, the saber tooth tiger, leviathan, behemoth, and other such animals that died out in the world wide flood of Noah's day.

Quid est Veritas? · Aug 17, 2017

Greg Merrill said:
Have you not heard of the discovery of the Siberian Unicorn? Use the following link to read of it and see pictures.
Researchers Find Siberian ‘Unicorn’ Fossil Fragments in Kazakhstan, Say Creature Lived Much Longer Than Thought

I explicitly said the Western idea of the Unicorn in the OP. The Asian unicorn is usually described as a large black bull with one horn. This is likely also derived from the Asian Rhinoceros, but has nothing to do with the western conception of a one-horned horse, which is solely due to Aristotle. The Asian conception clearly is far closer to its roots.

While I would like to think Elasmotherium had something to do with the Asian Unicorn, it was likely extinct 30 000 years ago. It would be poetic though if this were the case, but the unicorn legend would still then be derived from a rhinoceros, just an extinct one. There has also never been an Elasmotherium horn discovered, only a facet on the skull and its rhinoceros family that suggested it might have had one. I have also seen argued that it was hornless. There are popular accounts of the Asian Unicorn legends that give one pause, but this might just be garbled legends handed down from time immemorial, and have nothing to do with the western conception of the Unicorn.

Greg Merrill · Aug 17, 2017

Quid est Veritas? said:
I explicitly said the Western idea of the Unicorn in the OP. The Asian unicorn is usually described as a large black bull with one horn. This is likely also derived from the Asian Rhinoceros, but has nothing to do with the western conception of a one-horned horse, which is solely due to Aristotle. The Asian conception clearly is far closer to its roots.

While I would like to think Elasmotherium had something to do with the Asian Unicorn, it was likely extinct 30 000 years ago. It would be poetic though if this were the case, but the unicorn legend would still then be derived from a rhinoceros, just an extinct one. There has also never been an Elasmotherium horn discovered, only a facet on the skull and its rhinoceros family that suggested it might have had one. I have also seen argued that it was hornless. There are popular accounts of the Asian Unicorn legends that give one pause, but this might just be garbled legends handed down from time immemorial, and have nothing to do with the western conception of the Unicorn.

In regards to buying the lie that most scientists give us, that the earth is millions of years old, you might find the following interesting.
Robert Schmitt, W Verde Way·3h ago
Greg- Great article on the "unicorns". did you notice the "scientists" re-dated them from 350,000 years to 29,000. Of course, both dates are total BS(Barbara Streisand). Kind of like the coelacanth fossils - 60 million years old - and they used their fossils to date the rocks- Of course, they are now known to still be alive ...but they still date their rocks at 60m years. Evolution "science" is where you change the facts to fit the theory. True science is the opposite. Except evolutionists don't have another non-God theory to go to! Have you looked at the articles where evolutionists discovered blood vessels and tissue (which they know breaks down over time) in dinosaur bones? "even though collagen may degrade much slower than many other biomolecules, there is no experimental evidence that collagen will survive for millions upon millions of years. In fact, experimental decay studies actually give an upper survival limit for bone collagen at about one million years even under ideal conditions. Yet evidence for collagen has been reported not only in an 85-million-year-old dinosaur fossil, but also in bones of a supposed 247-million-year-old reptile. Thus, the conundrum is evident." In the evolutionist articles, they conveniently ignore the proven breakdown and limit of tissue to survive. At first evolutionists said the tissue was fake since they well know tissue has a shelf life. Now magically, since they cannot deny it, poof!! tissue will now last almost forever- or as long as they need it to last to keep their theory alive. Evolution...Science? Ha- what a joke. It's science-fiction. I was an evolutionist, but I had to follow truth when I discovered evolution could not survive the truth of the facts. Believers- stand firm knowing that you are firmly standing on the side of real science. Dinosaur Tissue

Subduction Zone · Aug 17, 2017

Greg Merrill said:
In regards to buying the lie that most scientists give us, that the earth is millions of years old, you might find the following interesting.
Robert Schmitt, W Verde Way·3h ago
Greg- Great article on the "unicorns". did you notice the "scientists" re-dated them from 350,000 years to 29,000. Of course, both dates are total BS(Barbara Streisand). Kind of like the coelacanth fossils - 60 million years old - and they used their fossils to date the rocks- Of course, they are now known to still be alive ...but they still date their rocks at 60m years. Evolution "science" is where you change the facts to fit the theory. True science is the opposite. Except evolutionists don't have another non-God theory to go to! Have you looked at the articles where evolutionists discovered blood vessels and tissue (which they know breaks down over time) in dinosaur bones? "even though collagen may degrade much slower than many other biomolecules, there is no experimental evidence that collagen will survive for millions upon millions of years. In fact, experimental decay studies actually give an upper survival limit for bone collagen at about one million years even under ideal conditions. Yet evidence for collagen has been reported not only in an 85-million-year-old dinosaur fossil, but also in bones of a supposed 247-million-year-old reptile. Thus, the conundrum is evident." In the evolutionist articles, they conveniently ignore the proven breakdown and limit of tissue to survive. At first evolutionists said the tissue was fake since they well know tissue has a shelf life. Now magically, since they cannot deny it, poof!! tissue will now last almost forever- or as long as they need it to last to keep their theory alive. Evolution...Science? Ha- what a joke. It's science-fiction. I was an evolutionist, but I had to follow truth when I discovered evolution could not survive the truth of the facts. Believers- stand firm knowing that you are firmly standing on the side of real science. Dinosaur Tissue

You have quite a bit to learn about evolution. First off coelacanth is not a species of fish, it is an entire order. In comparison primates are the order that we belong to. Conflating a modern coelacanth with its ancient ancestors is a larger error than conflating man with lemurs.

Coelacanth - Wikipedia
The rest of your post is filled with errors besides. If you want to argue about reality why not go to the creation vs evolution part of this forum? Or we could discuss them here. If you want to discuss any of your claims in depth I will be more than happy to help you. Just bring them up one at a time.

And AiG is not a reliable site at all. It is worthless in scientific debates since, besides loading up their articles with lies and errors, they actually require their employees promise not to use the scientific method.

MoonlessNight · Aug 25, 2017

One thing that has been forgotten about the unicorn is that in medieval times it was considered to be the natural enemy of the elephant; it's horn was one of the only things that could effectively pierce the elephant's tough skin. The elephant itself was practically as mythological of beast to the medievals, since they only had descriptions of its historical uses in wars but not to any actual elephants.

But more relevant to the topic of the OP is the fact that Isidore of Seville considered the Rhinoceros and Unicorn to be the same thing. The Greeks apparently did have a knowledge of Rhinoceri, but by the middle ages both beasts had become equally mythological. Adding to the confusion, some sources refer to a "monoceros" which is sometimes considered to be the same thing as the rhinoceros, sometimes considered to be the same thing as the unicorn, and sometimes considered to be a third beast entirely (Isidore viewed them all as the same thing).

Of course, most medieval bestiaries were more concerned with allegory than with biology, so that further muddled the depictions. For example, it was said that when a lioness gave birth, her cubs would be dead, but on the third day after their birth they could be given life by their father's roar. The allegorical implications of this are obvious. I have trouble believing that the editors of medieval bestiaries really expected this anecdote to be taken as a sober scientific fact. Rather, it was likely repeated just because the allegory behind it is so good.

Quid est Veritas? · Aug 26, 2017

MoonlessNight said:
One thing that has been forgotten about the unicorn is that in medieval times it was considered to be the natural enemy of the elephant; it's horn was one of the only things that could effectively pierce the elephant's tough skin. The elephant itself was practically as mythological of beast to the medievals, since they only had descriptions of its historical uses in wars but not to any actual elephants.

But more relevant to the topic of the OP is the fact that Isidore of Seville considered the Rhinoceros and Unicorn to be the same thing. The Greeks apparently did have a knowledge of Rhinoceri, but by the middle ages both beasts had become equally mythological. Adding to the confusion, some sources refer to a "monoceros" which is sometimes considered to be the same thing as the rhinoceros, sometimes considered to be the same thing as the unicorn, and sometimes considered to be a third beast entirely (Isidore viewed them all as the same thing).

Of course, most medieval bestiaries were more concerned with allegory than with biology, so that further muddled the depictions. For example, it was said that when a lioness gave birth, her cubs would be dead, but on the third day after their birth they could be given life by their father's roar. The allegorical implications of this are obvious. I have trouble believing that the editors of medieval bestiaries really expected this anecdote to be taken as a sober scientific fact. Rather, it was likely repeated just because the allegory behind it is so good.

A unicorn could be caught if a virgin walked up to it and fastened a rope around its neck, as well. Allegory was more important than fact here, it is true, but I don't think many mediaeval scholars would have considered the difference between these a valid one. This was a time when insects and worms were thought to spring spontaneously from corruption, to give you an idea. To think that deductive or empirical evidence is of more worth than inductive, is more a modern principle.

My favourite is the Pelican who feeds her brood with her own blood.

The important thing to note is that Aristotle's Zoological works are the sober writings of a Naturalist, not to be confused with outlandish tales of mediaeval bestiaries.
For instance, there was a myth prevalent in the Greek world that Hyenas were hermaphrodites, taking it in turn to act as the male or female one.
Aristotle refutes this, by examing and describing the genitals of hyenas in fine detail, and showing that the myth of them having two sets of genitals was due to a scent gland above the anus.
He likely spent many years examining and cutting open animals to write his books, as his student Theophrastus did with plants (considered the first Botanist). Especially on the cuttlefish, he goes into minute detail, even writing an companion text of anatomical drawings of animals and their organs (now lost, but referenced in the text, even apparently annotated).

The rediscovery of Aristotle the 'scientist' helped revivify Zoology after the renaissance, so it is ironic that such a paragon of empiricism helped spawn such a stereotypically fantastical myth like the Unicorn.

pat34lee · Aug 27, 2017

Quid est Veritas? said:
The rediscovery of Aristotle the 'scientist' helped revivify Zoology after the renaissance, so it is ironic that such a paragon of empiricism helped spawn such a stereotypically fantastical myth like the Unicorn.

Medeival folklore had little to do with anything.
Look up 'rhinoceros' in the Webster's 1828 dictionary online.

How Zoology gave us the Unicorn

In Memoriam to CS Lewis

Well-Known Member

In Memoriam to CS Lewis

Well-Known Member

Welcoming grandchild #7, Arturus Waggoner!

Well-Known Member

Well-Known Member

In Memoriam to CS Lewis

Well-Known Member

Regular Member

Fides et Ratio

In Memoriam to CS Lewis

Messianic

Similar threads