Old maps

SEE UPDATE AT END

Stumbled across an interesting old map today. It was composed by Orontaeus Finaeus, in 1532. The actual map is on the left. Polar projections of the Finaeus map and modern map are in figures 2 and 3, respectively.


It is clearly a map of Antarctica -- you can see the tip of South America in the lower right hand corner, and lines of latitude and longitude extending out from the south pole. South America is a little too close (it doesn't actually touch Antarctica in reality). However, there's really no disputing was it is. The similarity is eery.

Interestingly, Antarctica wasn't "discovered" until 1819. The first two expeditions in recorded history to actually see Antarctica were led by William Smith and James Bransfield in 1819 and 1820, respectively.

You can confirm the general ignorance of Antarctica with other, later maps, such as the next one, a map by Henricus Hondius, reflecting the Earth as it was seen in 17th century eyes.

The south polar projection at the bottom reflects the belief of the day: no land.

So how did this Orontaeus get his map of Antarctica?

No clue.

Maybe he used old sources?

I found an article on this map on that inimitable fountain of everything evolutionary, talk.origins, here. They debunk many apparently fantastic claims made by a TV series I've never seen. Although much of their debunking is paradigm-dependent (meaning their "disproof" depends on their own unproven assumptions), many of the claims made by the series do appear to be gross speculation.

There are a few important claims that talk.origins doesn't touch, though: that the map was genuine, that it was written in 1532, and that it does, in fact, depict Antarctica.

That's enough to blow my mind.

Update I found a very reasonable explanation for this map, right here. The theory is that Finaeus based his map off the northern coast of Australia. This is confirmed because not only does it correspond to the northern coast of Australia pretty well, but one of the islands just above it is actually labeled "Java." Looks like he was speculating about what the rest of Australia might look like, and just happened to draw a map that looked a helluvalot like Antarctica.

Specialization

Heard this one on the radio today, and liked it:

"A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects."

-Robert A. Heinlein

Causation, Label or object

A gentleman named Matt Ackerman made an interesting point. In my scheme of "label and reality," causation does not qualify as reality, because "causation" has no corresponding physical reality. He's right, of course. That's a logical outcome of my scheme i didn't see.

Is this outcome reasonable? Is causation not "real," but rather mere "concept?"

I tend to think so. Especially given the observations underlying quantum physics, it seems possible that causation is much less foundational to reality than traditionally believed.

What exactly do we mean by "causation?"

Seems like we are saying two things:

1) physical state of affairs b follows physical state of affairs a 100% of the time.
2) some aspect or aspects of the physical universe preclude any other outcome

Seems like causation is really just a label we put on those two assertions.

And now that I think about it, seems like both assertions can be proven false, but neither can be proven to be true, because the possibility of a counterexample always exists.

And since both assertions are loaded with room for doubt, we shouldn't be surprised that there is so much argument about causation. If we could observe it in itself, there'd be no problem. But it's really just a pair of assertions about physical reality, both of which are very difficult to prove. Maybe that's why there's so much interminable argument about causation. We treat it like a real thing, but actually it's just a pair of unprovable claims.

that's not to say that the assertions underlying all causation are always false. It's just to show that causation really is those two claims and nothing else, and that those two claims are pretty wily.

For example, consider "she made me mad." claim 1 is easily shown true -- first came her action, then came my anger. But the second one is hazier. Could I have responded differently to the same action? No way to tell. Determinist would say no chemicals and stimuli determine outcome. Freewiller would say yes -- you chose your reaction. Neither can be tested, because it was a one-time deal. Did she really "make me mad?" hard to say.

"the heat from the stove causes water to boil." correlation? Check. Claim about reality? Insert description of the properties of water that make it gas at 100C. Check. Causation proven? No. But good enough for me.

Nested hierarchies

Also during the long discussion yesterday, the topic of nested hierarchies came up. This caused me to look harder into the topic, to try and understand it. I found something interesting.

First, the main point. Evolutionists use "nested hierarchies" as evidence of common descent -- that is, life can be categories along certain lines, and there are no characteristics that violate those hierarchal categorization. Therefore, those hierarchies constitute the "family tree" of life.

When I first heard the argument, I was struck by how "label over reality" it was. That is, we categorize life according to certain characteristics, and then treat the structure of those categories as being "real." When if we picked different characteristics, we'd certainly have different hierarchies.

In fact, it seemed, there are all sorts of traits that violate the "rule of nested hierarchies."

So with this in mind, I started reading about the marsupials and monotremes, because they seemed to be a great place to start in looking into these hierarchies.

And what did I find? I found placental and marsupial variants of a bunch of different animals. All of the photos on this page are of MARSUPIALS, either alive or extinct. Yet we know instinctively, from looking at them, that they are eerily reminiscent of placental counterparts.

For example, there is the placental wolf, and the "tasmanian wolf," which was hunted to extinction in the 30s. The two species share all the major "dog" characteristics, except radically different reproductive systems, and, apparently, minor differences in the palate bone. So I kept looking, and I found the "marsupial sabertooth tiger," the "marsupial lion," the "marsupial anteater," the "marsupial flying squirrel," the "marsupial mole" the "marsupial badger (or tasmanian devil), the "marsupial mouse" ... and it didn't appear to be ending anytime soon.

All the sources I found treat all these animals as "convergent evolution" -- that is, the "tasmanian wolf" is not a "wolf" -- it is a "marsupial that happened to evolve a lot of the same characteristics as wolves, because it filled the same niche." Maybe I could buy this once. But how many times? Dogs, lions, sabertooth tigers, anteaters, moles, flying squirrels?

How many times did this "convergent evolution" happen?

Or maybe these "nested hierarchies" aren't as involable as argued. Maybe these organisms originated fully formed, in two distinct variants. Or maybe they originated in a single, primal form with the capacity for both forms of reproduction in the gene pool, which "fixed" due to genetic drift over time?

Whatever explanation you choose, these "nested hierarchies" start to look pretty silly when you have such a long list of organisms that have such similar placental counterparts, with only one significant difference: the reproductive system.

(I got all the photos straight off Google Images, and claim Fair Use, as this is a not-for-profit, educational purpose that uses documents only in small part).

Recurrent laryngeal nerve

I got baited into another long, fruitless debate with some gentlemen, but in the process, I learned some cool stuff about biology.

The recurrent laryngeal nerve is a nerve that runs from our brain to our voicebox to provide motor function and sensation to the voicebox. Interestingly, though, instead of running a direct route from brain to larynx, it runs from the brain, all the way down the neck to the chest, and then back up the larynx. It doesn't take the straight path -- it loops. Hence, recurrent. This occurs in a whole bunch of animals, including the giraffe -- where "taking the long road" adds meters of nerve.

One gentleman in particular used this as evidence of common descent -- after all, why would the nerve take this inefficient path from the brain down to the chest and back up to the larynx in animals as diverse as men and giraffes, unless the two species were related? Having never heard of this before, and finding it interesting, I googled "laryngeal nerve," to learn what it was. On a whim, I then looked up "non-recurrent laryngeal nerve" and I found this abstract, among others, which indicated that non-recurrent laryngeal nerves occur about 1% of the time in humans.

I brought this to the attention of the gentleman, and pointed out that given the regular occurrence of non-recurrent laryngeal nerves, it would seen that if such a path were advantageous, it would have been selected by now. Thus, the fact that the other variant is set (or nearly set) in the population indicates that the recurrent version may well have some advantage. There was also another abstract which indicated that the non-recurrent variant was quite deletarious during surgery, as it increased the chance of injury. That at least provided a potential explanation.

He never responded. I wish he had. He obviously knew some stuff about biology. He obviously had a lot to teach me.

Intelligence

Got into an interesting discussion with someone about the definition of "intelligence." As I understood him, he seemed to think that our concept of "intelligence" was something of an illusion, because animals (and, presumably we also) simply follow the laws of nature as applied through the genetic preprogramming we bring to the table and the stimuli we experience. Thus, he argued, there was no fundamental difference between the behavior of animals and the the behavior of the weather, except for the degree of complexity in the system.

Not wanting to get into an argument about free-will/determination, compatibilism/incompatibilism, or materialism/dualism, I argued that even if we are simply highly complex systems, we are fundamentally different than the weather, because we have the capacity to act with respect to preexisting desires. We don't just act in response to stimuli -- we interpret those stimuli with respect to desired outcomes (e.g. survival, happiness, reproduction, spiritual fulfilment) -- all things which the weather cannot do. In other words, we don't just see a hamburger -- we see the hamburger with respect to our own desire to eat, or our own desire not to die of heart disease, and act according to our desires.

The weather does not have preprogrammed ends or desires. We do. And that's what makes us intelligent.

Seems like there are three ways to view intelligence:

1) Illusion, as what appears to be intelligence is merely the systematic function of a highly complex system -- a system that reacts with 100% predictability based on genetic preprogramming and physical stimuli.

2) An external, spiritual "soul" that exists independently of the body.

3) The sum of an organisms desires, thoughts, memories, and plans that we bring to our physical stimuli. Whether or not these are purely material or an ethereal "soul," they are what makes us intelligent.

Spearfishing in Borneo.