Saturday, November 18, 2006

Upside Down World Map

In his new book The God Delusion, Richard Dawkins talks about consciousness raising. He points out that we often need a jolt from radical thinkers to get us to start looking at things in a different light. Sometimes all it takes is a strange image to make us realize that we have biases and prejudices. He gives the example of the upside down world map.

Here's an example from The Upsidedown Map Page. Think about it.

3 comments:

  1. Actually, it's a great way to think. I'm an exploration geophysicist, and one of my first bosses taught me to take any map, turn it upside down or sideways, and leave it on the wall for a week. Then take that map down and put another one up and so on.

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  2. Anyone who's hung out with Australians or New Zealanders for any length of time will know the upside-down world map. Not that they've got anything to prove, of course.

    It's interesting to wonder why the default map is north = up, what would have happened had the first map-making civilisations evolved at the Equator, and why that didn't happen. There are many layers of perception and prejudice to peel away until you get to something that might hold up to the Martian scientist test.

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  3. hi, i have explanations about the world upside down position, you can contact me : 639296523338 or e-mail: good.wordmean@yahoo.com

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