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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind production of iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 2: Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My

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Speaker 2: name is Robert Lamb and.

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Speaker 1: I am Joe McCormick.

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Speaker 2: And as I mentioned in at least a couple of

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Speaker 2: previous episodes of the show. Over the summer of this year,

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Speaker 2: in twenty twenty five, my family traveled to Indonesia for

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Speaker 2: some snorkeling, and in learning all about the local environment

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Speaker 2: of Raja Ampat, the guides kept mentioning an individual by

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Speaker 2: the name of Alfred Russell Wallace, as well as the

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Speaker 2: faunal boundary named in his honor, the Wallace Line. In fact,

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Speaker 2: I would say that Wallace was invoked, one way or

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Speaker 2: another nearly as much as Darwin was invoked on my

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Speaker 2: visit to the Galapagos Islands in a couple of years prior. So, yeah, Wallace,

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Speaker 2: the Wallas line I mentioned a lot in terms of

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Speaker 2: just describing what was happening in the natural world around

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Speaker 2: us and in Indonia at large.

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Speaker 1: That's a funny comparison, because, of course, if you know

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Speaker 1: one thing about Alfred Russell Wallace, it is probably that

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Speaker 1: he was the other guy to come up with a

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Speaker 1: version of the theory of evolution by natural selection around

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Speaker 1: the same time that Darwin did. Though Darwin tends to

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Speaker 1: get most of the credit, and I think in many

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Speaker 1: ways people understand Darwin to have articulated a more rigorous

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Speaker 1: form of it. Wallace essentially had the same idea around

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Speaker 1: the same time.

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Speaker 2: And to be clear that they knew each other, and

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Speaker 2: in fact, Alfred Russell Wallace greatly looked up to Charles

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Speaker 2: Darwin and they were on friendly terms their entire life,

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Speaker 2: even though they disagreed on some key issues here and there.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, actually the version of the book that I

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Speaker 1: was reading, so it's Wallace's book the Malay Archipelago, or

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Speaker 1: where he's writing about his travels and observations in that

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Speaker 1: region of the world. The edition of that book that

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Speaker 1: I was reading is actually dedicated to Charles Darwin. Charles Darwin,

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Speaker 1: author of the Origin of Species. I dedicate this book

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Speaker 1: not only as a token of personal esteem and friendship,

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Speaker 1: but also to express my deep admiration for his genius

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Speaker 1: and his works. So it's elaborate. It seems like no

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Speaker 1: heart feelings.

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Speaker 2: There, right, right. It's also been pointed out that you know,

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Speaker 2: they knew what each other were up to around the

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Speaker 2: same time, and in Wallace's work and Wallace's ideas kind

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Speaker 2: of poked Darwin and got him to sort of realize, oh,

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Speaker 2: I really need to push forward with on the Origin

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Speaker 2: of Species and maybe not focus on other projects at

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Speaker 2: this very.

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Speaker 1: Moment, stop collecting beatles, write the book.

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Speaker 2: Yes, so we'll be talking more about Alfred Russell Wallace

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Speaker 2: here shortly. But as for the Wallace line, I'm gonna

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Speaker 2: go ahead and throw out the short answer of what

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Speaker 2: this is and we'll get into it more later in

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Speaker 2: this episode and in the next episode. But basically, it

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Speaker 2: represents the place between the Indonesian islands of Bali and

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Speaker 2: Lombac where the Australian and Asian faunas separate. So it

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Speaker 2: separates the Indonesian archipelago between the parts influenced by Asian

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Speaker 2: fauna and the parts influenced by Australian fauna. So you know, rhinos, elephants,

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Speaker 2: tigers on one side, kangaroos, monitor lizards, and koalas on

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Speaker 2: the other.

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Speaker 1: Yes, exactly, with some caveats that we will discuss as

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Speaker 1: we move on throughout the series.

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Speaker 2: So let's talk a bit about Alfred Russell Wallace here.

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Speaker 2: You can look up images of the man illustrations and photographs,

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Speaker 2: who is, of course a nineteenth century naturalist, explorer, traveler,

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Speaker 2: academic writer, and totally look the part, you know, you know,

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Speaker 2: English beardy guy who's out there in the wild exploring things,

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Speaker 2: or you know, back at home in his study writing

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Speaker 2: about them.

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Speaker 1: I was almost going to say, if Darwin is Almond Joy,

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Speaker 1: Wallace looks like Mounds. He just looks like a kind

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Speaker 1: of like, I don't know, a less crunchy version of Darwin,

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Speaker 1: kind of a softer, smoother text here.

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Speaker 2: You get. You could definitely say that, and it holds

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Speaker 2: up in many ways, but in other ways, as we'll discuss,

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Speaker 2: Alfred Russell Wallace was kind of the Almond Joy to

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Speaker 2: Darwin's Mounds. Okay, so yeah he let. Alfred Russell Wallace

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Speaker 2: lived eighteen twenty three through nineteen thirteen, so long lived

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Speaker 2: and fascinating individual. Multiple books have come out in recent

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Speaker 2: years about him, but the one that I was mainly

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Speaker 2: looking at is Radical by Nature, The Revolutionary Life of

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Speaker 2: Alfred Russell Wallace, and this is by James T. Costa,

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Speaker 2: came out in twenty twenty three, and as the author

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Speaker 2: points out, yeah he was like a lot of people,

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Speaker 2: he was a complicated individual, and there were certainly some

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Speaker 2: seeming contradictions in the way he made sense of the world,

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Speaker 2: the natural world, humanity's place in the cosmos, and so forth.

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Speaker 2: So I'm going to break into a little bit of

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Speaker 2: his biography here. I'm not going to go in to

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Speaker 2: super detail, but I'm going to try and hit some

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Speaker 2: of I think maybe the key points to getting like

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Speaker 2: an overall understanding of who this guy was and some

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Speaker 2: of the more interesting aspects of his life, and certainly

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Speaker 2: those contradictions. So he was born to a middle class

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Speaker 2: Scotch English family. A family on his father's side claimed

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Speaker 2: to have an an ancestral connection to thirteenth century noted

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Speaker 2: individual William Wallace, the Brave Heart guy for those of

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Speaker 2: you relying on cinema for your history.

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Speaker 1: For fans of accurate history.

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Speaker 2: But yes, it claimed to be descended from William Wallace.

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Speaker 2: Whether that's true or not, who knows. But he initially

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Speaker 2: worked as a surveyor, but remained vitally interested in many

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Speaker 2: aspects of the world. So he was luckily was interested

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Speaker 2: in botany. He had all these other natural history pursuits

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Speaker 2: that he was leaning into and at the same time

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Speaker 2: he was also attending talks about socialism, about spiritualism. He

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Speaker 2: was also interested by mesmerism.

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Speaker 1: The practices of Franz Mesmer, also known as the theory

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Speaker 1: of animal magnetism, not given any credit today.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, definitely, but also gets into the sort of

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Speaker 2: the whole hypnosis sphere of things for sure. On top

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Speaker 2: of this, he taught, he lectured, and of course he read.

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Speaker 2: He was familiar with the writings of the time of

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Speaker 2: Alexander von Humboldt, of Charles Darwin and many others, and

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Speaker 2: in part due to their inspiration, he decided that he

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Speaker 2: too would go out and see the world as a

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Speaker 2: naturalist explorer.

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Speaker 1: That's right, because, of course Darwin became famous for his

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Speaker 1: writings about the Voyage of the be Goal, long before

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Speaker 1: he actually published on the origin of species, before he

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Speaker 1: had a theory of evolution, he just had his travelogue

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Speaker 1: of observations or going around the world on a ship

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Speaker 1: called the Beagle.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, so that seems very much be the blueprint that

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Speaker 2: Wallace has selected for his own life as well. And

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Speaker 2: so he departs on a journey to South America, particularly

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Speaker 2: focused on the Amazon, and he and his team they're

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Speaker 2: studying the peoples of these areas the natural history of

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Speaker 2: this region, and then on the return trip, their boat

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Speaker 2: catches fire and they're stuck in a life raft for

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Speaker 2: I believe ten days, and then eventually rescued. So he

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Speaker 2: apparently lost all of his notes in a misadventure, this

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Speaker 2: part of the adventure anyway, but he was still able

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Speaker 2: to write multiple papers about about it when he got

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Speaker 2: back to England. Also, I believe that a number of

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Speaker 2: specimens that he'd collected had been shipped back ahead of time,

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Speaker 2: so not everything was lost, but a lot was lost.

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Speaker 1: On that ship.

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Speaker 2: But he wasn't quite done with traveling and exploring, which

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Speaker 2: may come as a shock because I don't know. I

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Speaker 2: think a lot of us might think that once your

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Speaker 2: ship has burned and you've wound up in the lifeboat

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Speaker 2: for ten days, you might have had enough. But not

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Speaker 2: so for Wallace.

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Speaker 1: I'm going to read later in this episode from a

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Speaker 1: chapter in the Malay Archipelago where he's talking about his

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Speaker 1: experiences in Bali and Lombach. But he is not above

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Speaker 1: complaining about the hardships he faces on his journeys and

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Speaker 1: the difficulties he has in doing his work. But it

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Speaker 1: is still admirable about that he can just like face

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Speaker 1: that kind of thing and move right on.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, and in a way admirable that you can still

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Speaker 2: be irritated by the little stuff later on, you know,

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Speaker 2: after having wound up in the lifeboat for ten days,

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Speaker 2: to still be able to say, ah, this desk is

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Speaker 2: the worst.

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Speaker 1: We're gonna get some epic complaints about it's hard to

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Speaker 1: do science when everything is covered in ants.

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Speaker 3: Oh, good goodness, I bet that is true.

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Speaker 2: So anyway, he was not done traveling, and after he'd

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Speaker 2: gotten back, and you know, he published a bit about

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Speaker 2: his travels. He soon became fascinated with the Malay Archipelago

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Speaker 2: or the Indo Australian Archapelago, consisting of what is now

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Speaker 2: Indonesia and neighboring nations also known as the East Indies

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Speaker 2: at the time. His subsequent travels in this region lasted

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Speaker 2: from eighteen fifty four to eighteen sixty two, so eight years.

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Speaker 2: And during this time he and his hired team collected

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Speaker 2: thousands upon thousands of specimens to return home and go

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Speaker 2: to various museums and institutions. I read a BBC article

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Speaker 2: pointed out that the number here was something like one

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Speaker 2: hundred and twenty five six hundred and sixty natural history specimens,

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Speaker 2: including more than eighty three thousand beatles.

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Speaker 1: So the majority of it was beatles. Yeah, it's just

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Speaker 1: a lot of beetles, well over half. I mean.

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Speaker 2: Also, it seems like the beatles would be relatively easy

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Speaker 2: to send back. It's a lot easier to send back

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Speaker 2: a beatle as opposed to say, a Komodo drag.

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Speaker 1: That's true, And once again we're going to revisit why

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Speaker 1: it was so hard sometimes to send things back.

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Speaker 2: And of course he wrote about his travels as well,

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Speaker 2: and this is when he wrote the eighteen sixty nine

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Speaker 2: book The Malay Archipelago. This is the book you were

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Speaker 2: talking about earlier, a book that would go on to

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Speaker 2: become an international bestseller, describing all the islands he visited,

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Speaker 2: the sorts of natural and human elements on each, a

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Speaker 2: little bit of griping about the ants and the desks.

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Speaker 2: But this is a book that resonated with people, you know,

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Speaker 2: within his profession and within academia, but also outside of

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Speaker 2: those boundaries. It was just a book that a lot

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Speaker 2: of people read and it kind of made him a celebrity.

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Speaker 2: Like it cemented his status and also ensured that he

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Speaker 2: was able to keep going and keep writing later on,

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Speaker 2: certainly after a few economic setbacks that he encountered.

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Speaker 1: I found it captivating. There was while we were preparing

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Speaker 1: to record this episode, I started reading a couple of

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Speaker 1: chapters from this book, mainly because I was looking for

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Speaker 1: Wallace to describe a scientific theory that we're going to

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Speaker 1: get into, and I ended up not finding really any

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Speaker 1: sycinct place where he does describe this theory. But I

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Speaker 1: was just sucked into the writing because it's so interesting

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Speaker 1: and so good and in many ways reminds me of

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Speaker 1: his contemporary Darwin in that regard, who also I think,

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Speaker 1: and this of course doesn't diminish from the validity of

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Speaker 1: his theory. But also just like Darwin's books are a

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Speaker 1: great read, they're like, they're very well written, and I

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Speaker 1: would say Wallace is are.

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Speaker 2: Two yeah, yeah, yeah. The Malay Archipelago of Volumes one

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Speaker 2: and two, the subtitle here being The Land of the

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Speaker 2: Orangutan and the Bird of Paradise, a narrative of travel

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Speaker 2: with sketches of men and nature.

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Speaker 1: Oh well, Rob, since he mentions the orangutan in the title,

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Speaker 1: you should scroll down in the outline, because I included

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Speaker 1: a screen capture of the page opposite the title page

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Speaker 1: in the eighteen ninety edition I was reading, which has

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Speaker 1: an illustration of a brutal orangutan attack where the orangutan

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Speaker 1: is jumping on a guy and biting a chunk out

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Speaker 1: of his arm. Skeptical this happens that much in nature?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, that's generally not the reputation they have today. It's

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Speaker 2: so weird that this was the second time today I've

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Speaker 2: had to think about the possibility of a killer orangutan. Because,

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Speaker 2: as many of you are aware, the actor Terrence Stamp died,

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Speaker 2: I believe over the weekend recently passed, and so there

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Speaker 2: was some some chatter here and there about his past movies,

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Speaker 2: and I was looking around and I realized he was

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Speaker 2: in a nineteen eighty six film called Link that is

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Speaker 2: about a super intelligent, malicious chimpanzee, but the chimpanzee is

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Speaker 2: played by an orangutan.

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Speaker 1: Oh okay, I thought you were going in a totally

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Speaker 1: different direction. I saw the headline that Terence Stamp had died,

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Speaker 1: which you know Neil before.

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Speaker 2: So odd.

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Speaker 1: And I don't mean any disrespect here, but I truly

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Speaker 1: thought you were going to say he died in an

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Speaker 1: orangutan attack.

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Speaker 2: No, no, no, but yeah, this this illustration from the

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Speaker 2: book definitely made me think of that. But it also

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Speaker 2: has a rather sweet image of an orangutan here, So.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, it's both. Yeah. But from what I understand

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Speaker 1: to Ragatan, it's not that they can't attack humans. I

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Speaker 1: think they're known generally to only do this when like

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Speaker 1: really threatened in some way. They're generally aggressive.

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Speaker 2: One thing we know from the interaction between humans and

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Speaker 2: animals is that if the animals can be provoked into

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Speaker 2: attacking humans, we will have done it at some point

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Speaker 2: or another.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. But though, of course, some animals are much easier

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Speaker 1: to provoke than others, and orangutans are not usually thought

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Speaker 1: to be on the super high end of provokability. However,

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Speaker 1: this illustration is sick.

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Speaker 2: I mean, yeah, bite some right in the arm. But yeah.

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Speaker 2: In this book, though, this is where he does get

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Speaker 2: in a bit into the idea of the Wallace line.

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Speaker 2: Now he didn't call it the Wallas line. I believe

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Speaker 2: Darwin's bulldog Thomas Henry Huxley called it that in his honor,

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Speaker 2: but he does get into the concept a little bit.

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Speaker 1: Huxley also proposed some modifications to Wallace's original placement of

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Speaker 1: the line.

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Speaker 2: Now we get into the details in a bit, but

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Speaker 2: basically the way that Costa describes it in his book

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Speaker 2: is it was the realization that there was there was

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Speaker 2: a growing realization quote, a growing awareness among naturalists that

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Speaker 2: anomalist patterns of distribution might provide unique insights into the

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Speaker 2: history of the planet geologically and climatologically. So so again,

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Speaker 2: this was this was happening with Wallace, but this was

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Speaker 2: happening in other parts of the world, with naturalists looking

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Speaker 2: at at distribution data and saying, well, this is interesting,

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Speaker 2: we have we have X going on here? Why going

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Speaker 2: on here? What does this tell us about how the

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Speaker 2: world works, About how species have moved around or been

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Speaker 2: moved around, about some of the barriers and potential barriers

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Speaker 2: to their movement and so forth.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, and about the abiotic history of the planet, like

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Speaker 1: the fact that the distribution of animals as you find

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Speaker 1: them today can tell you things about the history of

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Speaker 1: climate change on the planet, about ice ages and sea levels,

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Speaker 1: and even about underlying geologic activity such as plate tectonics,

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Speaker 1: which would not be you know, fully accepted as a

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Speaker 1: theory I think until nineteen sixties or so much much later.

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Speaker 2: So we mentioned the fact that he independently came up

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Speaker 2: with the concept of evolution by natural selection around the

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Speaker 2: same time as Darwin, and then Darwin kind of pushes

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Speaker 2: ahead and gets on the origin of species out in

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Speaker 2: some ways. Wallace was also an early environmentalist and his

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Speaker 2: voice concern over humanity's impact on the planet, and he

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Speaker 2: also engaged in a number of social activism causes during

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Speaker 2: his life, including women's suffrage, land nationalization, and various sort

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Speaker 2: of pacifist and anti militarism causes. But in an area

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Speaker 2: that might seem rather contradictory to all of these scientific pursuits,

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Speaker 2: he was also a spiritualist, and not just one in

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Speaker 2: his non academic life, not just like okay, academic scientific academic,

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Speaker 2: a naturalist by day and a spiritualist by night. No,

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Speaker 2: he actively wrote on it and attempted to defend it

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Speaker 2: in academic writings.

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Speaker 1: Now, to clarify, in the context of these nineteenth century movements,

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Speaker 1: when we say a spiritualist, that doesn't mean the same

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Speaker 1: thing as like somebody who would say, oh I'm spiritual today,

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Speaker 1: that would this means something more specific about like beliefs

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Speaker 1: that you could contact the dead, or that you could

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Speaker 1: that living persons could have communication with spirits or other

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Speaker 1: beings other than living humans.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, we're talking about specifically here. We're talking about the

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Speaker 2: sort of spiritualists that you would go to and there'd

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Speaker 2: be a seance or there would you know, offer generally

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Speaker 2: for money to help you connect with the spirits of

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Speaker 2: the dead. The kind of people that Houdini did not like,

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Speaker 2: the kind of people. If you watch The Gilded Age

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Speaker 2: on television, the most recent season has included this element

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Speaker 2: in its plot.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, it's come up on the show before that. Actually,

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Speaker 1: a surprising number of people from history in nineteenth century

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Speaker 1: you're in America, people who are in many ways kind

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Speaker 1: of admirable for their time, really got into spiritualism, really

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Speaker 1: thought you could talk to the dead.

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Speaker 2: Or other Conan Doyle is a prime example of this.

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Speaker 2: I really got into it late in life. So you know,

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Speaker 2: it's it's one of those one of those things where

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Speaker 2: there are multiple pieces to it. As I think we've

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Speaker 2: probably discussed on the past. On one level, you do

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Speaker 2: have people actively selling you this stuff, and on the

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Speaker 2: other you have a genuine desire on the part of

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Speaker 2: the bereave to connect with the people they miss, and

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Speaker 2: you know, there's in a perfect world, there's probably a

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Speaker 2: balance there between the two where no one's exploited and

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Speaker 2: everyone's life is made a little easier. But we don't

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Speaker 2: live in such a world, and so things will often

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Speaker 2: lean in the wrong direction there. But again, not just

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Speaker 2: a naturalist by day and a spiritualist by night, Like

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Speaker 2: I say, he wrote papers where he defended spiritualism and

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Speaker 2: so forth.

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Speaker 1: Yeah.

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Speaker 2: Now, on the other hand, he opposed flat earth pseudoscience

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Speaker 2: of the day and wrote against that, and then going

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Speaker 2: back to the other side of things, he did involve

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Speaker 2: himself in anti vaccination efforts of the day. This would

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Speaker 2: have been, I believe measles the vaccine that he was

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Speaker 2: opposed to. But in his opposition seems to have been

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Speaker 2: a mix of like sort of personal choice, like I

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Speaker 2: don't want to take it that. You know, we see

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Speaker 2: similar attitudes today. But also it seemed to factor into

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Speaker 2: his view that like nature was perfectly balanced already and

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Speaker 2: therefore there was no reason to tip the scales as

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Speaker 2: far as diseases go. I don't know. I would say

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Speaker 2: that the counter argument to that is that as far

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Speaker 2: as diseases and humanity go, that everything is already out

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Speaker 2: of balance, and therefore you need the vaccines in place.

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Speaker 1: Well yeah, I mean a lot of the times people

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Speaker 1: prefer one course of action over another because it's more natural.

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Speaker 1: It just kind of reflects a vague and not very

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Speaker 1: well thought out understanding of what the concept natural really means.

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Speaker 1: I mean, there are a lot of things that just

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Speaker 1: kind of seem natural to you, but then you investigate

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Speaker 1: them and realize they're actually very much the product of

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Speaker 1: human intervention in some way.

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Speaker 2: Well, his distinction is natural. It doesn't mean I want

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Speaker 2: for myself.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, it is natural to just like all get disease

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Speaker 1: and die. Sure, I mean is that good?

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Speaker 2: So yeah, he was. He was an interesting guy in this.

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Speaker 2: His spiritualism especially did put him in odds with many

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Speaker 2: of his fellow scientists, and even when it came to

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Speaker 2: evolution binatural selection, he argued for a kind of evolution

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Speaker 2: driven by the divine, essentially that animals evolved via natural

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Speaker 2: selection and humans did to a point, and then some

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Speaker 2: other force takes over something, something divine. He didn't actually

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Speaker 2: call it a creator, because interestingly enough, he himself was

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Speaker 2: a religious skeptic, so he at different times self identified

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Speaker 2: as agnostic or just a non religious person, and so

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Speaker 2: he referred to this as an overruling intelligence.

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Speaker 1: It's interesting how if you go back just to you know,

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Speaker 1: one hundred years or so, you get a lot of

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Speaker 1: fine distinctions in religious beliefs that where the distinctions don't

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Speaker 1: make a lot of sense to people today, but they

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Speaker 1: you know, they made sense to people at the time.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, he was a firm believer that he thought

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Speaker 2: without this overruling intelligence becoming involved, there's no way that

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Speaker 2: the human brain, or human speech organs, or even our

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Speaker 2: hands or our bipedal posture could have possibly evolved. Like

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Speaker 2: there had to be some other force, you know, like

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Speaker 2: a monolith getting involved in our advancement. Yeah, and you

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Speaker 2: know that's kind of a sticky idea. That's why we

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Speaker 2: see it all over our science fiction, right Yeah.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, and you know it's still a common idea. I mean,

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Speaker 1: this is formally argued by creationists today, but I mean

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Speaker 1: it's still it's naturally appealing to look at something very

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Speaker 1: complex and think, well, that couldn't have just happened. Of course,

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Speaker 1: I think that the leap that you're not able to

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Speaker 1: make is that it happened gradually and by degrees.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, And you know, I often think about this.

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Speaker 2: I think that, okay, you know, a much softened version

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Speaker 2: of this is is maybe quite reasonable, in a quite

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Speaker 2: reasonable way to balance science and religious faith. You know, say, well, okay,

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Speaker 2: evolution by natural selection is the method by which the

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Speaker 2: divine creates life? And why not because it seems like

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Speaker 2: the very sort of elaborate, long term method that an

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Speaker 2: eternal and all powerful entity unconstrained by time might very

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Speaker 2: well employ.

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Speaker 1: Sure, I mean, I think that's what millions of people

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Speaker 1: believe today. Yeah, nothing wrong with that.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. On the other hand, it is worth stressing that

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Speaker 2: when you get into the particulars of this sort of stance,

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Speaker 2: saying well, okay, everything evolves, but then humans evolve differently,

401
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Speaker 2: human brains are different because of some divine force, you

402
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Speaker 2: can get into some really nasty and even racist views

403
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Speaker 2: on human evolution by deciding just where and how you

404
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Speaker 2: want to deploy this theory.

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Speaker 1: Ah, yeah, okay, So appealing to supernatural force is to

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Speaker 1: inject a certain specialness into you know, certain you know,

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Speaker 1: animals on Earth, and certainly there's nothing that prevents somebody

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Speaker 1: from thinking that some humans are more special than others.

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Speaker 2: Right, right, So I'm not saying that was Wallace's whole deal,

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Speaker 2: but those are kind of those are the waters you

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Speaker 2: can easily creep into by pursuing this line of thinking. Yeah. Now,

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Speaker 2: with Wallace, it certainly put him in odds with many

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Speaker 2: of his fellow scientists, including Charles Darwin himself, who who

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Speaker 2: worried that Wallace was hurting their cause by adding this

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Speaker 2: caveat to his own take on natural selection, and according

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Speaker 2: to Tacosta, even wrote to him and said, quote, I

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Speaker 2: hope you have not murdered too completely your own and

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Speaker 2: my child, referring to the theory of natural selection. Again, these

419
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Speaker 2: two were friends, and Wallace, you know, continued to respect

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Speaker 2: Darwin the rest of his life. But yeah, Darwin rather

421
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Speaker 2: bluntly saying I really wish you hadn't put it like that,

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Speaker 2: you know, trying to get this theory of natural selection

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Speaker 2: out the door and accepted at this point, and you're

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Speaker 2: perhaps muddying the waters by coming in with this, you know,

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Speaker 2: your unique spiritualist take on everything.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, though, I guess one thing that's supposed to be

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Speaker 1: good about being friends is that you can be frank

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Speaker 1: with each other.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, but yeah, Wall this seems to have

430
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Speaker 2: been a guy who you know, had, as I think

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Speaker 2: Costa puts it, at one point, he had a lot

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Speaker 2: of adventures and a lot of opinions in his life.

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Speaker 2: He was real quick to weigh in on things, and

434
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Speaker 2: well into his eighties he was still doing this, you know, still,

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Speaker 2: I mean, I think until the end of his life

436
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Speaker 2: pretty much, you know, constantly writing letters, writing his own

437
00:23:38,320 --> 00:23:41,880
Speaker 2: take on different topics, and in fact, in nineteen oh

438
00:23:41,960 --> 00:23:45,680
Speaker 2: four he put out the book Man's Place in the Universe,

439
00:23:46,240 --> 00:23:50,520
Speaker 2: and in that he takes his own serious look at

440
00:23:50,520 --> 00:23:54,399
Speaker 2: the idea of life on other planets, especially Mars, because this,

441
00:23:54,440 --> 00:23:56,679
Speaker 2: of course is the time when we have the whole

442
00:23:56,880 --> 00:24:02,320
Speaker 2: Canals of Mars idea out there in everyone's minds, you know,

443
00:24:02,640 --> 00:24:04,520
Speaker 2: the idea that we've seen things on Mars and what

444
00:24:04,640 --> 00:24:07,160
Speaker 2: of their canals, and we get this built up idea

445
00:24:07,320 --> 00:24:10,480
Speaker 2: of their people of some sort on Mars and they're

446
00:24:10,480 --> 00:24:12,919
Speaker 2: a dying race and they're having to build these canals

447
00:24:12,960 --> 00:24:15,359
Speaker 2: and so forth. It really captivated everyone's imagination.

448
00:24:15,680 --> 00:24:18,680
Speaker 1: We've talked about that at some length on episodes in

449
00:24:18,720 --> 00:24:22,800
Speaker 1: the past, and now I don't remember which ones did

450
00:24:22,880 --> 00:24:25,720
Speaker 1: that possibly come up in our discussion of the ashen

451
00:24:25,840 --> 00:24:30,160
Speaker 1: light of Venus. It might have, Yes, that's my best guess.

452
00:24:30,600 --> 00:24:32,560
Speaker 1: So this was a nineteen oh four book and I

453
00:24:32,560 --> 00:24:35,320
Speaker 1: have not read it, But Costa gives his own breakdown

454
00:24:35,480 --> 00:24:38,600
Speaker 1: of it and points out that, okay, he's basically opposing

455
00:24:38,640 --> 00:24:41,080
Speaker 1: the idea of life on Mars on two levels. On

456
00:24:41,080 --> 00:24:46,280
Speaker 1: one level, he is making a very logic based counter argument.

457
00:24:46,720 --> 00:24:49,920
Speaker 1: He himself was an astronomer and pointing out things about

458
00:24:49,920 --> 00:24:50,760
Speaker 1: what was known.

459
00:24:50,560 --> 00:24:54,080
Speaker 2: About Mars versus Earth at the time. He just did

460
00:24:54,080 --> 00:24:56,600
Speaker 2: not think it was likely that this was true, and

461
00:24:56,640 --> 00:24:59,600
Speaker 2: of course, as we would find out very shortly thereafter,

462
00:24:59,640 --> 00:25:02,720
Speaker 2: it was and true. But as Costa points out, it

463
00:25:02,760 --> 00:25:06,159
Speaker 2: also ran opposite to his belief that humans had a

464
00:25:06,240 --> 00:25:09,760
Speaker 2: privileged place in the cosmos, that we were the end

465
00:25:09,800 --> 00:25:13,720
Speaker 2: result of not only earthly processes but also cosmic processes

466
00:25:13,760 --> 00:25:17,119
Speaker 2: as well. This getting into the whole idea of humans

467
00:25:17,280 --> 00:25:20,720
Speaker 2: were special because some sort of force beyond us had

468
00:25:20,760 --> 00:25:24,040
Speaker 2: pushed us into these like upper levels of evolution that

469
00:25:24,080 --> 00:25:28,439
Speaker 2: were denied to you know, or other organic life forms

470
00:25:28,440 --> 00:25:28,879
Speaker 2: on Earth.

471
00:25:29,119 --> 00:25:32,479
Speaker 1: So the overruling intelligence of Wallace's view of the universe

472
00:25:32,480 --> 00:25:34,680
Speaker 1: would not have allowed life on Mars.

473
00:25:34,560 --> 00:25:36,800
Speaker 2: Right, right, The whole idea is that we're alone and

474
00:25:36,800 --> 00:25:39,200
Speaker 2: we're special. If the if, if we've got life next

475
00:25:39,200 --> 00:25:42,760
Speaker 2: door as well, then that just destroys the whole argument.

476
00:25:42,880 --> 00:25:45,600
Speaker 2: So that seems like it might have also been there,

477
00:25:46,240 --> 00:25:49,560
Speaker 2: you know, pushing his his criticism of this idea. Though

478
00:25:49,800 --> 00:25:53,120
Speaker 2: to be clear, this book, he's also apparently very polite

479
00:25:53,560 --> 00:26:00,720
Speaker 2: in his takedown of the Martian canal hypotheses because he

480
00:26:01,000 --> 00:26:03,360
Speaker 2: you know, he's ultimately you know, friends or at least

481
00:26:03,400 --> 00:26:06,120
Speaker 2: correspondence with everyone that's talking about it at the time.

482
00:26:06,480 --> 00:26:09,600
Speaker 1: Well, I'm sorry if I misunderstood. Did he also have

483
00:26:10,240 --> 00:26:13,679
Speaker 1: like observation based or empirical reasons for doubting canals on

484
00:26:13,720 --> 00:26:14,159
Speaker 1: Mars or.

485
00:26:15,280 --> 00:26:18,440
Speaker 2: It wasn't just based in his worldview, But no doubt

486
00:26:18,480 --> 00:26:21,720
Speaker 2: that worldview was also pushing him to make all of

487
00:26:21,760 --> 00:26:22,639
Speaker 2: these arguments. You know.

488
00:26:22,960 --> 00:26:25,879
Speaker 1: Okay, so he was right, but for some of the

489
00:26:25,960 --> 00:26:27,560
Speaker 1: right and some of the wrong reasons.

490
00:26:28,000 --> 00:26:30,120
Speaker 2: Yeah, that seems to be the take on it. But again,

491
00:26:30,160 --> 00:26:42,480
Speaker 2: I haven't actually read the book in question, So again

492
00:26:42,520 --> 00:26:44,560
Speaker 2: that's just a brief overview of the of the the

493
00:26:44,600 --> 00:26:47,520
Speaker 2: man here. I think it highlights some of the inherent

494
00:26:47,600 --> 00:26:50,760
Speaker 2: contradictions that are present there, that ultimately are going to

495
00:26:50,800 --> 00:26:52,920
Speaker 2: be present in anybody. But maybe you're a little more

496
00:26:53,359 --> 00:26:56,800
Speaker 2: expressed in the biography of Alfred Russell Wallace.

497
00:26:57,000 --> 00:27:01,600
Speaker 1: Yeah, very interesting character. And so I guess now should

498
00:27:01,600 --> 00:27:04,400
Speaker 1: we move on to talking a bit about the Wallace

499
00:27:04,480 --> 00:27:06,639
Speaker 1: line at least what the concept is, and then I

500
00:27:06,640 --> 00:27:09,560
Speaker 1: think maybe in part two we'll get into some more

501
00:27:09,600 --> 00:27:12,199
Speaker 1: depth about it, nuances that have been added to it

502
00:27:12,560 --> 00:27:15,240
Speaker 1: since the time of Wallace. Yeah, all right, So we

503
00:27:15,320 --> 00:27:18,480
Speaker 1: alluded to this earlier, but to recenter us here. In

504
00:27:18,520 --> 00:27:21,639
Speaker 1: addition to independently discovering a version of the theory of

505
00:27:21,680 --> 00:27:24,920
Speaker 1: evolution by natural selection again around the same time Darwin did,

506
00:27:25,320 --> 00:27:29,639
Speaker 1: Alfred Russell Wallace is also widely considered the founder of

507
00:27:29,720 --> 00:27:34,960
Speaker 1: a field now known as biogeography, the study of how

508
00:27:35,240 --> 00:27:38,480
Speaker 1: life is distributed over the surface of the Earth. Another

509
00:27:38,520 --> 00:27:41,160
Speaker 1: way to put it is what lives where and why.

510
00:27:42,000 --> 00:27:45,280
Speaker 1: By the way, you mentioned him earlier, but another important

511
00:27:45,480 --> 00:27:48,680
Speaker 1: contributor to the early study of biogeography was the pre

512
00:27:48,840 --> 00:27:53,600
Speaker 1: Darwinian German naturalist Alexander von Humboldt. Very interesting figure who

513
00:27:53,600 --> 00:27:55,480
Speaker 1: we've talked about a good bit on the show before.

514
00:27:55,560 --> 00:28:00,359
Speaker 1: I think one of the main contexts was a summer

515
00:28:00,359 --> 00:28:02,280
Speaker 1: reading episode we did years ago where I was talking

516
00:28:02,320 --> 00:28:05,320
Speaker 1: about a great biography of him by Andrea Wolfe called

517
00:28:05,720 --> 00:28:09,879
Speaker 1: The Invention of Nature. Von Humboldt was important in helping

518
00:28:09,880 --> 00:28:13,680
Speaker 1: to move the burgeoning natural sciences of the nineteenth century

519
00:28:14,680 --> 00:28:18,440
Speaker 1: away from this long held Western view of nature as

520
00:28:18,440 --> 00:28:22,800
Speaker 1: a fixed order of discrete entities with eternal roles defined

521
00:28:22,840 --> 00:28:26,560
Speaker 1: by providence, and to replace that with a view of

522
00:28:26,680 --> 00:28:31,600
Speaker 1: nature as a complex and changeable web of relationships, these

523
00:28:31,720 --> 00:28:37,080
Speaker 1: interdependencies that are constantly in flux. Though unlike Darwin and Wallace,

524
00:28:37,119 --> 00:28:40,680
Speaker 1: von Humboldt himself never fully embraced the idea that species

525
00:28:40,680 --> 00:28:43,680
Speaker 1: themselves could evolve. His idea of change was more based

526
00:28:43,720 --> 00:28:48,160
Speaker 1: on the environment and relationships between species. So Darwin and

527
00:28:48,200 --> 00:28:51,880
Speaker 1: Wallace ended up going beyond von Humboldt. But anyway, as

528
00:28:51,920 --> 00:28:55,040
Speaker 1: I said, biogeography is the study of what lives, where

529
00:28:55,120 --> 00:28:59,040
Speaker 1: and why, and one of Wallace's most famous observations in

530
00:28:59,080 --> 00:29:03,680
Speaker 1: biogeography is the Wallas line. The Wallas line is what's

531
00:29:03,760 --> 00:29:08,800
Speaker 1: known as a biogeographical boundary line, specifically a faunal boundary.

532
00:29:08,800 --> 00:29:12,040
Speaker 1: In this case, meaning a boundary with reference to animals,

533
00:29:12,160 --> 00:29:16,000
Speaker 1: so it's an invisible border where you have one ecosystem

534
00:29:16,040 --> 00:29:18,960
Speaker 1: of animal species on one side of the line and

535
00:29:19,000 --> 00:29:22,959
Speaker 1: a very different collection of animals on the other. Animal

536
00:29:23,000 --> 00:29:28,760
Speaker 1: populations are not usually divided by hard boundaries. Normally, as

537
00:29:28,800 --> 00:29:33,440
Speaker 1: you wander toward the edge of an animal's population range,

538
00:29:33,960 --> 00:29:37,720
Speaker 1: you will notice a gradual thinning out of the population,

539
00:29:38,080 --> 00:29:41,240
Speaker 1: with the number of individuals becoming less and less dense,

540
00:29:41,720 --> 00:29:46,080
Speaker 1: sometimes being replaced more and more gradually with examples of

541
00:29:46,120 --> 00:29:49,360
Speaker 1: a different species in the same trophic niche meaning they

542
00:29:49,400 --> 00:29:52,520
Speaker 1: compete for the same food resources, So you may be

543
00:29:52,640 --> 00:29:54,880
Speaker 1: moving out of the range of one animal species and

544
00:29:54,920 --> 00:29:58,560
Speaker 1: into the range of another, gradually gradually. In both cases.

545
00:29:58,920 --> 00:30:01,040
Speaker 1: For the most part, the gea graphic range of an

546
00:30:01,080 --> 00:30:04,120
Speaker 1: animal species does not end in a hard boundary, but

547
00:30:04,320 --> 00:30:08,560
Speaker 1: in a soft and gradual one. But there are exceptions.

548
00:30:09,240 --> 00:30:12,480
Speaker 1: Sometimes you kind of hit a wall where there is

549
00:30:12,960 --> 00:30:15,680
Speaker 1: one set of animals over here and a pretty different

550
00:30:15,760 --> 00:30:18,840
Speaker 1: set over there, and that is to a large extent

551
00:30:18,960 --> 00:30:21,959
Speaker 1: what we find with Wallace's line, though, as we'll discuss,

552
00:30:22,040 --> 00:30:24,440
Speaker 1: there are some exceptions to this rule and some major

553
00:30:24,520 --> 00:30:28,480
Speaker 1: nuances added since Wallace first proposed this border in the

554
00:30:28,520 --> 00:30:35,160
Speaker 1: eighteen sixties. In fact, basically all biogeographical boundaries are somewhat permeable.

555
00:30:35,280 --> 00:30:39,280
Speaker 1: You will find exceptions to them, but they tend to

556
00:30:39,360 --> 00:30:43,280
Speaker 1: denote starker divisions in biodiversity than you will find elsewhere

557
00:30:43,280 --> 00:30:47,160
Speaker 1: in nature. So what's the story of the Wallas Line

558
00:30:47,200 --> 00:30:52,240
Speaker 1: in particular. Well, the Wallas Line passes invisibly through the

559
00:30:52,280 --> 00:30:56,600
Speaker 1: islands of the Malay Archipelago in the Strait between Borneo

560
00:30:56,760 --> 00:31:01,480
Speaker 1: and Sulawesi, and then further southwest through the lesser Sunda Islands,

561
00:31:01,520 --> 00:31:04,640
Speaker 1: cutting between the islands of Bali on the west and

562
00:31:04,800 --> 00:31:06,640
Speaker 1: Lombach on the east.

563
00:31:07,040 --> 00:31:09,240
Speaker 2: While we were in Indonesia, we were east of the

564
00:31:09,280 --> 00:31:11,880
Speaker 2: Wallas Line, though we had to fly over it to

565
00:31:11,920 --> 00:31:15,840
Speaker 2: get to Raja Ambat from Jakarta. I will stress though

566
00:31:15,880 --> 00:31:18,479
Speaker 2: the pilot did not announce the crossing of the Wallace Line,

567
00:31:19,080 --> 00:31:21,080
Speaker 2: not that they had to, but I just want to

568
00:31:21,080 --> 00:31:22,880
Speaker 2: make it. And of course you can't see it.

569
00:31:23,160 --> 00:31:26,960
Speaker 1: That's a plane, yeah, exactly, and there's nothing there to see.

570
00:31:27,000 --> 00:31:32,520
Speaker 1: In fact, it's kind of it's remarkable how invisible it is.

571
00:31:32,600 --> 00:31:35,960
Speaker 1: In a way. So I was speaking of the division

572
00:31:36,000 --> 00:31:40,520
Speaker 1: between these multiple land masses Borneo and Sulawesi, and Lombock

573
00:31:40,600 --> 00:31:44,520
Speaker 1: and Bali. The latter division is probably the most striking,

574
00:31:44,960 --> 00:31:48,600
Speaker 1: because the Lombok Straight, which passes between Lombac and Bali,

575
00:31:49,160 --> 00:31:52,240
Speaker 1: is in some places only a few dozen kilometers wide.

576
00:31:52,280 --> 00:31:54,400
Speaker 1: Like if the air is clear, you can stand on

577
00:31:54,440 --> 00:31:57,320
Speaker 1: the shore of one island and look across and see

578
00:31:57,320 --> 00:31:59,360
Speaker 1: the other island. You see the higher elevations on the

579
00:31:59,400 --> 00:32:03,520
Speaker 1: other island. So they're very close, and in terms of

580
00:32:03,600 --> 00:32:07,800
Speaker 1: environmental conditions they're very similar. And yet when Alfred Russell

581
00:32:07,840 --> 00:32:12,560
Speaker 1: Wallace studied the land animals and the birds of these islands,

582
00:32:13,000 --> 00:32:16,840
Speaker 1: he noticed a pretty stark difference. Wallace writes about some

583
00:32:16,920 --> 00:32:20,400
Speaker 1: of these observations in the book The Malay Archipelago, again

584
00:32:20,440 --> 00:32:24,320
Speaker 1: first published in eighteen sixty nine. So the version of

585
00:32:24,360 --> 00:32:26,400
Speaker 1: this book I was looking at is a scan of

586
00:32:26,440 --> 00:32:29,080
Speaker 1: the eighteen ninety edition. That's the one with the sick

587
00:32:29,120 --> 00:32:34,040
Speaker 1: illustration of the orangutan biting the guy. And Wallace writes

588
00:32:34,160 --> 00:32:37,800
Speaker 1: that the islands of Bali and Lombach are most interesting

589
00:32:37,880 --> 00:32:40,719
Speaker 1: actually because of two things. One of them is that

590
00:32:40,800 --> 00:32:43,720
Speaker 1: he claims they're the only two islands of the whole

591
00:32:43,800 --> 00:32:48,000
Speaker 1: archipelago in which the Hindu religion still maintains itself. And

592
00:32:48,080 --> 00:32:52,120
Speaker 1: then he also says, quote they form the extreme points

593
00:32:52,200 --> 00:32:56,280
Speaker 1: of the two great zoological divisions of the Eastern Hemisphere.

594
00:32:56,680 --> 00:33:00,440
Speaker 1: For although so similar in external appearance and in all

595
00:33:00,480 --> 00:33:05,040
Speaker 1: physical features, they differ greatly in their natural productions. So

596
00:33:05,080 --> 00:33:09,600
Speaker 1: what's the difference in these natural productions between the two islands. Again,

597
00:33:09,760 --> 00:33:12,640
Speaker 1: while there are exceptions and some nuances, will discuss later,

598
00:33:12,840 --> 00:33:16,680
Speaker 1: the range of a ton of major animal groups essentially

599
00:33:16,840 --> 00:33:21,160
Speaker 1: terminates at this tiny ocean gap. On the eastern side,

600
00:33:21,160 --> 00:33:26,080
Speaker 1: in Lombach you will find native cockatoos and marsupials, the

601
00:33:26,160 --> 00:33:30,000
Speaker 1: animals associated with Australia and New Guinea. And on the

602
00:33:30,040 --> 00:33:33,440
Speaker 1: western side of the gap, in Bali and Borneo, you

603
00:33:33,480 --> 00:33:36,920
Speaker 1: will not find those animals, not natively unless you know,

604
00:33:37,000 --> 00:33:40,400
Speaker 1: you find some imported. Instead, you will find mostly the

605
00:33:40,440 --> 00:33:43,640
Speaker 1: same animal groups that you find in the rest of Asia,

606
00:33:44,120 --> 00:33:47,200
Speaker 1: including at least as of a few hundred years ago,

607
00:33:47,240 --> 00:33:51,160
Speaker 1: before many of these animals were driven extinct. You would

608
00:33:51,160 --> 00:33:56,320
Speaker 1: find tigers, rhinos, elephants, and bears. So you've got one

609
00:33:56,360 --> 00:33:58,160
Speaker 1: on one side, one on the other, and then you've got,

610
00:33:58,240 --> 00:34:02,280
Speaker 1: of course, some more trans yusitional areas we'll talk more

611
00:34:02,320 --> 00:34:04,760
Speaker 1: in Part two. I think about the idea of a

612
00:34:04,760 --> 00:34:07,840
Speaker 1: whole group of islands known as Wallace Sea that are

613
00:34:07,960 --> 00:34:11,040
Speaker 1: thought of now as a kind of transitional island group.

614
00:34:11,800 --> 00:34:14,520
Speaker 1: But on the island of Sulawesi you will also find

615
00:34:14,520 --> 00:34:18,120
Speaker 1: more of a mix with some native Australian or Australasian

616
00:34:18,120 --> 00:34:21,760
Speaker 1: fauna and some Asian fauna. Now, the question of why

617
00:34:22,040 --> 00:34:24,080
Speaker 1: is really interesting, and that's something we're going to have

618
00:34:24,120 --> 00:34:25,960
Speaker 1: to come back to. But first I just wanted to

619
00:34:26,000 --> 00:34:30,000
Speaker 1: get some more color on Wallace himself and his travels

620
00:34:30,520 --> 00:34:34,719
Speaker 1: in these islands, specifically his chapter in the Malay Archipelago

621
00:34:35,280 --> 00:34:39,440
Speaker 1: on his visits to Bali and Lombach. He makes an

622
00:34:39,480 --> 00:34:43,240
Speaker 1: interesting biographical note that his first visit to these islands

623
00:34:43,239 --> 00:34:47,360
Speaker 1: in eighteen fifty six was quote somewhat involuntary. He was

624
00:34:47,400 --> 00:34:49,880
Speaker 1: like trying to get a He's trying to get a

625
00:34:50,120 --> 00:34:54,239
Speaker 1: ship to take him to Macassar on Sulawesi from Singapore,

626
00:34:54,760 --> 00:34:57,080
Speaker 1: but he couldn't for some reason, and his journey got

627
00:34:57,120 --> 00:34:59,960
Speaker 1: diverted to these islands at the east end of Java.

628
00:35:00,800 --> 00:35:03,000
Speaker 1: And he writes that if he had been able to

629
00:35:03,040 --> 00:35:05,759
Speaker 1: get the passage he wanted from Singapore, he probably never

630
00:35:05,800 --> 00:35:08,640
Speaker 1: would have gone to them quote, and should have missed

631
00:35:08,680 --> 00:35:11,880
Speaker 1: some of the most important discoveries of my whole expedition

632
00:35:11,960 --> 00:35:12,680
Speaker 1: to the east.

633
00:35:13,239 --> 00:35:17,319
Speaker 2: So just pure travel mishaps playing into again the most

634
00:35:17,360 --> 00:35:18,760
Speaker 2: important discoveries of his career.

635
00:35:19,080 --> 00:35:21,280
Speaker 1: So, Robert, are you cool if I read some passages

636
00:35:21,280 --> 00:35:22,120
Speaker 1: from wallas here?

637
00:35:22,480 --> 00:35:23,720
Speaker 2: Yeah, let's have it, Okay.

638
00:35:23,719 --> 00:35:25,839
Speaker 1: This will give us a flavor of his writing and

639
00:35:26,000 --> 00:35:29,479
Speaker 1: some of his experiences in Bali and Lombach, both those

640
00:35:29,520 --> 00:35:33,640
Speaker 1: that inform the formulation of the idea of the Wallace line,

641
00:35:33,760 --> 00:35:36,680
Speaker 1: and also just some interesting stuff he comes across. So,

642
00:35:36,920 --> 00:35:40,759
Speaker 1: first of all, there's a passage where he's describing the

643
00:35:40,960 --> 00:35:45,000
Speaker 1: terraced agriculture of Bali, where he says he says, quote,

644
00:35:45,000 --> 00:35:48,920
Speaker 1: a slightly undulating plain extends from the seacoast about ten

645
00:35:49,040 --> 00:35:52,040
Speaker 1: or twelve miles inland, where it is bounded by a

646
00:35:52,120 --> 00:35:56,240
Speaker 1: fine range of wooded and cultivated hills. Houses and villages

647
00:35:56,280 --> 00:36:00,160
Speaker 1: marked out by dense clumps of coconut palms, tamarin and

648
00:36:00,239 --> 00:36:03,800
Speaker 1: other fruit trees are dotted about in every direction, while

649
00:36:03,800 --> 00:36:07,719
Speaker 1: between them extend luxuriant rice grounds watered by an elaborate

650
00:36:07,719 --> 00:36:10,120
Speaker 1: system of irrigation that would be the pride of the

651
00:36:10,160 --> 00:36:13,400
Speaker 1: best cultivated parts of Europe. The whole surface of the

652
00:36:13,400 --> 00:36:17,840
Speaker 1: country is divided into irregular patches, following the undulations of

653
00:36:17,880 --> 00:36:21,440
Speaker 1: the ground, from many acres to a few perches in extent,

654
00:36:21,960 --> 00:36:25,440
Speaker 1: each of which is itself perfectly level, but stands a

655
00:36:25,440 --> 00:36:28,640
Speaker 1: few inches or several feet above or below those adjacent

656
00:36:28,680 --> 00:36:31,520
Speaker 1: to it. Every one of those patches can be flooded

657
00:36:31,600 --> 00:36:33,920
Speaker 1: or drained at will by means of a system of

658
00:36:33,960 --> 00:36:36,920
Speaker 1: ditches and small channels into which are diverted the whole

659
00:36:37,000 --> 00:36:40,600
Speaker 1: of streams that descend from the mountains. Every patch now

660
00:36:40,600 --> 00:36:44,000
Speaker 1: bore crops in various stages of growth, some almost ready

661
00:36:44,000 --> 00:36:47,120
Speaker 1: for cutting, and all in the most flourishing condition, and

662
00:36:47,160 --> 00:36:49,160
Speaker 1: of the most exquisite green tints.

663
00:36:50,440 --> 00:36:53,560
Speaker 2: Oh that's nice, I would say, oh succulent. Yeah.

664
00:36:53,560 --> 00:36:58,240
Speaker 1: I found his writing style very vivid, like it really

665
00:36:58,280 --> 00:37:00,839
Speaker 1: calls pictures to the mine way that a lot of

666
00:37:01,320 --> 00:37:06,640
Speaker 1: older writing, especially you don't quite get that immediate connection

667
00:37:06,719 --> 00:37:09,960
Speaker 1: to the visual imagination. Something about Wallace's style does for me.

668
00:37:10,160 --> 00:37:12,040
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's a sense of awe here as well.

669
00:37:12,239 --> 00:37:15,000
Speaker 1: Yeah, But anyway, from here, Wallace goes on to describe

670
00:37:15,040 --> 00:37:18,839
Speaker 1: his attempts to collect a few specimens in Bali. So

671
00:37:18,960 --> 00:37:22,239
Speaker 1: he says, in so well cultivated a country, it was

672
00:37:22,320 --> 00:37:24,440
Speaker 1: not to be expected that I could do much in

673
00:37:24,600 --> 00:37:29,160
Speaker 1: natural history. That kind of makes sense, right, Like it's

674
00:37:29,400 --> 00:37:32,360
Speaker 1: harder to collect specimens from all of this well kept

675
00:37:32,360 --> 00:37:36,520
Speaker 1: farm the farm, ye, yeah. And my ignorance of how

676
00:37:36,560 --> 00:37:41,160
Speaker 1: important a locality this was for the elucidation of geographical

677
00:37:41,200 --> 00:37:45,839
Speaker 1: distribution of animals caused me to neglect obtaining some specimens

678
00:37:45,880 --> 00:37:49,320
Speaker 1: which I never met with again. One of these was

679
00:37:49,360 --> 00:37:52,480
Speaker 1: a weaver bird with a bright yellow head, which built

680
00:37:52,520 --> 00:37:56,000
Speaker 1: its bottle shaped nests by dozens on some trees near

681
00:37:56,040 --> 00:38:00,560
Speaker 1: the beach. It was the Ploceus hypoxanthus, a native of Java,

682
00:38:01,000 --> 00:38:04,360
Speaker 1: and here at the extreme limits of its range. Westerly

683
00:38:04,840 --> 00:38:09,000
Speaker 1: I shot in preserved specimens of a wagtail, thrush, an oriole,

684
00:38:09,120 --> 00:38:12,880
Speaker 1: and some starlings, all species found in Java, and some

685
00:38:13,040 --> 00:38:16,160
Speaker 1: of them peculiar to that island. I also obtained some

686
00:38:16,200 --> 00:38:19,400
Speaker 1: beautiful butterflies, richly marked with black and orange on a

687
00:38:19,440 --> 00:38:23,080
Speaker 1: white ground, and which were the most abundant insects in

688
00:38:23,120 --> 00:38:26,399
Speaker 1: the country Lanes. Among these was a new species which

689
00:38:26,440 --> 00:38:30,719
Speaker 1: I have named Pieris tamar okay. So that's his experience

690
00:38:30,719 --> 00:38:33,759
Speaker 1: in Bali. You know, he doesn't collect a lot of

691
00:38:33,800 --> 00:38:36,920
Speaker 1: specimens because he doesn't know how significant this place is

692
00:38:36,960 --> 00:38:38,960
Speaker 1: going to be. And he got here by accident anyway,

693
00:38:39,040 --> 00:38:42,040
Speaker 1: didn't even expect to go here. Notices a few things,

694
00:38:42,280 --> 00:38:45,200
Speaker 1: but it's all the western fauna. It's all the same

695
00:38:45,320 --> 00:38:47,600
Speaker 1: kind of stuff you would see in Java, the same

696
00:38:47,680 --> 00:38:50,680
Speaker 1: kind of stuff you would see grouped with other animal

697
00:38:50,680 --> 00:38:54,000
Speaker 1: species generally in Asia. But then he moves on in

698
00:38:54,120 --> 00:38:57,359
Speaker 1: his ship to Lombach, and he notes by the way

699
00:38:57,800 --> 00:39:01,520
Speaker 1: that traversing the strait sometimes the weather or the chop

700
00:39:01,560 --> 00:39:05,560
Speaker 1: in the strait can be pretty rough. And there's a

701
00:39:05,600 --> 00:39:08,800
Speaker 1: story of him like pulling all of his things ashore

702
00:39:09,200 --> 00:39:12,319
Speaker 1: and you know, being very grateful to get all of

703
00:39:12,360 --> 00:39:15,040
Speaker 1: his specimens and bags and stuff on shore. And the

704
00:39:15,080 --> 00:39:17,400
Speaker 1: locals tell him, oh, it's good that you did. The

705
00:39:17,400 --> 00:39:19,839
Speaker 1: sea is hungry and it takes everything it can eat.

706
00:39:20,239 --> 00:39:22,440
Speaker 2: Oh the South Sea Queen grabs.

707
00:39:23,120 --> 00:39:25,880
Speaker 1: Yeah. So I was thinking of his loss of all

708
00:39:25,960 --> 00:39:30,160
Speaker 1: his previous stuff from the other boat. But yeah. So

709
00:39:30,200 --> 00:39:33,320
Speaker 1: he moves on to Lombach, and here he notes finding

710
00:39:33,400 --> 00:39:37,719
Speaker 1: bird species that are not like the bird species on

711
00:39:37,760 --> 00:39:40,080
Speaker 1: the other island. They are more similar to those found

712
00:39:40,160 --> 00:39:44,320
Speaker 1: in Australia and New Guinea. He writes quote The country

713
00:39:44,320 --> 00:39:47,320
Speaker 1: around was pretty and novel to me, consisting of abrupt

714
00:39:47,440 --> 00:39:51,800
Speaker 1: volcanic hills enclosing flat valleys or open plains. The hills

715
00:39:51,800 --> 00:39:54,840
Speaker 1: were covered with a dense scrubby bush of bamboos and

716
00:39:54,920 --> 00:39:58,480
Speaker 1: prickly trees and shrubs. The plains were adorned with hundreds

717
00:39:58,480 --> 00:40:01,400
Speaker 1: of noble palm trees, and in many places with a

718
00:40:01,480 --> 00:40:06,200
Speaker 1: luxuriant shrubby vegetation. Birds were plentiful and very interesting, and

719
00:40:06,280 --> 00:40:09,520
Speaker 1: I now saw for the first time many Australian forms

720
00:40:09,560 --> 00:40:13,280
Speaker 1: that are quite absent from the islands westward. Small white

721
00:40:13,400 --> 00:40:18,400
Speaker 1: cockatoos were abundant, and their loud screams, conspicuous white color,

722
00:40:18,680 --> 00:40:22,320
Speaker 1: and pretty yellow crests rendered them a very important feature

723
00:40:22,320 --> 00:40:25,400
Speaker 1: in the landscape. This is the most westerly point on

724
00:40:25,480 --> 00:40:28,000
Speaker 1: the globe where any of the family are to be found.

725
00:40:28,520 --> 00:40:32,279
Speaker 1: Some small honeysuckers of the genus to Lotus, and the

726
00:40:32,360 --> 00:40:37,759
Speaker 1: strange mound maker Megapodius Gouldieye are also here, first met

727
00:40:37,840 --> 00:40:42,879
Speaker 1: on the traveler's journey eastward. The megapodious birds, by the way,

728
00:40:42,920 --> 00:40:45,080
Speaker 1: these are these You may have read about these before

729
00:40:45,080 --> 00:40:49,239
Speaker 1: these mound builder birds that are native to Australia and

730
00:40:49,280 --> 00:40:53,680
Speaker 1: New Guinea, where they will build mounds. All he describes

731
00:40:53,719 --> 00:40:56,839
Speaker 1: actually in a passage, the locals telling him about how

732
00:40:56,840 --> 00:40:59,680
Speaker 1: they build mounds out of anything they can get, garbage

733
00:40:59,760 --> 00:41:02,200
Speaker 1: or whatever. And you know, the locals know what to

734
00:41:02,280 --> 00:41:04,759
Speaker 1: look for in one of these mounds to know when

735
00:41:04,840 --> 00:41:07,480
Speaker 1: there will be eggs in it that are good for snatching.

736
00:41:08,680 --> 00:41:10,880
Speaker 1: In fact, I'll just read a passage from Wallace. He says,

737
00:41:11,280 --> 00:41:13,320
Speaker 1: the mounds are to be met with here and there

738
00:41:13,320 --> 00:41:16,600
Speaker 1: in dense thickets, and are great puzzles to strangers who

739
00:41:16,640 --> 00:41:20,360
Speaker 1: cannot understand who can possibly have heaped together cartloads of

740
00:41:20,440 --> 00:41:23,759
Speaker 1: rubbish in such out of the way places. And when

741
00:41:23,760 --> 00:41:26,600
Speaker 1: they inquire of the natives, they are but little wiser,

742
00:41:26,680 --> 00:41:30,400
Speaker 1: for it almost always appears to them the wildest romance

743
00:41:30,440 --> 00:41:33,080
Speaker 1: to be told that it is done all by birds.

744
00:41:34,600 --> 00:41:36,759
Speaker 1: Excuse me that it is all done by birds, But

745
00:41:36,960 --> 00:41:40,759
Speaker 1: that does sound like the wildest romance. Now Here, I

746
00:41:40,760 --> 00:41:43,120
Speaker 1: want to come to the part where Wallace describes the

747
00:41:43,160 --> 00:41:46,600
Speaker 1: difficulties of the physical part of his work collecting and

748
00:41:46,680 --> 00:41:50,279
Speaker 1: preserving specimens. I've alluded to this several times, but this

749
00:41:50,760 --> 00:41:55,560
Speaker 1: passage really gripped me, so Wallace says quote. My collecting

750
00:41:55,600 --> 00:41:59,600
Speaker 1: operations here were carried on under more than usual difficulties.

751
00:42:00,239 --> 00:42:03,840
Speaker 1: One small room had to serve for eating, sleeping, and working,

752
00:42:04,120 --> 00:42:08,800
Speaker 1: for storehouse and dissecting room. In it were no shelves, cupboards, chairs,

753
00:42:08,880 --> 00:42:12,839
Speaker 1: or tables. Ants swarmed in nearly every part of it,

754
00:42:13,080 --> 00:42:18,480
Speaker 1: and dogs, cats and fowls entered it at pleasure. Besides this,

755
00:42:19,040 --> 00:42:21,880
Speaker 1: it was the parlor and reception room of my host,

756
00:42:21,920 --> 00:42:24,840
Speaker 1: and I was obliged to consult his convenience and that

757
00:42:24,960 --> 00:42:28,239
Speaker 1: of the numerous guests who visited us. My principal piece

758
00:42:28,239 --> 00:42:31,160
Speaker 1: of furniture was a box, which served me as a

759
00:42:31,200 --> 00:42:34,840
Speaker 1: dining table, a seat when skinning birds, and as the

760
00:42:34,960 --> 00:42:38,839
Speaker 1: receptacle of the birds when skinned and dried. To keep

761
00:42:38,880 --> 00:42:42,000
Speaker 1: them free from ants, we borrowed with some difficulty an

762
00:42:42,040 --> 00:42:45,040
Speaker 1: old bench, the four legs of which, being placed in

763
00:42:45,120 --> 00:42:49,680
Speaker 1: coconut shells filled with water, kept us tolerably free from

764
00:42:49,760 --> 00:42:53,320
Speaker 1: these pests. The box and the bench were, however, literally

765
00:42:53,360 --> 00:42:56,480
Speaker 1: the only places where anything could be put away, and

766
00:42:56,520 --> 00:43:00,080
Speaker 1: they were generally well occupied by two insect boxes and

767
00:43:00,120 --> 00:43:02,920
Speaker 1: about one hundred bird skins. In the process of drying

768
00:43:03,480 --> 00:43:06,800
Speaker 1: it may therefore be easily conceived that when anything bulky

769
00:43:07,000 --> 00:43:09,720
Speaker 1: or out of the common way was collected, the question

770
00:43:10,160 --> 00:43:12,840
Speaker 1: where is it to be put? Was rather a difficult

771
00:43:12,840 --> 00:43:17,160
Speaker 1: one to answer. All animal substances, moreover, require some time

772
00:43:17,239 --> 00:43:21,200
Speaker 1: to dry thoroughly, emit a very disagreeable odor while doing so,

773
00:43:21,600 --> 00:43:27,000
Speaker 1: and are particularly attractive to ants, flies, dogs, rats, cats,

774
00:43:27,080 --> 00:43:32,120
Speaker 1: and other vermin, calling for especial cautions and constant supervision,

775
00:43:32,280 --> 00:43:37,120
Speaker 1: which under the circumstances above described were impossible. Oh man,

776
00:43:37,160 --> 00:43:40,080
Speaker 1: I was getting so stressed to just reading that, trying

777
00:43:40,080 --> 00:43:42,719
Speaker 1: to think where to put the bird skin, where to

778
00:43:42,760 --> 00:43:46,239
Speaker 1: put the dead whatever I just found? Where can it go?

779
00:43:46,360 --> 00:43:48,160
Speaker 1: That it's not just going to be swarmed with ants?

780
00:43:48,200 --> 00:43:50,920
Speaker 1: And the whole time you've got ants everywhere, and it's

781
00:43:51,000 --> 00:43:53,520
Speaker 1: all stinking because you're skinning it and then hiding it

782
00:43:53,520 --> 00:43:55,279
Speaker 1: in a box that's the only other thing in the

783
00:43:55,360 --> 00:43:55,920
Speaker 1: room with you.

784
00:43:56,760 --> 00:44:00,520
Speaker 2: In all manner of scavengers are coming into peek in

785
00:44:00,600 --> 00:44:03,839
Speaker 2: and see what's going on with your dead animals. Yeah,

786
00:44:04,120 --> 00:44:09,200
Speaker 2: it seems like quite an experience, and also Wallace quite

787
00:44:09,239 --> 00:44:13,160
Speaker 2: a house guest to have a saying as well, Right.

788
00:44:14,000 --> 00:44:16,680
Speaker 1: I mean, one thing he notes in at least the

789
00:44:17,040 --> 00:44:19,760
Speaker 1: parts I was reading is he makes a special note

790
00:44:19,760 --> 00:44:23,200
Speaker 1: of the hospitality he encounters everywhere he goes. Seems like

791
00:44:23,520 --> 00:44:27,120
Speaker 1: he just keeps running into very nice, very helpful, accommodating people,

792
00:44:27,239 --> 00:44:29,480
Speaker 1: and he's like, I was received very you know, with

793
00:44:29,520 --> 00:44:34,040
Speaker 1: all this graciousness and all that. So I just get

794
00:44:34,040 --> 00:44:36,879
Speaker 1: the feeling from reading that he's a nice guest to have.

795
00:44:36,920 --> 00:44:40,120
Speaker 1: He's very appreciative, you know, very very polite. I think

796
00:44:40,400 --> 00:44:41,120
Speaker 1: probably at.

797
00:44:41,080 --> 00:44:44,200
Speaker 2: Least skins a lot of birds, collects a lot of beetles.

798
00:44:44,239 --> 00:44:47,560
Speaker 1: But a nice guy does stink up your house really

799
00:44:47,600 --> 00:44:51,879
Speaker 1: bad and they're already ants, but he probably attracts way

800
00:44:51,920 --> 00:44:56,160
Speaker 1: way more. Yes, this is actually something I almost always

801
00:44:56,200 --> 00:44:59,520
Speaker 1: find interesting in reading books about science history is just

802
00:44:59,560 --> 00:45:04,919
Speaker 1: the practical physical annoyances and problems with trying to do

803
00:45:05,160 --> 00:45:08,560
Speaker 1: the core work, the core physical work of your discipline,

804
00:45:08,840 --> 00:45:12,200
Speaker 1: whether that's collecting specimens and preparing them to be preserved

805
00:45:12,760 --> 00:45:16,000
Speaker 1: or doing experiments or whatever. You know, there are always

806
00:45:16,080 --> 00:45:18,920
Speaker 1: little like problems like this where it's like I can't

807
00:45:18,960 --> 00:45:21,160
Speaker 1: do it because this thing doesn't fit right, or I

808
00:45:21,200 --> 00:45:23,600
Speaker 1: don't have the kind of table I need, or you know,

809
00:45:23,680 --> 00:45:26,840
Speaker 1: or there's ants on everything. By the way, if you

810
00:45:27,560 --> 00:45:29,640
Speaker 1: work in any area of research out there, and you

811
00:45:29,680 --> 00:45:32,920
Speaker 1: want to write into the show about your experiences of

812
00:45:32,960 --> 00:45:35,520
Speaker 1: this kind, please do contact at stuff to Blow your

813
00:45:35,560 --> 00:45:37,720
Speaker 1: Mind dot com. I always find these things interesting.

814
00:45:37,920 --> 00:45:39,479
Speaker 2: Yeah, tell us about your field work.

815
00:45:39,680 --> 00:45:51,920
Speaker 1: What is your Wallace's Room full of ants?

816
00:45:52,680 --> 00:45:52,960
Speaker 2: All right?

817
00:45:53,000 --> 00:45:55,160
Speaker 1: Can I flag one more thing from this chapter by

818
00:45:55,200 --> 00:45:59,160
Speaker 1: Wallace about a boundary of sorts, but not a funal one.

819
00:45:59,680 --> 00:46:01,399
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I know what you're going to cover here.

820
00:46:01,440 --> 00:46:03,920
Speaker 2: And this is an interesting woman I was reading about

821
00:46:04,400 --> 00:46:05,359
Speaker 2: in my book as well.

822
00:46:05,640 --> 00:46:08,120
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay. So Wallace, by the way, he's about to

823
00:46:08,120 --> 00:46:11,160
Speaker 1: refer to somebody named Manuel. Manuel is one of his

824
00:46:11,239 --> 00:46:14,160
Speaker 1: local guides. So this is a guy he's been working

825
00:46:14,160 --> 00:46:17,880
Speaker 1: with and has good relations with. But he says aborneyan

826
00:46:18,000 --> 00:46:20,919
Speaker 1: Malay who had been for many years resident here, said

827
00:46:20,920 --> 00:46:24,200
Speaker 1: to Manuel, one thing is strange in this country the

828
00:46:24,280 --> 00:46:32,000
Speaker 1: scarcity of ghosts. Hmmm, how so asked Manuel. Why you know,

829
00:46:32,239 --> 00:46:35,560
Speaker 1: said the Malay that in our countries to the westward,

830
00:46:35,680 --> 00:46:38,480
Speaker 1: if a man dies or is killed, we dare not

831
00:46:38,719 --> 00:46:41,480
Speaker 1: pass near the place at night, for all sorts of

832
00:46:41,520 --> 00:46:44,840
Speaker 1: noises are heard which show that ghosts are about. But

833
00:46:45,000 --> 00:46:48,080
Speaker 1: here there are numbers of men killed and their bodies

834
00:46:48,160 --> 00:46:51,040
Speaker 1: lie unburied in the fields and by the roadside, and

835
00:46:51,120 --> 00:46:53,479
Speaker 1: yet you can walk by them at night and never

836
00:46:53,600 --> 00:46:56,480
Speaker 1: hear or see anything at all, which is not the

837
00:46:56,480 --> 00:46:59,720
Speaker 1: case in our country, as you know very well, certainly

838
00:46:59,760 --> 00:47:02,640
Speaker 1: I do, said Manuel. And so it was settled that

839
00:47:02,719 --> 00:47:06,640
Speaker 1: ghosts were very scarce, if not altogether unknown, in Lombach.

840
00:47:07,480 --> 00:47:09,759
Speaker 1: And then Wallace goes on to make a comment that

841
00:47:09,880 --> 00:47:13,960
Speaker 1: I didn't know how to take it first, but because

842
00:47:14,040 --> 00:47:17,240
Speaker 1: I initially read this as maybe some kind of dry humor.

843
00:47:17,640 --> 00:47:20,920
Speaker 1: But he follows this up by saying, I would observe, however,

844
00:47:21,080 --> 00:47:23,640
Speaker 1: that as the evidence is purely negative, we should be

845
00:47:23,680 --> 00:47:27,279
Speaker 1: wanting in scientific caution if we accepted this fact as

846
00:47:27,320 --> 00:47:31,600
Speaker 1: sufficiently well established. That sounded like a kind of humorous

847
00:47:31,680 --> 00:47:34,680
Speaker 1: understatement to me. But now, Rob, now that we've talked

848
00:47:34,719 --> 00:47:39,520
Speaker 1: about his interest in spiritualism, that assessment actually seems like

849
00:47:40,080 --> 00:47:44,359
Speaker 1: he is interested in he is maybe actually interested in

850
00:47:44,440 --> 00:47:47,920
Speaker 1: doing a scientific catalog of where ghosts exist, because he

851
00:47:48,040 --> 00:47:51,920
Speaker 1: views them as quite likely a real phenomenon and something

852
00:47:51,960 --> 00:47:56,400
Speaker 1: that can be scientifically documented. And he is being, you know,

853
00:47:56,480 --> 00:47:59,560
Speaker 1: somewhat skeptical in his methodology here. He's like, well, we

854
00:47:59,640 --> 00:48:02,640
Speaker 1: only have the negative evidence here, So we can't fully

855
00:48:02,680 --> 00:48:05,960
Speaker 1: say that this is this is a rule. But here's

856
00:48:05,960 --> 00:48:08,719
Speaker 1: somebody saying, you don't get ghosts in Lombac, you do

857
00:48:08,840 --> 00:48:09,640
Speaker 1: get them over here.

858
00:48:10,239 --> 00:48:12,800
Speaker 2: Yeah. This is a great point because, yeah, I think definitely,

859
00:48:12,840 --> 00:48:14,279
Speaker 2: at this point in his life he was at the

860
00:48:14,360 --> 00:48:18,719
Speaker 2: very least quite open to the idea that ghosts were real,

861
00:48:18,800 --> 00:48:22,760
Speaker 2: that there were some sort of spiritual essence out there. Yeah.

862
00:48:22,800 --> 00:48:25,879
Speaker 1: And the really interesting aspect of that belief, at least

863
00:48:25,880 --> 00:48:29,319
Speaker 1: to me, being the assumption that you could study this

864
00:48:29,400 --> 00:48:31,600
Speaker 1: phenomenon in a scientific way. I mean, I think a

865
00:48:31,680 --> 00:48:35,759
Speaker 1: lot of times you would have people who might be

866
00:48:36,239 --> 00:48:40,359
Speaker 1: scientists or naturalists or natural philosophers in this era who

867
00:48:40,719 --> 00:48:46,000
Speaker 1: have supernatural beliefs, but they don't approach the supernatural beliefs

868
00:48:46,080 --> 00:48:49,680
Speaker 1: as open to investigation the same way there are beliefs

869
00:48:49,680 --> 00:48:52,680
Speaker 1: about the you know, the forces governing the natural world are.

870
00:48:53,280 --> 00:48:56,520
Speaker 1: And Wallace seems to be saying like, no, yeah, we

871
00:48:56,560 --> 00:48:58,000
Speaker 1: could just we could study this.

872
00:48:58,520 --> 00:49:00,759
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I think we definitely have to look at

873
00:49:00,800 --> 00:49:03,080
Speaker 2: it within the context of the time too, a time

874
00:49:03,160 --> 00:49:07,400
Speaker 2: during which there's so many advancements are taking place, and Wallace,

875
00:49:08,120 --> 00:49:10,719
Speaker 2: along with Darwin and others are like right there on

876
00:49:10,760 --> 00:49:15,080
Speaker 2: the front lines pushing this this theory of what is

877
00:49:15,120 --> 00:49:17,840
Speaker 2: going to become known as the theory of evolution, the

878
00:49:17,840 --> 00:49:21,719
Speaker 2: theory of natural selection. And therefore, like there's probably this

879
00:49:22,640 --> 00:49:25,560
Speaker 2: spirit of we can figure it all out, and we

880
00:49:25,600 --> 00:49:27,319
Speaker 2: see this elsewhere as well, where people are like, yes,

881
00:49:27,360 --> 00:49:29,960
Speaker 2: we can, we can actually measure these things. We can

882
00:49:30,040 --> 00:49:32,600
Speaker 2: look and try and figure out what happens to consciousness

883
00:49:32,600 --> 00:49:37,360
Speaker 2: when life ends. And in Wallace's case in particular, we

884
00:49:38,280 --> 00:49:41,960
Speaker 2: know that he comes to see some sort of continuation

885
00:49:42,080 --> 00:49:46,879
Speaker 2: of the soul as being some special vibe, some sort

886
00:49:46,920 --> 00:49:50,040
Speaker 2: of higher intelligence, as being key to how evolution is working.

887
00:49:50,600 --> 00:49:52,960
Speaker 2: And therefore, you know, he just sees it as part

888
00:49:53,000 --> 00:49:55,320
Speaker 2: of the works, and therefore it's something that you surely

889
00:49:55,400 --> 00:49:58,600
Speaker 2: can prove out because we're proving out the other aspects

890
00:49:59,000 --> 00:50:02,400
Speaker 2: of how the natural world is working, and if ghosts

891
00:50:02,480 --> 00:50:04,640
Speaker 2: are part of it, if the spirit is part of it,

892
00:50:04,719 --> 00:50:06,880
Speaker 2: then he should be able to prove that as well.

893
00:50:07,360 --> 00:50:09,840
Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean, in a way, you could look at

894
00:50:09,880 --> 00:50:15,000
Speaker 1: an interest in spiritualism as a way of you know,

895
00:50:15,280 --> 00:50:18,240
Speaker 1: I think that none of the underlying phenomena were actually real,

896
00:50:18,360 --> 00:50:24,440
Speaker 1: but as an attempt to empirically interact with the spirit world, yeah,

897
00:50:24,560 --> 00:50:27,400
Speaker 1: as opposed to just like having beliefs about it, but

898
00:50:27,480 --> 00:50:31,160
Speaker 1: those beliefs being something that you know, you don't interface

899
00:50:31,239 --> 00:50:32,520
Speaker 1: with or interact with.

900
00:50:33,040 --> 00:50:36,360
Speaker 2: Right right now. At the same time, of course, obviously,

901
00:50:36,440 --> 00:50:39,640
Speaker 2: like entering in any kind of scientific enterprise with these

902
00:50:39,680 --> 00:50:42,200
Speaker 2: concepts in mind, you can end up putting blinders up

903
00:50:42,200 --> 00:50:46,120
Speaker 2: for yourself, and you can end up maybe engaging in

904
00:50:46,160 --> 00:50:50,040
Speaker 2: some of these questions without complete neutrality, right.

905
00:50:50,120 --> 00:50:51,680
Speaker 1: And I mean, of course, I think that is what

906
00:50:51,719 --> 00:50:54,080
Speaker 1: we actually see in a lot of attempts to you know,

907
00:50:54,120 --> 00:50:56,480
Speaker 1: get really into the subject. But I would say that

908
00:50:56,560 --> 00:51:00,360
Speaker 1: in principle, if there were spirits that made contact with

909
00:51:00,400 --> 00:51:02,960
Speaker 1: the living on a regular basis, that's something that you

910
00:51:03,360 --> 00:51:06,360
Speaker 1: could study. You know, it might be difficult to study

911
00:51:06,400 --> 00:51:09,200
Speaker 1: because it might be more like the study of psychology

912
00:51:09,320 --> 00:51:12,560
Speaker 1: or something than like the study of biology or nature,

913
00:51:13,120 --> 00:51:16,040
Speaker 1: but it could be something you could look into in

914
00:51:16,080 --> 00:51:17,120
Speaker 1: a systematic.

915
00:51:16,719 --> 00:51:20,200
Speaker 2: Way, right, right. And even the division of ghosts as well,

916
00:51:20,200 --> 00:51:22,839
Speaker 2: I mean, especially in a place like Indonesia. You know,

917
00:51:22,880 --> 00:51:26,400
Speaker 2: it ultimately speaks to other questions about the flow of

918
00:51:26,440 --> 00:51:29,480
Speaker 2: ideas and the flow of religious faiths, you know, in

919
00:51:29,560 --> 00:51:33,360
Speaker 2: a widespread and again, as we've stressed, very large spread

920
00:51:33,360 --> 00:51:37,160
Speaker 2: out country that has various cultures wound up in it,

921
00:51:37,320 --> 00:51:41,240
Speaker 2: various religious faiths, So that ultimately becomes the more interesting

922
00:51:41,320 --> 00:51:44,560
Speaker 2: question I think outside of Wallace's viewpoint, is well, why

923
00:51:44,560 --> 00:51:47,520
Speaker 2: would there be a tradition of ghosts here and not here?

924
00:51:47,600 --> 00:51:49,439
Speaker 2: What does that say about the people? Well?

925
00:51:49,560 --> 00:51:52,320
Speaker 1: Right, exactly. I mean, I think that's a fully legitimate

926
00:51:52,360 --> 00:51:54,920
Speaker 1: and fascinating question to look into, not the question of

927
00:51:55,000 --> 00:51:57,960
Speaker 1: are there literally ghosts here and not ghosts here? But like,

928
00:51:58,040 --> 00:52:00,759
Speaker 1: why do you get these different beliefs in tradition in

929
00:52:00,800 --> 00:52:03,440
Speaker 1: different cultures? You know? How does history feed into the

930
00:52:03,560 --> 00:52:04,520
Speaker 1: development that way?

931
00:52:04,920 --> 00:52:05,120
Speaker 3: Yeah?

932
00:52:05,320 --> 00:52:07,719
Speaker 1: Yeah, One thing I would note is that Wallace says that,

933
00:52:08,600 --> 00:52:11,879
Speaker 1: so he recounts this conversation where this guy who comes

934
00:52:11,920 --> 00:52:14,279
Speaker 1: from Borneo says, hey, yeah, we've got ghosts back home.

935
00:52:14,640 --> 00:52:18,200
Speaker 1: They don't have ghosts here. Wallace does know that the

936
00:52:18,200 --> 00:52:21,120
Speaker 1: people of Lombach did describe a belief to him that

937
00:52:21,760 --> 00:52:24,759
Speaker 1: some men had the power to transform into crocodiles in

938
00:52:24,840 --> 00:52:27,640
Speaker 1: order to eat their enemies. So that's pretty cool. Hmmm.

939
00:52:28,840 --> 00:52:30,239
Speaker 1: Seems different than a ghost though.

940
00:52:30,320 --> 00:52:33,440
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I'm not sure how crocodile transformation would like

941
00:52:33,480 --> 00:52:37,200
Speaker 2: how that ends up being interpreted by like European spiritualism

942
00:52:37,239 --> 00:52:40,160
Speaker 2: of the time. But that's still fascinating.

943
00:52:40,440 --> 00:52:43,280
Speaker 1: Oh, I can just imagine the kind of distinction made, like, oh,

944
00:52:43,360 --> 00:52:46,400
Speaker 1: you know, our spirits are very real and legitimate. Nobody

945
00:52:46,400 --> 00:52:49,400
Speaker 1: actually transforms into crocodiles. That's ridiculous.

946
00:52:50,760 --> 00:52:52,920
Speaker 2: All right, Well, we're gonna go ahead and close out

947
00:52:53,000 --> 00:52:54,640
Speaker 2: this episode of Stuff to Blow Your Mind right here,

948
00:52:54,640 --> 00:52:56,279
Speaker 2: but we'll be back for a part too. On the

949
00:52:56,280 --> 00:52:59,960
Speaker 2: Wallace line. We'll discuss the concept in more detail and

950
00:53:00,440 --> 00:53:02,719
Speaker 2: probably get into some specific examples too.

951
00:53:03,200 --> 00:53:05,399
Speaker 1: Right well, and in the next episode we'll go into

952
00:53:05,400 --> 00:53:08,960
Speaker 1: more detail about why it exists to the extent that

953
00:53:09,000 --> 00:53:12,120
Speaker 1: it does, as well as sort of updates to the concept,

954
00:53:12,440 --> 00:53:13,879
Speaker 1: like the idea of Wallacea.

955
00:53:14,400 --> 00:53:17,960
Speaker 2: Yeah. In the meantime, certainly, right in and tell us

956
00:53:17,960 --> 00:53:20,279
Speaker 2: all about your adventures in this part of the world

957
00:53:20,360 --> 00:53:23,399
Speaker 2: other parts of the world, and of course your your

958
00:53:23,440 --> 00:53:26,560
Speaker 2: field work researchers. Right in about your field work, we

959
00:53:26,600 --> 00:53:30,520
Speaker 2: would love to hear from you, as well as recommendations

960
00:53:30,600 --> 00:53:33,160
Speaker 2: for future episodes of Stuff to Blow Your Mind. We're

961
00:53:33,160 --> 00:53:35,960
Speaker 2: always we always have an ear open for good ideas.

962
00:53:36,520 --> 00:53:39,680
Speaker 1: That's right, What is your equivalent of Wallace's dissecting room

963
00:53:39,760 --> 00:53:43,239
Speaker 1: covered with every surface covered in ants, and what the

964
00:53:43,320 --> 00:53:47,200
Speaker 1: box full of bird skins and so forth emitting odors.

965
00:53:47,520 --> 00:53:49,520
Speaker 2: Yeah, maybe it's not your work, your work life even

966
00:53:49,520 --> 00:53:51,719
Speaker 2: maybe it's your personal life. Yeah, right in, we'd love

967
00:53:51,760 --> 00:53:53,839
Speaker 2: to hear from you, and just to remind it. Stuff

968
00:53:53,840 --> 00:53:56,400
Speaker 2: to Blow Your Mind is primarily a science and culture podcast,

969
00:53:56,440 --> 00:53:58,680
Speaker 2: with core episodes on Tuesdays and Thursdays, but on Fridays

970
00:53:58,719 --> 00:54:00,840
Speaker 2: we set aside most serious consers just talk about a

971
00:54:00,840 --> 00:54:02,680
Speaker 2: weird film on Weird House Cinema.

972
00:54:02,840 --> 00:54:06,320
Speaker 1: Huge things, as always to our excellent audio producer JJ Posway.

973
00:54:06,640 --> 00:54:08,239
Speaker 1: If you would like to get in touch with us

974
00:54:08,239 --> 00:54:10,560
Speaker 1: with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest

975
00:54:10,719 --> 00:54:12,759
Speaker 1: topic for the future, or just to say hello, you

976
00:54:12,760 --> 00:54:15,239
Speaker 1: can email us at contact at stuff to Blow your

977
00:54:15,280 --> 00:54:22,960
Speaker 1: Mind dot com.

978
00:54:23,080 --> 00:54:25,600
Speaker 2: Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of iHeartRadio.

979
00:54:25,920 --> 00:54:28,879
Speaker 1: For more podcasts my Heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app,

980
00:54:29,040 --> 00:54:46,640
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.