WEBVTT - The Wallace Line, Part 1 

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<v Speaker 1>Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind production of iHeartRadio.

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<v Speaker 2>Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My

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<v Speaker 2>name is Robert Lamb and.

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<v Speaker 1>I am Joe McCormick.

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<v Speaker 2>And as I mentioned in at least a couple of

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<v Speaker 2>previous episodes of the show. Over the summer of this year,

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<v Speaker 2>in twenty twenty five, my family traveled to Indonesia for

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<v Speaker 2>some snorkeling, and in learning all about the local environment

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<v Speaker 2>of Raja Ampat, the guides kept mentioning an individual by

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<v Speaker 2>the name of Alfred Russell Wallace, as well as the

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<v Speaker 2>faunal boundary named in his honor, the Wallace Line. In fact,

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<v Speaker 2>I would say that Wallace was invoked, one way or

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<v Speaker 2>another nearly as much as Darwin was invoked on my

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

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<v Speaker 2>the Wallas line I mentioned a lot in terms of

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<v Speaker 2>just describing what was happening in the natural world around

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<v Speaker 2>us and in Indonia at large.

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<v Speaker 1>That's a funny comparison, because, of course, if you know

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<v Speaker 1>one thing about Alfred Russell Wallace, it is probably that

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<v Speaker 1>he was the other guy to come up with a

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<v Speaker 1>version of the theory of evolution by natural selection around

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<v Speaker 1>the same time that Darwin did. Though Darwin tends to

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<v Speaker 1>get most of the credit, and I think in many

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<v Speaker 1>ways people understand Darwin to have articulated a more rigorous

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<v Speaker 1>form of it. Wallace essentially had the same idea around

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<v Speaker 1>the same time.

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<v Speaker 2>And to be clear that they knew each other, and

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<v Speaker 2>in fact, Alfred Russell Wallace greatly looked up to Charles

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<v Speaker 2>Darwin and they were on friendly terms their entire life,

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<v Speaker 2>even though they disagreed on some key issues here and there.

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<v Speaker 1>Yeah. Well, actually the version of the book that I

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<v Speaker 1>was reading, so it's Wallace's book the Malay Archipelago, or

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<v Speaker 1>where he's writing about his travels and observations in that

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<v Speaker 1>region of the world. The edition of that book that

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<v Speaker 1>I was reading is actually dedicated to Charles Darwin. Charles Darwin,

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<v Speaker 1>author of the Origin of Species. I dedicate this book

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<v Speaker 1>not only as a token of personal esteem and friendship,

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<v Speaker 1>but also to express my deep admiration for his genius

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<v Speaker 1>and his works. So it's elaborate. It seems like no

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<v Speaker 1>heart feelings.

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

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<v Speaker 2>they knew what each other were up to around the

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<v Speaker 2>same time, and in Wallace's work and Wallace's ideas kind

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<v Speaker 2>of poked Darwin and got him to sort of realize, oh,

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<v Speaker 2>I really need to push forward with on the Origin

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<v Speaker 2>of Species and maybe not focus on other projects at

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<v Speaker 2>this very.

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<v Speaker 1>Moment, stop collecting beatles, write the book.

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<v Speaker 2>Yes, so we'll be talking more about Alfred Russell Wallace

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

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<v Speaker 2>go ahead and throw out the short answer of what

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<v Speaker 2>this is and we'll get into it more later in

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<v Speaker 2>this episode and in the next episode. But basically, it

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<v Speaker 2>represents the place between the Indonesian islands of Bali and

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<v Speaker 2>Lombac where the Australian and Asian faunas separate. So it

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<v Speaker 2>separates the Indonesian archipelago between the parts influenced by Asian

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

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<v Speaker 2>tigers on one side, kangaroos, monitor lizards, and koalas on

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<v Speaker 2>the other.

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<v Speaker 1>Yes, exactly, with some caveats that we will discuss as

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<v Speaker 1>we move on throughout the series.

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<v Speaker 2>So let's talk a bit about Alfred Russell Wallace here.

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<v Speaker 2>You can look up images of the man illustrations and photographs,

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<v Speaker 2>who is, of course a nineteenth century naturalist, explorer, traveler,

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<v Speaker 2>academic writer, and totally look the part, you know, you know,

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

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<v Speaker 2>or you know, back at home in his study writing

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<v Speaker 2>about them.

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<v Speaker 1>I was almost going to say, if Darwin is Almond Joy,

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<v Speaker 1>Wallace looks like Mounds. He just looks like a kind

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<v Speaker 1>of like, I don't know, a less crunchy version of Darwin,

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<v Speaker 1>kind of a softer, smoother text here.

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<v Speaker 2>You get. You could definitely say that, and it holds

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<v Speaker 2>up in many ways, but in other ways, as we'll discuss,

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<v Speaker 2>Alfred Russell Wallace was kind of the Almond Joy to

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

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<v Speaker 2>lived eighteen twenty three through nineteen thirteen, so long lived

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<v Speaker 2>and fascinating individual. Multiple books have come out in recent

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<v Speaker 2>years about him, but the one that I was mainly

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<v Speaker 2>looking at is Radical by Nature, The Revolutionary Life of

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<v Speaker 2>Alfred Russell Wallace, and this is by James T. Costa,

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<v Speaker 2>came out in twenty twenty three, and as the author

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<v Speaker 2>points out, yeah he was like a lot of people,

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<v Speaker 2>he was a complicated individual, and there were certainly some

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<v Speaker 2>seeming contradictions in the way he made sense of the world,

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

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<v Speaker 2>So I'm going to break into a little bit of

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<v Speaker 2>his biography here. I'm not going to go in to

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<v Speaker 2>super detail, but I'm going to try and hit some

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<v Speaker 2>of I think maybe the key points to getting like

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<v Speaker 2>an overall understanding of who this guy was and some

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<v Speaker 2>of the more interesting aspects of his life, and certainly

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<v Speaker 2>those contradictions. So he was born to a middle class

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<v Speaker 2>Scotch English family. A family on his father's side claimed

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<v Speaker 2>to have an an ancestral connection to thirteenth century noted

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<v Speaker 2>individual William Wallace, the Brave Heart guy for those of

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<v Speaker 2>you relying on cinema for your history.

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<v Speaker 1>For fans of accurate history.

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<v Speaker 2>But yes, it claimed to be descended from William Wallace.

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

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<v Speaker 2>worked as a surveyor, but remained vitally interested in many

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<v Speaker 2>aspects of the world. So he was luckily was interested

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<v Speaker 2>in botany. He had all these other natural history pursuits

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<v Speaker 2>that he was leaning into and at the same time

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<v Speaker 2>he was also attending talks about socialism, about spiritualism. He

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<v Speaker 2>was also interested by mesmerism.

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<v Speaker 1>The practices of Franz Mesmer, also known as the theory

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<v Speaker 1>of animal magnetism, not given any credit today.

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<v Speaker 2>Yeah, yeah, definitely, but also gets into the sort of

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<v Speaker 2>the whole hypnosis sphere of things for sure. On top

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<v Speaker 2>of this, he taught, he lectured, and of course he read.

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<v Speaker 2>He was familiar with the writings of the time of

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<v Speaker 2>Alexander von Humboldt, of Charles Darwin and many others, and

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<v Speaker 2>in part due to their inspiration, he decided that he

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<v Speaker 2>too would go out and see the world as a

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<v Speaker 2>naturalist explorer.

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<v Speaker 1>That's right, because, of course Darwin became famous for his

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<v Speaker 1>writings about the Voyage of the be Goal, long before

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<v Speaker 1>he actually published on the origin of species, before he

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<v Speaker 1>had a theory of evolution, he just had his travelogue

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<v Speaker 1>of observations or going around the world on a ship

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<v Speaker 1>called the Beagle.

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<v Speaker 2>Yeah, so that seems very much be the blueprint that

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<v Speaker 2>Wallace has selected for his own life as well. And

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<v Speaker 2>so he departs on a journey to South America, particularly

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<v Speaker 2>focused on the Amazon, and he and his team they're

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<v Speaker 2>studying the peoples of these areas the natural history of

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<v Speaker 2>this region, and then on the return trip, their boat

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<v Speaker 2>catches fire and they're stuck in a life raft for

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<v Speaker 2>I believe ten days, and then eventually rescued. So he

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<v Speaker 2>apparently lost all of his notes in a misadventure, this

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<v Speaker 2>part of the adventure anyway, but he was still able

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<v Speaker 2>to write multiple papers about about it when he got

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<v Speaker 2>back to England. Also, I believe that a number of

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

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<v Speaker 2>so not everything was lost, but a lot was lost.

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<v Speaker 1>On that ship.

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<v Speaker 2>But he wasn't quite done with traveling and exploring, which

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<v Speaker 2>may come as a shock because I don't know. I

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<v Speaker 2>think a lot of us might think that once your

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<v Speaker 2>ship has burned and you've wound up in the lifeboat

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<v Speaker 2>for ten days, you might have had enough. But not

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<v Speaker 2>so for Wallace.

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<v Speaker 1>I'm going to read later in this episode from a

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<v Speaker 1>chapter in the Malay Archipelago where he's talking about his

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<v Speaker 1>experiences in Bali and Lombach. But he is not above

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<v Speaker 1>complaining about the hardships he faces on his journeys and

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<v Speaker 1>the difficulties he has in doing his work. But it

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<v Speaker 1>is still admirable about that he can just like face

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<v Speaker 1>that kind of thing and move right on.

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<v Speaker 2>Yeah, and in a way admirable that you can still

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<v Speaker 2>be irritated by the little stuff later on, you know,

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<v Speaker 2>after having wound up in the lifeboat for ten days,

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<v Speaker 2>to still be able to say, ah, this desk is

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<v Speaker 2>the worst.

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<v Speaker 1>We're gonna get some epic complaints about it's hard to

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<v Speaker 1>do science when everything is covered in ants.

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<v Speaker 3>Oh, good goodness, I bet that is true.

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<v Speaker 2>So anyway, he was not done traveling, and after he'd

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<v Speaker 2>gotten back, and you know, he published a bit about

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<v Speaker 2>his travels. He soon became fascinated with the Malay Archipelago

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<v Speaker 2>or the Indo Australian Archapelago, consisting of what is now

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<v Speaker 2>Indonesia and neighboring nations also known as the East Indies

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<v Speaker 2>at the time. His subsequent travels in this region lasted

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<v Speaker 2>from eighteen fifty four to eighteen sixty two, so eight years.

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<v Speaker 2>And during this time he and his hired team collected

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<v Speaker 2>thousands upon thousands of specimens to return home and go

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<v Speaker 2>to various museums and institutions. I read a BBC article

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<v Speaker 2>pointed out that the number here was something like one

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<v Speaker 2>hundred and twenty five six hundred and sixty natural history specimens,

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<v Speaker 2>including more than eighty three thousand beatles.

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<v Speaker 1>So the majority of it was beatles. Yeah, it's just

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<v Speaker 1>a lot of beetles, well over half. I mean.

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<v Speaker 2>Also, it seems like the beatles would be relatively easy

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<v Speaker 2>to send back. It's a lot easier to send back

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<v Speaker 2>a beatle as opposed to say, a Komodo drag.

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

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<v Speaker 1>it was so hard sometimes to send things back.

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<v Speaker 2>And of course he wrote about his travels as well,

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<v Speaker 2>and this is when he wrote the eighteen sixty nine

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<v Speaker 2>book The Malay Archipelago. This is the book you were

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<v Speaker 2>talking about earlier, a book that would go on to

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<v Speaker 2>become an international bestseller, describing all the islands he visited,

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<v Speaker 2>the sorts of natural and human elements on each, a

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<v Speaker 2>little bit of griping about the ants and the desks.

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<v Speaker 2>But this is a book that resonated with people, you know,

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<v Speaker 2>within his profession and within academia, but also outside of

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<v Speaker 2>those boundaries. It was just a book that a lot

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<v Speaker 2>of people read and it kind of made him a celebrity.

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<v Speaker 2>Like it cemented his status and also ensured that he

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<v Speaker 2>was able to keep going and keep writing later on,

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<v Speaker 2>certainly after a few economic setbacks that he encountered.

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<v Speaker 1>I found it captivating. There was while we were preparing

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<v Speaker 1>to record this episode, I started reading a couple of

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<v Speaker 1>chapters from this book, mainly because I was looking for

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<v Speaker 1>Wallace to describe a scientific theory that we're going to

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<v Speaker 1>get into, and I ended up not finding really any

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<v Speaker 1>sycinct place where he does describe this theory. But I

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<v Speaker 1>was just sucked into the writing because it's so interesting

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<v Speaker 1>and so good and in many ways reminds me of

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<v Speaker 1>his contemporary Darwin in that regard, who also I think,

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<v Speaker 1>and this of course doesn't diminish from the validity of

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<v Speaker 1>his theory. But also just like Darwin's books are a

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<v Speaker 1>great read, they're like, they're very well written, and I

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<v Speaker 1>would say Wallace is are.

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<v Speaker 2>Two yeah, yeah, yeah. The Malay Archipelago of Volumes one

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<v Speaker 2>and two, the subtitle here being The Land of the

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<v Speaker 2>Orangutan and the Bird of Paradise, a narrative of travel

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<v Speaker 2>with sketches of men and nature.

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<v Speaker 1>Oh well, Rob, since he mentions the orangutan in the title,

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<v Speaker 1>you should scroll down in the outline, because I included

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<v Speaker 1>a screen capture of the page opposite the title page

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<v Speaker 1>in the eighteen ninety edition I was reading, which has

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<v Speaker 1>an illustration of a brutal orangutan attack where the orangutan

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<v Speaker 1>is jumping on a guy and biting a chunk out

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<v Speaker 1>of his arm. Skeptical this happens that much in nature?

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

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<v Speaker 2>so weird that this was the second time today I've

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<v Speaker 2>had to think about the possibility of a killer orangutan. Because,

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<v Speaker 2>as many of you are aware, the actor Terrence Stamp died,

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<v Speaker 2>I believe over the weekend recently passed, and so there

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<v Speaker 2>was some some chatter here and there about his past movies,

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<v Speaker 2>and I was looking around and I realized he was

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<v Speaker 2>in a nineteen eighty six film called Link that is

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<v Speaker 2>about a super intelligent, malicious chimpanzee, but the chimpanzee is

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<v Speaker 2>played by an orangutan.

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<v Speaker 1>Oh okay, I thought you were going in a totally

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<v Speaker 1>different direction. I saw the headline that Terence Stamp had died,

0:12:35.200 --> 0:12:36.680
<v Speaker 1>which you know Neil before.

0:12:36.760 --> 0:12:37.000
<v Speaker 2>So odd.

0:12:37.960 --> 0:12:40.400
<v Speaker 1>And I don't mean any disrespect here, but I truly

0:12:40.440 --> 0:12:42.040
<v Speaker 1>thought you were going to say he died in an

0:12:42.040 --> 0:12:43.040
<v Speaker 1>orangutan attack.

0:12:43.280 --> 0:12:48.559
<v Speaker 2>No, no, no, but yeah, this this illustration from the

0:12:48.559 --> 0:12:50.800
<v Speaker 2>book definitely made me think of that. But it also

0:12:50.840 --> 0:12:53.160
<v Speaker 2>has a rather sweet image of an orangutan here, So.

0:12:53.280 --> 0:12:57.160
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, yeah, it's both. Yeah. But from what I understand

0:12:57.160 --> 0:12:59.800
<v Speaker 1>to Ragatan, it's not that they can't attack humans. I

0:12:59.800 --> 0:13:03.040
<v Speaker 1>think they're known generally to only do this when like

0:13:03.120 --> 0:13:05.960
<v Speaker 1>really threatened in some way. They're generally aggressive.

0:13:06.360 --> 0:13:10.200
<v Speaker 2>One thing we know from the interaction between humans and

0:13:10.320 --> 0:13:13.360
<v Speaker 2>animals is that if the animals can be provoked into

0:13:13.360 --> 0:13:16.080
<v Speaker 2>attacking humans, we will have done it at some point

0:13:16.200 --> 0:13:16.560
<v Speaker 2>or another.

0:13:17.000 --> 0:13:19.480
<v Speaker 1>Yeah. But though, of course, some animals are much easier

0:13:19.520 --> 0:13:22.160
<v Speaker 1>to provoke than others, and orangutans are not usually thought

0:13:22.200 --> 0:13:25.520
<v Speaker 1>to be on the super high end of provokability. However,

0:13:25.600 --> 0:13:26.800
<v Speaker 1>this illustration is sick.

0:13:26.920 --> 0:13:31.440
<v Speaker 2>I mean, yeah, bite some right in the arm. But yeah.

0:13:31.440 --> 0:13:33.920
<v Speaker 2>In this book, though, this is where he does get

0:13:33.960 --> 0:13:37.240
<v Speaker 2>in a bit into the idea of the Wallace line.

0:13:37.679 --> 0:13:39.760
<v Speaker 2>Now he didn't call it the Wallas line. I believe

0:13:40.240 --> 0:13:44.240
<v Speaker 2>Darwin's bulldog Thomas Henry Huxley called it that in his honor,

0:13:44.800 --> 0:13:46.800
<v Speaker 2>but he does get into the concept a little bit.

0:13:46.960 --> 0:13:52.800
<v Speaker 1>Huxley also proposed some modifications to Wallace's original placement of

0:13:52.840 --> 0:13:53.440
<v Speaker 1>the line.

0:13:53.960 --> 0:13:56.480
<v Speaker 2>Now we get into the details in a bit, but

0:13:56.520 --> 0:13:59.840
<v Speaker 2>basically the way that Costa describes it in his book

0:14:00.120 --> 0:14:03.880
<v Speaker 2>is it was the realization that there was there was

0:14:03.880 --> 0:14:09.079
<v Speaker 2>a growing realization quote, a growing awareness among naturalists that

0:14:09.360 --> 0:14:13.840
<v Speaker 2>anomalist patterns of distribution might provide unique insights into the

0:14:13.920 --> 0:14:19.880
<v Speaker 2>history of the planet geologically and climatologically. So so again,

0:14:19.920 --> 0:14:22.800
<v Speaker 2>this was this was happening with Wallace, but this was

0:14:22.800 --> 0:14:25.960
<v Speaker 2>happening in other parts of the world, with naturalists looking

0:14:26.040 --> 0:14:29.680
<v Speaker 2>at at distribution data and saying, well, this is interesting,

0:14:29.720 --> 0:14:32.200
<v Speaker 2>we have we have X going on here? Why going

0:14:32.240 --> 0:14:34.760
<v Speaker 2>on here? What does this tell us about how the

0:14:34.800 --> 0:14:37.800
<v Speaker 2>world works, About how species have moved around or been

0:14:37.880 --> 0:14:41.440
<v Speaker 2>moved around, about some of the barriers and potential barriers

0:14:41.480 --> 0:14:42.960
<v Speaker 2>to their movement and so forth.

0:14:43.200 --> 0:14:46.520
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, and about the abiotic history of the planet, like

0:14:46.560 --> 0:14:49.440
<v Speaker 1>the fact that the distribution of animals as you find

0:14:49.480 --> 0:14:52.920
<v Speaker 1>them today can tell you things about the history of

0:14:53.080 --> 0:14:57.080
<v Speaker 1>climate change on the planet, about ice ages and sea levels,

0:14:57.480 --> 0:15:02.360
<v Speaker 1>and even about underlying geologic activity such as plate tectonics,

0:15:02.400 --> 0:15:04.640
<v Speaker 1>which would not be you know, fully accepted as a

0:15:04.680 --> 0:15:08.280
<v Speaker 1>theory I think until nineteen sixties or so much much later.

0:15:08.720 --> 0:15:12.520
<v Speaker 2>So we mentioned the fact that he independently came up

0:15:12.560 --> 0:15:15.280
<v Speaker 2>with the concept of evolution by natural selection around the

0:15:15.280 --> 0:15:18.360
<v Speaker 2>same time as Darwin, and then Darwin kind of pushes

0:15:18.400 --> 0:15:22.640
<v Speaker 2>ahead and gets on the origin of species out in

0:15:22.760 --> 0:15:25.920
<v Speaker 2>some ways. Wallace was also an early environmentalist and his

0:15:26.040 --> 0:15:29.800
<v Speaker 2>voice concern over humanity's impact on the planet, and he

0:15:30.760 --> 0:15:33.560
<v Speaker 2>also engaged in a number of social activism causes during

0:15:33.600 --> 0:15:39.360
<v Speaker 2>his life, including women's suffrage, land nationalization, and various sort

0:15:39.360 --> 0:15:45.320
<v Speaker 2>of pacifist and anti militarism causes. But in an area

0:15:45.360 --> 0:15:48.960
<v Speaker 2>that might seem rather contradictory to all of these scientific pursuits,

0:15:49.200 --> 0:15:52.640
<v Speaker 2>he was also a spiritualist, and not just one in

0:15:52.680 --> 0:15:57.600
<v Speaker 2>his non academic life, not just like okay, academic scientific academic,

0:15:57.640 --> 0:16:00.320
<v Speaker 2>a naturalist by day and a spiritualist by night. No,

0:16:00.440 --> 0:16:03.160
<v Speaker 2>he actively wrote on it and attempted to defend it

0:16:03.200 --> 0:16:04.440
<v Speaker 2>in academic writings.

0:16:04.880 --> 0:16:08.960
<v Speaker 1>Now, to clarify, in the context of these nineteenth century movements,

0:16:08.960 --> 0:16:11.840
<v Speaker 1>when we say a spiritualist, that doesn't mean the same

0:16:11.880 --> 0:16:14.720
<v Speaker 1>thing as like somebody who would say, oh I'm spiritual today,

0:16:14.800 --> 0:16:18.560
<v Speaker 1>that would this means something more specific about like beliefs

0:16:18.560 --> 0:16:21.280
<v Speaker 1>that you could contact the dead, or that you could

0:16:21.640 --> 0:16:25.640
<v Speaker 1>that living persons could have communication with spirits or other

0:16:25.720 --> 0:16:27.600
<v Speaker 1>beings other than living humans.

0:16:27.800 --> 0:16:32.000
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, we're talking about specifically here. We're talking about the

0:16:32.200 --> 0:16:34.360
<v Speaker 2>sort of spiritualists that you would go to and there'd

0:16:34.360 --> 0:16:37.680
<v Speaker 2>be a seance or there would you know, offer generally

0:16:37.720 --> 0:16:40.120
<v Speaker 2>for money to help you connect with the spirits of

0:16:40.160 --> 0:16:42.960
<v Speaker 2>the dead. The kind of people that Houdini did not like,

0:16:44.480 --> 0:16:46.920
<v Speaker 2>the kind of people. If you watch The Gilded Age

0:16:46.920 --> 0:16:50.760
<v Speaker 2>on television, the most recent season has included this element

0:16:50.760 --> 0:16:51.360
<v Speaker 2>in its plot.

0:16:51.800 --> 0:16:54.160
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, it's come up on the show before that. Actually,

0:16:54.200 --> 0:16:59.640
<v Speaker 1>a surprising number of people from history in nineteenth century

0:16:59.720 --> 0:17:03.320
<v Speaker 1>you're in America, people who are in many ways kind

0:17:03.360 --> 0:17:06.880
<v Speaker 1>of admirable for their time, really got into spiritualism, really

0:17:06.920 --> 0:17:08.440
<v Speaker 1>thought you could talk to the dead.

0:17:08.560 --> 0:17:11.119
<v Speaker 2>Or other Conan Doyle is a prime example of this.

0:17:11.480 --> 0:17:15.439
<v Speaker 2>I really got into it late in life. So you know,

0:17:15.560 --> 0:17:17.840
<v Speaker 2>it's it's one of those one of those things where

0:17:18.200 --> 0:17:20.680
<v Speaker 2>there are multiple pieces to it. As I think we've

0:17:20.680 --> 0:17:23.879
<v Speaker 2>probably discussed on the past. On one level, you do

0:17:23.960 --> 0:17:27.479
<v Speaker 2>have people actively selling you this stuff, and on the

0:17:27.520 --> 0:17:32.359
<v Speaker 2>other you have a genuine desire on the part of

0:17:32.400 --> 0:17:36.240
<v Speaker 2>the bereave to connect with the people they miss, and

0:17:36.920 --> 0:17:39.639
<v Speaker 2>you know, there's in a perfect world, there's probably a

0:17:39.640 --> 0:17:42.560
<v Speaker 2>balance there between the two where no one's exploited and

0:17:42.600 --> 0:17:45.360
<v Speaker 2>everyone's life is made a little easier. But we don't

0:17:45.359 --> 0:17:48.160
<v Speaker 2>live in such a world, and so things will often

0:17:48.280 --> 0:17:51.080
<v Speaker 2>lean in the wrong direction there. But again, not just

0:17:51.119 --> 0:17:53.480
<v Speaker 2>a naturalist by day and a spiritualist by night, Like

0:17:53.520 --> 0:17:56.399
<v Speaker 2>I say, he wrote papers where he defended spiritualism and

0:17:56.440 --> 0:17:56.920
<v Speaker 2>so forth.

0:17:57.160 --> 0:17:57.520
<v Speaker 1>Yeah.

0:17:57.640 --> 0:18:02.520
<v Speaker 2>Now, on the other hand, he opposed flat earth pseudoscience

0:18:02.560 --> 0:18:05.760
<v Speaker 2>of the day and wrote against that, and then going

0:18:05.800 --> 0:18:07.959
<v Speaker 2>back to the other side of things, he did involve

0:18:08.040 --> 0:18:11.880
<v Speaker 2>himself in anti vaccination efforts of the day. This would

0:18:11.880 --> 0:18:14.960
<v Speaker 2>have been, I believe measles the vaccine that he was

0:18:14.960 --> 0:18:17.280
<v Speaker 2>opposed to. But in his opposition seems to have been

0:18:17.280 --> 0:18:19.840
<v Speaker 2>a mix of like sort of personal choice, like I

0:18:19.840 --> 0:18:22.760
<v Speaker 2>don't want to take it that. You know, we see

0:18:23.040 --> 0:18:26.639
<v Speaker 2>similar attitudes today. But also it seemed to factor into

0:18:26.680 --> 0:18:30.560
<v Speaker 2>his view that like nature was perfectly balanced already and

0:18:30.600 --> 0:18:33.120
<v Speaker 2>therefore there was no reason to tip the scales as

0:18:33.119 --> 0:18:35.480
<v Speaker 2>far as diseases go. I don't know. I would say

0:18:35.480 --> 0:18:37.400
<v Speaker 2>that the counter argument to that is that as far

0:18:37.440 --> 0:18:40.800
<v Speaker 2>as diseases and humanity go, that everything is already out

0:18:40.840 --> 0:18:44.080
<v Speaker 2>of balance, and therefore you need the vaccines in place.

0:18:44.359 --> 0:18:46.560
<v Speaker 1>Well yeah, I mean a lot of the times people

0:18:47.000 --> 0:18:51.119
<v Speaker 1>prefer one course of action over another because it's more natural.

0:18:51.240 --> 0:18:54.160
<v Speaker 1>It just kind of reflects a vague and not very

0:18:54.160 --> 0:18:57.800
<v Speaker 1>well thought out understanding of what the concept natural really means.

0:18:57.840 --> 0:18:59.280
<v Speaker 1>I mean, there are a lot of things that just

0:18:59.600 --> 0:19:02.760
<v Speaker 1>kind of seem natural to you, but then you investigate

0:19:02.800 --> 0:19:05.480
<v Speaker 1>them and realize they're actually very much the product of

0:19:05.720 --> 0:19:07.800
<v Speaker 1>human intervention in some way.

0:19:08.000 --> 0:19:10.479
<v Speaker 2>Well, his distinction is natural. It doesn't mean I want

0:19:10.480 --> 0:19:11.160
<v Speaker 2>for myself.

0:19:11.280 --> 0:19:13.840
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, it is natural to just like all get disease

0:19:13.880 --> 0:19:15.760
<v Speaker 1>and die. Sure, I mean is that good?

0:19:18.080 --> 0:19:20.840
<v Speaker 2>So yeah, he was. He was an interesting guy in this.

0:19:21.280 --> 0:19:24.480
<v Speaker 2>His spiritualism especially did put him in odds with many

0:19:24.480 --> 0:19:27.439
<v Speaker 2>of his fellow scientists, and even when it came to

0:19:28.640 --> 0:19:33.560
<v Speaker 2>evolution binatural selection, he argued for a kind of evolution

0:19:34.040 --> 0:19:38.399
<v Speaker 2>driven by the divine, essentially that animals evolved via natural

0:19:38.440 --> 0:19:41.920
<v Speaker 2>selection and humans did to a point, and then some

0:19:41.960 --> 0:19:46.320
<v Speaker 2>other force takes over something, something divine. He didn't actually

0:19:46.359 --> 0:19:50.119
<v Speaker 2>call it a creator, because interestingly enough, he himself was

0:19:50.160 --> 0:19:54.000
<v Speaker 2>a religious skeptic, so he at different times self identified

0:19:54.040 --> 0:19:57.399
<v Speaker 2>as agnostic or just a non religious person, and so

0:19:57.680 --> 0:20:00.720
<v Speaker 2>he referred to this as an overruling intelligence.

0:20:01.560 --> 0:20:04.600
<v Speaker 1>It's interesting how if you go back just to you know,

0:20:04.640 --> 0:20:06.439
<v Speaker 1>one hundred years or so, you get a lot of

0:20:06.720 --> 0:20:10.560
<v Speaker 1>fine distinctions in religious beliefs that where the distinctions don't

0:20:10.600 --> 0:20:12.520
<v Speaker 1>make a lot of sense to people today, but they

0:20:12.800 --> 0:20:14.400
<v Speaker 1>you know, they made sense to people at the time.

0:20:14.840 --> 0:20:18.760
<v Speaker 2>Yeah. Yeah, he was a firm believer that he thought

0:20:18.760 --> 0:20:23.200
<v Speaker 2>without this overruling intelligence becoming involved, there's no way that

0:20:23.680 --> 0:20:26.880
<v Speaker 2>the human brain, or human speech organs, or even our

0:20:26.920 --> 0:20:31.199
<v Speaker 2>hands or our bipedal posture could have possibly evolved. Like

0:20:31.240 --> 0:20:33.600
<v Speaker 2>there had to be some other force, you know, like

0:20:33.640 --> 0:20:39.320
<v Speaker 2>a monolith getting involved in our advancement. Yeah, and you

0:20:39.359 --> 0:20:40.920
<v Speaker 2>know that's kind of a sticky idea. That's why we

0:20:40.960 --> 0:20:42.920
<v Speaker 2>see it all over our science fiction, right Yeah.

0:20:43.000 --> 0:20:45.080
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, and you know it's still a common idea. I mean,

0:20:45.080 --> 0:20:49.000
<v Speaker 1>this is formally argued by creationists today, but I mean

0:20:49.040 --> 0:20:52.560
<v Speaker 1>it's still it's naturally appealing to look at something very

0:20:52.600 --> 0:20:56.919
<v Speaker 1>complex and think, well, that couldn't have just happened. Of course,

0:20:57.160 --> 0:20:59.679
<v Speaker 1>I think that the leap that you're not able to

0:20:59.680 --> 0:21:02.560
<v Speaker 1>make is that it happened gradually and by degrees.

0:21:03.440 --> 0:21:06.320
<v Speaker 2>Yeah. Yeah, And you know, I often think about this.

0:21:06.440 --> 0:21:09.760
<v Speaker 2>I think that, okay, you know, a much softened version

0:21:09.800 --> 0:21:13.480
<v Speaker 2>of this is is maybe quite reasonable, in a quite

0:21:13.520 --> 0:21:16.680
<v Speaker 2>reasonable way to balance science and religious faith. You know, say, well, okay,

0:21:16.680 --> 0:21:20.000
<v Speaker 2>evolution by natural selection is the method by which the

0:21:20.080 --> 0:21:22.960
<v Speaker 2>divine creates life? And why not because it seems like

0:21:23.040 --> 0:21:26.000
<v Speaker 2>the very sort of elaborate, long term method that an

0:21:26.080 --> 0:21:29.800
<v Speaker 2>eternal and all powerful entity unconstrained by time might very

0:21:29.840 --> 0:21:30.440
<v Speaker 2>well employ.

0:21:30.880 --> 0:21:32.880
<v Speaker 1>Sure, I mean, I think that's what millions of people

0:21:32.920 --> 0:21:35.000
<v Speaker 1>believe today. Yeah, nothing wrong with that.

0:21:35.600 --> 0:21:37.679
<v Speaker 2>Yeah. On the other hand, it is worth stressing that

0:21:37.720 --> 0:21:40.119
<v Speaker 2>when you get into the particulars of this sort of stance,

0:21:40.160 --> 0:21:45.000
<v Speaker 2>saying well, okay, everything evolves, but then humans evolve differently,

0:21:45.080 --> 0:21:48.679
<v Speaker 2>human brains are different because of some divine force, you

0:21:48.680 --> 0:21:52.200
<v Speaker 2>can get into some really nasty and even racist views

0:21:52.240 --> 0:21:55.560
<v Speaker 2>on human evolution by deciding just where and how you

0:21:55.640 --> 0:21:57.040
<v Speaker 2>want to deploy this theory.

0:21:57.200 --> 0:22:00.439
<v Speaker 1>Ah, yeah, okay, So appealing to supernatural force is to

0:22:00.640 --> 0:22:04.959
<v Speaker 1>inject a certain specialness into you know, certain you know,

0:22:05.280 --> 0:22:08.880
<v Speaker 1>animals on Earth, and certainly there's nothing that prevents somebody

0:22:08.880 --> 0:22:11.800
<v Speaker 1>from thinking that some humans are more special than others.

0:22:11.800 --> 0:22:14.480
<v Speaker 2>Right, right, So I'm not saying that was Wallace's whole deal,

0:22:14.560 --> 0:22:16.560
<v Speaker 2>but those are kind of those are the waters you

0:22:16.560 --> 0:22:20.400
<v Speaker 2>can easily creep into by pursuing this line of thinking. Yeah. Now,

0:22:20.680 --> 0:22:23.200
<v Speaker 2>with Wallace, it certainly put him in odds with many

0:22:23.200 --> 0:22:28.360
<v Speaker 2>of his fellow scientists, including Charles Darwin himself, who who

0:22:28.480 --> 0:22:31.919
<v Speaker 2>worried that Wallace was hurting their cause by adding this

0:22:32.040 --> 0:22:35.600
<v Speaker 2>caveat to his own take on natural selection, and according

0:22:35.680 --> 0:22:38.040
<v Speaker 2>to Tacosta, even wrote to him and said, quote, I

0:22:38.080 --> 0:22:40.879
<v Speaker 2>hope you have not murdered too completely your own and

0:22:40.960 --> 0:22:45.800
<v Speaker 2>my child, referring to the theory of natural selection. Again, these

0:22:45.800 --> 0:22:51.720
<v Speaker 2>two were friends, and Wallace, you know, continued to respect

0:22:51.760 --> 0:22:56.360
<v Speaker 2>Darwin the rest of his life. But yeah, Darwin rather

0:22:56.440 --> 0:22:59.560
<v Speaker 2>bluntly saying I really wish you hadn't put it like that,

0:23:00.000 --> 0:23:02.400
<v Speaker 2>you know, trying to get this theory of natural selection

0:23:02.520 --> 0:23:05.040
<v Speaker 2>out the door and accepted at this point, and you're

0:23:05.080 --> 0:23:08.439
<v Speaker 2>perhaps muddying the waters by coming in with this, you know,

0:23:08.480 --> 0:23:10.680
<v Speaker 2>your unique spiritualist take on everything.

0:23:11.440 --> 0:23:13.800
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, though, I guess one thing that's supposed to be

0:23:13.840 --> 0:23:15.800
<v Speaker 1>good about being friends is that you can be frank

0:23:15.880 --> 0:23:16.359
<v Speaker 1>with each other.

0:23:16.440 --> 0:23:19.879
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, you know, but yeah, Wall this seems to have

0:23:19.920 --> 0:23:21.560
<v Speaker 2>been a guy who you know, had, as I think

0:23:21.640 --> 0:23:23.760
<v Speaker 2>Costa puts it, at one point, he had a lot

0:23:23.840 --> 0:23:26.480
<v Speaker 2>of adventures and a lot of opinions in his life.

0:23:27.160 --> 0:23:29.879
<v Speaker 2>He was real quick to weigh in on things, and

0:23:30.040 --> 0:23:33.240
<v Speaker 2>well into his eighties he was still doing this, you know, still,

0:23:33.320 --> 0:23:34.760
<v Speaker 2>I mean, I think until the end of his life

0:23:34.760 --> 0:23:38.320
<v Speaker 2>pretty much, you know, constantly writing letters, writing his own

0:23:38.320 --> 0:23:41.880
<v Speaker 2>take on different topics, and in fact, in nineteen oh

0:23:41.960 --> 0:23:45.680
<v Speaker 2>four he put out the book Man's Place in the Universe,

0:23:46.240 --> 0:23:50.520
<v Speaker 2>and in that he takes his own serious look at

0:23:50.520 --> 0:23:54.399
<v Speaker 2>the idea of life on other planets, especially Mars, because this,

0:23:54.440 --> 0:23:56.679
<v Speaker 2>of course is the time when we have the whole

0:23:56.880 --> 0:24:02.320
<v Speaker 2>Canals of Mars idea out there in everyone's minds, you know,

0:24:02.640 --> 0:24:04.520
<v Speaker 2>the idea that we've seen things on Mars and what

0:24:04.640 --> 0:24:07.160
<v Speaker 2>of their canals, and we get this built up idea

0:24:07.320 --> 0:24:10.480
<v Speaker 2>of their people of some sort on Mars and they're

0:24:10.480 --> 0:24:12.919
<v Speaker 2>a dying race and they're having to build these canals

0:24:12.960 --> 0:24:15.359
<v Speaker 2>and so forth. It really captivated everyone's imagination.

0:24:15.680 --> 0:24:18.680
<v Speaker 1>We've talked about that at some length on episodes in

0:24:18.720 --> 0:24:22.800
<v Speaker 1>the past, and now I don't remember which ones did

0:24:22.880 --> 0:24:25.720
<v Speaker 1>that possibly come up in our discussion of the ashen

0:24:25.840 --> 0:24:30.160
<v Speaker 1>light of Venus. It might have, Yes, that's my best guess.

0:24:30.600 --> 0:24:32.560
<v Speaker 1>So this was a nineteen oh four book and I

0:24:32.560 --> 0:24:35.320
<v Speaker 1>have not read it, But Costa gives his own breakdown

0:24:35.480 --> 0:24:38.600
<v Speaker 1>of it and points out that, okay, he's basically opposing

0:24:38.640 --> 0:24:41.080
<v Speaker 1>the idea of life on Mars on two levels. On

0:24:41.080 --> 0:24:46.280
<v Speaker 1>one level, he is making a very logic based counter argument.

0:24:46.720 --> 0:24:49.920
<v Speaker 1>He himself was an astronomer and pointing out things about

0:24:49.920 --> 0:24:50.760
<v Speaker 1>what was known.

0:24:50.560 --> 0:24:54.080
<v Speaker 2>About Mars versus Earth at the time. He just did

0:24:54.080 --> 0:24:56.600
<v Speaker 2>not think it was likely that this was true, and

0:24:56.640 --> 0:24:59.600
<v Speaker 2>of course, as we would find out very shortly thereafter,

0:24:59.640 --> 0:25:02.720
<v Speaker 2>it was and true. But as Costa points out, it

0:25:02.760 --> 0:25:06.159
<v Speaker 2>also ran opposite to his belief that humans had a

0:25:06.240 --> 0:25:09.760
<v Speaker 2>privileged place in the cosmos, that we were the end

0:25:09.800 --> 0:25:13.720
<v Speaker 2>result of not only earthly processes but also cosmic processes

0:25:13.760 --> 0:25:17.119
<v Speaker 2>as well. This getting into the whole idea of humans

0:25:17.280 --> 0:25:20.720
<v Speaker 2>were special because some sort of force beyond us had

0:25:20.760 --> 0:25:24.040
<v Speaker 2>pushed us into these like upper levels of evolution that

0:25:24.080 --> 0:25:28.439
<v Speaker 2>were denied to you know, or other organic life forms

0:25:28.440 --> 0:25:28.879
<v Speaker 2>on Earth.

0:25:29.119 --> 0:25:32.479
<v Speaker 1>So the overruling intelligence of Wallace's view of the universe

0:25:32.480 --> 0:25:34.680
<v Speaker 1>would not have allowed life on Mars.

0:25:34.560 --> 0:25:36.800
<v Speaker 2>Right, right, The whole idea is that we're alone and

0:25:36.800 --> 0:25:39.200
<v Speaker 2>we're special. If the if, if we've got life next

0:25:39.200 --> 0:25:42.760
<v Speaker 2>door as well, then that just destroys the whole argument.

0:25:42.880 --> 0:25:45.600
<v Speaker 2>So that seems like it might have also been there,

0:25:46.240 --> 0:25:49.560
<v Speaker 2>you know, pushing his his criticism of this idea. Though

0:25:49.800 --> 0:25:53.120
<v Speaker 2>to be clear, this book, he's also apparently very polite

0:25:53.560 --> 0:26:00.720
<v Speaker 2>in his takedown of the Martian canal hypotheses because he

0:26:01.000 --> 0:26:03.360
<v Speaker 2>you know, he's ultimately you know, friends or at least

0:26:03.400 --> 0:26:06.120
<v Speaker 2>correspondence with everyone that's talking about it at the time.

0:26:06.480 --> 0:26:09.600
<v Speaker 1>Well, I'm sorry if I misunderstood. Did he also have

0:26:10.240 --> 0:26:13.679
<v Speaker 1>like observation based or empirical reasons for doubting canals on

0:26:13.720 --> 0:26:14.159
<v Speaker 1>Mars or.

0:26:15.280 --> 0:26:18.440
<v Speaker 2>It wasn't just based in his worldview, But no doubt

0:26:18.480 --> 0:26:21.720
<v Speaker 2>that worldview was also pushing him to make all of

0:26:21.760 --> 0:26:22.639
<v Speaker 2>these arguments. You know.

0:26:22.960 --> 0:26:25.879
<v Speaker 1>Okay, so he was right, but for some of the

0:26:25.960 --> 0:26:27.560
<v Speaker 1>right and some of the wrong reasons.

0:26:28.000 --> 0:26:30.120
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, that seems to be the take on it. But again,

0:26:30.160 --> 0:26:42.480
<v Speaker 2>I haven't actually read the book in question, So again

0:26:42.520 --> 0:26:44.560
<v Speaker 2>that's just a brief overview of the of the the

0:26:44.600 --> 0:26:47.520
<v Speaker 2>man here. I think it highlights some of the inherent

0:26:47.600 --> 0:26:50.760
<v Speaker 2>contradictions that are present there, that ultimately are going to

0:26:50.800 --> 0:26:52.920
<v Speaker 2>be present in anybody. But maybe you're a little more

0:26:53.359 --> 0:26:56.800
<v Speaker 2>expressed in the biography of Alfred Russell Wallace.

0:26:57.000 --> 0:27:01.600
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, very interesting character. And so I guess now should

0:27:01.600 --> 0:27:04.400
<v Speaker 1>we move on to talking a bit about the Wallace

0:27:04.480 --> 0:27:06.639
<v Speaker 1>line at least what the concept is, and then I

0:27:06.640 --> 0:27:09.560
<v Speaker 1>think maybe in part two we'll get into some more

0:27:09.600 --> 0:27:12.199
<v Speaker 1>depth about it, nuances that have been added to it

0:27:12.560 --> 0:27:15.240
<v Speaker 1>since the time of Wallace. Yeah, all right, So we

0:27:15.320 --> 0:27:18.480
<v Speaker 1>alluded to this earlier, but to recenter us here. In

0:27:18.520 --> 0:27:21.639
<v Speaker 1>addition to independently discovering a version of the theory of

0:27:21.680 --> 0:27:24.920
<v Speaker 1>evolution by natural selection again around the same time Darwin did,

0:27:25.320 --> 0:27:29.639
<v Speaker 1>Alfred Russell Wallace is also widely considered the founder of

0:27:29.720 --> 0:27:34.960
<v Speaker 1>a field now known as biogeography, the study of how

0:27:35.240 --> 0:27:38.480
<v Speaker 1>life is distributed over the surface of the Earth. Another

0:27:38.520 --> 0:27:41.160
<v Speaker 1>way to put it is what lives where and why.

0:27:42.000 --> 0:27:45.280
<v Speaker 1>By the way, you mentioned him earlier, but another important

0:27:45.480 --> 0:27:48.680
<v Speaker 1>contributor to the early study of biogeography was the pre

0:27:48.840 --> 0:27:53.600
<v Speaker 1>Darwinian German naturalist Alexander von Humboldt. Very interesting figure who

0:27:53.600 --> 0:27:55.480
<v Speaker 1>we've talked about a good bit on the show before.

0:27:55.560 --> 0:28:00.359
<v Speaker 1>I think one of the main contexts was a summer

0:28:00.359 --> 0:28:02.280
<v Speaker 1>reading episode we did years ago where I was talking

0:28:02.320 --> 0:28:05.320
<v Speaker 1>about a great biography of him by Andrea Wolfe called

0:28:05.720 --> 0:28:09.879
<v Speaker 1>The Invention of Nature. Von Humboldt was important in helping

0:28:09.880 --> 0:28:13.680
<v Speaker 1>to move the burgeoning natural sciences of the nineteenth century

0:28:14.680 --> 0:28:18.440
<v Speaker 1>away from this long held Western view of nature as

0:28:18.440 --> 0:28:22.800
<v Speaker 1>a fixed order of discrete entities with eternal roles defined

0:28:22.840 --> 0:28:26.560
<v Speaker 1>by providence, and to replace that with a view of

0:28:26.680 --> 0:28:31.600
<v Speaker 1>nature as a complex and changeable web of relationships, these

0:28:31.720 --> 0:28:37.080
<v Speaker 1>interdependencies that are constantly in flux. Though unlike Darwin and Wallace,

0:28:37.119 --> 0:28:40.680
<v Speaker 1>von Humboldt himself never fully embraced the idea that species

0:28:40.680 --> 0:28:43.680
<v Speaker 1>themselves could evolve. His idea of change was more based

0:28:43.720 --> 0:28:48.160
<v Speaker 1>on the environment and relationships between species. So Darwin and

0:28:48.200 --> 0:28:51.880
<v Speaker 1>Wallace ended up going beyond von Humboldt. But anyway, as

0:28:51.920 --> 0:28:55.040
<v Speaker 1>I said, biogeography is the study of what lives, where

0:28:55.120 --> 0:28:59.040
<v Speaker 1>and why, and one of Wallace's most famous observations in

0:28:59.080 --> 0:29:03.680
<v Speaker 1>biogeography is the Wallas line. The Wallas line is what's

0:29:03.760 --> 0:29:08.800
<v Speaker 1>known as a biogeographical boundary line, specifically a faunal boundary.

0:29:08.800 --> 0:29:12.040
<v Speaker 1>In this case, meaning a boundary with reference to animals,

0:29:12.160 --> 0:29:16.000
<v Speaker 1>so it's an invisible border where you have one ecosystem

0:29:16.040 --> 0:29:18.960
<v Speaker 1>of animal species on one side of the line and

0:29:19.000 --> 0:29:22.959
<v Speaker 1>a very different collection of animals on the other. Animal

0:29:23.000 --> 0:29:28.760
<v Speaker 1>populations are not usually divided by hard boundaries. Normally, as

0:29:28.800 --> 0:29:33.440
<v Speaker 1>you wander toward the edge of an animal's population range,

0:29:33.960 --> 0:29:37.720
<v Speaker 1>you will notice a gradual thinning out of the population,

0:29:38.080 --> 0:29:41.240
<v Speaker 1>with the number of individuals becoming less and less dense,

0:29:41.720 --> 0:29:46.080
<v Speaker 1>sometimes being replaced more and more gradually with examples of

0:29:46.120 --> 0:29:49.360
<v Speaker 1>a different species in the same trophic niche meaning they

0:29:49.400 --> 0:29:52.520
<v Speaker 1>compete for the same food resources, So you may be

0:29:52.640 --> 0:29:54.880
<v Speaker 1>moving out of the range of one animal species and

0:29:54.920 --> 0:29:58.560
<v Speaker 1>into the range of another, gradually gradually. In both cases.

0:29:58.920 --> 0:30:01.040
<v Speaker 1>For the most part, the gea graphic range of an

0:30:01.080 --> 0:30:04.120
<v Speaker 1>animal species does not end in a hard boundary, but

0:30:04.320 --> 0:30:08.560
<v Speaker 1>in a soft and gradual one. But there are exceptions.

0:30:09.240 --> 0:30:12.480
<v Speaker 1>Sometimes you kind of hit a wall where there is

0:30:12.960 --> 0:30:15.680
<v Speaker 1>one set of animals over here and a pretty different

0:30:15.760 --> 0:30:18.840
<v Speaker 1>set over there, and that is to a large extent

0:30:18.960 --> 0:30:21.959
<v Speaker 1>what we find with Wallace's line, though, as we'll discuss,

0:30:22.040 --> 0:30:24.440
<v Speaker 1>there are some exceptions to this rule and some major

0:30:24.520 --> 0:30:28.480
<v Speaker 1>nuances added since Wallace first proposed this border in the

0:30:28.520 --> 0:30:35.160
<v Speaker 1>eighteen sixties. In fact, basically all biogeographical boundaries are somewhat permeable.

0:30:35.280 --> 0:30:39.280
<v Speaker 1>You will find exceptions to them, but they tend to

0:30:39.360 --> 0:30:43.280
<v Speaker 1>denote starker divisions in biodiversity than you will find elsewhere

0:30:43.280 --> 0:30:47.160
<v Speaker 1>in nature. So what's the story of the Wallas Line

0:30:47.200 --> 0:30:52.240
<v Speaker 1>in particular. Well, the Wallas Line passes invisibly through the

0:30:52.280 --> 0:30:56.600
<v Speaker 1>islands of the Malay Archipelago in the Strait between Borneo

0:30:56.760 --> 0:31:01.480
<v Speaker 1>and Sulawesi, and then further southwest through the lesser Sunda Islands,

0:31:01.520 --> 0:31:04.640
<v Speaker 1>cutting between the islands of Bali on the west and

0:31:04.800 --> 0:31:06.640
<v Speaker 1>Lombach on the east.

0:31:07.040 --> 0:31:09.240
<v Speaker 2>While we were in Indonesia, we were east of the

0:31:09.280 --> 0:31:11.880
<v Speaker 2>Wallas Line, though we had to fly over it to

0:31:11.920 --> 0:31:15.840
<v Speaker 2>get to Raja Ambat from Jakarta. I will stress though

0:31:15.880 --> 0:31:18.479
<v Speaker 2>the pilot did not announce the crossing of the Wallace Line,

0:31:19.080 --> 0:31:21.080
<v Speaker 2>not that they had to, but I just want to

0:31:21.080 --> 0:31:22.880
<v Speaker 2>make it. And of course you can't see it.

0:31:23.160 --> 0:31:26.960
<v Speaker 1>That's a plane, yeah, exactly, and there's nothing there to see.

0:31:27.000 --> 0:31:32.520
<v Speaker 1>In fact, it's kind of it's remarkable how invisible it is.

0:31:32.600 --> 0:31:35.960
<v Speaker 1>In a way. So I was speaking of the division

0:31:36.000 --> 0:31:40.520
<v Speaker 1>between these multiple land masses Borneo and Sulawesi, and Lombock

0:31:40.600 --> 0:31:44.520
<v Speaker 1>and Bali. The latter division is probably the most striking,

0:31:44.960 --> 0:31:48.600
<v Speaker 1>because the Lombok Straight, which passes between Lombac and Bali,

0:31:49.160 --> 0:31:52.240
<v Speaker 1>is in some places only a few dozen kilometers wide.

0:31:52.280 --> 0:31:54.400
<v Speaker 1>Like if the air is clear, you can stand on

0:31:54.440 --> 0:31:57.320
<v Speaker 1>the shore of one island and look across and see

0:31:57.320 --> 0:31:59.360
<v Speaker 1>the other island. You see the higher elevations on the

0:31:59.400 --> 0:32:03.520
<v Speaker 1>other island. So they're very close, and in terms of

0:32:03.600 --> 0:32:07.800
<v Speaker 1>environmental conditions they're very similar. And yet when Alfred Russell

0:32:07.840 --> 0:32:12.560
<v Speaker 1>Wallace studied the land animals and the birds of these islands,

0:32:13.000 --> 0:32:16.840
<v Speaker 1>he noticed a pretty stark difference. Wallace writes about some

0:32:16.920 --> 0:32:20.400
<v Speaker 1>of these observations in the book The Malay Archipelago, again

0:32:20.440 --> 0:32:24.320
<v Speaker 1>first published in eighteen sixty nine. So the version of

0:32:24.360 --> 0:32:26.400
<v Speaker 1>this book I was looking at is a scan of

0:32:26.440 --> 0:32:29.080
<v Speaker 1>the eighteen ninety edition. That's the one with the sick

0:32:29.120 --> 0:32:34.040
<v Speaker 1>illustration of the orangutan biting the guy. And Wallace writes

0:32:34.160 --> 0:32:37.800
<v Speaker 1>that the islands of Bali and Lombach are most interesting

0:32:37.880 --> 0:32:40.719
<v Speaker 1>actually because of two things. One of them is that

0:32:40.800 --> 0:32:43.720
<v Speaker 1>he claims they're the only two islands of the whole

0:32:43.800 --> 0:32:48.000
<v Speaker 1>archipelago in which the Hindu religion still maintains itself. And

0:32:48.080 --> 0:32:52.120
<v Speaker 1>then he also says, quote they form the extreme points

0:32:52.200 --> 0:32:56.280
<v Speaker 1>of the two great zoological divisions of the Eastern Hemisphere.

0:32:56.680 --> 0:33:00.440
<v Speaker 1>For although so similar in external appearance and in all

0:33:00.480 --> 0:33:05.040
<v Speaker 1>physical features, they differ greatly in their natural productions. So

0:33:05.080 --> 0:33:09.600
<v Speaker 1>what's the difference in these natural productions between the two islands. Again,

0:33:09.760 --> 0:33:12.640
<v Speaker 1>while there are exceptions and some nuances, will discuss later,

0:33:12.840 --> 0:33:16.680
<v Speaker 1>the range of a ton of major animal groups essentially

0:33:16.840 --> 0:33:21.160
<v Speaker 1>terminates at this tiny ocean gap. On the eastern side,

0:33:21.160 --> 0:33:26.080
<v Speaker 1>in Lombach you will find native cockatoos and marsupials, the

0:33:26.160 --> 0:33:30.000
<v Speaker 1>animals associated with Australia and New Guinea. And on the

0:33:30.040 --> 0:33:33.440
<v Speaker 1>western side of the gap, in Bali and Borneo, you

0:33:33.480 --> 0:33:36.920
<v Speaker 1>will not find those animals, not natively unless you know,

0:33:37.000 --> 0:33:40.400
<v Speaker 1>you find some imported. Instead, you will find mostly the

0:33:40.440 --> 0:33:43.640
<v Speaker 1>same animal groups that you find in the rest of Asia,

0:33:44.120 --> 0:33:47.200
<v Speaker 1>including at least as of a few hundred years ago,

0:33:47.240 --> 0:33:51.160
<v Speaker 1>before many of these animals were driven extinct. You would

0:33:51.160 --> 0:33:56.320
<v Speaker 1>find tigers, rhinos, elephants, and bears. So you've got one

0:33:56.360 --> 0:33:58.160
<v Speaker 1>on one side, one on the other, and then you've got,

0:33:58.240 --> 0:34:02.280
<v Speaker 1>of course, some more trans yusitional areas we'll talk more

0:34:02.320 --> 0:34:04.760
<v Speaker 1>in Part two. I think about the idea of a

0:34:04.760 --> 0:34:07.840
<v Speaker 1>whole group of islands known as Wallace Sea that are

0:34:07.960 --> 0:34:11.040
<v Speaker 1>thought of now as a kind of transitional island group.

0:34:11.800 --> 0:34:14.520
<v Speaker 1>But on the island of Sulawesi you will also find

0:34:14.520 --> 0:34:18.120
<v Speaker 1>more of a mix with some native Australian or Australasian

0:34:18.120 --> 0:34:21.760
<v Speaker 1>fauna and some Asian fauna. Now, the question of why

0:34:22.040 --> 0:34:24.080
<v Speaker 1>is really interesting, and that's something we're going to have

0:34:24.120 --> 0:34:25.960
<v Speaker 1>to come back to. But first I just wanted to

0:34:26.000 --> 0:34:30.000
<v Speaker 1>get some more color on Wallace himself and his travels

0:34:30.520 --> 0:34:34.719
<v Speaker 1>in these islands, specifically his chapter in the Malay Archipelago

0:34:35.280 --> 0:34:39.440
<v Speaker 1>on his visits to Bali and Lombach. He makes an

0:34:39.480 --> 0:34:43.240
<v Speaker 1>interesting biographical note that his first visit to these islands

0:34:43.239 --> 0:34:47.360
<v Speaker 1>in eighteen fifty six was quote somewhat involuntary. He was

0:34:47.400 --> 0:34:49.880
<v Speaker 1>like trying to get a He's trying to get a

0:34:50.120 --> 0:34:54.239
<v Speaker 1>ship to take him to Macassar on Sulawesi from Singapore,

0:34:54.760 --> 0:34:57.080
<v Speaker 1>but he couldn't for some reason, and his journey got

0:34:57.120 --> 0:34:59.960
<v Speaker 1>diverted to these islands at the east end of Java.

0:35:00.800 --> 0:35:03.000
<v Speaker 1>And he writes that if he had been able to

0:35:03.040 --> 0:35:05.759
<v Speaker 1>get the passage he wanted from Singapore, he probably never

0:35:05.800 --> 0:35:08.640
<v Speaker 1>would have gone to them quote, and should have missed

0:35:08.680 --> 0:35:11.880
<v Speaker 1>some of the most important discoveries of my whole expedition

0:35:11.960 --> 0:35:12.680
<v Speaker 1>to the east.

0:35:13.239 --> 0:35:17.319
<v Speaker 2>So just pure travel mishaps playing into again the most

0:35:17.360 --> 0:35:18.760
<v Speaker 2>important discoveries of his career.

0:35:19.080 --> 0:35:21.280
<v Speaker 1>So, Robert, are you cool if I read some passages

0:35:21.280 --> 0:35:22.120
<v Speaker 1>from wallas here?

0:35:22.480 --> 0:35:23.720
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, let's have it, Okay.

0:35:23.719 --> 0:35:25.839
<v Speaker 1>This will give us a flavor of his writing and

0:35:26.000 --> 0:35:29.479
<v Speaker 1>some of his experiences in Bali and Lombach, both those

0:35:29.520 --> 0:35:33.640
<v Speaker 1>that inform the formulation of the idea of the Wallace line,

0:35:33.760 --> 0:35:36.680
<v Speaker 1>and also just some interesting stuff he comes across. So,

0:35:36.920 --> 0:35:40.759
<v Speaker 1>first of all, there's a passage where he's describing the

0:35:40.960 --> 0:35:45.000
<v Speaker 1>terraced agriculture of Bali, where he says he says, quote,

0:35:45.000 --> 0:35:48.920
<v Speaker 1>a slightly undulating plain extends from the seacoast about ten

0:35:49.040 --> 0:35:52.040
<v Speaker 1>or twelve miles inland, where it is bounded by a

0:35:52.120 --> 0:35:56.240
<v Speaker 1>fine range of wooded and cultivated hills. Houses and villages

0:35:56.280 --> 0:36:00.160
<v Speaker 1>marked out by dense clumps of coconut palms, tamarin and

0:36:00.239 --> 0:36:03.800
<v Speaker 1>other fruit trees are dotted about in every direction, while

0:36:03.800 --> 0:36:07.719
<v Speaker 1>between them extend luxuriant rice grounds watered by an elaborate

0:36:07.719 --> 0:36:10.120
<v Speaker 1>system of irrigation that would be the pride of the

0:36:10.160 --> 0:36:13.400
<v Speaker 1>best cultivated parts of Europe. The whole surface of the

0:36:13.400 --> 0:36:17.840
<v Speaker 1>country is divided into irregular patches, following the undulations of

0:36:17.880 --> 0:36:21.440
<v Speaker 1>the ground, from many acres to a few perches in extent,

0:36:21.960 --> 0:36:25.440
<v Speaker 1>each of which is itself perfectly level, but stands a

0:36:25.440 --> 0:36:28.640
<v Speaker 1>few inches or several feet above or below those adjacent

0:36:28.680 --> 0:36:31.520
<v Speaker 1>to it. Every one of those patches can be flooded

0:36:31.600 --> 0:36:33.920
<v Speaker 1>or drained at will by means of a system of

0:36:33.960 --> 0:36:36.920
<v Speaker 1>ditches and small channels into which are diverted the whole

0:36:37.000 --> 0:36:40.600
<v Speaker 1>of streams that descend from the mountains. Every patch now

0:36:40.600 --> 0:36:44.000
<v Speaker 1>bore crops in various stages of growth, some almost ready

0:36:44.000 --> 0:36:47.120
<v Speaker 1>for cutting, and all in the most flourishing condition, and

0:36:47.160 --> 0:36:49.160
<v Speaker 1>of the most exquisite green tints.

0:36:50.440 --> 0:36:53.560
<v Speaker 2>Oh that's nice, I would say, oh succulent. Yeah.

0:36:53.560 --> 0:36:58.240
<v Speaker 1>I found his writing style very vivid, like it really

0:36:58.280 --> 0:37:00.839
<v Speaker 1>calls pictures to the mine way that a lot of

0:37:01.320 --> 0:37:06.640
<v Speaker 1>older writing, especially you don't quite get that immediate connection

0:37:06.719 --> 0:37:09.960
<v Speaker 1>to the visual imagination. Something about Wallace's style does for me.

0:37:10.160 --> 0:37:12.040
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, there's a sense of awe here as well.

0:37:12.239 --> 0:37:15.000
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, But anyway, from here, Wallace goes on to describe

0:37:15.040 --> 0:37:18.839
<v Speaker 1>his attempts to collect a few specimens in Bali. So

0:37:18.960 --> 0:37:22.239
<v Speaker 1>he says, in so well cultivated a country, it was

0:37:22.320 --> 0:37:24.440
<v Speaker 1>not to be expected that I could do much in

0:37:24.600 --> 0:37:29.160
<v Speaker 1>natural history. That kind of makes sense, right, Like it's

0:37:29.400 --> 0:37:32.360
<v Speaker 1>harder to collect specimens from all of this well kept

0:37:32.360 --> 0:37:36.520
<v Speaker 1>farm the farm, ye, yeah. And my ignorance of how

0:37:36.560 --> 0:37:41.160
<v Speaker 1>important a locality this was for the elucidation of geographical

0:37:41.200 --> 0:37:45.839
<v Speaker 1>distribution of animals caused me to neglect obtaining some specimens

0:37:45.880 --> 0:37:49.320
<v Speaker 1>which I never met with again. One of these was

0:37:49.360 --> 0:37:52.480
<v Speaker 1>a weaver bird with a bright yellow head, which built

0:37:52.520 --> 0:37:56.000
<v Speaker 1>its bottle shaped nests by dozens on some trees near

0:37:56.040 --> 0:38:00.560
<v Speaker 1>the beach. It was the Ploceus hypoxanthus, a native of Java,

0:38:01.000 --> 0:38:04.360
<v Speaker 1>and here at the extreme limits of its range. Westerly

0:38:04.840 --> 0:38:09.000
<v Speaker 1>I shot in preserved specimens of a wagtail, thrush, an oriole,

0:38:09.120 --> 0:38:12.880
<v Speaker 1>and some starlings, all species found in Java, and some

0:38:13.040 --> 0:38:16.160
<v Speaker 1>of them peculiar to that island. I also obtained some

0:38:16.200 --> 0:38:19.400
<v Speaker 1>beautiful butterflies, richly marked with black and orange on a

0:38:19.440 --> 0:38:23.080
<v Speaker 1>white ground, and which were the most abundant insects in

0:38:23.120 --> 0:38:26.399
<v Speaker 1>the country Lanes. Among these was a new species which

0:38:26.440 --> 0:38:30.719
<v Speaker 1>I have named Pieris tamar okay. So that's his experience

0:38:30.719 --> 0:38:33.759
<v Speaker 1>in Bali. You know, he doesn't collect a lot of

0:38:33.800 --> 0:38:36.920
<v Speaker 1>specimens because he doesn't know how significant this place is

0:38:36.960 --> 0:38:38.960
<v Speaker 1>going to be. And he got here by accident anyway,

0:38:39.040 --> 0:38:42.040
<v Speaker 1>didn't even expect to go here. Notices a few things,

0:38:42.280 --> 0:38:45.200
<v Speaker 1>but it's all the western fauna. It's all the same

0:38:45.320 --> 0:38:47.600
<v Speaker 1>kind of stuff you would see in Java, the same

0:38:47.680 --> 0:38:50.680
<v Speaker 1>kind of stuff you would see grouped with other animal

0:38:50.680 --> 0:38:54.000
<v Speaker 1>species generally in Asia. But then he moves on in

0:38:54.120 --> 0:38:57.359
<v Speaker 1>his ship to Lombach, and he notes by the way

0:38:57.800 --> 0:39:01.520
<v Speaker 1>that traversing the strait sometimes the weather or the chop

0:39:01.560 --> 0:39:05.560
<v Speaker 1>in the strait can be pretty rough. And there's a

0:39:05.600 --> 0:39:08.800
<v Speaker 1>story of him like pulling all of his things ashore

0:39:09.200 --> 0:39:12.319
<v Speaker 1>and you know, being very grateful to get all of

0:39:12.360 --> 0:39:15.040
<v Speaker 1>his specimens and bags and stuff on shore. And the

0:39:15.080 --> 0:39:17.400
<v Speaker 1>locals tell him, oh, it's good that you did. The

0:39:17.400 --> 0:39:19.839
<v Speaker 1>sea is hungry and it takes everything it can eat.

0:39:20.239 --> 0:39:22.440
<v Speaker 2>Oh the South Sea Queen grabs.

0:39:23.120 --> 0:39:25.880
<v Speaker 1>Yeah. So I was thinking of his loss of all

0:39:25.960 --> 0:39:30.160
<v Speaker 1>his previous stuff from the other boat. But yeah. So

0:39:30.200 --> 0:39:33.320
<v Speaker 1>he moves on to Lombach, and here he notes finding

0:39:33.400 --> 0:39:37.719
<v Speaker 1>bird species that are not like the bird species on

0:39:37.760 --> 0:39:40.080
<v Speaker 1>the other island. They are more similar to those found

0:39:40.160 --> 0:39:44.320
<v Speaker 1>in Australia and New Guinea. He writes quote The country

0:39:44.320 --> 0:39:47.320
<v Speaker 1>around was pretty and novel to me, consisting of abrupt

0:39:47.440 --> 0:39:51.800
<v Speaker 1>volcanic hills enclosing flat valleys or open plains. The hills

0:39:51.800 --> 0:39:54.840
<v Speaker 1>were covered with a dense scrubby bush of bamboos and

0:39:54.920 --> 0:39:58.480
<v Speaker 1>prickly trees and shrubs. The plains were adorned with hundreds

0:39:58.480 --> 0:40:01.400
<v Speaker 1>of noble palm trees, and in many places with a

0:40:01.480 --> 0:40:06.200
<v Speaker 1>luxuriant shrubby vegetation. Birds were plentiful and very interesting, and

0:40:06.280 --> 0:40:09.520
<v Speaker 1>I now saw for the first time many Australian forms

0:40:09.560 --> 0:40:13.280
<v Speaker 1>that are quite absent from the islands westward. Small white

0:40:13.400 --> 0:40:18.400
<v Speaker 1>cockatoos were abundant, and their loud screams, conspicuous white color,

0:40:18.680 --> 0:40:22.320
<v Speaker 1>and pretty yellow crests rendered them a very important feature

0:40:22.320 --> 0:40:25.400
<v Speaker 1>in the landscape. This is the most westerly point on

0:40:25.480 --> 0:40:28.000
<v Speaker 1>the globe where any of the family are to be found.

0:40:28.520 --> 0:40:32.279
<v Speaker 1>Some small honeysuckers of the genus to Lotus, and the

0:40:32.360 --> 0:40:37.759
<v Speaker 1>strange mound maker Megapodius Gouldieye are also here, first met

0:40:37.840 --> 0:40:42.879
<v Speaker 1>on the traveler's journey eastward. The megapodious birds, by the way,

0:40:42.920 --> 0:40:45.080
<v Speaker 1>these are these You may have read about these before

0:40:45.080 --> 0:40:49.239
<v Speaker 1>these mound builder birds that are native to Australia and

0:40:49.280 --> 0:40:53.680
<v Speaker 1>New Guinea, where they will build mounds. All he describes

0:40:53.719 --> 0:40:56.839
<v Speaker 1>actually in a passage, the locals telling him about how

0:40:56.840 --> 0:40:59.680
<v Speaker 1>they build mounds out of anything they can get, garbage

0:40:59.760 --> 0:41:02.200
<v Speaker 1>or whatever. And you know, the locals know what to

0:41:02.280 --> 0:41:04.759
<v Speaker 1>look for in one of these mounds to know when

0:41:04.840 --> 0:41:07.480
<v Speaker 1>there will be eggs in it that are good for snatching.

0:41:08.680 --> 0:41:10.880
<v Speaker 1>In fact, I'll just read a passage from Wallace. He says,

0:41:11.280 --> 0:41:13.320
<v Speaker 1>the mounds are to be met with here and there

0:41:13.320 --> 0:41:16.600
<v Speaker 1>in dense thickets, and are great puzzles to strangers who

0:41:16.640 --> 0:41:20.360
<v Speaker 1>cannot understand who can possibly have heaped together cartloads of

0:41:20.440 --> 0:41:23.759
<v Speaker 1>rubbish in such out of the way places. And when

0:41:23.760 --> 0:41:26.600
<v Speaker 1>they inquire of the natives, they are but little wiser,

0:41:26.680 --> 0:41:30.400
<v Speaker 1>for it almost always appears to them the wildest romance

0:41:30.440 --> 0:41:33.080
<v Speaker 1>to be told that it is done all by birds.

0:41:34.600 --> 0:41:36.759
<v Speaker 1>Excuse me that it is all done by birds, But

0:41:36.960 --> 0:41:40.759
<v Speaker 1>that does sound like the wildest romance. Now Here, I

0:41:40.760 --> 0:41:43.120
<v Speaker 1>want to come to the part where Wallace describes the

0:41:43.160 --> 0:41:46.600
<v Speaker 1>difficulties of the physical part of his work collecting and

0:41:46.680 --> 0:41:50.279
<v Speaker 1>preserving specimens. I've alluded to this several times, but this

0:41:50.760 --> 0:41:55.560
<v Speaker 1>passage really gripped me, so Wallace says quote. My collecting

0:41:55.600 --> 0:41:59.600
<v Speaker 1>operations here were carried on under more than usual difficulties.

0:42:00.239 --> 0:42:03.840
<v Speaker 1>One small room had to serve for eating, sleeping, and working,

0:42:04.120 --> 0:42:08.800
<v Speaker 1>for storehouse and dissecting room. In it were no shelves, cupboards, chairs,

0:42:08.880 --> 0:42:12.839
<v Speaker 1>or tables. Ants swarmed in nearly every part of it,

0:42:13.080 --> 0:42:18.480
<v Speaker 1>and dogs, cats and fowls entered it at pleasure. Besides this,

0:42:19.040 --> 0:42:21.880
<v Speaker 1>it was the parlor and reception room of my host,

0:42:21.920 --> 0:42:24.840
<v Speaker 1>and I was obliged to consult his convenience and that

0:42:24.960 --> 0:42:28.239
<v Speaker 1>of the numerous guests who visited us. My principal piece

0:42:28.239 --> 0:42:31.160
<v Speaker 1>of furniture was a box, which served me as a

0:42:31.200 --> 0:42:34.840
<v Speaker 1>dining table, a seat when skinning birds, and as the

0:42:34.960 --> 0:42:38.839
<v Speaker 1>receptacle of the birds when skinned and dried. To keep

0:42:38.880 --> 0:42:42.000
<v Speaker 1>them free from ants, we borrowed with some difficulty an

0:42:42.040 --> 0:42:45.040
<v Speaker 1>old bench, the four legs of which, being placed in

0:42:45.120 --> 0:42:49.680
<v Speaker 1>coconut shells filled with water, kept us tolerably free from

0:42:49.760 --> 0:42:53.320
<v Speaker 1>these pests. The box and the bench were, however, literally

0:42:53.360 --> 0:42:56.480
<v Speaker 1>the only places where anything could be put away, and

0:42:56.520 --> 0:43:00.080
<v Speaker 1>they were generally well occupied by two insect boxes and

0:43:00.120 --> 0:43:02.920
<v Speaker 1>about one hundred bird skins. In the process of drying

0:43:03.480 --> 0:43:06.800
<v Speaker 1>it may therefore be easily conceived that when anything bulky

0:43:07.000 --> 0:43:09.720
<v Speaker 1>or out of the common way was collected, the question

0:43:10.160 --> 0:43:12.840
<v Speaker 1>where is it to be put? Was rather a difficult

0:43:12.840 --> 0:43:17.160
<v Speaker 1>one to answer. All animal substances, moreover, require some time

0:43:17.239 --> 0:43:21.200
<v Speaker 1>to dry thoroughly, emit a very disagreeable odor while doing so,

0:43:21.600 --> 0:43:27.000
<v Speaker 1>and are particularly attractive to ants, flies, dogs, rats, cats,

0:43:27.080 --> 0:43:32.120
<v Speaker 1>and other vermin, calling for especial cautions and constant supervision,

0:43:32.280 --> 0:43:37.120
<v Speaker 1>which under the circumstances above described were impossible. Oh man,

0:43:37.160 --> 0:43:40.080
<v Speaker 1>I was getting so stressed to just reading that, trying

0:43:40.080 --> 0:43:42.719
<v Speaker 1>to think where to put the bird skin, where to

0:43:42.760 --> 0:43:46.239
<v Speaker 1>put the dead whatever I just found? Where can it go?

0:43:46.360 --> 0:43:48.160
<v Speaker 1>That it's not just going to be swarmed with ants?

0:43:48.200 --> 0:43:50.920
<v Speaker 1>And the whole time you've got ants everywhere, and it's

0:43:51.000 --> 0:43:53.520
<v Speaker 1>all stinking because you're skinning it and then hiding it

0:43:53.520 --> 0:43:55.279
<v Speaker 1>in a box that's the only other thing in the

0:43:55.360 --> 0:43:55.920
<v Speaker 1>room with you.

0:43:56.760 --> 0:44:00.520
<v Speaker 2>In all manner of scavengers are coming into peek in

0:44:00.600 --> 0:44:03.839
<v Speaker 2>and see what's going on with your dead animals. Yeah,

0:44:04.120 --> 0:44:09.200
<v Speaker 2>it seems like quite an experience, and also Wallace quite

0:44:09.239 --> 0:44:13.160
<v Speaker 2>a house guest to have a saying as well, Right.

0:44:14.000 --> 0:44:16.680
<v Speaker 1>I mean, one thing he notes in at least the

0:44:17.040 --> 0:44:19.760
<v Speaker 1>parts I was reading is he makes a special note

0:44:19.760 --> 0:44:23.200
<v Speaker 1>of the hospitality he encounters everywhere he goes. Seems like

0:44:23.520 --> 0:44:27.120
<v Speaker 1>he just keeps running into very nice, very helpful, accommodating people,

0:44:27.239 --> 0:44:29.480
<v Speaker 1>and he's like, I was received very you know, with

0:44:29.520 --> 0:44:34.040
<v Speaker 1>all this graciousness and all that. So I just get

0:44:34.040 --> 0:44:36.879
<v Speaker 1>the feeling from reading that he's a nice guest to have.

0:44:36.920 --> 0:44:40.120
<v Speaker 1>He's very appreciative, you know, very very polite. I think

0:44:40.400 --> 0:44:41.120
<v Speaker 1>probably at.

0:44:41.080 --> 0:44:44.200
<v Speaker 2>Least skins a lot of birds, collects a lot of beetles.

0:44:44.239 --> 0:44:47.560
<v Speaker 1>But a nice guy does stink up your house really

0:44:47.600 --> 0:44:51.879
<v Speaker 1>bad and they're already ants, but he probably attracts way

0:44:51.920 --> 0:44:56.160
<v Speaker 1>way more. Yes, this is actually something I almost always

0:44:56.200 --> 0:44:59.520
<v Speaker 1>find interesting in reading books about science history is just

0:44:59.560 --> 0:45:04.919
<v Speaker 1>the practical physical annoyances and problems with trying to do

0:45:05.160 --> 0:45:08.560
<v Speaker 1>the core work, the core physical work of your discipline,

0:45:08.840 --> 0:45:12.200
<v Speaker 1>whether that's collecting specimens and preparing them to be preserved

0:45:12.760 --> 0:45:16.000
<v Speaker 1>or doing experiments or whatever. You know, there are always

0:45:16.080 --> 0:45:18.920
<v Speaker 1>little like problems like this where it's like I can't

0:45:18.960 --> 0:45:21.160
<v Speaker 1>do it because this thing doesn't fit right, or I

0:45:21.200 --> 0:45:23.600
<v Speaker 1>don't have the kind of table I need, or you know,

0:45:23.680 --> 0:45:26.840
<v Speaker 1>or there's ants on everything. By the way, if you

0:45:27.560 --> 0:45:29.640
<v Speaker 1>work in any area of research out there, and you

0:45:29.680 --> 0:45:32.920
<v Speaker 1>want to write into the show about your experiences of

0:45:32.960 --> 0:45:35.520
<v Speaker 1>this kind, please do contact at stuff to Blow your

0:45:35.560 --> 0:45:37.720
<v Speaker 1>Mind dot com. I always find these things interesting.

0:45:37.920 --> 0:45:39.479
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, tell us about your field work.

0:45:39.680 --> 0:45:51.920
<v Speaker 1>What is your Wallace's Room full of ants?

0:45:52.680 --> 0:45:52.960
<v Speaker 2>All right?

0:45:53.000 --> 0:45:55.160
<v Speaker 1>Can I flag one more thing from this chapter by

0:45:55.200 --> 0:45:59.160
<v Speaker 1>Wallace about a boundary of sorts, but not a funal one.

0:45:59.680 --> 0:46:01.399
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, yeah, I know what you're going to cover here.

0:46:01.440 --> 0:46:03.920
<v Speaker 2>And this is an interesting woman I was reading about

0:46:04.400 --> 0:46:05.359
<v Speaker 2>in my book as well.

0:46:05.640 --> 0:46:08.120
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, okay. So Wallace, by the way, he's about to

0:46:08.120 --> 0:46:11.160
<v Speaker 1>refer to somebody named Manuel. Manuel is one of his

0:46:11.239 --> 0:46:14.160
<v Speaker 1>local guides. So this is a guy he's been working

0:46:14.160 --> 0:46:17.880
<v Speaker 1>with and has good relations with. But he says aborneyan

0:46:18.000 --> 0:46:20.919
<v Speaker 1>Malay who had been for many years resident here, said

0:46:20.920 --> 0:46:24.200
<v Speaker 1>to Manuel, one thing is strange in this country the

0:46:24.280 --> 0:46:32.000
<v Speaker 1>scarcity of ghosts. Hmmm, how so asked Manuel. Why you know,

0:46:32.239 --> 0:46:35.560
<v Speaker 1>said the Malay that in our countries to the westward,

0:46:35.680 --> 0:46:38.480
<v Speaker 1>if a man dies or is killed, we dare not

0:46:38.719 --> 0:46:41.480
<v Speaker 1>pass near the place at night, for all sorts of

0:46:41.520 --> 0:46:44.840
<v Speaker 1>noises are heard which show that ghosts are about. But

0:46:45.000 --> 0:46:48.080
<v Speaker 1>here there are numbers of men killed and their bodies

0:46:48.160 --> 0:46:51.040
<v Speaker 1>lie unburied in the fields and by the roadside, and

0:46:51.120 --> 0:46:53.479
<v Speaker 1>yet you can walk by them at night and never

0:46:53.600 --> 0:46:56.480
<v Speaker 1>hear or see anything at all, which is not the

0:46:56.480 --> 0:46:59.720
<v Speaker 1>case in our country, as you know very well, certainly

0:46:59.760 --> 0:47:02.640
<v Speaker 1>I do, said Manuel. And so it was settled that

0:47:02.719 --> 0:47:06.640
<v Speaker 1>ghosts were very scarce, if not altogether unknown, in Lombach.

0:47:07.480 --> 0:47:09.759
<v Speaker 1>And then Wallace goes on to make a comment that

0:47:09.880 --> 0:47:13.960
<v Speaker 1>I didn't know how to take it first, but because

0:47:14.040 --> 0:47:17.240
<v Speaker 1>I initially read this as maybe some kind of dry humor.

0:47:17.640 --> 0:47:20.920
<v Speaker 1>But he follows this up by saying, I would observe, however,

0:47:21.080 --> 0:47:23.640
<v Speaker 1>that as the evidence is purely negative, we should be

0:47:23.680 --> 0:47:27.279
<v Speaker 1>wanting in scientific caution if we accepted this fact as

0:47:27.320 --> 0:47:31.600
<v Speaker 1>sufficiently well established. That sounded like a kind of humorous

0:47:31.680 --> 0:47:34.680
<v Speaker 1>understatement to me. But now, Rob, now that we've talked

0:47:34.719 --> 0:47:39.520
<v Speaker 1>about his interest in spiritualism, that assessment actually seems like

0:47:40.080 --> 0:47:44.359
<v Speaker 1>he is interested in he is maybe actually interested in

0:47:44.440 --> 0:47:47.920
<v Speaker 1>doing a scientific catalog of where ghosts exist, because he

0:47:48.040 --> 0:47:51.920
<v Speaker 1>views them as quite likely a real phenomenon and something

0:47:51.960 --> 0:47:56.400
<v Speaker 1>that can be scientifically documented. And he is being, you know,

0:47:56.480 --> 0:47:59.560
<v Speaker 1>somewhat skeptical in his methodology here. He's like, well, we

0:47:59.640 --> 0:48:02.640
<v Speaker 1>only have the negative evidence here, So we can't fully

0:48:02.680 --> 0:48:05.960
<v Speaker 1>say that this is this is a rule. But here's

0:48:05.960 --> 0:48:08.719
<v Speaker 1>somebody saying, you don't get ghosts in Lombac, you do

0:48:08.840 --> 0:48:09.640
<v Speaker 1>get them over here.

0:48:10.239 --> 0:48:12.800
<v Speaker 2>Yeah. This is a great point because, yeah, I think definitely,

0:48:12.840 --> 0:48:14.279
<v Speaker 2>at this point in his life he was at the

0:48:14.360 --> 0:48:18.719
<v Speaker 2>very least quite open to the idea that ghosts were real,

0:48:18.800 --> 0:48:22.760
<v Speaker 2>that there were some sort of spiritual essence out there. Yeah.

0:48:22.800 --> 0:48:25.879
<v Speaker 1>And the really interesting aspect of that belief, at least

0:48:25.880 --> 0:48:29.319
<v Speaker 1>to me, being the assumption that you could study this

0:48:29.400 --> 0:48:31.600
<v Speaker 1>phenomenon in a scientific way. I mean, I think a

0:48:31.680 --> 0:48:35.759
<v Speaker 1>lot of times you would have people who might be

0:48:36.239 --> 0:48:40.359
<v Speaker 1>scientists or naturalists or natural philosophers in this era who

0:48:40.719 --> 0:48:46.000
<v Speaker 1>have supernatural beliefs, but they don't approach the supernatural beliefs

0:48:46.080 --> 0:48:49.680
<v Speaker 1>as open to investigation the same way there are beliefs

0:48:49.680 --> 0:48:52.680
<v Speaker 1>about the you know, the forces governing the natural world are.

0:48:53.280 --> 0:48:56.520
<v Speaker 1>And Wallace seems to be saying like, no, yeah, we

0:48:56.560 --> 0:48:58.000
<v Speaker 1>could just we could study this.

0:48:58.520 --> 0:49:00.759
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, And I think we definitely have to look at

0:49:00.800 --> 0:49:03.080
<v Speaker 2>it within the context of the time too, a time

0:49:03.160 --> 0:49:07.400
<v Speaker 2>during which there's so many advancements are taking place, and Wallace,

0:49:08.120 --> 0:49:10.719
<v Speaker 2>along with Darwin and others are like right there on

0:49:10.760 --> 0:49:15.080
<v Speaker 2>the front lines pushing this this theory of what is

0:49:15.120 --> 0:49:17.840
<v Speaker 2>going to become known as the theory of evolution, the

0:49:17.840 --> 0:49:21.719
<v Speaker 2>theory of natural selection. And therefore, like there's probably this

0:49:22.640 --> 0:49:25.560
<v Speaker 2>spirit of we can figure it all out, and we

0:49:25.600 --> 0:49:27.319
<v Speaker 2>see this elsewhere as well, where people are like, yes,

0:49:27.360 --> 0:49:29.960
<v Speaker 2>we can, we can actually measure these things. We can

0:49:30.040 --> 0:49:32.600
<v Speaker 2>look and try and figure out what happens to consciousness

0:49:32.600 --> 0:49:37.360
<v Speaker 2>when life ends. And in Wallace's case in particular, we

0:49:38.280 --> 0:49:41.960
<v Speaker 2>know that he comes to see some sort of continuation

0:49:42.080 --> 0:49:46.879
<v Speaker 2>of the soul as being some special vibe, some sort

0:49:46.920 --> 0:49:50.040
<v Speaker 2>of higher intelligence, as being key to how evolution is working.

0:49:50.600 --> 0:49:52.960
<v Speaker 2>And therefore, you know, he just sees it as part

0:49:53.000 --> 0:49:55.320
<v Speaker 2>of the works, and therefore it's something that you surely

0:49:55.400 --> 0:49:58.600
<v Speaker 2>can prove out because we're proving out the other aspects

0:49:59.000 --> 0:50:02.400
<v Speaker 2>of how the natural world is working, and if ghosts

0:50:02.480 --> 0:50:04.640
<v Speaker 2>are part of it, if the spirit is part of it,

0:50:04.719 --> 0:50:06.880
<v Speaker 2>then he should be able to prove that as well.

0:50:07.360 --> 0:50:09.840
<v Speaker 1>Yeah. I mean, in a way, you could look at

0:50:09.880 --> 0:50:15.000
<v Speaker 1>an interest in spiritualism as a way of you know,

0:50:15.280 --> 0:50:18.240
<v Speaker 1>I think that none of the underlying phenomena were actually real,

0:50:18.360 --> 0:50:24.440
<v Speaker 1>but as an attempt to empirically interact with the spirit world, yeah,

0:50:24.560 --> 0:50:27.400
<v Speaker 1>as opposed to just like having beliefs about it, but

0:50:27.480 --> 0:50:31.160
<v Speaker 1>those beliefs being something that you know, you don't interface

0:50:31.239 --> 0:50:32.520
<v Speaker 1>with or interact with.

0:50:33.040 --> 0:50:36.360
<v Speaker 2>Right right now. At the same time, of course, obviously,

0:50:36.440 --> 0:50:39.640
<v Speaker 2>like entering in any kind of scientific enterprise with these

0:50:39.680 --> 0:50:42.200
<v Speaker 2>concepts in mind, you can end up putting blinders up

0:50:42.200 --> 0:50:46.120
<v Speaker 2>for yourself, and you can end up maybe engaging in

0:50:46.160 --> 0:50:50.040
<v Speaker 2>some of these questions without complete neutrality, right.

0:50:50.120 --> 0:50:51.680
<v Speaker 1>And I mean, of course, I think that is what

0:50:51.719 --> 0:50:54.080
<v Speaker 1>we actually see in a lot of attempts to you know,

0:50:54.120 --> 0:50:56.480
<v Speaker 1>get really into the subject. But I would say that

0:50:56.560 --> 0:51:00.360
<v Speaker 1>in principle, if there were spirits that made contact with

0:51:00.400 --> 0:51:02.960
<v Speaker 1>the living on a regular basis, that's something that you

0:51:03.360 --> 0:51:06.360
<v Speaker 1>could study. You know, it might be difficult to study

0:51:06.400 --> 0:51:09.200
<v Speaker 1>because it might be more like the study of psychology

0:51:09.320 --> 0:51:12.560
<v Speaker 1>or something than like the study of biology or nature,

0:51:13.120 --> 0:51:16.040
<v Speaker 1>but it could be something you could look into in

0:51:16.080 --> 0:51:17.120
<v Speaker 1>a systematic.

0:51:16.719 --> 0:51:20.200
<v Speaker 2>Way, right, right. And even the division of ghosts as well,

0:51:20.200 --> 0:51:22.839
<v Speaker 2>I mean, especially in a place like Indonesia. You know,

0:51:22.880 --> 0:51:26.400
<v Speaker 2>it ultimately speaks to other questions about the flow of

0:51:26.440 --> 0:51:29.480
<v Speaker 2>ideas and the flow of religious faiths, you know, in

0:51:29.560 --> 0:51:33.360
<v Speaker 2>a widespread and again, as we've stressed, very large spread

0:51:33.360 --> 0:51:37.160
<v Speaker 2>out country that has various cultures wound up in it,

0:51:37.320 --> 0:51:41.240
<v Speaker 2>various religious faiths, So that ultimately becomes the more interesting

0:51:41.320 --> 0:51:44.560
<v Speaker 2>question I think outside of Wallace's viewpoint, is well, why

0:51:44.560 --> 0:51:47.520
<v Speaker 2>would there be a tradition of ghosts here and not here?

0:51:47.600 --> 0:51:49.439
<v Speaker 2>What does that say about the people? Well?

0:51:49.560 --> 0:51:52.320
<v Speaker 1>Right, exactly. I mean, I think that's a fully legitimate

0:51:52.360 --> 0:51:54.920
<v Speaker 1>and fascinating question to look into, not the question of

0:51:55.000 --> 0:51:57.960
<v Speaker 1>are there literally ghosts here and not ghosts here? But like,

0:51:58.040 --> 0:52:00.759
<v Speaker 1>why do you get these different beliefs in tradition in

0:52:00.800 --> 0:52:03.440
<v Speaker 1>different cultures? You know? How does history feed into the

0:52:03.560 --> 0:52:04.520
<v Speaker 1>development that way?

0:52:04.920 --> 0:52:05.120
<v Speaker 3>Yeah?

0:52:05.320 --> 0:52:07.719
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, One thing I would note is that Wallace says that,

0:52:08.600 --> 0:52:11.879
<v Speaker 1>so he recounts this conversation where this guy who comes

0:52:11.920 --> 0:52:14.279
<v Speaker 1>from Borneo says, hey, yeah, we've got ghosts back home.

0:52:14.640 --> 0:52:18.200
<v Speaker 1>They don't have ghosts here. Wallace does know that the

0:52:18.200 --> 0:52:21.120
<v Speaker 1>people of Lombach did describe a belief to him that

0:52:21.760 --> 0:52:24.759
<v Speaker 1>some men had the power to transform into crocodiles in

0:52:24.840 --> 0:52:27.640
<v Speaker 1>order to eat their enemies. So that's pretty cool. Hmmm.

0:52:28.840 --> 0:52:30.239
<v Speaker 1>Seems different than a ghost though.

0:52:30.320 --> 0:52:33.440
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, And I'm not sure how crocodile transformation would like

0:52:33.480 --> 0:52:37.200
<v Speaker 2>how that ends up being interpreted by like European spiritualism

0:52:37.239 --> 0:52:40.160
<v Speaker 2>of the time. But that's still fascinating.

0:52:40.440 --> 0:52:43.280
<v Speaker 1>Oh, I can just imagine the kind of distinction made, like, oh,

0:52:43.360 --> 0:52:46.400
<v Speaker 1>you know, our spirits are very real and legitimate. Nobody

0:52:46.400 --> 0:52:49.400
<v Speaker 1>actually transforms into crocodiles. That's ridiculous.

0:52:50.760 --> 0:52:52.920
<v Speaker 2>All right, Well, we're gonna go ahead and close out

0:52:53.000 --> 0:52:54.640
<v Speaker 2>this episode of Stuff to Blow Your Mind right here,

0:52:54.640 --> 0:52:56.279
<v Speaker 2>but we'll be back for a part too. On the

0:52:56.280 --> 0:52:59.960
<v Speaker 2>Wallace line. We'll discuss the concept in more detail and

0:53:00.440 --> 0:53:02.719
<v Speaker 2>probably get into some specific examples too.

0:53:03.200 --> 0:53:05.399
<v Speaker 1>Right well, and in the next episode we'll go into

0:53:05.400 --> 0:53:08.960
<v Speaker 1>more detail about why it exists to the extent that

0:53:09.000 --> 0:53:12.120
<v Speaker 1>it does, as well as sort of updates to the concept,

0:53:12.440 --> 0:53:13.879
<v Speaker 1>like the idea of Wallacea.

0:53:14.400 --> 0:53:17.960
<v Speaker 2>Yeah. In the meantime, certainly, right in and tell us

0:53:17.960 --> 0:53:20.279
<v Speaker 2>all about your adventures in this part of the world

0:53:20.360 --> 0:53:23.399
<v Speaker 2>other parts of the world, and of course your your

0:53:23.440 --> 0:53:26.560
<v Speaker 2>field work researchers. Right in about your field work, we

0:53:26.600 --> 0:53:30.520
<v Speaker 2>would love to hear from you, as well as recommendations

0:53:30.600 --> 0:53:33.160
<v Speaker 2>for future episodes of Stuff to Blow Your Mind. We're

0:53:33.160 --> 0:53:35.960
<v Speaker 2>always we always have an ear open for good ideas.

0:53:36.520 --> 0:53:39.680
<v Speaker 1>That's right, What is your equivalent of Wallace's dissecting room

0:53:39.760 --> 0:53:43.239
<v Speaker 1>covered with every surface covered in ants, and what the

0:53:43.320 --> 0:53:47.200
<v Speaker 1>box full of bird skins and so forth emitting odors.

0:53:47.520 --> 0:53:49.520
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, maybe it's not your work, your work life even

0:53:49.520 --> 0:53:51.719
<v Speaker 2>maybe it's your personal life. Yeah, right in, we'd love

0:53:51.760 --> 0:53:53.839
<v Speaker 2>to hear from you, and just to remind it. Stuff

0:53:53.840 --> 0:53:56.400
<v Speaker 2>to Blow Your Mind is primarily a science and culture podcast,

0:53:56.440 --> 0:53:58.680
<v Speaker 2>with core episodes on Tuesdays and Thursdays, but on Fridays

0:53:58.719 --> 0:54:00.840
<v Speaker 2>we set aside most serious consers just talk about a

0:54:00.840 --> 0:54:02.680
<v Speaker 2>weird film on Weird House Cinema.

0:54:02.840 --> 0:54:06.320
<v Speaker 1>Huge things, as always to our excellent audio producer JJ Posway.

0:54:06.640 --> 0:54:08.239
<v Speaker 1>If you would like to get in touch with us

0:54:08.239 --> 0:54:10.560
<v Speaker 1>with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest

0:54:10.719 --> 0:54:12.759
<v Speaker 1>topic for the future, or just to say hello, you

0:54:12.760 --> 0:54:15.239
<v Speaker 1>can email us at contact at stuff to Blow your

0:54:15.280 --> 0:54:22.960
<v Speaker 1>Mind dot com.

0:54:23.080 --> 0:54:25.600
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0:54:25.920 --> 0:54:28.879
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0:54:29.040 --> 0:54:46.640
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