Originally Posted by Codae
Oh sure, Eurasia is a geologic continent. But why go with geology?
Well, because continents are geological concepts. Why not go with geology? I should ask why you go with sociology in classifying continents. After all, you do not see anyone using psychology to classify the stars. (Why go with astronomy?)
Originally Posted by Codae
Take the map of the world below. I have shown fourteen different cultural areas (although, admittedly, I am simplifying a bit).
Six of them are in Eurasia.
Five are in Africa (including, for me, the two most debatable areas of "North Africa" and "Central Africa").
Three are in the rest of the world.
The map which you posted displays cultural regions, not purely geographic ones, even if they are marked by geographic boundaries or features, and such cultural regions tend to have a high degree of arbitrarity in their construction. Why do you confuse matters of geology and physical geography with the social sciences?
Originally Posted by Codae
Surely six is a bit too much? Why put almost half of these cultural regions in one continent? Why put (my off-the-top estimate) more than 70% of the world's population in one continent? Shouldn't we break it up?
As it happens, the one of these areas that is most off on its own is Europe. It makes less sense to split off any of the other five into its own continent than Europe. So, geologically, you're absolutely right. But for most other purposes, I feel the seven-continent system is more appropriate.
Because the number of (arbitrarily defined) cultural areas bears no relevance to the number of continents. And population has even less relevance. (Also, if in fact Eurasia has over 70% of the world population, a figure which I believe to be an exaggeration, would it not make more sense to at least bisect the continent in such a way where the two halves are more even in population. I do not see why Europe is SO special that it alone gets honorary continent status when the related Middle East is more part of "Europe" than "Asia," at least in terms of race and culture.)
Originally Posted by Jaded_Railman
Somebody has a stick up their ass.
...
Trying to be a nit-picking dick about something which is, as you yourself point out, not definitive is really just a heated kind of trolling.
If you have a legitimate disagreement, or well-reasoned arguments to the contrary, then I appreciate your feedback. But if you are just going to be a contrarian asshole, then I would kindly appreciate it if you fuck off!
Originally Posted by Jaded_Railman
'Continent' has no one definition.
Continent has a coherent definition, or at least should. If we were to dwell in your postmodern wishy-washy world where words mean whatever we wish, then what the hell is the point of even having words? We might as well speak jibberish. The starting definition of continent is a major contiguous landmass, which is entirely or
mostly distinct from other such landmasses.
Originally Posted by Jaded_Railman
Tectonic plates don't work since, as you pointed out, Arabia (and Tamatchka or however you spell it) are both on separate plates than the rest of Eurasia. Land masses don't work, since that makes Eurasia-Africa, Antarctica, Australia, and America the only major continents.
Granted, if we go
purely by the traditional definition of landmasses we get different results from those we get by going
purely by tectonic plates. The tectonic approach is a lot less arbitrary, but more counter-intuitive. The traditional approach makes a lot more sense intuitively, but is inherently more arbitrary. The results of the two different classification methods are seemingly contradictory, but they are not irreconcilable. For instance, according to the traditional classification, India belongs to the continent of Eurasia. However, according to a
purely tectonic approach, India is clearly not part of Eurasia, and in fact, is arguably part of the Australian continent. A reasonable proposal would be to start with visible boundaries of landmasses and combine plate tectonics to refine this classification.
Rather than undermine the traditional continental classification, plate tectonics actually affirms many of the traditional continental classifications.
- Plate tectonics removes some of the arbitrarity of continental definitions. For instance, if we go purely by visible landmasses, what bodies of land qualify as continents. Obviously it is not feasible to call every single island a continent. However, we can reasonably call the largest bodies of land continents. The six continents: Eurasia, Africa, North America, South America, Antarctica, and Australia are all the largest contiguos land areas, ranked in order from largest to smallest. The continental status of the four largest, at least seems obvious, but what about Antarctica and Australia? Are they large enough to qualify as continents or are they just large islands? What about large oceanic or offshore islands? Do Greenland, Madagascar, or New Zealand qualify in their own right? If we ignore plate tectonics, then this raises the question of how big is big enough to qualify as a continent, and how small is too small. How do we distinguish between small continents like Antarctica and Australia and large islands like Greenland and Madagascar? The answer, aside from the fact that the smallest "continent" is larger than the largest "island," is that each continent has its own tectonic plate, on which it is entirely or mostly located. Eurasia is on the Eurasian plate (with some exceptions), Africa is on the African plate, North America is on the North American plate, South America is on the South American plate, Antarctica is on the Antarctic plate, and Australia is on the Australian plate. All the major landmasses have corresponding tectonic plates. Large landmasses like Greenland and Madagascar are not continents, as they do not occupy their own tectonic plate. Greenland and Madagascar are offshore islands of North America and Africa, respectively, as both are entirely located on those tectonic plates.
- Rather than undermine the traditional designation of the continents, plate tectonics largely affirms the classification of continents. The distinction of tectonic plates marks the distinction between adjacent, and sometimes adjoined continents. For instance, the major tectonic plates affirm the distinction between North American and South America, and Africa and Eurasia, even though the paired continents are very close, and connected by small bodies of land (the Isthmus of Panama and the Sinai Penninsula respectively). The plate tectonic theory of continental drift supports the division of Earth's land area into six continents. Most of the six continents overlap with their respective tectonic plate in such a way that the continent is almost entirely located on top of a tectonic plate. There are of course exceptions, mostly minor, where coastal lands and islands straddle the boundaries of tectonic plates, but the two major discrepancies are the Arabian Penninsula, and the Indian subcontinent, which was once a distinct landmass after it split from Gondwanaland but before it merged with Eurasia. Note, however that the boundaries between tectonic plates are never fine lines, but rather wide gaps often marked by ridges, trenches, fissures, and convolutions.
- Plate tectonics removes more of the arbitrarity inherent in dividing the continents. Aside from defining which landmasses are big enough, and which ones are too small, or reaffirming the visible boundaries of landmasses and the distinction between otherwise non-contiguos linked by a tiny land bridge, plate tectonics help determine which offshore landmasses or islands belong to which continent. For instance, where does Asia end and Australia begin? Specifically, to which continent does Papua New Guinea belong? We know from geology that New Guinea, which is on the continental shelf of Australia, is an offshore part of the Australian continent, divided from mainland Australia by a shallow sea that was once dry land during the Ice Age. The boundary between the Eurasian and Austalian plates helps determine which islands belong to the continent of Eurasia and which belong to the continent of Australia.
Going by landmasses, we can observe six major landmasses, either entirely separate or joined to a neighboring landmass by a very tiny body of land relative to their land areas, and numerous smaller landmasses, usually near the larger landmasses. Going by tectonic plates, we can observe continental and oceanic plates, the continental plates largely correspond to their respective continents, but there are some discrepancies, notably Arabia and India, which are contiguous with Eurasia but on entirely separate tectonic plates. We can resolve such discrepancies by calling these land areas "sub-continents" (currently India is the only land conventionally designated as such). For purposes of consistency, I have the following glossary:
continent large, major contiguous landmass, entirely, or mostly separate from other such landmasses; often characterized by its own tectonic plate with which it mostly overlaps
subcontinent major area of a continental landmass located on a separate tectonic plate from the most of the rest of the continent; examples include the Arabian Penninsula and the Indian Subcontinent
trans-continental isthmus small body of land adjoining two otherwise non-contiguous continents; examples would include the Sinai Penninsula linking Africa and Eurasia, and the Isthmus of Panama linking North and South America, also the Bering Land Bridge which connected Eurasia and North America during the last Ice Age [Note that none of these examples are continuous landmasses any more. The Suez Canal and the Panama Canal geographically divide these lands.]
trans-continental archipelago a chain of islands linking two separate continents, such as that between Eurasia and Australia
microcontinent a medium landmass completely separated by ocean or sea from a continent and lying on an oceanic tectonic plate [Note, I know of no such example aside from New Zealand, which probably could qualify as such as I think it is on Pacific Plate, along the edge.]
supercontinent or
macrocontinent a collection of two or more adjacent continents linked either by a trans-continental isthmus or via an archipelago; examples would include Africa-Eurasia-Australia (the "Old World") and the Americas (the "New World") [Note this is a neologistic use, as there already is a term, supercontinent, with an entirely different definition. When geologists use the term they refer to eras when continents were larger and fewer in number, specifically referring to Pangea, or Laurasia and Gondwanaland. Therefore, I would not advise using this term as such, though some might find the concept useful.]
Originally Posted by Jaded_Railman
It really is better to use the pseudo-colloquial definitions that come to us from history. There is no 'lie' going on here and you're trying to poison the well by saying there is.
No it is not. The concept of "continents" in which "Europe" and "Asia" were regarded as distinct continents is a primitive idea which predates our scientific age. It is a relic of a time when geocentricism was regarded as the correct model of the universe and heliocentricism was regarded as heresy, when many people postulated a flat Earth, and maps often included the warning, "Here be Dragons." If you insist on using a pre-scientific definition of continent where social studies trumps hard science, perhaps you should put astrology on equal footing with astrophysics and astronomy. At least then you would be consistent. The "lie of seven continents" consists of using an otherwise reasonable definition of continent, except in the case of Eurasia, which suddenly is two "continents" despite the fact that a four-year-old can probably tell otherwise. I am a linguistic correctness Nazi. Guilty as charged. Sorry for believing that words should have coherent, consistent, meaningful, reasonable, and unambiguous definitions.
Originally Posted by Jaded_Railman
Europe is north of the Caucasus, west of the Urals; Asia is east of the Bosporus, north of the Sinai, and east of the Urals; Africa is south of the Mediterranean, south of the Sinai; North America is north of Panama, South America is south of Panama; Australia/Oceania is...Australia (and Oceania); Antarctica is Antarctica.
The problem with that proposal is that it is FUCKING STUPID! I grant that ALL continental classifications have some inherent degree of arbitrarity, notably in cases where otherwise separate continents are connected, but the land bridge is always narrow. The margin of error in measuring and computing the area of Eurasia and Africa is the size of the Sinai Peninsula, and the margin of error in measuring and computing the area of North America and South America depends where on the Isthmus of Panama one draws the line (for simplicity, one can draw a straight line at more or less the exact point where the Isthmus joins the round margin of South America). However, since canals cut accross both such land bridges, we can simply define the continental boundaries at those canals.
Either way, the lands linking these continents are the narrowest continuous stretches of land. By contrast, the purely imaginary boundary between "Europe" and "Asia" is near the maximum width of the European "continent." Do you know any other continent divided in such a way? Adjoining landmasses are typically divided at the narrowest point, not the widest, and there are plenty of mountain-river-lake chains with which to divide continents in North America, South America, and Africa. Why not divide those continents arbitrarily?
Your boundaries do not even make sense! If the Urals and the Black Sea mark boundaries between "Europe" and "Asia" what about the plains between? I find it odd that you are in total agreement with my definition of continent in all other cases, (you agree that North America and South America are separate continents, despite being connected by an isthmus, that Africa is a distinct continent despite being adjoined to its neighbor by the Sinai Peninsula, that Antarctica and Australia are continents in their own right despite their small size but tiny Greenland is not) except in the case of Eurasia, which magically becomes two continents. If you really must insist on bisecting the continent as such, why not at least divide longitudinally with a straight line from the Urals down, which would include the Middle East as part of "Europe," this makes much more sense than the more "traditional" distinction between Europe and Asia. That at least seems to intuitively match our concept of the racial and cultural distinctions between East and West, with Caucasoids who mostly belong to Abrahamic religions in "Europe" and Mongoloids who mostly belong to the Dharmic religions in "Asia." (The main exception is India, as South Asians are a distinct racial group more closely related to Caucasoids than Mongoloids, but Indians are usually considered "Asian" and Middle Easterners are generally considered "White" or "Caucasian".) This at least matches our conceptions of who is ethnically White or Asian. Also, a straight line from the Ural Mountains to the Arabian Sea is at least simpler.
Either my opponents are stupid or stubborn. It would be extremely unfair to make such an insulting accusation against the intellect of Codae and Jaded_Railman, both of whom I believe to be of at least, more or less, average intelligence (i.e. they're not stupid). However, I would expect them to be able to critically examine their own beliefs. Were they in fact of very low intelligence, I can forgive them, but that is not the case. They should know better, but argue for the sake of arguing, not to determine the truth. In otherwords, being contrarian assholes. Why not admit that, at least this time, I am right? I have provided coherent, consistent definitions, and presented my reasons. If I am wrong, why not refute my arguments with facts and/or logic rather than insist that whatever dogmas you were indoctrinated with are true? Everyone is entitled to their own opinions, not their own facts.
NOW NO MORE OF THIS! I made my case, let's PLEASE get back on topic. This tangent has gone too far.