Cartographic Literacy - And The Bible On Abortion

A couple of links that might be of interest.  Both are examples, in their own way, of how people's understanding is influenced by how facts are presented.  

1. In one case it's about representations of the earth and the construct of poverty.  
2. In the other case it's about representations of a book - The Bible - and what it says about abortion.  

1.  Kenneth Field's So You Want To Make A Map? at Medium walks us through making a map, step by step.  The example map shows the world

Despite maps being one of the oldest media of communication, he tells us that people aren't that literate in reading them.

But cartography isn’t innate in our ability to communicate graphically. There’s a language, a syntax, and a grammar. It takes a little knowledge and some practice to know what works and how to make a map work well to mediate the message to the reader. In this article, I’m going to go through some of the choices you’re presented with in designing a thematic map (a map of a theme of data) and how they can help or hinder how people interpret it. It’s worth remembering that most people have no idea about how to understand the way in which the map and the choices made in making it affect their perception of it. You design the map to avoid as many of these potential pitfalls as possible by being a smarter mapmaker.

He walks us through a series of maps, each showing different ways to illustrate different ways to visually get points across better, explaining the changes step by step.


These are just two screenshots of different ways to indicate poverty levels.

And one more map just to whet your appetite for the others.

2.  The Bible Tells Us When A Fetus Becomes A Living Being

It begins:

"Many people think that a human being is created at the time of conception but this belief is not supported by the bible. The fact that a living sperm penetrates a living ovum resulting in the formation of a living fetus does not mean that the fetus is a living human being. According to the bible, a fetus is not a living person with a soul until after drawing its first breath."

It then goes on to cited a number of passages in the bible that show that today's far right religious proclamations of abortion as murder are contradicted by a close reading of the bible.  Examples such as:

"In Exodus 21:22 it states that if a man causes a woman to have a miscarriage, he shall be fined; however, if the woman dies then he will be put to death. It should be apparent from this that the aborted fetus is not considered a living human being since the resulting punishment for the abortion is nothing more than a fine;   it is not classified by the bible as a capital offense."