posted on Dec, 30 2002 @ 08:58 AM
The Skeptic's Opinion:
No, you wouldn't use stone. Plastic is far more durable. And why put a map in stone? It erodes, it's fragile, and you can't fold it up and take
it in your pocket. If you're postulating an advanced civilization, then their topological maps and all would be at a better level of tech than ours
is currently.
Currently, I have a GPS unit with mapping capability and it's a little larger than my PalmPilot. There are GPS units that are integrated into
watches.
These eliminate the need to carry around tons of rocks with not-very-detailed maps carved into them.
(and no, before you go there, it couldn't have been a human-made ancient map. To do a topological detail you need good measuring plus a surveyor
setup plus the ability to tell degrees of latitude and longitude. This needs the development of fairly accurate clocks. Ancient maps are interesting
little "strips" that are more like a running travelogue with very poor distance indicators.)
As to the second one: Again, I doubt it. Why mutilate cattle when they could just kidnap a set of them, breed, and dissect to their hearts'
content? When we need rat anatomy, we don't stalk rats in the wild and kill them and partly dissect them there in the wild where we could be caught
or bothered (or end up dissecting in the rain or snow or dust storms or allergy season or whatever). We breed them, take them into the labs, kill
them, and dissect them.
When we're finished with them, we dispose of them in landfills. We don't just take them back to nature and leave them.
Same with larger animals. Same with things we think are new lifeforms -- they're dissected in the labs with microscopes and other good equipment.
They're not dissected and studied in the field.
And no, they're not "harvesting" anything. If you harvest something, you can breed herds of whatever it is (no matter how unusual the genetics) to
have an unlimited supply of it. In many cases (insulin, for instance) we get our products from cell cultures and not from slaughter.
If humans could figure this out, any race that can cross interstellar distances had this figured out long ago.