Why do people in the UK often pretend they're not in Europe?

[Final-Fan]

Kasz216 said:

Final-Fan said:
It seems very questionable to me that the land west of the Bering Strait, land that belongs to THE NORTH AMERICAN CONTINENTAL PLATE, is geologically considered part of Eurasia.  Regardless of the dryness or wetness of the Bering Strait. 

And incidentally, some people consider North and South America as a single continent ... which would be bigger than Eurasia I believe, otherwise Eurasia very probably wins. 

The continents would be pretty much the same, only bigger to greater or lesser degree depending on how shallow their coasts are.  Obviously the Bering Strait is shallow enough to have been above sea level at that time, connecting all the continents except Antarctica and (I'm pretty sure) Australia. 
Here's a map I found:  http://www.scotese.com/lastice.htm  Southeast Asia and Australia are the obvious big winners; Africa seems to have the least change. 

I don't know why that seems questionable to you.  Honestly in this case... i can't see because of the way the picture is... is the bering stratight really larger then Panama or the Suez connections before canals were put in.

Also, something I forgot to mention before... underwater land masses can't count.  I mean otherwise... there would be only one continent... since the earth is just one solid sphere of land in reality.

1.  It's questionable because the land in question doesn't belong to the Eurasian continental plate at all, but the North American one. 

2.  It's bigger than Panama, I'm pretty sure. 

3.  Now that's just not even close to true.  Haven't you heard of continental shelves?  Basically there are two types of tectonic plates -- continental plates and ocean plates.  Continental plates are partially underwater (coastal waters, Bering Strait, English Channel, etc. etc.), and this is the sort of shallow stuff that lowering the sea level (as massive glaciation does) might expose to greater or lesser degree.  Oceanic plates, on the other hand, are for the most part at MUCH lower elevation -- deep waters.  They are clearly distinguishable. 

Here's a map I found.  Roughly speaking, the pink stuff surrounding the black continental outlines I'm sure you recognize is the continental shelf, the part of the continent that's underwater, while the blue areas are classic oceanic plates.  The yellow lines are where the oceanic plates are spreading and elevation is somewhat higher. 

As you can see, although the undersea land countours look different from the world map we all saw in school, the continents are all recognizable and distinguishable.