Re: [Courrier ind?sirable] Re:[tied] Re: The meaning of life: PIE. *

At 11:39:49 AM on Sunday, February 17, 2008, tgpedersen
wrote:

> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Brian M. Scott"
> <BMScott@...> wrote:

>> At 10:12:40 AM on Sunday, February 17, 2008, tgpedersen
>> wrote:

>> [...]

>>> Such a shibboleth relationship is not something that is
>>> resolved with the purge of one form overnight, it can
>>> drag on over centuries in various dia- and sociolects.

>> Or it can be a figment of the imagination.

>> I don't deny the existence of the phenomenon, but you see
>> a shibboleth under every bed.

> If you see your task as defending status quo you'll end up
> having contributed nothing new to the science other than
> general nastiness.

I see nothing nasty in pointing out the obvious: you do have
very frequent resort to this explanation. I'll go further:
I think that resorting in the first instance to an explanation
that in general cannot be tested is methodologically unsound.

As for the rest, I'm not particularly interested in
contributing anything new, and in any case I haven't the
necessary background knowledge. I do not set out to defend
the status quo as such; in matters on which I feel at all
competent to have an opinion, I simply find it more
plausible than most of the alternatives that are proposed
here.

Brian