John wrote:
>Glen, I can sympathise with your frustration, but believe it to be
>short-sighted. All I ask is that you similarly aquaint yourself with >a
>rudimentary understanding of modern genetic theory, instead of >rashly and
>misleadingly accusing me constantly of racism. I am >probably better
>equipped to understand modern theories of human so->called races than you
>are so please disist with these attacks on my >credibility on these
>matters.
I cannot and will not oblige. I'm not ignorant at all on the topic of
genetics. I use the term racism in its most simplistic sense: "the belief in
distinct human races". The concept of distinct human races is flawed in
every sense of the word because genes are too fluid amongst our species to
classify people based on them. It would be like classifying people based on
the color of tie they wear. Moronic.
I often observe American news citing meaningless statistics based on races
like "Hispanic", "Asian", "White", "Black", etc. as I sit there dumbfounded
as to what it all is supposed to mean. Sometimes, Hispanic is "Caucasian",
sometimes "Asian" is split into smaller categories, sometimes "Black" can
simply mean a person who is of African origin who may no longer have dark
skin like his ancestors and even appear "Caucasian" to some, etc, etc, etc.
Don't be daft. It is emphatically unscientific to insist on this racism and
to use genes as a basis for anything other than _genetic_ research.
John responded:
>I can only quote from the first major scientific text to have emerged
>on this subject from the Human Genome Project "The History and
>Geography of Human Genes" by L.Luca Cavalli-Sforza, Paolo Menozzi and
>Alberto Piazza (pp.98-100)
The view that these linguistic-genetic correspondances are "remarkably high"
is nothing but purely ignorant opinion. My own honest opinion is that it is
remarkably low and far from ever being perfect. This is from a linguistical
standpoint, the place where you should be standing.
Unfortunately, quotes from other "researchers", whether competent or not,
don't make up for lack of reasoning. We can all see the danger and logical
flaw of using genetics to classify linguistic groups, as your examples
demonstrate concerning the spread of Latin or other IndoEuropean languages.
The research from the start is meaningless.
What's more disturbing is that this research relies on the fact that these
proposed linguistic classifications, being so archaic, remain unverifiable
unless much time is taken to examine the linguistic data properly. This has
not been done at all. This itself is short-sightedness. Given the historic
red-herrings, the pre-historic connections that are made must be viewed as
extremely hypothetical and only one of a staggering amount of possibilities,
lest linguistics play a role in ascertaining the correct scenario.
... So, John, if you will display that map again (I erased it in immediate
disgust), I would like you to explain solely through _linguistic_ reasoning
the basis of these classifications. If you cannot, please forfeit this
childish game.
- gLeN
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