Hi tOmMy,
>Perhaps I shouldn't mix in this, however Glen, it is really You who >is
>moronic when You claim there are no human subspecies (races).
We certainly could divide humans into "subclasses" based on an arbitrary set
of genes but then we could equally divide humans again with another
arbitrary set of genes. Races however cannot be defined with solid immovable
definitions due to their arbitrary nature. We could divide people who have a
certain gene for juvenile diabetes from those who don't and call it the
Diabetes Race and the Healthy Race. In the end its absurd for the purposes
of linguistics.
>Finally I can't see what is wrong with using subspecific differences >to
>reconstruct patterns of migration.
There isn't. Obviously it's logically possible to trace the origins of a
gene like it's logically possible to trace the origins of a language or a
communicable disease.
What I'm simply offended by is making a direct connection between genetics
and linguistics. This is a kind of connection, by the way, that is outside
the realms of any zoology textbook. There is no correlation whatsoever and
no amount of statistics or other forms of mainstream mathematics that could
ever prove this correlation any more than we could prove how many angels fit
on the head of a pin.
I demand linguistic research where linguistic theories are concerned. I do
not fight genetic or archaeological research if it validly complements (but
does not SUPPLEMENT) the linguistic research. John's research is only
SUPPLEMENTING his linguistic research.
>Nobody accuses me of racism if I claim that the Yellow Wagtails with
> >yellow heads that have started to breed in southwestern Norway in >the
>last few decades originally immigrated from Great Britain since >they
>clearly belong to the (british) flavissima subspecies, indeed >everybody
>regards this as self-evident.
This is a different matter and doesn't constitute racism.
- gLeN
______________________________________________________