Juha:
>I appreciate your concern but I counsel great care here.
Alright, agreed, let's see what you have to say here, although I think I
might
still stand by my "vaguer" interpretation of racism. I don't think that it
is so
vague since logic is the guide to decide whether discussion of physical
characteristics are pointlessly dragged into a topic without basis or
reason.
If we are to discuss the hypothetical physical characteristics of a
hypothetical
people speaking a hypothetical language, we must know what we are
getting ourselves into and how **hypothetical** it really is.
>Here both the racial characteristics of the Tarim Basin �mummies� and their
>cultural
>features are relevant for tracking the dispersion of the IE language family
>[...]
Yes, but this is still worded with a different sensibility than that of
Siglo. While
"racial" characteristics are discussed therein, the terms are there to
describe
overall common physical patterns in order to establish a point of origin of
these
people. If hair colour should be mentioned in this context of the Tarim
mummies,
it is only to state a fact about the archaeological remains. Even if these
mummies
should be the direct descendants of IE speaking peoples, it says nothing
about
the prevelance of blond, red, auburn or brown hair in that prehistoric
population.
The key difference here is that the Tarim mummies are tangible, physical
remains.
The Indo-European speaking peoples are _not_ tangible -- They are
_theoretical_.
So while we can discuss the hair colour of these mummies since these are
physical
_facts_, we can't seriously discuss the hair colour of a hypothetical group
of
peoples, for what scientific _facts_ could we possibly base are ideas on? In
the
end, very little to nothing at all. All we can do in such a thread is banter
back and
forth forever trying to impose each of our own beliefs on others about what
the
IE speaking population looked like.
On Day:
>If we in the West want to avoid a similar fate, we must learn from
>Indo-European history.�
Yes, those quotes do smell of deep racial bias and this is the kind of
rhetoric drivvel
that I don't appreciate.
= gLeN
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