Re: [tied] Re: Grimm's Law is about to expire (Collinge 1985, p. 26

--- tgpedersen <tgpedersen@...> wrote:

> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "ehlsmith"
> <ehlsmith@...> wrote:
> >
> > --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "mkelkar2003"
> <swatimkelkar@>
> > > wrote:
> > >
> > >
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Out_of_India_theory>
> > ...........
> > > "Mainstream opponents to the OIT (e.g. Hock[11])
> agree that while
> > > the data of linguistic isoglosses do make the
> OIT improbable it is
> > > not enough to unequivocally reject it[12], so
> that it may be
> > > considered a viable alterative to mainstream
> views, similar to the
> > > status of the Armenian or Anatolian hypotheses."
> >
> > Only if one uses a much looser definition of
> "viable" than is normal
> > in academic and scientific discourse. Accepting
> hypotheses which are
> > considered improbable but which cannot be
> unequivocally rejected
> > would be a violation of Oakham's Razor, and would
> open the door to
> > all sorts of crank scholarship.
>
>
> Apart from the inadvisable in attempting to violate
> a razor, Occam's
> wasn't about improbabilia, but about the number of
> entia. Appealing to
> the a priori sense of improbability of any
> scientific community will
> make its field forever sterile.
>
>
> Torsten

****GK: Thus, if we have 2 or more hypotheses
concerning some issue,each of which is "viable" in the
loosest sense of the term, one would be expected to
opt, other things being equal, for the most "viable",
least "improbable" etc.as the case may be. OIT may be
in the ballpark, but it is so far behind AIT (say a
million -to-one as compared to 2-to-one or better)
that wasting time on it, in the absence of any more
potent support than desperate subjective wish, is
practically a scientific crime.*****

>
>
>

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