From: tgpedersen
Message: 53556
Date: 2008-02-17
>Then why don't you do that instead?
> 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.Relative to everybody else that's not so strange; I invented the idea.
> I'll go further:So it is. That's one advantage an explanation using shibbolethisation
> 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 inA wise choice. Finding otherwise would require having more background
> 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.