Construction and reconstructon

On Sep 20, 8:59 am, Franz Gnaedinger <f...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Sep 19, 7:21 pm, "Peter T. Daniels" <gramma...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:



constructed, not reconstructed

construction, not reconstruction

But PIE formulas are reconstructions? There is
no proof for any of their constructions nor for their
etymologies, for example of bear meaning the brown
one.

These reconstructions have actually predicted things that have been
confirmed by later findings. Certain phonetic differences demonstrably
present in the Hittite language were indeed predicted by the PIE
reconstructions before any Hittite inscriptions were found.

You should also note that the reconstructed PIE is a flexible model.
It has been perfected in the course of years, when the exact
relationship of more and more languages was found out.

The "proof" of all the reconstructions can be found not just in the
textbooks, but in the original research of those generations of people
who have worked on this. You are welcome to disprove it.

However, in order to disprove it, you first must find out about the
real weak points of the PIE construction and show convincingly that
your theory explains them. In order to do that, you should be in
minute detail knowledgeable about what the PIE theories really say.
You should also have some knowledge about all the major branches of
the IE language family. You have, though, admitted that you know
nothing about the Slavic languages, and you don't need to tell me that
you don't know Sanskrit, Avestan, Hittitic or Tocharian. I don't know
them either, and that is precisely why I don't question the mainstream
theories.

You keep prattling about your "great ideas", the greatness of which is
only obvious to yourself. Science though is not about ideas. Science
is all about method. And you can have as good ideas as any, but as
long as your method is unsound, nobody important is going to take you
seriously.


My account is still working. Thank you, Google
company.

Do you really think that if I report you for abuse on Friday, they'll
take steps on the same day? They surely get so many abuse reports that
it'll take weeks before you are sorted out.

Back to the topic of disproving a scientific
hypothesis.

Your hypotheses need not be disproved. They need to be proved.

The Jem'Hadar people, before battle, tell themselves that they are
dead, and that they go to the battle to reclaim their lives. This is,
basically, your starting position in any scientific debate. You are
dead, you are a nobody, and your theories are bunk. The mainstream is
alive, the mainstream scholars are somebody, and their theories are
the truth. You basically enter the scientific debate to reclaim your
life, to show that you are somebody, and that your theories are the
truth.

The way you are arguing shows that you simply don't have what it takes
to be a scholar of any distinction. When we criticize your hypotheses,
you see it as gratuitous bullying and offensiveness, or as a sign that
we are jealous of your ideas. That is of course wrong. We aren't
bullying, we simply treat you the way anybody presenting a novel
theory is treated, and we aren't jealous of your ideas, because in
science ideas don't matter as much as method and knowledge.

You have been told several times that there is a market for your ideas
which could prove more welcoming than the scientific community. You
could work them into a fantasy novel in the way Tolkien did. You
should, because you will never be able to convince one single serious
scholar of anything.
.

Relevant Pages

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