Soft Sciences Vs. Hard Sciences

[Red]

Do you agree with me that the honest position regarding the etymology of the river name Karašica is to either accept my etymology which has p-values behind it, or to take an agnostic position?

No.

[teo123]

Do you agree with me that the honest position regarding the etymology of the river name Karašica is to either accept my etymology which has p-values behind it, or to take an agnostic position?

No.

Then what do you think is an honest position here?

[Red]

Then what do you think is an honest position here?

Usually even if there are p-values if it hasn't been confirmed via peer review it's good to take things with a grain of salt. It's better to suggest your etymology to fellow linguists, but to say they have to accept it isn't very honest or scientific. See what others say about it first.

[teo123]

Then what do you think is an honest position here?

Usually even if there are p-values if it hasn't been confirmed via peer review it's good to take things with a grain of salt. It's better to suggest your etymology to fellow linguists, but to say they have to accept it isn't very honest or scientific. See what others say about it first.

It may very well be honest to reject my etymology. But how can it be honest to both reject my etymology and to accept the etymology that "Karašica" comes from Turkic "kara sub" (or, worse yet, to accept the etymology that "Karašica" is related to Latin "carassius", which is implausible even on phonological grounds)? How can it be honest to reject the etymology which has p-values but to at the same time accept one that does not?

[Red]

It may very well be honest to reject my etymology. But how can it be honest to both reject my etymology and to accept the etymology that "Karašica" comes from Turkic "kara sub" (or, worse yet, to accept the etymology that "Karašica" is related to Latin "carassius", which is implausible even on phonological grounds)? How can it be honest to reject the etymology which has p-values but to at the same time accept one that does not?

I never said we should reject your etymology, just that fellow linguists shouldn't automatically accept it without reviewing your evidence and reasoning first. In science, things are not rejected or accepted until peer review happens.

[teo123]

It may very well be honest to reject my etymology. But how can it be honest to both reject my etymology and to accept the etymology that "Karašica" comes from Turkic "kara sub" (or, worse yet, to accept the etymology that "Karašica" is related to Latin "carassius", which is implausible even on phonological grounds)? How can it be honest to reject the etymology which has p-values but to at the same time accept one that does not?

I never said we should reject your etymology, just that fellow linguists shouldn't automatically accept it without reviewing your evidence and reasoning first. In science, things are not rejected or accepted until peer review happens.

Well, my latest paper got published in Valpovački Godišnjak, but I am not sure if that counts as good peer review. My earlier papers can be said to have passed peer review as well, although I now think they shouldn't have (as they are of far lower quality than my latest paper).

[teo123]

I have made a new YouTube video (in Croatian, of course) about my linguistic ideas, this time not only about the names of places, but also about (and primarily about) Etymology Game: https://youtu.be/3nObqRt4x1k

[teo123]

A few days ago, the linguist Dubravka Ivšić asked me via e-mail to send her a copy of my paper published in Valpovački Godišnjak. So I did that. I wonder what she is planning to do with it. Publish a paper attempting to refute my theories? We will see.

I gave a copy of that paper to my communicology professor Jerko Glavaš (otherwise a PhD economist). I told him about it after a class and he said he was interested. I wonder what he will think about it. He does not agree with my right-wing ideas about economics.

My computer architecture professor Ivan Aleksi told me that the arguments presented in that paper seem compelling to him. Though, he is arguably not an expert in the field. His PhD was about computers in submarines, and he, as far as I am aware of, hasn't published any papers about informatics or linguistics.

[teo123]

You know, it seems to me more and more that my father was right in that I shouldn't have claimed in my paper that Illyrian is a centum language. The scientific consensus, at least here in Croatia, is that Illyrian was a satem language. Maybe I should not have claimed to know where that *karr~kurr meaning "to flow" comes from, that it comes from *k[sup]j[/sup]ers. Maybe I should have claimed it's Pre-Indo-European in origin, like I claimed on my website (as I used to think a few years ago). I mean, I do think the scientific consensus is wrong here and that Illyrian is a centum language, but maybe stating that is making my paper more controversial than it needs to be. My paper is about applying informatics to the names of places. Me making other controversial statements in that same paper will make my theories even less likely to become accepted. Maybe I should have stuck only to what the math and historical phonology of the Croatian language (which is a relatively hard science, at least compared to the science of the Croatian toponyms) show.

What's even worse is that, if somebody asked me "What do you think, how did the scientific consensus get that wrong? What made the linguists think Illyrian was a satem language? What is that interesting reason behind scientific consensus getting it wrong here?", I would not have an answer.

[teo123]

What do you think, if p-values are what makes a science a hard science, is my paper about Croatian names of places which has a p-value (at least the math showing that the p-value is somewhere between 1/300 and 1/17) than harder science than most of historical phonology is? In historical phonology, there are usually no p-values. Is my paper then harder science than, for example, the Havlik's Law is? As Havlik presumably did not calculate the p-values. I think that's an absurd suggestion. I am way more certain that the Havlik's Law is correct than that my etymology with a p-value is correct.