🚀 go-pugleaf

>>> In article <199407062210.PAA17283@netcom12.netcom.com>, Karen Kay <karenk@NETCOM.COM> writes:
>>
>>>> Is theoretical physics a science?
>>>
>>> Absolutely!  Theoretical physics makes correct practical
>>> predictions.  Look at the recent discovery of variations in the
>>> background radiation, at exactly the level that theoretical
>>> physicists had predicted.  What comparable triumph has linguistics
>>> had?

   For one, Saussure infered the existence of IE laryngals purely out of
theoretical necessity.  Only after he posited his "coefficients" did Kurylowicz
et al. find evidence for them in Hittite.  I think that this counts as a
comparable, theoretically predictive triumph.

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                                Sean Redmond
                   New York University, Dept. of Classics
                         Redmonds@acfcluster.nyu.edu
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