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Sunday, July 28, 2019

DAVID REICH IF ALL IS MIXTURE THEN ALL A PIGS BREAKFAST

Reich is terrified of confirming something which he is proud his research has confirmed in part and confuted in part:

The Aryan pure race and Indo-European language account, later taken up by the Nazis. 

Having such a fact of prehistory confirmed in part does not make the Nazis either good or pure, however, as Reich points out, so Reich should just get over it.

'The genetic data have provided what may seem like uncomfortable support for some of these ideas --- suggesting thata single, genetically coherent group was responsible for spreading many Indo-european languages.' p. 121.

To assert a genetically coherent group, on the one hand, but say that all is really mixtures of mixtures of mixtures, on the other, only muddies the contours of his account and blurs the features of the objects and processes under investigation.

He makes much of the ideas of the Beakers, but ignores that topic regarding the genetically coherent group apparently originally responsible for many Indo-European languages.

Then he comes out with this, regarding ideas:

'Ancient DNA has established major migrations and mixture between highly divergent populations as a key force shaping human prehistory, and ideologies that seek a return to a mythical purity are flying in the face of hard science.' DR

Hard science ideologies like Reich's that force a mythical liberal multicultural account on sparse data, such as his re the Beakers, are flying in the face of hard science and his own data re a genetically coherent Indo-European group, and its mixed offshoots, who may or may not have spread Indo-European language through ideas, rather than force. 

This has been one of the great debates of the last 150 years.

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