> Publishing, maybe, if the results come out pointing the "wrong" way.
Poppycock. As the source I pointed to shows, those two authors have been publishing along these lines for years.
> Equating the possibility of literate Carthaginians having sailed to the Baltic Sea
I'm showing how your flat assertion about how science works is not correct. I said nothing about Carthaginians having reached the North Sea, much less the Baltic. (Earlier you said Denmark, and you don't need to get to the Baltic to get to Denmark.)
If you want to have a real argument, make a real argument. Don't start by using faulty logic to dismiss others.
> Whenever older runes show up, the picture might change.
But of course. From what I gather, that's why specialists in this field are so interested in this work.
Do note that this mild statement of your is quite different from your earlier assertion that "Any discussion that doesn't even mention the possibility of origin in semitic forms ... seems unlikely to enlighten".
What is your strongest argument that the semitic origin hypothesis is viable enough to warrant its coverage in a paper like this? Simply that they could have reached Denmark? And why is it more viable than, say, Tartessian explorers?
Denmark is at the threshold of the Baltic sea. Anyone who, like the Carthaginians, could have sailed to the Baltic sea would get there via the North Sea (or down the Oder River). Such quibbling is beneath you.
Carthaginian influence might or might not be more relevant than Tartessian. It depends on the facts. Explorers are much less likely to affect origins of a script than settlers or refugees who were there at the formative time. Has anyone suggested a Tartessian influence, or are you just making shit up?
Hostility to revisiting old conclusions in the face of new facts is anti-science, but common, maybe moreso in history than in other fields.
Then say what you mean. Why must the hypothetical Carthaginian explorers have reached the Baltic in order to trigger the start of runes? Why couldn't they stopped at the Elbe and had the same impact?
Your "could" is carrying a LOT of weight. Could they have sailed to the Shetlands? To the Faroes? To Iceland? To Greenland? To Vinland? Why, or why not?
> It depends on the facts.
What is your facts? I don't think you've said anything other than hand-waving "could". Is it a subset of the ones presented by Goering and Mailhammer? Or do you have other evidence, like we have physical evidence of the Norse presence in Vinland?
> are you just making shit up?
Are you?
As I understand your argument, the Carthaginians were literate and could sail along the Atlantic coastline of Europe (elsewhere we have an account of them reaching Britain and Ireland). Therefore, it's possible that they could have reached the Germanic peoples that way, and it's possible the Punic language could have influenced the creation of runes.
That's all you've presented.
But in that case, who else fits that pattern? The Tartessian people had a written language and could also reach Britain and Ireland from the Iberian peninsula.
There is nothing in your hypothesis which lets us resolve if it was Tartessians or Carthaginians who aided this bit of cultural diffusion.
Why do you focus so much on the Carthaginians, and disregard other peoples who also fit your model?
> Hostility to revisiting old conclusions in the face of new facts is anti-science
There you go again, making shit up about science again.
When an archeologist or geologist finds evidence of a flood, they do not revisit the old conclusion that the entire world, up to the top of the tallest mountain, was covered by water. Revisiting that old conclusion as if it were viable, without substantial new facts that cannot be explained by the existing model, is not scientific.
There was a conclusion that Finns were culturally and biologically from eastern Asia. In the US people used the racist slur "China Sweden", and wanted to bar them from entry under the Asian Exclusion Act. This conclusion is thoroughly discredited - for one, the genome of Finns is mostly Northern European. Revisiting that old conclusion as if it were viable, without substantial new facts that cannot be explained by the existing model, is not scientific.
Using each new fact as a reason for revisiting and discussing every single previous conclusion and pet theory, no matter how disproven or unsubstantiated, is not science.
For those unlikely few still reading this thread, it's clear that moloch-hai doesn't know about the 19th century "race science" pseudo-scientific theory that classified Finns as Mongolians. For those who want to confirm that I am not making shit up, here are some resources:
From "Conflict and Compromise in Multilingual Societies: Finland" at https://books.google.com/books?id=s8eNDR6YDlwC&lpg=PA148&ots... you can read how Castrén's philological analysis appeared to give scientific justification for a long-suspected Asian origin for Finns, with the 1910 Encyclopedia Britannica entry stating the Finns were "no doubt ethnically, if not also linguistically connected" to "the 'Mongolian' race." See also Turanian theory at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turanism ("a pseudoscientific pan-nationalist cultural and political movement").
> Racial prejudice against Finns sprang from a belief that they were related to Mongolians. Some 19th century scientists cited the Finns' exotic language, which is completely unrelated to other European languages, as evidence that Finns were racially unrelated to Europeans as well. It was said that they descended from a tribe that migrated from Mongolia. At a time when federal law barred all immigration from Asia, a federal immigration committee investigated the Finns' racial background, examining them for such physical characteristics as small eyes, high cheekbones, round heads, or stocky stature. Historian Marianne Wargelin:
> "After the 1907 strike, they tried to make the Finns be seen as Asians. There was an Asian exclusion act, and if the Finns could be seen as Asians, they could get them kicked out of the country."
> In 1908, Federal authorities tried to use the act to deny citizenship to 16 Finnish men. A Duluth judge ruled in favor of the Finns; in keeping with the racist tenor of the times, he wrote that Finns had white skins and thus could not be denied citizenship. But the case's echoes lingered for years.
That moloch-hai doesn't know this is fine - there's no reason to know all of the crappy science people have published.
That moloch-hai would rather jump to the conclusion that I'm making shit up - willing to trust personal views over doing research or ask for pointers - is a sign of bad scholarship.
My point remains true. There is no need for a modern paper on the origins of Finns to revisit this racist 19th century conclusion as if it might be viable. There is a lot of evidence that it isn't true, and ignoring the old Mongolian conclusion would not make the modern paper "anti-science."
Similarly, if the connection between Carthaginian has no persuasive evidence, while there are more persuasive connections with other origins, then I don't see why every modern paper on an ancient rune find would need to present the Carthaginian model as if it were viable. That would not make the modern paper "anti-science."
We've banned this account for posting flamewar comments and ignoring our request to stop.
If you don't want to be banned, you're welcome to email hn@ycombinator.com and give us reason to believe that you'll follow the rules in the future. They're here: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.
Poppycock. As the source I pointed to shows, those two authors have been publishing along these lines for years.
> Equating the possibility of literate Carthaginians having sailed to the Baltic Sea
I'm showing how your flat assertion about how science works is not correct. I said nothing about Carthaginians having reached the North Sea, much less the Baltic. (Earlier you said Denmark, and you don't need to get to the Baltic to get to Denmark.)
If you want to have a real argument, make a real argument. Don't start by using faulty logic to dismiss others.
> Whenever older runes show up, the picture might change.
But of course. From what I gather, that's why specialists in this field are so interested in this work.
Do note that this mild statement of your is quite different from your earlier assertion that "Any discussion that doesn't even mention the possibility of origin in semitic forms ... seems unlikely to enlighten".
What is your strongest argument that the semitic origin hypothesis is viable enough to warrant its coverage in a paper like this? Simply that they could have reached Denmark? And why is it more viable than, say, Tartessian explorers?