Its a sad fact about health in PNG. Laughing Sickness and all that.
I want to know how you got acid into my lunch...Quote:
Originally Posted by cmacq
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Its a sad fact about health in PNG. Laughing Sickness and all that.
I want to know how you got acid into my lunch...Quote:
Originally Posted by cmacq
Wow, Teleklos Archelaou brought up an interesting subject. Some of us could be descended from hundreds of ethnicities if you take geneology far back enough...
Can't we please just let this go the way of the Raphus cucullatus?
Now back to Red Eye.
I believe I am descended from Napoleon's Marshalls and the Indian Maratha confederacy Generals.
Quote:
Originally Posted by overweightninja
I believe it's only about 0,5-1,5% ?
But that might just be direct male descent...
Never mind
Indeed. But then, we are in an age (like any other age, actually) where dissent from the 'accepted understanding' is looked down upon as either kookery orbased upon some conspiracy theory.Quote:
Originally Posted by cmacq
Same as above. There is ALOT of misleading information put out to the general public as scientific 'consensus' (as if scientific questions are a matter of democracy..). That there are various vested interests supporting different studies rather muddies the waters. MMGW, though, has so many holes that it is laughable that it is (allegedly) supported by the scientific 'establishment'.Quote:
Actually, the problems with the urban recording stations clearly demonstrate that temps. have dropped slightly since the 1940s and remain slightly below, and not far above, those projected for the MWP.
Ah...one of my favourite subjects, and you have addressed a fundamental question in a very novel way. What is the nature of time. We are struggling to describe the universe within epistemological frameworks (deterministic, hard-materialist) which have been overtaken by events (General and (especially) Special relativity, and quantum behaviour (probabilistic and indeterminate)). What is the nature of time? But, try discussing that science is as much about epistemology as it is observation and...some don't seem to get it.Quote:
If there was indeed a big bang, and everything happened all at once, why would there be younger parts of the Universe?
Anyway, I digress. As far as ethnicity and culture are concerned...it can't be stressed enough that they are not necessarily the same thing. When the Normans invaded and took control in England, for example, it was a very small percentage of the population that ruled. They didn't bring over masses of immigrants. But it seems there was a greater assimilation of populations when the Angles and Saxons had arrived. What Romans may have turned up in these lands would have had little interest in dallying with the local populous (even those aristocratic, Roman educated descendants of the Celtic chieftans whose villas dot our landscape). The soldiers (of many and varied ethnic backgounds) may have settled here.
Cultural change does not mean ethnic cleansing or even necessarily huge ethnic alteration. But, I'm not sure what there is to be said -then - for a sense of pride in one's ethnicity per sé. Because that sense of pride is actually rallied around the (perceived) culture of that group.
I myself am dark-haired...nominally. I have brown eyes and a Roman nose (for want of a better description). My body hair tends to be black. But...if I grow a beard it is...red, tinged with blonde. Some of my more...personal body hair is also red. I have freckles, but if I am blessed by the Sun (a rare treat) my freckles merge and I become very dark. So, what ethnicity am I? Do you know, I don't care one bit.
History, for me, is about understanding social and political contexts. Its about how people may have perceived themselves (in terms of the written records that we have) and how they perceived the world around them. The history of religions is particularly interesting, but only if one can view it from outside of that overview. The same, I would have thought, would carry in terms of cultural/ethnic histories. If you associate yourself with a particular group you might consider the 'rightness' of that group as a given (the 'pride' in one's background), and you might miss the bigger picture...On a personal level this isn't so much of a problem, but we see this played out on national scales.
All that I know of for certain about my family history is that we were, at some point, smugglers - along the South East coast (and beyond, it seems, it was a Markwick - smuggling tea - who triggered the Opium Wars). Ought I be proud of that? I'm interested... but thats as far as it goes, really.