Re: Why does the North American accent differ so much from the British accent?

>MT:-
>I was wondering, why does the North American accent (mainstream, not
>ebonics) differ so much from the British? when you look at other
>countries like New Zealand or Australia, you can clearly see a British
>element to their accent. So why does the North American accent differ
>so much from the other Anglo-occupied countries?

JF:-
The explanation is obviously that the British consume lots of marmite,
and the Australians have a counterpart, vegemite.  As Canadians and
Americans aren't into either, their accent has diverged.  Thus the
correlation is perfect, indicating that we need look no further for
an explanation.  The argument is just as strong as many of those advocated
on this newsgroup as explaining evolution of various traits.

JE:-
"Explaining evolution of various traits" is sailing
very close to discussing causation within the sciences; something
you suggested you would never do. I think everybody agrees that
a correlation is not a theory of cause and affect. Science only
uses correlations to inspire the inductive invention of theories 
of causation. Sir Karl Popper simply suggested that all suggested 
causative theories must provide valid points of refutation 
as well as valid points of verification (here valid means logically
possible). If you suggest that marmite and vegemite are causative 
to accents then you have created a theory of causation.
The problem is, you have not provided a single point of
refutation for that theory even if "the correlation is perfect, 
indicating that we need look no further for
an explanation ". Thus the theory is not rejected
because you only suggested it as a joke, but because zero points 
of refutation were presented. The same problem exists within
the _consistent_ misuse of over simplified models within evolutionary
that are used to contest and win against the theory they were 
simplified from (which of course is just an absurdity),
e.g. Hamilton's rule. Hamilton's thinking entirely dominates
evolutionary theory, to this very day. I have asked, for over 
four years, for points of refutation to be provided for Hamilton's
proposed selective road map. None have ever been provided, by yourself
or anybody else here.

Best Wishes,

John Edser
Independent Researcher
PO Box 266
Church Pt
NSW 2105
Australia

[EMAIL PROTECTED]