It's all thanks to a painstaking technique called the comparative method.
The problem with the comparative method Aslan uses is it overlooks important discrepancies in favour of broad-brush correlations.
The comparative method works better for another of the author's purposes: it constructs a judgment seat from which to indict the New Deal.
The comparative method presupposes linguistically uniform speech communities and independent development after sudden, sharp cleavage.
Critics of the comparative method have pointed out that this situation does not generally hold.
This assumption is built into the comparative method as it is traditionally applied.
One of the criticisms directed against the comparative method is that it is based upon a misleading genealogical metaphor.
Much of its structure, however, can be deduced by the comparative method of reconstruction (a reconstructed language is called a protolanguage; reconstructed forms are marked with an asterisk).
However, the comparative method fails when the data are not extensive enough to establish systematic correspondences among the sound systems and grammars of languages with a reasonable frequency.
Weber demonstrated that the comparative method was essential because the behaviour of institutions in societies could not be understood in isolation.
The comparative method, using comparisons across species that have evolved independently, is an effective means for studying historical and physical constraints.
