I think that the “supposed” value of Esperanto has been proven time and time again, but I do agree that further research is necessary

What’s the difference between that sentence referring to Esperanto and, say, homeopathy? What if I tell you as your physician to substitute your “traditional medicine” for my great auriculotherapy, or for my herbal medicine? Woudln’t you tell me to fuck off with my faith and to use science (and not belief or scientism) to solve you problems? I, as a blogger, could tell you right now: “hey, abandon your common medicine and take X (acupunture, herbs, pray,…), because “it has been proven time and time again, but I do agree that further research is necessary”. “In fact, it is been proven right now, take a look at this research about X, which says it’s great”, without saying it is directed and financed by the “Association For The Promotion Of X”…

That’s exactly what you are saying by using a supposed research explained, financed and probably directed by the “Universala Esperanto-Asocio” through some of its members in the Manchester University – as the Wikipedia article on Esperanto, written by Esperantists, asserts.

The answer is not: “let’s learn creationism until evolution is proven”, but the other way round, because the burden of proof is on the least explained reason. If you want people to learn a one-man-made code to substitute their natural languages, then first bring the research and then talk about its proven advantages. You Esperantists have made the opposite, just like proposers of “altenative” medicines, and therefore any outputs are corrupted since its start by your false expectatives, facts being blurred, figures overestimated and findings biased in the best case.

By the way, I don’t see how that video is “interesting” at all: it’s just another Esperanto-is-so-cool video; no facts, no studies, no reasoning: just Esperantist coolness everywhere…

Four schools in Britain have introduced Esperanto, in order to test its propaedeutic values. The pilot project is being monitored by the University of Manchester.

Academic research on the value of Esperanto is essential, and perhaps it should be extended to other countries as well

An interesting video can be seen at http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8837438938991452670