5 ms·

>Yes, but this ignores the geographic inhomogeneity of both populations. For example, in Boston blacks were a much smaller fraction than 20%. The fact that the

by jimmyk 10y ago

>Yes, but this ignores the geographic inhomogeneity of both populations. For example, in Boston blacks were a much smaller fraction than 20%. The fact that the races end up living in different areas is strong evidence that when put in close proximity, different races don't want to interbreed. >You're assuming either homogenous population distribution or a lot more population mobility than was happening at the time, I think. That is, you can conclude there is segregation in mating, but the extent to which it's _self_-segregation is a much harder question. The vast majority of blacks came over as slaves. That means they all started out living in white areas. If they later chose to move away from white areas, for whatever reason, I don't see how anyone can possibly argue that they interbreed enthusiastically. When they find themselves in close proximity, they choose to segregate by race. >Also, there were non-racial and non-geographic sources of segregation, like class/income. Note the comments in the wikipedia link below about black/Irish couples being a thing because the Irish were very poor. The reason for segregation is not relevant, as long as it's not a one-off occurrence. If the segregation occurs because the dominant race prevents the subordinate race from succeeding economically, segregation is still occurring. >what is the chance he will do so? This doesn't give us any insight whatsoever into the question. We'd have to compare this to how white men behave when they have white women as slaves. >claims this was also going on There's no doubt that some interracial breeding was occurring. There's also no doubt that it's far less than would occur if there were no preference one way or the other for interracial breeding, and far far less than would occur if humans enthusiastically interbred, rather than self-segregating when given the opportunity. >Well, we're discussing level of enthusiasm. I don't think we're talking about how emotionally happy humans are when doing something, I think we're talking about how likely a certain event is to occur. The overall topic is whether humans can be considered sub-species, and the argument was that they shouldn't be because they interbreed enthusiastically. I'm pointing out that they don't actually end up interbreeding nearly as much as you'd expect if, for some reason, they had no way of distinguishing members of their own race from members of other races.

bzbarsky 10y ago
> The fact that the races end up living in different areas is strong evidence that when put in close proximity, different races don't want to interbreed. That's true, but (1) that's not what I was talking about; I was talking about geographic inhomogeneity in original migration patterns and (2) this argument applies to ethnic/language/religious groups in general, not just races. More on this below. > That means they all started out living in white areas. Sort of. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_by_historical_population https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_by_histori... shows that in 1850 South Carolina had 668k people of whom 385k were enslaved (hence not choosing where they lived, exactly). I didn't look up the number of free blacks, but I expect it was quite small given the laws about re-enslavement at the time. Anyway, more like the white people were living in a black area there. ;) But the real point is that for a while there various parts of the country did _not_ have appreciable black populations because slaves had not been brought there while your typical plantation had a much larger black population than white population. Voila, _involuntary_ geographic inhomogeneity. > The reason for segregation is not relevant That really depends on the question you're trying to answer. > We'd have to compare this to how white men behave when they have white women as slaves Sure. But the worst case for the "enthusiastic" hypothesis is that in this situation they always end up with kids, right? There may be value in comparing to this worst case, even. > There's also no doubt that it's far less than would occur if there were no preference one way or the other for interracial breeding Sure. I don't think anyone reasonable is arguing there was no preference on the matter. But if we're going to talk about sub-species, exact frequencies and cutoffs do matter if the whole thing is to make sense other than as a mood-affiliation labeling exercise ("_these_ two groups are different sub-species, but these two other groups are just less likely than average to intermarry/interbreed"). There is good data showing that breeding across religious and language boundaries is less common (and was even less common in the past) than breeding within those boundaries. And yet very few people nowadays will argue that, say, the French and the Germans are separate sub-species, or were separate sub-species 100 years ago. Yes, I realize that 100 years ago people were in fact likely to make just such an argument. :) Heck, inter-political-party marriage is a lot less common than within-political-party marriage in the US. And the rate of inter-political-party marriage, in the US, is dropping, while the rate of interracial marriage is rising. According to http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/how-many-republicans-marry-democrats/ http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/how-many-republicans-mar... the former is sill more common than the latter but not _that_ much more common. I expect the lines to intersect within the next decade or two if current trends continue... I guess we could argue that sub-species boundaries are malleable and they can merge or separate over a timescale of a few generations. That would be a valid take on the whole thing, I guess, but then I question the usefulness of the "sub-species" labeling; it seems to not have a useful definition in this situation from my point of view.
- jimmyk 10y ago
  >this argument applies to ethnic/language/religious groups in general, not just races OK, but that doesn't take away from the fact that it applies to races. >Sort of. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_by_histori.. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_by_histori.... shows that in 1850 South Carolina had 668k people of whom 385k were enslaved (hence not choosing where they lived, exactly). I didn't look up the number of free blacks, but I expect it was quite small given the laws about re-enslavement at the time. Anyway, more like the white people were living in a black area there. ;) Haha fair enough, but in this case we'd expect interracial breeding rates in certain areas to be extremely high (approaching 50%) but we see nothing even close to that. >But the real point is that for a while there various parts of the country did _not_ have appreciable black populations because slaves had not been brought there while your typical plantation had a much larger black population than white population. Voila, _involuntary_ geographic inhomogeneity. If the rates of interbreeding are diminished because one race purposefully holds the other race in small confined geographical areas, that's still an example of interbreeding being limited despite close proximity (i.e. less than a few miles). >Sure. I don't think anyone reasonable is arguing there was no preference on the matter. Someone was arguing that there is a preference for interbreeding. That's what this discussion started over -- a claim that humans 'enthusiastically' interbreed. >And yet very few people nowadays will argue that, say, the French and the Germans are separate sub-species, or were separate sub-species 100 years ago. You're missing the crucial first criteria for subspecies, which is that they must be "separate groups that are clearly distinct from one another". Frenchmen are not clearly distinct from Germans. White republicans are not clearly distinct from white democrats. White catholics are not clearly distinct from white protestants. White people are clearly distinct from black people.
  - bzbarsky 10y ago
    > Frenchmen are not clearly distinct from Germans Really? You think that walking up and trying to talk to one won't make it obvious which is which within about 30 seconds? If you really prefer, replace French and Germans with Swedes and Italians. Even the visual appearance there is not that far off from the visual appearance difference between "white" and "black" as the terms were defined in the US in the 19th century. In both cases you can find some people that can "pass" as the other group, but the typical members look quite different.

by jimmyk 10y ago

bzbarsky 10y ago

> The fact that the races end up living in different areas is strong evidence that when put in close proximity, different races don't want to interbreed. That's true, but (1) that's not what I was talking about; I was talking about geographic inhomogeneity in original migration patterns and (2) this argument applies to ethnic/language/religious groups in general, not just races. More on this below. > That means they all started out living in white areas. Sort of. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_by_historical_population https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_by_histori... shows that in 1850 South Carolina had 668k people of whom 385k were enslaved (hence not choosing where they lived, exactly). I didn't look up the number of free blacks, but I expect it was quite small given the laws about re-enslavement at the time. Anyway, more like the white people were living in a black area there. ;) But the real point is that for a while there various parts of the country did _not_ have appreciable black populations because slaves had not been brought there while your typical plantation had a much larger black population than white population. Voila, _involuntary_ geographic inhomogeneity. > The reason for segregation is not relevant That really depends on the question you're trying to answer. > We'd have to compare this to how white men behave when they have white women as slaves Sure. But the worst case for the "enthusiastic" hypothesis is that in this situation they always end up with kids, right? There may be value in comparing to this worst case, even. > There's also no doubt that it's far less than would occur if there were no preference one way or the other for interracial breeding Sure. I don't think anyone reasonable is arguing there was no preference on the matter. But if we're going to talk about sub-species, exact frequencies and cutoffs do matter if the whole thing is to make sense other than as a mood-affiliation labeling exercise ("_these_ two groups are different sub-species, but these two other groups are just less likely than average to intermarry/interbreed"). There is good data showing that breeding across religious and language boundaries is less common (and was even less common in the past) than breeding within those boundaries. And yet very few people nowadays will argue that, say, the French and the Germans are separate sub-species, or were separate sub-species 100 years ago. Yes, I realize that 100 years ago people were in fact likely to make just such an argument. :) Heck, inter-political-party marriage is a lot less common than within-political-party marriage in the US. And the rate of inter-political-party marriage, in the US, is dropping, while the rate of interracial marriage is rising. According to http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/how-many-republicans-marry-democrats/ http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/how-many-republicans-mar... the former is sill more common than the latter but not _that_ much more common. I expect the lines to intersect within the next decade or two if current trends continue... I guess we could argue that sub-species boundaries are malleable and they can merge or separate over a timescale of a few generations. That would be a valid take on the whole thing, I guess, but then I question the usefulness of the "sub-species" labeling; it seems to not have a useful definition in this situation from my point of view.

jimmyk 10y ago
>this argument applies to ethnic/language/religious groups in general, not just races OK, but that doesn't take away from the fact that it applies to races. >Sort of. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_by_histori.. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_by_histori.... shows that in 1850 South Carolina had 668k people of whom 385k were enslaved (hence not choosing where they lived, exactly). I didn't look up the number of free blacks, but I expect it was quite small given the laws about re-enslavement at the time. Anyway, more like the white people were living in a black area there. ;) Haha fair enough, but in this case we'd expect interracial breeding rates in certain areas to be extremely high (approaching 50%) but we see nothing even close to that. >But the real point is that for a while there various parts of the country did _not_ have appreciable black populations because slaves had not been brought there while your typical plantation had a much larger black population than white population. Voila, _involuntary_ geographic inhomogeneity. If the rates of interbreeding are diminished because one race purposefully holds the other race in small confined geographical areas, that's still an example of interbreeding being limited despite close proximity (i.e. less than a few miles). >Sure. I don't think anyone reasonable is arguing there was no preference on the matter. Someone was arguing that there is a preference for interbreeding. That's what this discussion started over -- a claim that humans 'enthusiastically' interbreed. >And yet very few people nowadays will argue that, say, the French and the Germans are separate sub-species, or were separate sub-species 100 years ago. You're missing the crucial first criteria for subspecies, which is that they must be "separate groups that are clearly distinct from one another". Frenchmen are not clearly distinct from Germans. White republicans are not clearly distinct from white democrats. White catholics are not clearly distinct from white protestants. White people are clearly distinct from black people.
- bzbarsky 10y ago
  > Frenchmen are not clearly distinct from Germans Really? You think that walking up and trying to talk to one won't make it obvious which is which within about 30 seconds? If you really prefer, replace French and Germans with Swedes and Italians. Even the visual appearance there is not that far off from the visual appearance difference between "white" and "black" as the terms were defined in the US in the 19th century. In both cases you can find some people that can "pass" as the other group, but the typical members look quite different.