Toleration of Interracial Dating Now More Prevalent than Heliocentrism

Because I feel certain of the astronomers’ correctness, I know that the Earth takes about 20 minutes longer than what people commonly mean by a “year” to orbit the sun. The period of the Earth’s orbit is one sidereal year, which is not the year used in normal calendars, which typically starts and ends at midnight. Nor is it even the average length of a year, accounting for leap years. That period is based on the “tropical year”.

Obviously a generic year is the closest answer.

I am reminded of a TV interview someone once told me about, one concerning comet Shoemaker-Levy’s impending collision with Jupiter. The reporter asked the scientist, “Should we take precautions?”

There’s probably some marketing reason that it would be immensely profitable to isolate the population of people who support interracial dating but draw the line at heliocentrism.

Whereas at least one blogger apparently thinks that heliocentrism was Galileo’s theory rather than Copernicus’s.

where’s Dick Cheney’s approval rating these days?

On a somewhat heterogonal note, it’s my impression that many people think that the moon keeps the same face turned toward the sun, so that one side is always light and the other dark.

7: “I like black folks fine, but I wouldn’t want my daughter to orbit one”.

13: I blame Pink Floyd.

And one suspects, given the biblical rationalizations used to justify ‘anti-miscegenation’ arguments, that the 17% anti-interracial dating group and the 18% anti-heliocentrism group have a large and utterly ignorant overlap.

I’m not sure how true that is. I’d bet most of the Earth centrists are just ignorant, rather consciously favoring scripture over science. The two surveys are measruing two entirely different sets of beliefs.

In my school days, I was bludgeoned into thinking that both the earth and the sun revolve around the center of mass of the earth-sun system.

OK, now I’m confused. How would Jupiter, for instance, interact with the Earth-Sun system (I know the approximate answer is “by orbiting around a point inside the Sun:” that doesn’t give me a theoretical understanding)? Does everything that orbits the sun take as its centre of orbit the aggregate centre of mass of the whole system (which is presumably always changing)? I’m guessing (quite naively) that even this wouldn’t give us a really good model of how actual orbits behave.

Suddenly my comfortable assurance doesn’t seem so perfect after all (and I didn’t even have to get all relative). Mark me down for “refused to answer.”

A working link to the episode from the French edition of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire mentioned earlier by Quo Vadis, in which the contestant and 56% of the audience said the Sun went round the Earth while only 42% said the Moon, can be found here.

I taught physics once. The cleverer kids could contribute to a discussion of the sort above, such as points about common centres of mass, or how any reference point could be considered as static. For others it was a triumph just to get them to remember the basics. I think a lot of people have trouble with the rock bottom concept of “A revolves round B” when both A and B are in space. They lose their bearings when they try to picture it. The problem may be as much visuo-spatial as anything.

Certainly the distinction between, say, the Earth revolving round the Sun and the Earth revolving on its own axis had to be re-inforced with satsumas and lamps ad nauseam.

Kieran and several commenters here seem to have assumed, or pretended to assume, that the American result was the result of considered heliocentric views rather than ignorance – or just picking the wrong answer through inattention. I doubt it very much. I’ve scarcely ever heard before today of any US Christian fundamentalist who believed in heliocentricism, but I’ve heard of many a survey in the UK and the US that revealed distressing levels of public ignorance about science, history, current affairs, and geography.

Incidentally, on the cross-racial dating question, does anyone know what proportion of those disapproving were non white? My guess would be that a higher proportion of non-whites than whites would disapprove, and a higher proportion still would be willing to admit they disapproved.

“My guess would be that a higher proportion of non-whites than whites would disapprove”

I have no idea – none – why you should think that.

Because minorities are typically more worried about marrying outside the group? Because of popular press accounts of black women worrying about a shortage of marriageable black men being ‘taken’ by white women? Or maybe because of data:

“Over the years there have been studies and investigations conducted to discover the public opinion on this controversial topic and reasons why people decide for or against interracial dating.”

“Many of these studies have found that Black women are the least accepting of inter-racial dating than any other racial group”

“White men were the most accepting group. In this study conducted with California college students, White men were more positive in attitudes about interracial dating (Fiebert, 2000). This same study reported that 81 % of White men were willing to date outside of their race (Fiebert, 2000). However, none of these studies seemed to have stated why White men are the most accepting.”

http://clearinghouse.missouriwestern.edu/manuscripts/314.asp

White men are the most tolerant of interracial relationships and black women the least? Well now that can’t possibly be right, can it?

I’ve just noticed that both I and Crystal have inadvertently provided evidence for the “inattention” explanation. Both of us have used “heliocentric” when we meant “geocentric”, probably unconsciously echoing the title of the post.

Ajay,

The thing that brought the thought to my mind was this recent thread from the Volokh Conspiracy, although that was about preferences for or against inter-racial dating rather than approval or disapproval of it. Other than that, just things I’ve been told and read. I realise that that is not very scientific but that’s why I referred to it as my guess. Although you say that the cliche “would you want your daughter to marry one” is not aimed at black fathers, it’s not that unusual to hear of exactly that situation – from brothers, too.

Also racial prejudice between different ethnic minorites might be a factor.

I did not intend to derail this thread. If my guess is correct, no doubt there are multiple reasons, such as the fear of a minority group losing its identity if too many members marry out. Certainly, I might be wrong in this opinion but I’m surprised that you are so surprised at the idea.

What’s “interracial dating”? If they really want to know the attitudes, they should avoid euphemisms and ask direct and precise questions.

Before this thread slips off the bottom of the blog…

Lemuel Pitkin, your link does not work. But googling I found a Pew survey that said much the same, or exactly the same if that was the link you had. I stand corrected. And surprised – because I have read quite a few complaints, particularly by black and ethnic minority women, that their choice to date men of another race had been regarded unfavourably by relatives. Maybe I got particularly interested in that type of story.

I have been wondering how this ties in with the survey Slocum quoted. I think the difference might hinge on the meaning of “approve” and the difference between approving of inter-racial dating and feeling inter-racial attraction oneself.

I note the Pew survey referred only to blacks and whites. Too tired to think what effect this might have.

There are also questions of compatibility between couples of different religion, class and culture which partly overlap with race and partly don’t. Was that what you were referring to, Abb1?

I dunno, Squander Two. One of the most depressing* observations I made when teaching was that when it came to knowledge, “to those that hath much, more shall be given.”

*Do I mean that?

The thing about surveys of college students is that they are quite young, and so they will naturally hear the question “do you approve of interracial dating” as “would you, yourself, date a hot member of another race?” That’s quite a different question from the “would you want your daughter to marry one” way that most older people might hear it.

And, if the last few years have done nothing else, they should probably have taught us to be wary of “popular press accounts” of, well, anything.