...they invariably draw out some seriously uninformed, inane, hand-waving types of comments that would be completely unacceptable when attached to technical articles...
And I dislike seeing these articles because they brings out the kooks who believe that it's more important to think happy thoughts than look at the numbers.
You'll find the 1990 projections for 2100 there, which suggest a 1/3rd Hispanic population. The 2004 revisions only published projections for 2050, but I saw information at the time that suggested similar revisions to the 2100 projections would lead to a U.S. that is about 1/2 Hispanic by 2100.
Who took the decision to do this to America? Well, the most important piece of legislation in this regard was the 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act. So I blame Ted Kennedy :).
I won't cheapen the debate by replying to your last paragraph.
And I'd appreciate an apology for the suggestion that I was the one uniformed about population projections here.
> I dislike seeing these arguments because it brings out the kooks who believe that it's more important to think happy thoughts than look at the numbers.
What is "unhappy" about Hispanics? Nothing, in my book. The US managed to absorb plenty of poor immigrants from places like Ireland and Italy and you know what? We've done just fine.
If you look that piece of legislation up, it was about liberalizing immigration quotas, not a "political decision to turn American half Hispanic". That's conspiracy talk.
Also, projections include births, deaths and migrations, and if you look at the methodology document, Hispanic birth rates are far higher than the other categories (Ted Kennedy connection: he's a Catholic, they're mostly Catholics. Coincidence, or all part of the master plan?). Enough to account for those numbers without immigration? Not sure. Still, I'm not worried about it. People blend in, in the US, if they want to go anywhere. It has happened before, and it will happen with immigrants now.
> I won't cheapen the debate by replying to your last paragraph.
You brought up xenophobes, who are pretty much by definition people who dislike foreigners or people who are 'different'. Xenophobia isn't "people who dislike foreigners except for the ones in PhD engineering and science programs".
And I dislike seeing these articles because they brings out the kooks who believe that it's more important to think happy thoughts than look at the numbers.
The U.S. Census estimates are always the first place to go: http://www.census.gov/population/www/projections/index.html
You'll find the 1990 projections for 2100 there, which suggest a 1/3rd Hispanic population. The 2004 revisions only published projections for 2050, but I saw information at the time that suggested similar revisions to the 2100 projections would lead to a U.S. that is about 1/2 Hispanic by 2100.
Who took the decision to do this to America? Well, the most important piece of legislation in this regard was the 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act. So I blame Ted Kennedy :).
I won't cheapen the debate by replying to your last paragraph.
And I'd appreciate an apology for the suggestion that I was the one uniformed about population projections here.