How a late-blossoming classics don became Britain’s most beloved intellectual

Re:How a late-blossoming classics don became Britain’s most ... by patrickg_zill on Wednesday January 31, 2018 @12:06PM (#16275370)

I think we are not far from each other in what we understand... the issue raised between Beard and Taleb seems to revolve around the meaning of "typical" .

Beard seems to say, "it was possible that it could have happened, here are a few Ethiopians for instance that we know were in Roman Britain, for example".

Taleb seems to say "typical means what is likely to have happened 50% or more of the time; since there was no chance that Roman Britain had 50% of marriages with children that involved Ethiopians/Berbers/etc. thus Beard is very wrong"

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Re:How a late-blossoming classics don became Britain’s most ... by foldr on Wednesday January 31, 2018 @12:25PM (#16275527)

Beard's point is that we really have no idea what "typical" ethnic backgrounds were for Roman families in Britain. There's just no reliable data, and it most likely would have varied enormously between different parts of the country.

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