Talk:Race and intelligence/Archive 84

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1RR violations

Do we report these to the editwarring board as normal, or to a particular place or group of admins? Verbal chat 13:38, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

There is no 1RR restriction on this article. Please see Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Race_and_intelligence/Workshop#Temporary_1RR_on_Race_and_intelligence. The remedy is currently being voted upon by arbiters and currently has 4 !votes. Once it has six, it will pass and be enforced. Once the remedy passes, I would suggest WP:AN3, though if it's a complex case, you may wish to go to WP:AE instead. --B (talk) 17:09, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

Interesting, it had been presented to me as a fact. Apologies. Verbal chat 17:16, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

In fairness, the statement above does state it as fact, but a single admin does not have the authority to unilaterally declare an editing restriction. George overstepped his bounds. This isn't to say that it's a bad restriction — it's a good one and arbcom will most likely pass it — but allowing a single admin to declare an editing restriction on any article they please is a very dangerous precedent. --B (talk) 17:28, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

Wikilawyering on procedural issues regarding the 1RR? The article was placed on a 1RR by GWH, a move supported by Jimbo Wales. The details can be found in the ANI archive here. If Arbcom chooses, the 1RR can be overruled, but at present it is in effect per the ANI thread, not as a specific Arbcom proposal. Wapondaponda (talk) 06:19, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

This is the first time I have seen Jimbo's statement linked to. Jimbo has the authority to place the article on 1RR. GWH does not. It is not "wikilawyering" to say that a single admin does not have the authority to place an article on 1RR any more than it is "wikilawyering" to say that there are any other limitations to administrative authority or use of the admin tools. If nobody here has any objections, based on Jimbo's statement this can be considered an active restriction and we can add appropriate notice at the top of this page, to the page notice of the article, and at Wikipedia:General sanctions. --B (talk) 12:48, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

I appreciate the efforts of administrators here to clarify whether the 1RR restriction was even effective or not, and whether or not there was notice of the restriction visible to editors here. Given that the highly visible general position of Jimbo Wales is that " You can edit this page right now," it's important to get a reality check whenever anyone proposes a restriction on immediate editing. Peters was the first to ask that all editors have notice of any restrictions, right at the beginning of restrictions being imposed, but that discussion on this talk page rolled off into the archives, and the talk page templates and the article itself were not marked in any way that would remind users that the restriction was imposed or when the restriction would expire. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk) 13:49, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

The markings seem to have scrolled off, but B is entirely incorrect in stating that admins cannot place these type of restrictions. We do it all the time. I have not personally been closely watching the page due to real life intervening - but it's an entirely valid restriction. Anyone enforcing it without a reminder notice first would be acting a little rashly, but that's different than "you can't place that". That is entirely within admins' established discretion, and in this case several arbcom members agreed. Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 04:56, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

Edit warring

Despite Arbcom proceedings, edit warring seems ongoing. Even posting of the current proposal seems to have had no effect. I have filed one report here. Wapondaponda (talk) 10:49, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

Protected

As you can see from the article, I have protected the article for an intentionally very long time, until September 1, 2010. Essentially, the point of the protection is for it to be in place until either (a) all issues are resolved or, more likely, (b) the 1RR or other preventative measure is instituted. -- tariqabjotu 13:32, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

In the meantime, I hope you and other admins will be available to post any content changes if editors do arrive at points of consensus at article talk. Thanks. PЄTЄRS J VЄСRUМВА ►TALK 13:48, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

Please remove the protection at once. It is unnecessary. There is only one editor editwarring, and the protection is preventing improvements to the page. And, of course, it has been protected at the wrong version. By protecting the page you have rewarded the editwarrior and are punishing our readers, the project and other editors here. Verbal chat 14:12, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

{{editprotected}}

One point of consensus is that the contested edit has no support. At the very least that should be reverted, or a previous stable version reverted to. Verbal chat 14:13, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

I see two things: a request for unprotection, which belongs at WP:RFPP, and a request to revert to a version simply because something in the current version is contested. It is not my business to decide who is right and wrong or whose edits are contested and whose are not. Those types of requests are consistently rejected, particularly when the point of contention is exactly what led to this article being protected. So, unless you have any other changes you would like to make (with clear consensus), please stop restoring the template. I understand you disagree with the protection, and apparently adamantly, but this is not the correct course of action. -- tariqabjotu 18:05, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

What led to the article being protected was you deciding to protect it rather than actually block the editwarring user. Having pages locked down for no good reason damages the project. Verbal chat 18:17, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

Mike didn't start the fire. There is a large amount of edit-warring on this article, even if you exclude Mike's actions. While I understand the method of going after and blocking the most disruptive editors, and I often use it myself, on an article with a history of edit warring as prolific as this one's, I feel long-term protection with an aim toward measures (like 1RR) that everyone abides by is the best approach. And, as B said on WP:AN3, I'm within my discretion to go that route. If you disagree, as I said, there's WP:RFPP (or WP:ANI). -- tariqabjotu 18:25, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

Yes, he did start this particular fire and you have rewarded him for it. Well done. Long term protection when there was only one problem editor is an overreaction, assuming good faith, or simply taking the easy path rather than doing the more difficult right thing. I have filled a RFPuP. I note you haven't actually addressed my points. Verbal chat 18:30, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

Verbal, I assumed you were aware that this protection makes the fifth in about nine months and that there have been numerous reverts (composing mini edit wars) since the last protection, including in the past week or so, that have not included in Mike. So, I thought I didn't need to bother you with the particulars. This article has been a long-term source of problems; Mike did not, in fact, start the fire, and I don't see why you think taking out one coal will extinguish it. But you are entitled to that position, as much as I'm entitled to mine; unfortunately, I have the power to make the decision, while you do not. -- tariqabjotu 18:43, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

You've again failed to respond to my concerns, and I'm not sure how to respond to that last clause, it doesn't paint you in a very good light. I've never come across you before but I've found your attitude to be totally unbecoming in an administrator. Do you have a recall process? Verbal chat 19:01, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

Er... I'm not sure what's particularly controversial about the last sentence; I'm basically stating a plain fact. A block or protection (among other options) are both valid in this case, and it's clear you and I disagree on which route to take. Administrators, for better or worse, have more say over whether a user gets blocked or the article gets protected because they can actually take those actions. What exactly is the problem there? As for recall, I'm not in Category:Wikipedia administrators open to recall, if that's what you're asking. -- tariqabjotu 21:30, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

The entire conversation above aside, I think it sends the wrong message to do a "pox on you all" total article protect that is for all immediate intents and purposes indefinite. We won't figure out how to all play nicely in the sandbox if you've locked the park gates. PЄTЄRS J VЄСRUМВА ►TALK 22:10, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

This is normal process / procedure. Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 06:36, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

Points of contention, No. 1

Since we all will be cooling our heels for a bit, perhaps we can stop to contemplate the latest bit of reverting instead of accusations and half-started discussions.

Version "A"

Version "B"

Several studies have reported that races overlap significantly in brain size but differ in average brain size. The magnitude of these differences varies depending on the particular study and the methods used. The majority of studies have been based on external head measurement, while only a few studies have involved the more accurate MRI techniques. On average, the brains of African-Americans are 5% smaller than the brains of Whites and 6% smaller than East Asians, according to studies of brain weight at autopsy, endocranial volume of empty skulls, head size measurements by the U.S. military and NASA, and two dozen MRI volumetric studies.<ref>Ho, K. C., Roessmann, U., Straumfjord, J. V., & Monroe, G. (1980). Analysis of brain weight: I and II. ''Archives of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine'' 104, 635–645.</ref><ref>Johnson F. W. & Jensen (1994). Race and sex differences in head size and IQ. ''Intelligence'' 18: 309–33</ref><ref>Rushton JP. (1997). Cranial size and IQ in Asian Americans from birth to age seven. ''Intelligence'' 25: 7–20.</ref><ref>Rushton JP (1991). Mongoloid-Caucasoid differences in brain size from military samples [and NASA]. ''Intelligence'' 15: 351–9.</ref> Other researchers have also found variation in average brain size between human groups, but concluded that this variation should be viewed as being based on biogeographic ancestry and independently of “race”.<ref>Beals, K. L., Smith, C. L., & Dodd, S. M. (1984). Brain size, cranial morphology, climate, and time machines. ''Current Anthropology'' 25, 301–330.</ref><ref>Lieberman L. (2001). How “Caucasoids” Got Such Big Crania and Why They Shrank. ''Current Anthropology'' Vol. 42 No. 1.</ref>

Several studies have reported that races overlap significantly in brain size but differ in average brain size. The magnitude of these differences varies depending on the particular study and the methods used. The majority of studies have been based on external head measurement, while only a few studies have involved the more accurate MRI techniques. In general, these studies have reported that East Asians have on average a larger brain size than Whites who have on average a larger brain size than Blacks.<ref>Ho, K. C., Roessmann, U., Straumfjord, J. V., & Monroe, G. (1980). Analysis of brain weight: I and II. ''Archives of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine'' 104, 635–645.</ref><ref>Johnson F. W. & Jensen (1994). Race and sex differences in head size and IQ. ''Intelligence'' 18: 309–33</ref><ref>Rushton JP. (1997). Cranial size and IQ in Asian Americans from birth to age seven. ''Intelligence'' 25: 7–20.</ref><ref>Rushton JP (1991). Mongoloid-Caucasoid differences in brain size from military samples [and NASA]. ''Intelligence'' 15: 351–9.</ref> Other researchers have also found variation in average brain size between human groups, but concluded that this variation should be viewed as being based on biogeographic ancestry and independently of “race”.<ref>Beals, K. L., Smith, C. L., & Dodd, S. M. (1984). Brain size, cranial morphology, climate, and time machines. ''Current Anthropology'' 25, 301–330.</ref><ref>Lieberman L. (2001). How “Caucasoids” Got Such Big Crania and Why They Shrank. ''Current Anthropology'' Vol. 42 No. 1.</ref>

It would seem to me that simply stating "larger" or "smaller" without any quantification leaves "B" open to interpretation. Others argue that "A" gives the quantification values undue weight. As sources are the same in both versions, the question is solely regarding their representation.
   I would submit that the greater evil is leaving things open to interpretation, for example, per "B," I might conclude Asian(-American)s have brains the size of planets and African(-American)s are pea-brains. If you think I'm being ridiculous, then I suggest coming up with something that eliminates the possibility of that interpretation. I've got my own ideas—minimally, I'd suggest the ranking order as presented by "B" but with a good deal more detail per "A"—but first I want to see if anyone else believes it's worth attempting to hash out such differences.
   My own experiences in assisting in such conflict resolution is that it can work to bridge divides IFF ("if and only if") all parties (a) deal in good faith, meaning (b) accepting all statements in good faith including (c) expressions of frustration as that and nothing else (not a personal attack), that is: all conduct is the product of editors acting in good faith. Resolving this and other issues at the article is only going to work if editors leave all accusations of bad faith at home. No denouncing SPAs, no accusations, no edit-warring reporting of editors you don't agree with, etc., etc., etc. Are editors prepared to commit to that? PЄTЄRS J VЄСRUМВА ►TALK 14:33, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

I beg to differ. Problematic editors are a real phenomenon on Wikipedia. Every day dozens of editors are blocked, banned or sanctioned for problematic editing. This is easily revealed by checking WP:ANI or WP:AN3. Trolls, vandals, POV pushers, SPAs are real and are really disruptive. WP:AGF is a policy that one should apply in general, especially when dealing with unfamiliar or novel situations. However when one is confronted with problematic editing, it often becomes necessary to call a spade a spade. It would be naive not to. When faced with a dispute that has continued for 9 months, it may be a good idea to critically examine all aspects of the dispute including user conduct. Wapondaponda (talk) 09:03, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

(ec) @Verbal, communicating something regarding quantification per the sources is not unreasonable. Just because editors haven't jumped into the edit war doesn't mean they agree with the version ("B") you appear to state is uncontested except for one stubborn editor insisting on "A." PЄTЄRS J VЄСRUМВА ►TALK 14:33, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

Brain size studies

I think what would really help in these situations is directly referencing the reliable secondary sources that are being used. Specifically, citing chapter and page, and providing short excerpts. Simply put, there is far too much effort spent on these pages pushing for a specific version, and not enough actual reading and sourcing going on. Trying to resolve a content dispute without referencing the source content is not an easy task. aprock (talk) 16:31, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

Mikemikev's edit was very problematic, the other version is more neutral but has some problems as well. There are WP:SYNTH issues because the statement is referenced by multiple sources with each source having different quantitative results. To summarize these disparate sources in a single statement, as Mikemikev has done, would be WP:SYNTH. Furthermore Lieberman and Nisbett have both criticized Rushton and Jensen for citing studies in ways that the authors of the studies did not intend. This problem exists in the current references. At this stage, the most appropriate thing would be to delete the section altogether and rewrite a new one, possible on a subpage. Wapondaponda (talk) 17:15, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

The primary source studies are also very small-n studies and don't have the statistical power to generalize to a quantitative general statement for the article text. We also have to look for reliable secondary sources that even show that the issue is on-topic for the article (there is considerable controversy that brain size even matters for IQ, the topic of the article). And if there are reliable secondary sources that show that this is an important issue related to IQ, we have to explore what those sources say about causation. (They may have nothing at all to say about causation, if all the studies have a correlational design, but if that is so, then the article text must include citations to the usual cautions about mistakenly relying on correlation data as evidence of an unproven pattern of causation, which I'm sure can be found specifically directed to this article's topic in reliable secondary sources.) Right now, the statement has neither sufficient sourcing nor sufficient showing of relevance to be in the article at all. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk) 17:53, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

So because brain size is currently a speculative proxy for a causal factor (with a certain correlation) we should drop it? Stereotype threat has been repeatedly demonstrated to not be a factor. Shouldn't we be concentrating on removing that section? Also you might want to double check the n-size of some of those studies. And it isn't our place to replace figures in the literature with "bigger and smaller". You can drop the figures or report them, not modify them. mikemikev (talk) 19:16, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

I think we have two choices. One is to chuck content. That is not what we do here. That is like all those people who go to work every day and think that by having a job which is to say "No" they are productive members of the work force. They are not. The other is to represent content fairly and accurately. Since studies of brain size have been done and produced quantified results along the lines of race, we can't just toss them out. I suggest we crack the nut on how to represent them in more detail and in a way which does not overstate the degree to which general conclusions can be drawn. We are writing this for the average reader—and so must deal with inconvenient content the reader may run across. The question is not, are the brain size studies relevant, primary/secondary, statistically significant, etc., etc., etc., the question is, when the reader runs across these studies elsewhere and comes to WP to find out more, what WP content will that reader encounter which leaves them a more informed individual? We're writing this for an audience, not for a debating society coffee klatch where the intelligentsia get together once a week and argue vociferously. PЄTЄRS J VЄСRUМВА ►TALK 20:15, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

thread continues in PST section following

Wikipedia:PST

As long as the focus is on using reliable secondary sources, I think you are correct. aprock (talk) 20:25, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

Quite honestly, I don't believe that there is anyone that disagrees. But when a study is the primary source and the secondary source the commentary, it's a slippery slope to represent only what was said about what was said without appropriately noting what was said in the first place. I think that is one of the endemic issues here, as some have insisted "primary" sources are strictly verboten. That approach produces hearsay, not good narrative. PЄTЄRS J VЄСRUМВА ►TALK 20:36, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

Peters, you wrote, "studies of brain size have been done and produced quantified results" but there are reliable secondary sources that say that all of those studies have nothing to do with the race and intelligence issue. There is a well known problem that many published studies have flaws that undermine any inferences from their findings, and that is why we have to be especially careful to find most statistics-savvy, widely read experts in the secondary literature and see what they say about the significance of small-n, or possibly unrepresentative, sample studies that may have nothing to do with the article topic. Yes, I think we are all in agreement (at least nominally) that if a statement is well attested in reliable sources, it goes into the article, even if the statement makes one or more of us uncomfortable or disagrees with a statement formerly championed by one of us. But because statistical power of studies is an indispensable issue for correct analysis of what studies can be generalized to what degree, it is vital for us to look for discussion of that issue in the best secondary sources. The plural of "anecdote" is not "data." -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk) 20:58, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

A corollary to that. There are secondary sources which summarize what a primary source says, and there are secondary sources which summarize what a primary source contends. Those are two different things. Mixing the two without clear differentiation in the article is another endemic impediment to good narrative. PЄTЄRS J VЄСRUМВА ►TALK 20:42, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

I think you're going to have to be a bit more clear here. Maybe citing relevant policy would help? aprock (talk) 20:53, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

This should help to clarify [1]. mikemikev (talk) 20:59, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

My opinion is that complaining about primary and secondary is a poor substitute for a reasonable argument. mikemikev (talk) 21:06, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

I'm not really sure that opinion is compatible with WP:PST. aprock (talk) 21:13, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

It doesn't seem like anyone knows what's compatible with PST. Maybe that's why it's wheeled out whenever someone's losing an argument. mikemikev (talk) 21:23, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

Without expressing an opinion either way about the content in question, I’d like to point everyone to what I’ve brought up here. Regardless of whether Mikemikev or Muntuwandi is “right” in this dispute, I don’t think it’s appropriate for RegentsPark to be using his admin powers in order to favor one side in it over the other. --Captain Occam (talk) 21:19, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

I'm not sure RegentsPark is neutral here. mikemikev (talk) 21:25, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

"The plural of 'anecdote' is not 'data.'" I like that. WeijiBaikeBianji, I agree, and I see our challenge here as how to make those issues accessible to the average reader, rather than omit material using secondary sources—my experience has been that secondary sources, when employed as judge, jury, and executioner regarding what gets/doesn't get included in an article, become just as politicized and polarized as personal arguments. So, as a sample (let's not get into this being a "suggestion" of anything), we might have:

Studies using a variety of measurement techniques—head measurements, skull volume, post-mortem brain weight, MRI scans—have reported that races overlap significantly in brain size but differ in average brain size. East Asians measure largest followed by Whites (#% / #% to #% less) followed by Blacks (#% / #% to #% less again). The magnitude of observed differences and interpretations of their statistical significance vary depending on sampling methods and sample sizes. [refs] Observed variations have also been postulated to be the result of biogeographic ancestry independent of race [ref], that is, while variations may correlate with race their origins lie elsewhere.

That last bit after "that is" would be best attributed to a source, that's my narrative at this point but I believe it's a fair and accurate representation. Correlation versus causality is the operative phrase here. Caveat, I'm restating current narrative, not restating based on reading the sources, hence just calling it a sample. PЄTЄRS J VЄСRUМВА ►TALK 21:30, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

(ec) On WP:PST, the operative phrase is "All interpretive claims, analyses, or synthetic claims about primary sources must be referenced to a secondary source." That does not impede relating an uninterpreted summary (of a primary source) if unavailable in a secondary source which discusses what was "said" not "contended" per my earlier. PЄTЄRS J VЄСRUМВА ►TALK 21:30, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

That's by no means the only guidance wrt primary sources: Wikipedia articles should be based on reliable, published secondary sources and, to a lesser extent, on tertiary sources. Secondary or tertiary sources are needed to establish the topic's notability and to avoid novel interpretations of primary sources, though primary sources are permitted if used carefully. As far as I can tell, the use of primary sources in this article has been anything but careful. aprock (talk) 21:40, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

But I thought primary was raw data, which nobody used. mikemikev (talk) 21:42, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

That's not precisely correct. It's not just the data, but the entire source which originally publishes it. Please review WP:PST: a scientific paper is a primary source about the experiments performed by the authors. aprock (talk) 21:44, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

One last observation. The word "conclude" is used far too often when "theorize," "postulate," etc. are more appropriate. PЄTЄRS J VЄСRUМВА ►TALK 21:33, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

So would a synthetic claim made by a researcher about his own data be secondary? mikemikev (talk) 21:37, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

No. From WP:PST Primary sources are very close to an event, often accounts written by people who are directly involved. If such a source synthesizes their own data, they are still "close to an event", and "directly involved". This is actually one of the big problems with sourcing for this article, because many of the review articles are written by those doing active research, or otherwise directly involved in the controversy. aprock (talk) 21:48, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

And you don't think that produces an absurdity? mikemikev (talk) 21:50, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

Why should one person reasoning from anothers data have any more credibility? It's stupid. mikemikev (talk) 21:53, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

At the coarsest level, two heads are better than one. Regardless of how you feel about WP:PST, it's wikipedia policy. aprock (talk) 22:02, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

I think PST is designed for events and history and goes wrong when applied to science. Maybe it should be expanded. 22:06, 20 July 2010 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mikemikev (talk • contribs)

You are welcome to open discussions at the talk page: [2]. aprock (talk) 22:08, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

"I think PST is designed for events and history and goes wrong when applied to science." As the son of a man who did graduate level study in the philosophy of science, I think that view would sound quite unusual to most working scientists. Sound science is all about replicating data, and the first person to publish is not the person who is doing the replicating. But, yes, if you really have a complaint about the WP:PST policy, take it up on the talk page about the overall no original research policy. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk) 04:46, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

I think we can all agree there is no pure primary or secondary source when it comes to researchers commenting on researchers. Too much time has been spent on what not to include as opposed to how to include things properly. PЄTЄRS J VЄСRUМВА ►TALK 01:41, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

WeijiBaikeBianji: I'm well aware of the importance and value of replication. I was talking about something different. WP policy at the moment seems (I'm doubting the interpretation here is right) to give more credibility to a researcher drawing inferences from somebody else's data, which is stupid. mikemikev (talk) 08:16, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

I would agree the interpretation is at fault. Let's assume the following are all published in peer-reviewed journals. "X" publishes study "A". "Y" reviews study "A", which involves a critique of the data in "A" and/or "X"'s conclusions. "X"'s original postulations/conclusions, "Y"'s review, "X"'s response to "Y", etc., etc. etc., must all be part of the narrative. That "X"'s initial study or "X" responding to "Y" is "primary" but "Y" reviewing "X"'s work or responding to "X" is secondary, per the tête-à-tête which often arises, therefore only what "Y" says can be put in the article is, to be quite frank, totally bogus and a roadblock to the creation of any sort of balanced article narrative. IMHO, some have made the argument in good faith (where the policy leaves itself open to interpretation and confusion); some have used it to suppress discussion and content. (The two "somes" are not mutually exclusive.) I suggest we all scrupulously avoid appearances of the latter going forward. PЄTЄRS J VЄСRUМВА ►TALK 13:14, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

Yes, I agree with this. mikemikev (talk) 13:34, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

RegentsPark action

Mike and Vecrumba: do either of you feel like it’s worth filing a complaint about RegentsPark doing what essentially amounts to using his sysop powers to support one side in a content dispute? Keep in mind that if you bring this up either with the arbitrators or at AN/I, by the time a resolution is reached the page protection might have already expired anyway. --Captain Occam (talk) 21:54, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

I'll do it if he doesn't undo in 24hrs. If you want to do it earlier go ahead. mikemikev (talk) 21:58, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

Bad idea. Do not do it. The sysop acted against the rules but in a good faith. Fighting around such minor change is ridiculous. And no, do not file the motion.Biophys (talk) 22:51, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

Well he can show his good faith by undoing. mikemikev (talk) 22:54, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

All right, when I posted my last comment I hadn’t seen your own comment about this in RegentsPark’s user talk yet. As I said, I don’t care enough about this particular content dispute to want to bring it up myself, although I do agree that his action might deserve more attention in general. Whether you want to do this depends on whether it matters enough to you to be worth the time and effort it would require.

I’m pretty uncertain about whether starting yet another AN/I thread about this article is a good idea, though, since I think we all know from experience how those tend to just turn into mudslinging matches. If you think RegentsPark’s decision deserves attention, it might make more sense to file a motion about it in the Arbitration case instead. --Captain Occam (talk) 22:12, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

@WBB (hope you don't mind the abbreviation) quite a bit earlier, I was reading through again, my "sample" should include something along the lines that "brain size correlated to intelligence" + "differing average brain size correlated to race" is correlation and not causative, following on to the bio-geographic diversity note, citing appropriate sources. Wouldn't that cover the inclusion as well as what conclusions should not be drawn? Communicating what we don't know (and why) is just as important communicating what we do know.

   On RegentsPark, we've got a choice to take it as a provocation or not. Per my advice on a blanket assumption of good faith in the face of (what one of us might perceive as) evidence to the contrary at least where R&I is concerned, I suggest letting it go. Not the way WP:AGF is worded, but IMHO the only way we'll ever get off the dime here. I could swear we're almost having a conversation here, lately. PЄTЄRS J VЄСRUМВА ►TALK 01:23, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

RegentsPark acted properly. One person was editwarring against consensus, their version shouldn't have been protected. Verbal chat 10:24, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

"Consensus" is not defined as "N+1" reverting against "1" ergo "N+1" is "consensus" when "N" is << than the total number of editors who are interested parties at this topic. Edit protecting the article for a Wiki-eternity does little to replenish the WP:AGF fountain. A short protection period enabling some dialog as I've attempted to plant a seed here would/should have been quite sufficient. If admins can't maintain objectivity and deal with incidents individually without bringing a-pox-on-you-all baggage (how it comes across) to a conflict, then they should ask someone less invested to intervene. PЄTЄRS J VЄСRUМВА ►TALK 12:56, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

I agree with your conclusions, but multiple independent editors reverting a single editor shows that there needs to be discussion before that edit can be accepted. Protecting the page, for a long period, at the wrong version, is rewarding the editwarrior and damaging to the article and to those that seek to build consensus and improve the article. What would have worked best here would be a block of the editor in question, putting them on a 1R restriction, or topic banning them for a period from the article (but not talk page, unless the incivility were to continue). All would have been defensible actions and not have caused this needless drama. Verbal chat 13:03, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

I think we're agreeing here, I'd just make a couple of changes in what you've stated:

• "but multiple independent editors reverting a single editor shows that there needs to be discussion before that either edit can be accepted"
• Protecting the page, for a long period, at the wrong "minority of one" version, is rewarding appears to reward...

I've been on both sides of at which point of content a page was protected, it's a crap shoot. More than once the solution has been a complete rewrite of the "disputed passage" as neither version represented the wider consensus—the reverting was a symptom that both versions were lacking, not that one was consensus, one not (I'm avoiding using "right" and "wrong"). I agree that protection provoked additional drama that is simply not necessary.

   And if there are sanctions, either everyone gets 1RR or no one does if they all promise to play nice in the sandbox. I think there's been enough of sanctions and lobbying for sanctions against one's editorial opposition that "playing nice" is preferable. WP:AGF does not impede heated, healthy, debate—it promotes it.

   A policy of no reverts except for real vandalism (not content changes denounced as "vandalism") would be even better. PЄTЄRS J VЄСRUМВА ►TALK 13:46, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

Brain size

I put in the approximate magnitude of the difference. But forgot to log in! mikemikev (talk) 14:03, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

That needs to be based on much more recent, reliable sources. There is considerable dispute in the professional literature both about the underlying facts (which brains are larger) and the significance (how much brain size has to do with IQ). -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk) 14:18, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

Yes, I'm aware that there is considerable dispute about how much brain size has to do with IQ. This is irrelevant to the brain size data though. I've also heard that there is considerable dispute about the brain size data itself. Perhaps you can produce a reliable source to that effect to get us started. mikemikev (talk) 17:28, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

Mikemikev, you wrote, "I'm aware that there is considerable dispute about how much brain size has to do with IQ." Okay, I will take that as an acknowledgment that discussion of brain size may not belong in this article at all, unless a reliable source shows that it is plainly relevant. (I note for the record that Ramdrake has already provided a source that shows the brain size speculation probably doesn't belong in the article.) The article is already well beyond the usual length for a Wikipedia article. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk) 19:05, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

You are unaware of a reliable source which discusses brain size in relation to the race IQ gap? Try the APA report. mikemikev (talk) 20:11, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

Incidentally, since scientific consensus is that we don't know what's causing the Race IQ gap, all potential factors are speculative. There's a much more powerful argument against stereotype threat, and by your logic it shouldn't be in the article, just because I can find someone who questions it. mikemikev (talk) 20:21, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

This? "Lynn (1990) points out that large nutritionally-based increases in height have occurred during the same period as the IQ gains: perhaps there have been increases in brain size as well." Is that it? Or are you referring to another APA report? Professor marginalia (talk) 20:21, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

This is better. The section Say clearly what your results mean and do not mean is a nice guideline for this section. mikemikev (talk) 20:27, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

I should hope your second one is better. What does it say? Professor marginalia (talk) 20:38, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

1. Say Clearly What Your Results Mean and What They Do Not Mean. The first part of this principle seems natural to scientific writers. The second part does not. Let us suppose, for example, that you are interested in the relationship of race, head size, and intelligence. Let us further suppose that you find that head size has a correlation of about .20 with intelligence, and that head sizes of blacks are on the average around 6% smaller than those of whites. Finally, let us suppose that these results are based on large, random samples of both races (you see by this that my example is a fictitious one, although the numbers are taken, roughly, from Rushton, 1990). This obtained result means, as you surely would not fail to point out in your article, that there are some systematic—possibly causal--relationships here that may be of scientific interest. It does not mean that you should hire your next faculty colleague by measuring his (or her) head size. It surely does not mean that you should hire your next faculty colleague by looking at the color of his (or her) skin. With race a weak predictor of head size and head size a weak predictor of intelligence, this behavior would be ludicrous in the extreme, if what you want to select for is intelligence. Yet this conclusion- that race will predict intelligence with reasonable effectiveness based on its association with head size--is exactly the sort of conclusion that unsophisticated people will draw from this result if you do not explicitly tell them not to. Psychologists who are used to working on typical topics that psychologists work on aren't particularly attuned to this point, because few but their fellow specialists much care what their results do mean, and such experts are well aware of the limitations in the conclusions that can properly be drawn from them. With race differences, it's different. Lots of people care passionately, and most of them are not experts in interpreting research, even though many may, in a general sense, pride themselves on being informed and literate. mikemikev (talk) 21:11, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

So in challenging Ramdrake's cite that supposed correlations with brain size aren't significant enough to be included here, you're sharing a cited argument drawing on a fictional example "roughly" resembling Rushton? One which half-heartedly concedes such an exercise hypothetically "may be of scientific interest"? Professor marginalia (talk) 21:40, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

Well, I think you're misrepresenting the quote rather negatively. It's clear from all of the cites that this is a significant issue. mikemikev (talk) 21:48, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

From Evolution, brain size, and the national IQ of peoples around 3000 years B.C, Wicherts (2009): "Rushton (this issue) claims that global differences in IQ and development can be explained in terms of (race) differences in brain size. Rushton (2000) has gone to great lengths to show that race groups differ on average in terms of brain size, with Whites averaging 1347 cm3 and Blacks averaging 1267 cm3. The mean difference may appear impressive, but it is virtually meaningless without knowledge of the typical spread of brain size within populations, which is around SD = 130 cm3." mikemikev (talk) 22:03, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

If anything, I minimized the negatives from the quote. The positive? Alluding to his fictional study, used for the purposes of argument only, "This obtained result means, as you surely would not fail to point out in your article, that there are some systematic—possibly causal--relationships here that may be of scientific interest." End of positive. The negative? Again alluding to the fictional study, "With race a weak predictor or head size, and head size a weak predictor of intelligence [any predictions of intelligence based on race] would be ludicrous in the extreme. Yet this conclusion ... is exactly the sort of conclusion unsophisticated people will draw from this result if you do not tell them explicitly not to." And he emphasizes how likely it would be such research would draw people who "care passionately" about race and intelligence and think they're "informed and literate" but lack the necessary expertise will jump to false conclusions from the research which should be left to experts. This does not make any claim that brain size is a "significant issue". It argues that it's an issue with high potential for misuse and misinterpretation. Professor marginalia (talk) 22:39, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

Since the disagreement is about whether or not this work should be included here I think it would be more helpful to find sources that show Rushton's work is "significant" to the race and intelligence topic, and not sources who dismiss it as meaningless and prone to misuse by people "caring passionately" about race differences. Professor marginalia (talk) 22:54, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

Yes "This obtained result means, as you surely would not fail to point out in your article, that there are some systematic—possibly causal--relationships here that may be of scientific interest." That's more positive than I hear about stereotype threat. Remember that this is a speculative line of evidence, currently being investigated, not something that has ever been discredited. The numbers from the "fictional" study have now risen to a correlation of 0.4 between brain size and intelligence, and the 6% size difference has been repeated many times. Every scholar in the field discusses the issue. It's significant, no question.

Wicherts does not dismiss the finding as "meaningless". He reasonably states that the brain size difference is meaningless without knowing the standard deviation. It then becomes meaningful. You wrote: [A]nd not sources who dismiss it as meaningless and prone to misuse by people "caring passionately" about race differences. This sentence is a complete misrepresentation of the quotes provided, taking the worst possible and false interpretation from each of them and putting them side by side as if they were expressed together. Wicherts reasons that the data is meaningful. Loehlin warns to caution not to generalize too much from the data, as we should, while at the same time stating that the issue requires further investigation. mikemikev (talk) 04:10, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

You must not realize that among the three sources you've offered here, not one of them is supporting your assertion that this is a significant issue, that its findings are significant, or that every scholar in the field discusses it. You keep saying it, but your sources haven't. None of them have discussed the substance of the work, and two of them outlined how the work shouldn't be used. Professor marginalia (talk) 13:30, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

Well, I thought it was up to us to decide how significant something is. As a demonstration of your principle, can you produce a source showing that stereotype threat is a significant issue. Incidentally, we both know brain size is a very, very, significant issue. mikemikev (talk) 17:25, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

Actually, we both don't know this. For as much significance as you're imparting to it here you should be able to source it better. And I haven't looked at the stereotype threat issue. Any challenged claim must be supported by sources--there is no presumption that either/both/or neither is significant without them. Professor marginalia (talk) 19:37, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

Well there were several articles about the subject in Personality and Individual Differences 48 (2010), where the numbers were not contested. The brain size data seems to have been accepted by mainstream psychology. The fact that you can't find a source contesting the numbers means that we only have your word that they are contested, which isn't worth anything. And as for finding a source saying that brain size is a significant issue, I think your making an unreasonable request. That's for us to decide. We're not going to find a meta-source about a speculative line of evidence saying "the brain size issue is x% significant to the race IQ gap". The fact that this issue is discussed by every psychologist in the modern literature demonstrates without question that it is a significant issue. mikemikev (talk) 09:10, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

You could start here. BTW, this ref has now been provided to you three or four times. However, you seem to deny that it says in plain English that there is considerable dispute about brain size differences. --Ramdrake (talk) 17:35, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

That paper is about the history of racial intelligence hierarchies. I can see no counter-factual brain size data. mikemikev (talk) 17:40, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

And I see plenty. Sorry.--Ramdrake (talk) 17:47, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

All the modern studies in that paper confirm the result. Beals, Smith and Dodd used latitude as a variable, not race. I'm genuinely mystified as to which study from that paper you think refutes the result. mikemikev (talk) 20:08, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

First of all, you cannot exclude studies based on their age, unless you can come up with a secondary source which confirms that they are obsolete in some way. Second, several researchers (table on p.70 of the article) find different "racial hierarchies" in brain size; some actually don't even find differences at all. This proves that there is no consensus that "brains of African-Americans are 6% smaller than brains of White people". This is at best Rusthon's claim, and there is no scientific consensus behind this value.--Ramdrake (talk) 17:35, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

You appear to be applying a rhetorical strategy involving me finding a 'secondary source' confirming the self evident. No, I don't have a secondary source stating that MRI data is better than filling skulls with lead shot. Why? Because it's freaking obvious! And still, you fail, knowingly or otherwise, to acknowledge that the table clearly represents intelligence hierarchies, often from the 1800's. It is irrelevant! The fact that you need to constantly churn up this rubbish shows clearly how weak your position is. You have one paper, clearly from an egalitarian apologist, clearly attempting to obfuscate the issue. No reliable counter data has been presented. mikemikev (talk) 17:49, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

OK then, here's a couple more refs which make the point that Rushton's numbers and hypotheses are controversial and cannot be introduced as incontrovertible fsact as you're trying to do.--Ramdrake (talk) 18:21, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

And here's Rushton's response and corrections based on Cain and Vaderwolf's feedback, re your first diff, which is also only to the abstract and not the whole paper; when conversations on sources are based on abstracts, they always lose the essential nuances. The point is that unless the R&I topic is represented as the long, twisting, back-and-forth conversation is it with the article ending at the current situation based on the latest research, the article is doomed. It's somewhat depressing reading through the constant tossing back and forth of sources as if the article content has been distilled down to a game of trumps. PЄTЄRS J VЄСRUМВА ►TALK 18:36, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

(outdent) Peters, replying to your suggested goal immediately above that "the R&I topic [be] represented as the long, twisting, back-and-forth conversation" does not seem to me to be the path to a reader-friendly, encyclopedic article. And, indeed, there are reliable secondary sources already in print that cover this issue quite thoroughly and accurately in a much straighforward narrative style. There are multiple whole books on this subject, but to get the Wikipedia article down to the desired length of a Wikipedia article means that our pleasant, thoughtful conversation here on the article talk page shouldn't be reproduced on the article page proper, nor should the article proper rehash every twist and turn of scholarly discussion on the topic. Brevity will be the soul of wit here. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk) 19:43, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

One word to describe this, trolling. According to [3]

The archetypal example of trolling is the deliberately inflammatory edit or post — saying something controversial specifically to cause a flame war. Inflammatory edits usually come from users who have a minority or controversial opinion and who sincerely believe that this view is inadequately represented by Wikipedia, and therefore will seek reasonable ways to properly represent their views; trolls, however, will generally not seek consensus but will instead insist on a position without any regard for compromise.

Wapondaponda (talk) 06:29, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

Muntuwandi, please leave it out. I am not trolling, just trying to get WP uncensored. You are, however, an afro-centric POV pusher. mikemikev (talk) 09:10, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

Please stop editwarring. There is no consensus for your actions. Rather than try to force your version, or insult others here, please bring WP:RS that support the addition you are trying to make and address the valid concerns raised above. Verbal chat 13:25, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

I have given several RS. The finding is consistent and uncontested. mikemikev (talk) 13:28, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

Signifigance of brain size difference: Someone said "Since the disagreement is about whether or not this work should be included here I think it would be more helpful to find sources that show Rushton's work is "significant" to the race and intelligence topic"

No. The fact that it was published by the apa MAKES it significant. So does the fact that it is not "Rushton's work"; it is a summary of HUNDREDS of studies published all over the world in prestigious academic journals. THAT make it even more significant, according to wikipedia policy (summary survey sources have the highest credibility of all. Go look it up).

I can't believe that you're even discussing this question: "Blacks have smaller brains. Is that relevant to why they have low IQ?s" I leave for a couple of months, and when I get back, y'all are taking this question seriously. I never should have left. Mikemv and occam, you've allowed yourselves to be nickle-and-dimed into taking outrageously POV, ridiculous assumptions seriously. GOD I wish I had time to spend on this! But even crazy homeless women have responsibilities... DAMN!

And I can't wait for sept 1. The article is full of biased propaganda and blatantly POV-slanted presentation. You might as well unlock the article now, as everyone else is waiting for sep 1 too. Freezing the article for months (which you'll soon do again in sept) is NOT the way to resolve this. EVERYONE agrees that the article now is screwed up and contaminated by the other side. Taking it to formal, binding mediation is. Unless mathsci can buffalo his way into the mediation staff by backroom-buddy politics and bragging about "Cambridge", the mediators will be more in tune with wikipedia rules, all of which mandate publishing the truth instead of cowardly, disproven lies of the wanaponda/mathsci type. TechnoFaye Kane 12:34, 24 July 2010 (UTC)

Bold Proposal for Article Editing

Inasmuch as the article appears to be doomed to full protection for a while, I thought I would open up here some metadiscussion on how to break the logjam of editing disagreements when the article goes back (I hope) to normal editing with no more than perhaps pending changes review. How about a rule for deciding editing disputes based on the very topic of the article itself? The article is about purported group median differences by race in human intelligence as estimated by IQ test scores. What if we each go to a psychologist (perhaps a psychologist chosen by a panel of other Wikipedians) and take an age-appropriate, currently normed, mainstream IQ test? Then whenever there is an editing dispute here, we could resolve the dispute by averaging the IQ scores of all the editors who support one idea about how to edit the article and comparing that to the average IQ scores of editors with differing opinions. We could follow a consistent policy of preferring the high-IQ opinion whenever we make a disputed edit. What do you think about that? (Yes, you are entitled to the opinion that this is a strange editing procedure, but I think it is rather more consistent with Wikipedia policy than, say, imposing a strictly limited source list on the article. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk) 15:52, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

Haha. Hope it's a joke. Anyway, I'm 131, measured by a University of London psychology researcher. BTW, there's no log jam. The articles pretty stable. Some bickering over scraps really. mikemikev (talk) 18:21, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

There is plenty that still needs to worked on in the article, including the idea that a person has one fixed IQ score that lasts a lifetime. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk) 19:48, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

That was a good joke, but the problem is serious. Nothing will work in cases like that, short of creating an official editorial board to rule on the content. These people must have at least Bachelor's degree in the corresponding area of science. Not a new idea of course.Biophys (talk) 22:30, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

Sorry I can't find where in the article it says "a person has one fixed IQ score that lasts a lifetime." mikemikev (talk) 11:50, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

I found "IQ scores are fairly stable over much of a person's life." Is that wrong?mikemikev (talk) 14:08, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

What is the corresponding area of science for editing this article? Are all bachelor's degrees completely comparable? -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk) 23:37, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

What area? Whoever studied race or intelligence as a part of their major courses. The point is not degree but creating an authority to rule on the content, specifically on several highly controversial subjects like this. An authority may be wrong, but it's better than no authority at all in such cases.Biophys (talk) 04:25, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

Bpesta has not just a B.S.; he has a PHd and has published on the topic in several academic journals, including Intelligence. But when the lies-telling rabble side found out he disagreed with them, they immediately said his opinion was irrelevant because, for instance, "he's an expert on intelligence but he's not an expert on race".

Because experts agree that 1) the gap is real, and 2) it's not environmental; until the other side is forced from above to STFU and defer to the truth, the supply of "experts" here will be niggardly. TechnoFaye Kane 12:59, 24 July 2010 (UTC)

(If you admit being at a mental hospital, would it be a WP:NPA violation to imply that you're crazy? In any case, I don't want to have to come to that conclusion.)

Actually, experts do not agree that it's not "environmental", because "environment" contains many things not fully quantified. Experts agree that the gap is not due to as-yet analyzed environmental characteristics.

But the "lies-telling rabble side" is yours, as you've just established.

And, per the original "modest proposal", I weigh in at 163. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 13:19, 24 July 2010 (UTC)

If we implemented your modest proposal, the environmentalists (or whatever we're calling the luddites now) would want the results thrown out. Among the truth side would be me, with 147 (as measured at the mental hospital I was committed to. I'm an official idiot-savant). But on the other side, "balancing" my grotesquely overdeveloped intelligence, would be wanaponda--an excellent example of the contested material in this article.

I rest my case. TechnoFaye Kane 12:49, 24 July 2010 (UTC)

Interesting article on evolution of Homo sapiens

I thought this might be food for thought as edits resume: When the Sea Saved Humanity (Scientific American). -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk) 18:30, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

Typos

I have noticed some typos in the article. What is the best way of getting them fixed? Or should I just wait until the page is no longer protected? Colincbn (talk) 02:01, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

Which typos did you have in mind? -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk) 03:16, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

The first two that come to mind are these: (my additions in bold)

• "soldier IQ gap was similar in the general population"
• "passed their matriculation exam, the majority of whom were Ashkenazi Jews"

I think there is at least one more but I will have to find it later, I don't have time to re-read the article right now. Colincbn (talk) 05:12, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

Both fixed. --RegentsPark (talk) 13:08, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

Thanks! Colincbn (talk) 14:54, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

Making the content and subject matter more approachable

I believe we need more than just college texts to make the R&I subject more approachable in order to not present it as merely a conflict of two mutually exclusive views. I offer the following as an example, discussing and quoting Jensen—who is for better or worse still at the center of the maelstrom—as an excerpt from potentially useful reading, if not useful for direct article content.

Appearing in:
The Jensen Uproar
Antony Flew
Philosophy, Vol. 48, No. 183 (Jan., 1973), pp. 63-69
Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of
Royal Institute of Philosophy
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3749708

For the geneticist, Jensen maintains, the right form of question is: 'How much of the variation (i.e., individual differences) in a particular trait of characteristic that we observe of measure (i.e., the phenotype) in a given population can we account for in terms of variation of the genetic factors (i.e., the genotype) affecting the development of the characteristic?' (GE, p. 85). The fact that hereditary and environmental factors interact makes it difficult but certainly not impossible to answer questions of this form. Nor is it to the point in the present context to complain that IQ tests are culturally skewed. 'To the extent that a test is not "culture free" or "culture fair", it will result in lower heritability measurement. It makes no more sense to say that intelligence tests do not really measure intelligence but only developed intelligence than to say that scales do not really measure a person's weight but only the weight he has acquired by eating. An "environment-free" test of intelligence makes as much sense as a "nutrition-free" scale for weight' (GE, pp. 117-118).

This is a reasonable example (I feel) for a secondary source representing Jensen as the primary, i.e., an appropriate non-judgemental mix of summation and quotation. (Because there is such wide-ranging discussion of Jensen over time, I do believe the original study and Jensen's comments over time merits a separate article, but that's another discussion.) There's another specific example I'm looking for again that I hope I bookmarked, when I find it, I'll add it here.

I think it's to the benefit of editors, personally, and of the article to be as widely read on the topic as possible—including scholarship that we personally disagree with—this is regardless of who says what about whom (speaking of scholarship not WP editors) that we do agree with regarding the R&I topic. PЄTЄRS J VЄСRUМВА ►TALK 16:19, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

Approachability, example #2

In my study of history, I have found that materials from the times, of the times, are as equally valuable as materials benefiting from years of research and hindsight. And so, were I to embark on understanding the impact of Jensen's study, I would traverse that area of inquiry chronologically: from immediate reactions to reactions once removed, so to speak, to later scholarship. An interesting bit of reading in this regard, I submit, is:

The IQ Test: Does It Make Black Children Unequal?
Author(s): Lillian Zach
Source: The School Review, Vol. 78, No. 2 (Feb., 1970), pp. 249-258
Published by: The University of Chicago Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1084239

Zach was doing psychometrics before I was born and (I believe) is a founder of Yeshiva University. PЄTЄRS J VЄСRUМВА ►TALK 18:10, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

Approachability, example #3

Last for my "interesting reading" list for today.

The Values of the Academy (Moral Issues for American Education and Educational Research Arising from the Jensen Case)
Author(s): Michael Scriven
Source: Review of Educational Research, Vol. 40, No. 4, Science and Mathematics Education
(Oct., 1970), pp. 541-549
Published by: American Educational Research Association
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1169745

Scriven's paper deals with Jensen in the context of the reaction at UC at Berkeley, starting at the current situation and going on from there. We should reflect on whether some of the sturm und drang here is not the result of similar inadequacies, regardless of our personal estimations of our own preparedness.

Read Jensen's article and then ask, "Is its topic socially and politically important?" The answer is "yes." Is it morally important? Again, "yes." Is it intellectually important to the sciences as well as to the humanities? "Yes." Then why is the level of discussion of it so appalling? It is so only because the students, like most faculty, are not taught the skills, the data or the attitudes necessary for handling and acting on controversial, moral- political- scientific issues.

One last one with regard to the word "racism" being thrown about (IMHO) carelessly in WP discussions:

Third, the concept of racism involved in the charges [against Jensen] is peculiarly ill-defined. Racism originally meant the conscious or unconscious influence of racial characteristics on attitudes, actions, or arrangements to which these characteristics are actually irrelevant. In the past year or so the charge of racism in the universities has been supported by evidence to which it is, in this sense, irrelevant, and charity suggests we introduce another sense of the term. In this sense, which might perhaps be called "passive racism," one is racist if he has not done all he might reasonably do to compensate for the effects of racism by others. There is not the slightest evidence in his article that Jensen is a racist in either sense, although on general grounds the whole of mankind probably is laissez-faire racist including most radicals. Jensen can be identified as a racist only in the sense that his work can be (mis-)used by racists to support their case. If that kind of redefinition is allowed, then the revolutionaries are reactionaries since their activities provide support for reactionary programs.

Over and out. PЄTЄRS J VЄСRUМВА ►TALK 18:52, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

Offhand, it looks like this discussion belongs on the history article, not this one. aprock (talk) 18:54, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

In terms of detail, yes. In terms of informing our discussion, I'd say both places. There are probably more eyes here at the moment. PЄTЄRS J VЄСRUМВА ►TALK 19:07, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

Some Approaches for Finding Reliable Sources

The article mentions various forms of information about medical implications of race and intelligence. It's plain that the way to go forward with the article, once full protection is turned off and the ArbCom case is decided, is to follow RexxS's helpful suggestion in the ArbCom workshop discussion and apply Wikipedia reliable source standards for medicine-related articles to this article. That will reduce the bloat in the article. Primary sources should be mentioned only insofar as they would be mentioned in a summary, encyclopedic discussion of the topic in a reliable secondary source.

We have a source list all of us can use.

I am still compiling a source list for this article and the many related articles I have begun to edit. I haven't even had time yet to type up entries for the several sources kindly suggested by other Wikipedians. I'm reading lots of the sources to take breaks from typing. The source list will soon span several subpages with appropriate wikilinks, and it is being scrupulously cite-checked to ensure verifiability. As I continue to update it, I will add a pathfinder section to guide readers to the very best sources (and I will consider all of your opinions on that issue, but especially Wikipedia policy, as I proceed) and I will add a simple rating system for many of the sources. These sources are beginning to take over my office, but that is all right, as many of them are useful for my off-wiki research for other audiences.

Professional association statements will be extremely useful.

I see that long before I came on board as a Wikipedian, some editors have been suggesting that joint statements formally adopted by professional organizations, such as the American Psychological Association statement "Intelligence: Knowns and Unknowns" and the "American Anthropological Association Statement on 'Race' and Intelligence" are helpful for defining the scope of the topic. I agree. That was a great suggestion. I wonder if there are other professional associations that have formally adopted statements on the topic, especially statements that take into account the last decade and a half of research or that reflect the perspective of some other mainstream scientific discipline. Such documents would be very good to look for and to refer to while editing this article and related articles. I further wonder whether professional associations in other parts of the world, such as the other English-speaking countries, have issued statements of this kind. Have any international organizations of scholars addressed the issue and made formal organizational statements on it? That would be a good reality check on what issues to cover in the article.

Associations still need to respond to external pressures. I'm not sure we can represent such statements for more than they are. PЄTЄRS J VЄСRUМВА ►TALK 13:16, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

I'm not sure what you're saying here. Everyone responds to external (and internal) pressure. More than anything professional associations are secondary sources. Some may be unreliable, but that's an issue which applies to any source, not just associations. aprock (talk) 16:18, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

Can you tell us about the "external pressure" the AAPA was under in formulating its document? Or are you just making this up as you go along? By the way, the AAA and AAPA are international. Headquartered in the US, they have many members from around the world. These are the largest professional organizations of their kind in the world, and leading scientists in other countries belong and attend meetings. Slrubenstein | Talk 17:01, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

Many psychologists have a fundamental conflict of interest when it comes to the kind of testing on which a lot of this work is based. They are the people who both create and administer the tests. If such tests were ruled to be pointless, and useless in predicting human performance and behaviour, they would be out of a job. While most, I'm sure, are very professional people, they do not approach this topic from an independent position. HiLo48 (talk) 21:17, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

HiLo48, you wrote, "Many psychologists have a fundamental conflict of interest when it comes to the kind of testing on which a lot of this work is based. They are the people who both create and administer the tests." This is an important point. The interest of a witness is a routinely considered factor of witness credibility in forensic contexts. The American Psychological Association, with its diverse membership, includes some psychologists in some disciplines (e.g., social psychology or cognitive psychology) who may be rather skeptical of IQ tests. But compared to other scientific disciplines psychology is a) closer to the facts and also b) closer to conflicts of interest on the issue of the accuracy and utility of IQ testing. That is why it is beneficial to consider formal statements by psychologists and also formal statements by scientists in other disciplines while editing the article. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk) 04:23, 31 July 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, so let's guide our editing by referring to encyclopedias.

Another avenue I am pursuing right now is to see if I can obtain by interlibrary loan current encyclopedias on the general topics of psychology or anthropology or on the more specific topics of psychological assessment, intelligence, race, or related issues. A lot of people don't read encyclopedias anywhere near as much as they read blogs or comic strips, but Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, and the best way to practice writing for an encyclopedia is to read good-quality published encyclopedias. So let's look for encyclopedias that are recent and authoritative as another reality check on what to put into the article and how to read it with a fitting readable, neutral, scholarly tone.

P.S. I don't envy ArbCom having to do something with the current case. I'm sorry I didn't say over there, sooner, "Let's discuss sources back at the article talk page where such discussions belong." -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk) 22:53, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

Just to say: I'm with you here. This was starting to look worse than a mud-slinging contest between a bunch of 12-year olds.--Ramdrake (talk) 23:11, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

It would be useful to compile an inventory of authorship credits and references to specific sources from such encyclopedia articles. These would be useful as representative (academically acknowledged) sources either of a specific viewpoint and/or of wider current scholarship, as applicable. PЄTЄRS J VЄСRUМВА ►TALK 13:14, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

Hope the below helps. PЄTЄRS J VЄСRUМВА ►TALK 14:01, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

In general, I agree. But it is important to know the date of the last revision of the article, if this is possible. Most encyclopedias are not revised frequently. Also, when they go through a new edition only a fraction of articles are revised. They are also adding new ones, and cannot afford to update the whole encyclopedia. Slrubenstein | Talk 17:04, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

The EB cited is the current pay-for online version, so I would expect it to be reasonably current as it does include 2010 events. We can always ask the authors (!), I've had surprisingly good results once I manage to track down an Email address. PЄTЄRS J VЄСRUМВА ►TALK 18:30, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

• I sent a note off to Indiana University regarding Dr. Sternberg's EB article, I'll let folks know what transpires. :-) PЄTЄRS J VЄСRUМВА ►TALK 18:43, 30 July 2010 (UTC)
• Same for Dr. Smedley at Virginia Commonwealth. PЄTЄRS J VЄСRUМВА ►TALK 18:54, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

This would be a great idea, WeijiBaikeBianji. Unfortunately, the EB (first example to come forward) hasn't written an article on this topic. They have an article about human intelligence (the focus on IQ tests and psychometrics is much reduced compared to the focus here.) And they have an article about race (where the idea of race as biological is characterized as anachronistic). We are dangerously close to synth to use much of anything there as an outline here. But there are numerous references writing on race and intelligence, so it's not like it isn't a real world topic. It's just that I don't think the EB is much help. Professor marginalia (talk) 03:52, 31 July 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps Professor marginalia is responding to Peters rather than to me. Anyway, what I was referring to was subject-specialized encyclopedias (usually intended for practitioners in one discipline and for the librarians who help them do research). I will see in the next week or two if any of those travel to me by interlibrary loan--I'm often pleasantly surprised how many big, expensive reference books are shipped to my county library after I make online requests, free to circulate into my office for a few weeks of checking sources. I take to heart comments about checking dates of sources and verifying authorship. I already have a lot of books with the title Handbook of . . . or Dictionary of . . . and now I will see what I find in more books with the title Encyclopedia of . . .. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk) 04:30, 31 July 2010 (UTC)

Appearing in an encyclopedia near you

EB, Heritability and malleability of intelligence

Part of Human intelligence (psychology)
Mentioned

• Robert Plomin (heritability increases with age)
• The Bell Curve (1994), Richard Herrnstein and Charles Murray (association of IQ and differences in success of racial groups, speculation on genetic component)

Article author

• Robert J. Sternberg

Recommended reading (by Sternberg)

General works

• Howard Gardner, Mindy L. Kornhaber, and Warren K. Wake, Intelligence: Multiple Perspectives (1996)
• Richard L. Gregory (ed.), The Oxford Companion to the Mind, 2nd ed. (2004)
• Raymond J. Corsini and W. Edward Craighead (eds.), Encyclopedia of Psychology and Behavioral Science, 3rd ed., 4 vol. (2001)
• Psychology Today provides coverage on a general level of current research in the field
• Stephen Jay Gould, The Mismeasure of Man, rev. and expanded ed. (1996) - critique of intelligence studies
• Carol Tavris, The Mismeasure of Woman (1992) - critique of intelligence studies

General works recommended as comprehensive works on intelligence include:

• Ian J. Deary, Intelligence: A Very Short Introduction (2001)
• Robert J. Sternberg (ed.), Handbook of Intelligence (2000), and International Handbook of Intelligence

Theories of intelligence

• Early theories
  • Alfred Binet and Theodore Simon, The Development of Intelligence in Children: The Binet-Simon Scale, trans. from the French by Elizabeth S. Kite (1916, reprinted 1983)
  • Charles E. Spearman, The Nature of “Intelligence” and the Principles of Cognition (1923, reprinted 1973), and The Abilities of Man: Their Nature and Measurement (1932, reprinted 1970)
• Later theories
  • Howard Gardner, Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences, 2nd ed. (1993, reissued 2004) and Intelligence Reframed: Multiple Intelligences for the 21st Century (1999)
  • John B. Carroll, Human Cognitive Abilities: A Survey of Factor-Analytic Studies (1993)
  • Raymond B. Cattell, Intelligence: Its Structure, Growth, and Action (1987; originally published as Abilities: Their Structure, Growth, and Action [1971])
  • Robert J. Sternberg, The Triarchic Mind: A New Theory of Human Intelligence (1988)
  • Michael Cole and Barbara Means, Comparative Studies of How People Think: An Introduction (1981)
  • Hans J. Eysenck, Intelligence: A New Look (1998, reissued 2000)
  • Oliver Wilhelm and Randall W. Engle (eds.), Handbook of Understanding and Measuring Intelligence (2005).

Development of intelligence

• John H. Flavell, The Developmental Psychology of Jean Piaget (1963) - definitive summary of Piaget
• Jean Piaget, The Psychology of Intelligence, trans. by Malcolm Piercy and D.E. Berlyne (1950, reissued 2001; originally published in French, 1947)
• Howard E. Gruber and J. Jacques Vonèche (eds.), The Essential Piaget (1977, reissued 1995)
• L.S. Vygotsky, Mind in Society: The Development of Higher Psychological Processes, ed. by Michael Cole et al. (1978)

Measuring intelligence

• Early approaches
  • Francis Galton, Hereditary Genius: An Inquiry into Its Laws and Consequences (1869, reprinted 1998), and Inquiries into Human Faculty and Its Development (1883, reprinted 1998)
  • Edward L. Thorndike et al., The Measurement of Intelligence (1927, reprinted 1973)
  • Lewis M. Terman, The Measurement of Intelligence: An Explanation of and a Complete Guide for the Use of the Stanford Revision and Extension of the Binet-Simon Intelligence Scale (1916, reprinted 1975)
• Later research
  • Philip E. Vernon, The Measurement of Abilities, 2nd ed. (1956, reissued 1972)
  • Anne Anastasi and Susana Urbina, Psychological Testing, 7th ed. (1997)
  • Robert J. Sternberg and Jean E. Pretz (eds.), Cognition and Intelligence: Identifying the Mechanisms of the Mind (2005)
  • Robert J. Sternberg and David D. Preiss (eds.), Intelligence and Technology: The Impact of Tools on the Nature and Levels of Human Ability (2005).

EB, The scientific debate over "race"

Mentioned

• Bell Curve, in this case as reflective of accepting the notions of race and race differences

Article author

• Audrey Smedley (has also written large sections of other EB articles dealing with race)

Recommended reading (by Smedley or in conjunction with a second editor)

Origins of the concept of race

• Theodore Allen, The Invention of the White Race (1994)
• Ivan Hannaford, Race: The History of an Idea in the West (1996)
• Audrey Smedley, Race in North America: Origin and Evolution of a Worldview, 3rd ed. (2007).

“Race” and science

• Thomas F. Gossett, Race: The History of an Idea in America (1965)
• Elazar Barkan, The Retreat of Scientific Racism (1992)
• Nancy Stepan, The Idea of Race in Science: Great Britain 1800–1960 (1992).

Modern scientific views human diversity

• Richard Lewontin, Human Diversity (1995)
• Jonathan Marks, Human Biodiversity: Genes, Race, and History (1995)
• Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza and F. Cavalli-Sforza, The Great Human Diasporas: The History of Diversity and Evolution (1995)
• Christopher Stringer and Robin McKie, African Exodus: The Origins of Modern Humanity (1996).

The persistence of “race”

• IQ
  • Steven Jay Gould, The Mismeasure of Man (1981)
  • Mark Snyderman and Stanley Rothman, The IQ Controversy: The Media and Public Policy (1988)
  • Richard J. Herrnstein and Charles Murray, The Bell Curve: Intelligence and Class Structure in American Life (1994)
• Sports
  • John Hoberman, Darwin’s Athletes: How Sport Has Damaged Black America and Preserved the Myth of Race (1997)
  • Jon Entine, Taboo: Why Black Athletes Dominate Sports and Why We Are Afraid to Talk About It (2000).

Other recommended reading in broad areas of race studies ommitted.

Vecrumba, are you the one who posted these recommended resources?

I’m curious where you got these. Judging by the subtitles for each section of it, I’m guessing that Smedley and Sternberg have provided a list of recommended reading about this topic, and you’ve reproduced it here. Is that right?

If so, I think we can probably do better than this. For example, I see both The Mismeasure of Man and The Bell Curve mentioned multiple times. The Mismeasure of Man has been discussed pretty heavily on the talk page for this article earlier this year, and it was pointed out that despite how popular that book is, its conclusions are almost universally rejected by academics. (And this can be seen by reading some of the reviews of it in the academic literature.) As for The Bell Curve, it was certainly an important and influential book, but it didn’t actually add very much to this field—most of what made it famous was just the way that it presented the hereditarian hypothesis to a popular audience. It seems very strange to include those books, while also leaving out books like Flynn’s Race, IQ and Jensen, Mackintosh’s IQ and Human Intelligence, and Jensen’s The g Factor.

If anyone needs a list of recommended sources about this topic, I think a better one is the one that WeijiBaikeBianji has compiled here. --Captain Occam (talk) 23:53, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

Comment There was an extensive list of references in [4]. The main point is not to reproduce this list, but find the core encyclopedic accounts of the subject. As far as I'm aware, those have been already located in the books written or edited by Jencks & Phillips (1998), Mackintosh (1998), Fish (2002, including Smedley article), Sternberg (2004, Handbook, Loehlin), Flynn (2009), Nisbett (2010) and Mike Anderson (2010). The skeleton of an article can be written based on just these sources. After the other sources can be used to flesh out the article. Wikipedians should not be writing there own synthesis of multiple references like the above without using the existing core surveys in these WP:RS as a basis for the article. That was part of the fundamental problem in the redrafting of the current article. These references were all described by me here and on the ArbCom pages. Mathsci (talk) 03:20, 31 July 2010 (UTC)

I agree. The encyclopedia idea was a good one, but the EB doesn't have an article on this topic so it's not much use. Any references used here must address the association (if any) between race and intelligence--those about race alone or intelligence alone are immediately disqualified. Professor marginalia (talk) 04:01, 31 July 2010 (UTC)

(ec) @Mathsci: The list (diff) you point to is quite voluminous; my recounting of Sternberg's and Smedley's recommended reading lists (not me attempting to reproduce any existing WP list) is quite a bit shorter as to essential reading, useful for what it includes as well as what it doesn't, and categorized by topic areas covered to focus one's reading efforts.

   I can see where we disagree that there is a lot of useful reading out there which is essential to participants developing a sense for the story the article needs to tell. Only then is one well informed enough editorially (that is, well enough informed to overcome personal preconceptions) to decide what is essential to be represented and how to represent it from reliable sources. You are focused on writing an article. I am focused on participants reading more—I'm betting that participants all reading more sources is ultimately far more likely to achieve consensus than limiting to a prescribed set believing that will cut down on contentiousness.

   Regarding: "Wikipedians should not be writing there [sic.] own synthesis of multiple references like the above."? A list of sources from Drs. Sternberg and Smedley, per their categories, is merely my typing, not my synthesis. I don't know if I'm more disturbed that you attribute the list to myself as my synthesis or that, having misrepresented it as such, you dismiss the recommendations of Drs. Sternberg and Smedley. BTW, it is the list (diff) you point to which is, in fact, a synthesis.

@Professor marginalia, I suggest that a bit wider reading per Drs. Sternberg and Smedley would be greatly beneficial to understanding studies of intelligence, group intelligence, heritability, etc. before specialization in "Race and intelligence." You, too, are rushing to write an article when the solution to meaningful consensus (as opposed to compromising on wording that won't be immediately reverted) is not along the path Mathsci suggests.

   I have never seen a discussion of a topic where it was suggested that

• fewer, not more, sources are in order, and
• there is no need for reading up on and understanding general concepts before dealing with a very specific specialty topic.

You both have a very odd approach. Let's pretend we're here to learn, first; to write, second. A bit more learning before rushing to debate would benefit everyone. PЄTЄRS J VЄСRUМВА ►TALK 04:27, 31 July 2010 (UTC)

@WeijiBaikeBianji, You are correct, the recommended reading list is for the bit of content (less than a page in toto apiece) represented by each of the two sections—each section has its content, attributed, and recommended reading list, attributed.

   I suppose I could post the lists verbatim including the bit of additional commentary I removed for succinctness (the lists themselves are whole except as noted re: Smedley), however, I don't want to place myself in a position where I am stealing EB content and posting it; this is as close as I feel comfortable reproducing the lists. To my point above, the categorizations, such as early research, indicate this is recommended reading for those interested in what the esteemed Drs. have listed as seminal works for what they stated at the time they stated it.

   I can certainly ask Drs. Sternberg and Smedley for their recommended reading list for Wikipedians writing an article on "Race and intelligence." No, wait, I sort of did. I expect any response would be along the lines already presented at EB: what to read to familiarize you with the topics, neither "this one source tells you all you need you know and omits all you don't need to know" nor "here is an exhaustive list of any and all works notable in the field of study." Hope this helps. PЄTЄRS J VЄСRUМВА ►TALK 04:43, 31 July 2010 (UTC)

Vecrumba, I'd appreciate it if you would focus on the content and not project issues you know nothing about onto your fellow editors. So let's pretend you don't really have the slightest clue what your fellow editors have or haven't read on the subject, because it's irrelevant in disputes and the guidelines discourage such sharing. ("Talk pages are for discussing the article, not for general conversation about the article's subject [much less other subjects]. Keep discussions focused on how to improve the article. Irrelevant discussions are subject to removal." and "Talk pages are not a forum for editors to argue their personal point of view about a controversial issue. They are a forum to discuss how the points of view of reliable sources".[5]). So let's pretend that maybe these articles have not lacked consensus because the involved editors haven't sufficiently steeped themselves in study of heritability, intelligence and race but because too many autodidact editors have been unable to distance themselves enough from their own opinions to objectively edit according wikipedia's pillar editing policies. Let's pretend that one of the problems they've had is with WP:SYNTH, as demonstrated in clear cut examples such as this, resurfacing over and over again as described in this, and even blossoming anew in this. In such disputes caused by a pattern of editing against policy in favor of one's own do-it-yourself expertise on the topic, would it not be a good idea to concentrate on listing recommended references that can be used in the articles? And maybe not confuse the issue further by urging editors engage in more self-study in sources that cannot be used here via WP:SYNTH? Professor marginalia (talk) 16:17, 31 July 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps I'm mistaken, but unless we have any editors here with PhDs in human psychology with specialties in psychometrics, race identity, et al., not to mention statistics, we're all "do-it-yourself" editors who have "self-studied" sources. I respond to Mathsci's mischaracterization (i.e., my "synthesis") of the list I provided and you lecture me on more synthesis and quote diffs having nothing to do with me. In fact, what I suggest here, if you and Mathsci stopped to consider what I suggest before treating me like a clueless adversary, is a course for how to constructively navigate away from the very (complete with Wikilink) autodidacticism you believe—and I concur—is a core issue at the root of the conflict. You can't solve the conflict and discuss content constructively unless you address the basis of the conflict. "Which sources" to use is not addressing the content problem here; any lack of agreement on those is a a symptom of the problem. PЄTЄRS J VЄСRUМВА ►TALK 20:19, 31 July 2010 (UTC)

No, I'd say you've been overly sensitive. He did not accuse you of synthesis, he cautioned against using references in the list for synthesis here. Your list is far too expansive to use here. Taboo: Why Black Athletes Dominate Sports and Why We Are Afraid to Talk About It, Darwin’s Athletes: How Sport Has Damaged Black America and Preserved the Myth of Race, African Exodus: The Origins of Modern Humanity, The Invention of the White Race--most of the titles above are not useful references for this article. And because synthesis has already been a major source of disputes here then caution against focusing on references which cannot be used here is not a personal attack against you nor an invitation for you to diagnose us as having an "odd approach" to editing. To you it may seem "odd" but in fact the concern has direct relevance to what have been actual disputes in the past months of editing of the article. There has been no evidence or argument in the arb hearing suggesting that the disputes involve editors who haven't devoted enough background study in the history of race, racism or our "out of Africa" prehistory. Professor marginalia (talk) 21:25, 31 July 2010 (UTC)

Really, Mathsci called the list my synthesis, let's just leave it at that. I think I rather disagree on your final point. If current scholarship is largely unanimous, then any content disagreement is the result of editors not being sufficiently well read. If editors are, indeed, sufficiently well read and correctly contend that current scholarship is of a general but not unanimous opinion, then any content disagreement is the result of sources not being sufficiently or appropriately represented. As the arbitration is largely focused on mutual recriminations regarding conduct along with irrelevant observations regarding editors' activities outside the R&I topic, this discussion is outside the scope of discussion there. PЄTЄRS J VЄСRUМВА ►TALK 22:16, 31 July 2010 (UTC)

I didn't call the list synthesis: I said that using it without guidance from WP:RS would be synthesis. In writing a long article a few key sources are needed. As Professor marginalia correctly commented, these should cover the subject as a whole not just individual isolated aspects. The rest of what you have written is probably off-topic, per WP:FORUM. Similarly, as I think Professor marginalia commented, being "well read" is not a requirement on wikipedia. Locating the best secondary sources to start building the article is usually the first step; in this case there don't seem to be more than a handful. Mathsci (talk) 22:44, 31 July 2010 (UTC)

Not to rehash, but "Wikipedians should not be writing there [sic.] own synthesis of multiple references like the above" I take as myself synthesizing as opposed to merely reproducing. We'll obviously need to agree to disagree.

   On the other, I wish you luck in fewer not more sources and in not needing to be well read. In my experience, writing thoughtful and informative (i.e., representative of the subject = NPOV) narrative requires an understanding outside the narrower scope of sources directly employed in writing an article. I suspect we'll need to agree to disagree on this as well. PЄTЄRS J VЄСRUМВА ►TALK 23:03, 31 July 2010 (UTC)

P.S. The corollary to that is that I don't edit widely because from my perspective it is hubris to believe that cobbling produces quality content. That characterization is, of course, my personal opinion and personal standard only. PЄTЄRS J VЄСRUМВА ►TALK 23:09, 31 July 2010 (UTC)

On the EB lists themselves, I was also struck by what what suggested as background reading and what was absent. It's fine for us to believe "our" list is "better," but that is our personal estimation of our own work. The whole point of my reproducing the EB reference lists is that they are the products of leaders in their fields and not of our making. I was hoping the lists would provoke dialog about sources themselves and their possible editorial mention, but not blanket disapprovals. PЄTЄRS J VЄСRUМВА ►TALK 23:43, 31 July 2010 (UTC)

Representation of the current state per key players

I get the sense that in the contentions of WP:FRINGE regarding hereditarian views, etc., while we can agree we need to include how we got "here" (with details in History of...), the article should be clear on current scholarship. Current opinions of key players would offer (additional) valuable perspective. I offer this passage from Flynn's The spectacles through which I see the race and IQ debate, Intelligence (2010):

4. Status of the race and IQ debate

  The fact that the GQ gap between blacks and whites is larger than the IQ gap has causal significance. If blacks did eliminate the IQ gap without eliminating the GQ gap, they would still be less able to solve the most complex cognitive problems, which might be deemed the most significant. Moreover, the fact that blacks have an unusual problem with complexity shows that an explanation of the IQ gap should look for aspects of the black environment that discourage cognitive challenge or at least, downgrade its presence. I took upon myself the burden offering a scenario of a succession of black environments from conception to early adulthood based on the deprivation of complexity (Flynn, 2008). It is significant that when the racial IQ gap was eliminated among post-war German occupation children, the GQ gap was gone. This is not to claim that this study settles the debate; rather it gives us confidence that if the IQ gap proves to be entirely environmental, the GQ gap will prove so as well.
   American blacks are not in a time warp so that the environmental causes of their IQ gap with whites are identical to the environmental causes of the IQ gap between the generations. The race and IQ debate should focus on testing the relevant environmental hypotheses. The Flynn Effect is no shortcut; correlations offered by Rushton and Jensen are no shortcut. There are no shortcuts at all.

Flynn, J. R. (2008). Where have all the liberals gone? Race, class, and ideals in America. Cambridge University Press.

I'd be interested in editors' considered thoughts on representation of such positions. I would note Flynn's use of the word "debate." Let's leave arguments over primary and secondary and journals and university texts aside for the moment, and for a change let's use plain English and not shorthand WP:ACRONYMS. Perhaps it would help to commit that any opinions stated should not be used in a diff later. I'd like to see if it's possible to have a conversation, not a staking out and defending of a position with offensive thrusts to take out the opposition. PЄTЄRS J VЄСRUМВА ►TALK 15:47, 1 August 2010 (UTC)

He's simply responding to issues raised in what was the latest stage of a long running debate. The Flynn effect noted that the IQ gap between blacks and whites had narrowed; Jensen and Rushton responded that there was no corresponding narrowing of the g gap, saying the Flynn effect hasn't shown any environmental explanation for g. Flynn responds that he has a study showing where the g gap has essentially disappeared (occupied German born children) that lends confidence (though preliminary and not definitive) the g gap too has an environmental explanation. Flynn agrees with Jensen/Rushton that the Flynn effect is not the be-all end-all of the debate. But he disagrees with their confidence that the g and racial inheritance link remains robust. Professor marginalia (talk) 17:32, 1 August 2010 (UTC)

My question wasn't so much regarding analyzing Flynn, it was whether there is value at R&I (or perhaps History of...) to current perspectives from key players in the R&I debate. PЄTЄRS J VЄСRUМВА ►TALK 13:33, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

Update on EB, Smedley

Dr. Audrey Smedley was quite gracious in her response to my inquiry. She authored the EB materials 1995 with updates in 2005, although she does not recall if the article I specifically mention was among those updated. With regard to the debate on race and intelligence, she suggested her own work Race in North America, the 2007 edition (third) for perspective, and indicated she is working on a new release: "But my sense is that the 'debate' has somewhat diminished in the scientific literature, and this will be reflected in the fourth edition which I am working on now." PЄTЄRS J VЄСRUМВА ►TALK 13:31, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

I would only note that "somewhat diminished" does not mean resolved. PЄTЄRS J VЄСRUМВА ►TALK 16:15, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

Revival of test bias

I've had some correspondence with Indiana University. Suggested reading from Dr. Jonathan Plucker, aside from the tried and true classics (a characterization, not a list), is a recent article in the Journal of Applied Psychology which "examine[s] how we normally determine test bias—in brief, the authors' conclusion was that we have NOT been doing it correctly, suggesting that bias in our cognitive tests is much more prevalent that the field has thought for some time." I'll update on Dr. Sternberg as I (hopefully) make progress. PЄTЄRS J VЄСRUМВА ►TALK 15:15, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for checking with up-to-date scholars on these issues. You are identifying yourself as one Wikipedian among many when you write your emails, correct? I have been thinking of a few scholars—some of whom I know in person— to write to about these issues. That would be for the same purpose, to be guided to the best current literature. The suggestions that you or anyone else gather will eventually be reflected in updates to my Intelligence Citations bibliography -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk) 15:48, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

Yes (of course), I do, typically starting with "I am among a number of "Wikipedians"..." then whatever the topic is. I also indicate the source of my personal interest to document it is genuine—that is, I'm not contacting them because I've found a topic du jour that caught my passing fancy. PЄTЄRS J VЄСRUМВА ►TALK 16:09, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

A note on the Aguinis et al. test bias paper: It deals with bias in pre-employment testing, claiming that the consensus that there is no bias against minorities is unwarranted because the studies that have established this consensus lack statistical power to prove anything about test bias. Using simulated data, they show that it's possible that some pre-employment tests are biased (in one way or another). They speculate that things like stereotype threat could make the tests biased, although they have no evidence of this. They also acknowledge that studies on test bias that use college admission test data do have enough statistical power, and the results of those studies are pretty much identical to those using pre-employment testing data, i.e. there either is no bias or there's a slight bias in favor of minorities. I would not discuss this one single study in the article, until it has been established that their arguments are relevant.--Victor Chmara (talk) 17:17, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

There is another writing on the issue of test bias that I should link to here. The claim is that the usual method of showing that most tests are not biased is fundamentally flawed. I thought that was interesting, because I thought that the test bias issue has been a settled issue since the 1980s—certainly very mainstream authors on psychometrics who do not agree with Arthur Jensen on much else are happy to cite his book on the subject as the last word on test bias. I'll have to dig into the sources and see if I can wrap my mind around the contrary claim. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk) 17:48, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

Just thought I'd provide the abstract from Aguinis et al., the emphasis is mine.

"We developed a new analytic proof and conducted Monte Carlo simulations to assess the effects of methodological and statistical artifacts on the relative accuracy of intercept- and slope-based test bias assessment. The main simulation design included 3,185,000 unique combinations of a wide range of values for true intercept- and slope-based test bias, total sample size, proportion of minority group sample size to total sample size, predictor (i.e., preemployment test scores) and criterion (i.e., job performance) reliability, predictor range restriction, correlation between predictor scores and the dummy-coded grouping variable (e.g., ethnicity), and mean difference between predictor scores across groups. Results based on 15 billion 925 million individual samples of scores and more than 8 trillion 662 million individual scores raise questions about the established conclusion that test bias in preemployment testing is nonexistent and, if it exists, it only occurs regarding intercept-based differences that favor minority group members. Because of the prominence of test fairness in the popular media, legislation, and litigation, our results point to the need to revive test bias research in preemployment testing."

Hope this helps. I have a copy of the paper. PЄTЄRS J VЄСRUМВА ►TALK 18:40, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

File:Heritability plants.jpeg

Has anybody noticed that File:Heritability plants.jpeg does a poor job in illustrating what it wants to illustrate? The source graphic shows that deficient nutrition can cause differences in growth that are not in relation to normal growth. But File:Heritability plants.jpeg depicts corn plants whose growth under deficient nutrition seems to be in relation to normal growth. While the source shows the differences very clear (e.g. the third corn plant on the right side changes from much bigger than the second plant on the right to clearly smaller than the second plant on the right), it needs a close look to notice the differences in our graphic (the first plant on the left changes from the same size than the third plant on the left to smaller than the third plant on the left). There's no similar striking difference as in the source. --::Slomox:: >< 18:19, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

Article to-do list

As a result of the current arbitration case over this article, it’s looking pretty likely that I (and a few other “article regulars”) will be topic banned from the article sometime soon. There have been some outstanding issues with this article that I’d been hoping to eventually address, but if my topic ban happens before the article’s protection expires (which also seems likely), I’m not going to have the opportunity to try and address them. So I was thinking it might be useful to some of the relative newcomers here if I could point out some of the specific things that I think still need to be done on this article at some point in the future. Some of these are things that I think everyone could agree need to be done, while for others I imagine there will be some disagreement over them, but I think they should still at least be discussed.

1: The current version of the lead section does not have consensus. This is actually one of the few areas where Mathsci and I agree. He’s pointed out in one of his arbitration subpages here that the last version of the lead section which had consensus was in April, which is correct. I also agree with him that April’s version of this section was better than the current version, although for different reasons: Mathsci explains his reasons for this on the page I linked to, while in my own case I think the main problem is that the manual of style for Wikipedia:LEAD states that the lead should be able to stand on its own as a concise version of the article, and the current lead does not come anywhere close to this. At the very least, an overview of the article ought to mention which racial groups have higher or lower average IQs. (Which is included in April’s version of the lead, but not the current one.)

2: The article contains several images showing how racial IQ gaps are reflected in SAT scores. Although these images are relevant and well-sourced, the article doesn’t contain any explanation of why the correlation between SAT and IQ would result in this. There are sources which discuss this; the article just doesn’t cite them. I’m pretty sure this problem has been discussed before, but it was during one of the periods when the article was protected, and after it was unprotected nobody remembered to add those sources to the article.

3: Someone needs to add more references to the processing efficiency section. This section was written almost entirely by Bpesta22, and I was hoping he could also add the references to it. (Being a newbie, he seemed to be having trouble figuring out how to use ref tags.) But he disappeared shortly after the beginning of the arbitration case, and once the arbitration case was underway I was too occupied with it to add the references myself. I can provide some suggested citations for this section, if anyone needs them, as long as I have enough time for that before my topic ban is implemented.

4: There’s one major section of the article which still needs to be discussed, and hopefully improved to the point where it can be added back in. (I say “back in” because it was added briefly during mediation, but then removed because we were trying to avoid large changes to the article while mediation was underway). This section would be about the way that race and intelligence affects society, including how racial IQ gaps are reflected in social variables which correlate with IQ. The current draft of this section is in my userspace here, where WavePart and Vecrumba have both made contributions to it. We attempted to discuss this section of the article in June here, and there weren’t any objections to it in terms of content, but Muntuwandi was of the opinion that it wasn’t appropriate to add this section to the article while the arbitration case was in progress. I think it would be good if this discussion could be resumed after the arbitration case is finished, even if I can’t participate in it. It doesn’t matter to me whether this section eventually gets turned into something that looks nothing like what’s in my userspace—I don’t have any devotion to this particular structure; I just think the literature discussing how race and intelligence affects society is something that should be included in the article.

I realize expecting this section to be added in my absence is a bit of a longshot, since I get the impression that not many people other than me care about the article covering this topic, and a lot of people feel very strongly that the article should not cover it. On the other hand, two of the original proponents of the article covering this topic were DJ and Varoon Arya, both of whom eventually stopped participating here because they couldn’t tolerate Mathsci’s behavior. Since Mathsci is presumably going to be topic banned also, perhaps after the end of the arbitration case these editors would be willing to come back.

The other editors who are likely to be topic banned (David.Kane and Mathsci) are welcome to add to this list, if they can think of anything else that belongs on it. --Captain Occam (talk) 18:59, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

Occam, I agree that the relation of IQ gaps to corresponding gaps in abilities and skills in school, workplace, and elsewhere is a crucial question. However, I think your draft is not only too long, but also problematic in light of WP:SYNTHESIS. This recent article[6] by Roland Fryer is interesting, because rather than trying to explain away the gaps in IQ and other tests, he treats them as gaps in real-life skills, and, among other things, replicates the finding that racial gaps in various social outcomes are greatly reduced, eliminated or even reversed when IQ differences are controlled for. (Fryer's main piece of evidence for the efficacy of educational interventions in closing gaps, the success of the Harlem Children's Zone students, seems, however, to be largely an artifact of the extremely lax standards used in New York student assessments in recent years[7].)

And yeah, the current lead section pretty bad, and the rest of the article isn't too great either. Why all the lengthy quotations?--Victor Chmara (talk) 22:53, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

As I said, I encourage the rest of you to completely overhaul the draft that’s in my userspace before adding it to the article. I’m sure it’s capable of being improved a lot beyond the improvements that I and others have made to it already. If you’re interested in examining this section’s evolution, this is what it looked like in January’s version of the article. This section’s on-and-off inclusion in the article actually dates back at least to 2006, and this is what it looked like back then.

I might even work some more on trying to improve this section in my userspace, if that’s allowed. Do you know whether a topic ban applies only to mainspace pages, or whether I’m not even allowed to edit pages related to this topic that are in my userspace? --Captain Occam (talk) 00:42, 21 August 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for opening this section. Since back on [checks working paper draft] 30 June 2009, when I linked to this article in its then form for a bibliography I was compiling at that time, I've had the sense that the actual professional literature on the subject and this article have not enjoyed much interchange. The current full-protected version of the article has some even worse problems with sourcing. There is a big, long to-do list of things that need to be fixed with this article, and I encourage other editors to use this section that Captain Occam has kindly opened to suggest changes. I'll try to set those out in some kind of orderly fashion in the next day or so. Major changes up to and including a title change for the article and mergers with other articles (or hiving off subarticles) all ought to be considered. Let's collaborate, and especially let's turn to the sources, and let's try to make the article much better. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk) 02:05, 21 August 2010 (UTC)

Even though this is a topic that interests me, for a long time I was reluctant to get involved in this article because of what the editing atmosphere has been like. But if the new changes and discretionary sanctions cause as much improvement as everyone is hoping they will, I might finally feel differently about participating here. -Ferahgo the Assassin (talk) 04:42, 21 August 2010 (UTC)

That’s encouraging to know. In addition to DJ and Varoon Arya, I wonder whether Mathsci’s topic ban and the discretionary sanctions will bring any other editors out of the woodwork who left this article when his incivility started becoming a problem? Bpesta22 or Ludwigs2, maybe? --Captain Occam (talk) 05:05, 21 August 2010 (UTC)

@Captain Occam-I think you'd be doing yourself a favor to reflect on the message that's being sent from the recent arb comm and try to break this "us against them" reflex and not seek "legal" loop holes for preserving ties and influence on the articles by other means. I know it may be difficult to switch gears just like that, but you're being advised to disengage but you seem to be focusing on how you can stay engaged. Professor marginalia (talk) 16:04, 21 August 2010 (UTC)

Hear. Hear. Yes, Professor marginalia, it's clear from the ArbCom decision that what is expected of the topic-banned editors is not at all that they go on editing in the topic by proxy.

For the record, I have indicated to Victor on his user talk page that I am happy to edit with him on any article that he cares to edit, because he seems to me to be tough—and definitely in sharp disagreement with me on several factual issues—but fair and willing to discuss what sources say calmly without hurrying along a conclusion on article content. More generally, I'm happy, as perhaps the newest editor here (registered as a Wikipedian in mid-April 2010, not active in editing much until a month later) and as possibly one of the longer-term researchers of this issue (my first reading on the subject was no later than in 1972, and my first writing on the subject was submitted to a professor in early 1990), to work collaboratively with any editor of any previous point of view who commits himself or herself to core Wikipedia principles and remembers that we are here to edit an encyclopedia and not here to compile an advocacy blog.

I think I will open a separate section on this talk page inviting more suggestions of to-dos, the better to allow separate section editing of each section. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk) 18:07, 21 August 2010 (UTC)

I think both of you are reading too much into my motives here. The goal here isn’t to continue editing the article by proxy; it’s to undo the effect that Mathsci’s incivility has had on these articles over the past few months, which has been to drive away around half of the editors who disagree with him. Ludwigs2, Varoon Arya and DistributiveJustice have all stated that this was why they stopped participating, and I’ve suspected that it’s also had a similar effect on Ferahgo the Assassin and Bpesta22. This effect was essentially an indirect form of POV-pushing, and as far as I’m concerned the most important purpose of the arbitration case was to undo it. I’m hopeful that it will be undone now that Mathsci is being topic banned, but for it to be undone also requires for the editors whom he’s driven off to know that he’s been topic banned, and that it’s safe to come back.

I think you’ll also approve of Varoon Arya and DistributiveJustice if they resume participating here. Varoon Arya is basically the type of editor that I would like to be—more knowledgeable about this topic than I am, and without the flaws that resulted in my being sanctioned by ArbCom—and the same can probably be said of DJ in comparison to David.Kane. For that reason, their ability to participate here actually matters more to me than my own does. So even if getting rid of the editing environment that’s driven them away from this article comes at the expense of my own involvement, which it apparently has, it’s still worth it. --Captain Occam (talk) 18:36, 21 August 2010 (UTC)

I won't pretend to read your personal motives. I will say that when on the eve of a ban you're appealing to your former, now retired, "allies" to come in and better fill yours and David.Kane's empty shoes, that you're talking of continuing to revise the article in your user space and that someone you're very close to personally irl all of a sudden shows up here it doesn't look like you're disengaging. Professor marginalia (talk) 19:00, 21 August 2010 (UTC)

I’m not disengaging yet, because I haven’t been topic banned yet. Obviously, when my topic ban happens I will disengage. But what I’m doing right now is doing what I can to leave things here in a way that I’ll be satisfied with taking a break from this article for several months. It’s kind of like how a person might try to make sure all of their day-to-day affairs are in order before leaving on a long trip.

Why not be supportive about this? None of the changes I’ve suggested in the above thread are disruptive, and the editors who I’m encouraging to be involved in this article in my absence have never been sanctioned for disruption on it either. In other words, if what I’ve done over the past few days causes me to have and kind of legacy on this article, it’ll be a positive one. --Captain Occam (talk) 19:49, 21 August 2010 (UTC)

I'm trying to be supportive. If you don't see how posting the "come on back mates! the coast is clear now that mathsci is gone" stuff before the ink is even dry on arb comm admonishments against tag-teaming and "us against them" is continuing on the path of disruptive editing, then ... oh well. I tried. Professor marginalia (talk) 20:22, 21 August 2010 (UTC)

I don’t know if you’re aware of this, but one of the three people who I contacted (Ludwigs2) has made it clear that he doesn’t agree with me in terms of content. But I still think he’s a valuable editor, because he knows how to put the neutrality of the articles ahead of his own personal point of view.

I contacted all of the editors who’d previously stated that they were driven away by Mathsci, regardless of whether they agree with me on this topic or not. If you think the people I’ve contacted represent some sort of cabal intended to push a point of view, you’re the person who’s displaying an us versus them mentality here. --Captain Occam (talk) 20:58, 21 August 2010 (UTC)

Maybe you might improve appearances by contacting all the editors who've been "driven away" instead of just "the enemies of your enemy". aprock (talk) 21:21, 21 August 2010 (UTC)

Did I forget someone? As far as I know, I’ve contacted everyone who’s stated that they were driven away from this article, by either Mathsci or anyone else. Some of you suspected for a little while that Ramdrake had been driven away also, but when he showed up again he said that his absence had been due only to health issues. --Captain Occam (talk) 21:35, 21 August 2010 (UTC)

Reviewing the list of mediation and arbitration participants should give you an idea of who has been "driven away". aprock (talk) 22:02, 21 August 2010 (UTC)

Captain Occam, all the participants in the arb hearing will be sent the same official notification of the outcome of the case and of course are free to make of it what they will. Obviously my advice hasn't helped any so I'll leave it alone. I wish you well. Professor marginalia (talk) 22:18, 21 August 2010 (UTC)

(Edit conflict, reply to aprock): No, it wouldn’t, unless I were to assume that every editor who’s been involved in these articles in the past and isn’t anymore was driven away from them. You’re aware that people sometimes stop participating in these articles for reasons other than being driven away, right?

What’s unique in the case of Varoon Arya, DJ and Ludwigs2 is that all three of them have stated that they were being driven away by Mathsci.

Varoon Arya: “I've decided to leave this article alone, and have done for some time now, as Mathsci's antics literally turn my stomach.”

DJ: “I left last month because of uncivil and inexcusable behavior by Mathsci directed at me.”

Ludwigs2 (In a comment addressed to Mathsci): “Frankly, I've been avoiding the page(s) because you are being such an inveterate ass it give me a headache dealing with you.”

As far as I know, the people I’ve contacted are the only editors who’ve said that the reason they stopped participating here was because of the behavior of a specific other editor. But if there are other people formerly involved in the article who have said this, I guess I’d like to know about them. --Captain Occam (talk) 22:31, 21 August 2010 (UTC)

Link to reading lists on this topic

Some of you have perhaps seen this reading list before. It is a convenient overview of the topic of this article, and may help prompt discussion among all of us editors about improvements for this article. As a reminder, it would be kind to share suggestions for new sources for the larger Intelligence Citations bibliography I keep in user space to share with you and other Wikipedians. I do the work of verifying that the sources exist and typing up the citation information in Wikipedia format, and everyone gets to enjoy referring to the sources to improve Wikipedia articles. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk) 15:03, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

Ethics of failing to note the self-identified race of 'scientists'

Surely it makes sense to note the supposed 'race' of the various 'scientists' quoted on this article. Would creating theories claiming to prove that the group to which the researcher belongs is 'intellectually superior' to the group that has been historically oppressed by the researcher's group represent a conflict of interest? I'll be interested to know what the literature says about this subject. Also, do fellow editors know whether Jensen, Lynn and Eynseck are white? It'd be interesting to know what percentage of writers who think that whites are intellectually superior are themselves white...Ackees (talk) 00:59, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

No it doesn't make sense for wikipedians to make such connections. If there's any relevant point to made along those lines any such correlations would absolutely have to be reliably and faithfully sourced.Professor marginalia (talk) 01:20, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

Agreed. Reliable sources are key for such claims. In practice, I can identify researchers of various "races" who take each of the several most commonly taken positions on the issue of this article. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk) 02:20, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

Weijibaikebianji, that's fascinating! You're saying that there's a 'black' psychologist who believes themselves and their family to be genetically mentally inferior to their 'white' colleagues? Please en-darken us - who is this most deferential of academics? And what is the source of your information - is it a 'self-identified' racial profile, or your O.R.?

Professor marginalia, I wonder whether such connections have been made in the pertinent literature but which have somehow 'failed' to make their way into this article. Perhaps, editors have been so far unwilling to highlight this deep conflict of interest because it reflects a similar ethical failing in their own approach to the subject (along the lines of 'I was born brainier than thou'.) Ackees (talk) 09:02, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

Ackees, I actually have no reason to believe from the sources that the hardline-hereditarian view of "race and IQ" issues is a "commonly taken position" (the phrase from my reply yesterday). Discussing just what the sources say and what is a mainstream position is a matter of ongoing debate here. Among the few authors on the subject who have self-identified in their writings as persons of African descent, here are some of the positions I have seen them support in their writings:

1) black persons currently have genuinely lower IQs, as a matter of group averages, than white persons, as a matter of group averages, and this difference is consequential in the real world (and not just the result of "test bias"), but the causation of this difference is cultural, and this group difference will diminish and possibly vanish over time;

2) black persons currently have genuinely lower IQs, as a matter of group averages, than white persons, as a matter of group averages, but this difference is not consequential in the real world, but primarily reflects test bias;

3) black persons currently have genuinely lower IQs, as a matter of group averages, than white persons, as a matter of group averages, and this difference is consequential in the real world (and not just the result of "test bias"), but the causation of this difference is primarily the environmental effects of societal racial prejudice and poverty, so fighting racial prejudice and poverty will cause this difference to vanish over time.

There are probably some other major positions on the basic issue that I haven't listed here. By contrast, the position

4) black persons currently have genuinely lower IQs, as a matter of group averages, than white persons, as a matter of group averages, and this difference is consequential in the real world (and not just the result of "test bias"), and the causation of this difference is primarily different gene frequencies in the black and white human populations, such that is unlikely that this group difference will ever diminish over time

is verifiably a position taken by some "white" scholars, but I'm not sure whether or not any black scholars have written in support of this position. I'm not at all sure that today (2010) this position can be characterized as mainstream any more—it was surely very commonplace during my childhood, but a number of testable hypotheses that logically follow from this position have been shown to be wrong. Twenty-first century views of genetics and especially twenty-first century views of the development of IQ over the lifespan strongly suggest that the gap between groups could close entirely. One "white" scholar whose thorough article about genetics I have at hand (it hasn't been entered into my citations list yet) points out that all available genetic evidence is consistent with the hypothesis that black people, as a matter of group averages of individual genotypes, have a superior genetic endowment for IQ when compared to white people, as a matter of group averages of individual genotypes. He is quite correct. Until environmental influences on IQ are much better understood, and until genetic influences are understood at the individual gene level and at the level of pleiotropy among multiple genes influencing multiple traits, we have no idea what genotype is most favorable for IQ. So today we have no idea which individuals (if any), have the best shuffle of genes for obtaining high IQ scores.

Thanks for asking the follow-up question about what I meant. I learn from that kind of interaction with a fellow thinking human being. Does what I wrote here help explain where I was coming from in my last comment? I welcome you to suggest further sources to add to this and related articles. The winding down of the current Arbitration Committee case should allow a more collaborative editing environment that should help with the long overdue clean-up of many of those articles. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk) 15:52, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

Hello WeijiBaikeBianji, if you will allow me to summarize your answer to my question, "which 'black' psychologist [etc] believes themselves genetically mentally inferior to whites?", then your answer is, "actually, none". However, you will forgive me for prompting you with something of a rhetorical question - I am not a novice to this subject, I know perfectly well what the various positions are and who takes them. Your answer demonstrates that is only 'white' researchers that claim white genetic intellectual superiority to 'blacks' (and a minority at that). It is not O.R. to note the 'race' with which these researchers identify. But is particularly important as 'bias' is thought to be one of the key factors skewing 'results'. So, as well as being important, it is relevant to the subject. In fact, as a matter of principle, all articles in which 'race' or 'nation' controversies arise should probably note the 'race' of the protagonists in the dispute. This will allow readers to more fully understand the issue in the round - this need not imply that researchers are 'biased'. Although, after all, it is the researchers who claim that you can predict a person's mental function based on skin color. (We need not assume that readers will do, too). It will also be very useful for readers to note the 'race' of researchers who refute 'genetic inferiority/superiority' claims - as many of these are also 'white'. The information need not necessarily come from scientific literature, or be self-assigned, - no doubt there is much useful journalism which does not violate BLP.Ackees (talk) 09:54, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

Unfortunately, noting the race of current scholars in the field of "race" (widely construed) when it should have no bearing on reliability creates the perception of unreliability and bias. Let's not pretend otherwise, so let's not go there. Period. PЄTЄRS J VЄСRUМВА ►TALK 13:22, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

How weird, Peter. I thought the whole point of the racists (widely construed) was that 'race' does have a bearing on thought... How odd that 'race' is claimed to have a bearing on the reliability of the test outcomes themselves, but not on the reliability of the testers. Bizarre anti-science at work, methinks... Ackees (talk) 13:13, 22 August 2010 (UTC)

Ackees, the crucial issue, especially when an article makes a statement about a living person, is reliable sources for the statement. For the most part, the article should be about reliably sourced, mainstream encyclopedic description of different factual positions on the article topic, with discussion of reliably sourced secondary source conclusions on which factual positions have gained the most current support and why. It would be possible in principle to write the entire article without mentioning the name of any researcher (although I don't think that will happen in a hoped-for much improved version that we will develop together after full protection is removed). -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk) 14:20, 22 August 2010 (UTC)

@Ackees: You will note I state "current scholars." Where historical research is concerned, personal views of superiority associated with "race" have had bearing on "research." These days, racists don't qualify as "scholars." PЄTЄRS J VЄСRUМВА ►TALK 04:43, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

Ackees, as an example of what we would have to deal with if we followed your suggestion that the races of the scholars involved should be mentioned, read this[8]. That editor thinks that certain people and organizations have criticized the Pioneer Fund because they are "Jews, Communists or Zionists". He suggests that these people and organizations should be identified as such in the article to remove bias. Ackees's claims about the motivations of race & IQ scholars are not, from the point of view of WP:NPOV, WP:VERIFY, and WP:NOR, any more or less admissible than that editor's Jewish conspiracy theories. If we did as Ackees demands, we would have to heed to the other guy's demands, too.

A related example was discussed on the talk page of some R&I article. Arthur R. Jensen could alternatively be described as "a controversial psychologist funded by the much-criticized Pioneer Fund" or as "an eminent psychologist and a recipient of the prestigious Kistler Prize". Both would be factually correct. However, as choosing just one of these descriptions would violate WP:NPOV, it's better to not use either of them (except in the article about Jensen himself).--Victor Chmara (talk) 21:09, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

Victor, you raise a good point. (Yes, I too saw the rather bizarre comments on the other article you mention.) I think it was Voltaire who wrote "The adjective is the enemy of the noun," and often one of the best signs of POV-pushing in an article is laudatory (or condemnatory) adjectives or titles for a particular person mentioned in article text. Of course, as you correctly point out, in a biographical article about a particular person, verifiable information about that person would be mentioned, weighted according to what sources say overall. But most of the time, what is really germane to articles is what someone said (that is, the factual basis and logical structure of an argument), not who said it. Sometimes very smart and thoughtful people can be wrong—which is why people can show they are smart and thoughtful by accepting correction graciously. And every once in a while, a stupid or even evil person can be correct on some factual issue. It is enough for this article and for most articles on Wikipedia to report the major statements found in secondary sources on the topic, perhaps relying on those sources to describe the factual basis or logical rationale claimed for each statement, and to bring up possibly differing statements that are also attested in sources. That brings about Wikipedia's desired neutral point of view and usually makes an article more readable besides than does carrying on a discussion of personalities in article text. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk) 21:46, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

In case none of you realized, the white scientists conducting these studies would nearly always rate the intelligence of east Asians above that of whites. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.205.249.36 (talk) 23:30, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

WE CAN PUT THIS "BIASED WHITE SCIENTISTS" BULLSHIT TO REST RIGHT NOW.

1) First of all, none of this is somebody's opinion; ALL the published evidence merely reports numbers given by computers analyzing public data anyone, including you, can (and has) duplicated.

2) Many social scientists (who are almost all liberals like me) would LOVE to be the hero who disproves this with an environmental explanation. Hundreds have tried, all have failed. For example, "it's nutrition!" But they discover that well-nourished blacks still have lower average IQs than Asians near-starving all their lives (actual study). brain size difference is seen in embryos only a few weeks old.

Go ahead and ignore that: The difference is seen in embryos only a few weeks old.

4) On average, blacks have smaller brains. This is in the article because it is the result of many (about 25) MRI scans using ordinary volumetric software on hundreds of brains all over the world. The results have been duplicated and reduplicated (thus the 25 studies). This is no longer controversial among scientists -- thoughh they know better than to talk about it in public!.

5) This "smoking-gun" brain size explanation of black's lower IQ scores was verified three other ways, like brain weight at autopsy.

6) The "race" of the scientists would be mostly white and Asian. That's because SCIENTISTS are mostly white and asian. And why is that, I wonder, when schools climb all over each other to attract smart black students?

7) Almost all of the other studies involve no research by the "racist" scientists. They merely run statistics on data gathered for other purposes which happen to include "race" in the data. The databases are public, available on the web, and you can run statistics on your PC if you want. One of the external head size studies was an analysis of data taken by NASA on people considered for astronaut jobs on the space shuttle. They also measured arm length, weight, and waist diameter.

Other studies analyzed data reported by national military organizations all over the world about their soldiers. In all of these, "race" was just another item on a form, like height and age. It was not "cherry-picked" to prove anything about race. No one involved in the measurements was even thinking about blacks/whites. none of this will matter to you, because you want to believe something which has now been proven wrong, and no matter what, you will continue to angrily assert it. That's why they call this issue "liberal creationism".

You laugh at the "scientists" at Padua University who refused to look through Galileo's telescope? You ARE the the "scientists" at Padua University who refused to look through Galileo's telescope... and I laugh at YOU! TechnoFaye Kane 22:21, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

Oh, and don't drag "uncivil comments" into it. "You" is plural. I'm not addressing this to anyone in particular. Maybe it's because I'm autistic, but I just feel strongly about people who believe lies --ANY lies -- on purpose. You should hear what I say to Jesus freaks who collar me on the street.

You ganged up on occam, david kane, and mikev and got them thrown out because they wanted to tell the truth in Wikipedia, but I'm still here --- and WILL be until you can figure out an excuse to throw ME out too. TechnoFaye Kane 22:21, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

Request for to-do suggestions from other editors.

Now that the ArbCom case is at length just about decided, I follow the example of another editor in inviting suggestions of article edit to-dos for working on together once the full protection of the article is removed. I'll list some in no particular order, and you are very welcome to comment on those suggestions, including disagreeing with any or all of them. You would be doing everyone a favor to post suggestions here too.

1. Retitle the article to a less flame-baiting title.
2. Clean up the templates on this talk page.
3. Merge the article with some existing forks.
4. Check and double-check how current authoritative secondary sources treat the topic, both to ensure neutral point of view and to define the scope of the article.
5. Review and update all sources, not citing any source that can't be independently verified by more than one editor.
6. Trim the article greatly in length by heeding what ArbCom said about sourcing, and putting the article content into a more summary, encyclopedic manner of presentation.
7. Mention the conclusion of the ArbCom case (with link to the final decision) to the various WikiProject pages related to this article and other articles in the Race and intelligence controversy category, inviting participation from Wikipedians in those projects.
8. Specifically contact subject-matter experts in the academic world and invite them into the editing process.
9. Review other articles in the Race and intelligence controversy category for sourcing, neutral point of view, grounds for deletion, suitability for merger with other articles, and other clean-up.
10. Review and clean-up articles wikilinked out to from this article and the other articles in the Race and intelligence controversy category.
11. Suggest to WeijiBaikeBianji (me) more sources for the Intelligence citations bibliography that all editors may share to source and edit articles.

Your suggestions are much appreciated. Thanks to everyone who is ready to edit an encyclopedia collaboratively. We can learn a lot from one another. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk) 18:22, 21 August 2010 (UTC)

I added a new item to the numbered list above. Returning to point 1, I note that during the ArbCom case workshop there was a proposal to rename the article, which seemed at that time to be supported by editors from multiple "sides" of the content editing disputes here, and which was based on a suggestion from an uninvolved editor of considerable experience. With some tweaking, this could be a good idea. What do the rest of you think? -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk) 19:20, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

I don't think "Group differences in intelligence" or anything like that would be a good title for this article, because semantically it includes also Sex and intelligence, which is a separate topic; both cannot be dealt with in the same article. Some may find expressions like "Race and intelligence" and "Racial differences in intelligence" inflammatory, but the scholarly literature on this topic habitually uses such expressions--and I don't mean only people like Jensen, Rushton and Lynn, but also the likes of Flynn[9] and Nisbett[10] as well as Hunt and Carlson[11] and many others. Moreover, "Race and intelligence" conforms best to WP:TITLE. In particular:

Recognizability – an ideal title will confirm, to readers who are familiar with (though not necessarily expert in) the topic, that the article is indeed about that topic. One important aspect of this is the use of common English names as used in reliable sources on the subject.

Naturalness - titles are expected to use names and terms that readers are most likely to look for in order to find the article (and to which editors will most naturally link from other articles).

Precision – titles are expected to use names and terms that are precise, but only as precise as is necessary to identify the topic of the article unambiguously.

Note also the policy on "non-neutral but common names" (although I don't think "Race and intelligence" is necessarily non-neutral):

"When a subject or topic has a single common name (as evidenced through usage in a significant proportion of English-language reliable sources), Wikipedia should follow the sources and use that name as our article title (subject to the other naming criteria). Sometimes that common name will include non-neutral words that Wikipedia normally avoids (Examples include Boston Massacre and Teapot Dome scandal). In such cases, the commonality of the name overrides our desire to avoid passing judgment (see below). This is acceptable because the non-neutrality and judgment is that of the sources, and not that of Wikipedia editors. True neutrality means we do not impose our opinions over that of the sources, even when our opinion is that the name used by the sources is judgmental."

"Ethnic differences in intelligence" is possible, but the article is not really about ethnic differences, and there really isn't much research on that, either.--Victor Chmara (talk) 14:41, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

Hi, Victor, I have been pondering your suggestions, and the rationale of sticking with familiar vocabulary in the broader literature and having parallel titles for Wikipedia articles on parallel topics. How about a general title of "Group differences in IQ by [group class]," e.g., Group differences in IQ by race and Group differences in IQ by sex and so on? Several of the articles already exist, and the "group differences" language is picked up by a lot of the literature (by way of emphasizing that most of these investigations are not purporting to investigate individual differences in IQ along those dimensions). I'll appreciate comments from you and from other editors about this. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk) 15:12, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

Oh, and I should make clear to you and to other onlookers that I no longer think there is much value in combining this article with the other articles about group differences in IQ. So this would be a stand-alone article about group differences in IQ by race, as it long has been. Thank you for any further comments you have. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk) 17:01, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

This article will suffer forever from the problem defined in the first sentence of the second paragraph - "There are no universally accepted definitions of either race or intelligence..." Even in that same paragraph, it discusses "the White-Black IQ gap". This obviously uses the traditional and extremely simplistic US-centric view of race, and is no doubt written from the perspective of western psychologists, the people with the biggest conflict of interest in the area of designing, marketing and using IQ tests. Until the article clearly and conclusively addresses all the issues this single paragraph raises, it will never gain my respect. HiLo48 (talk) 16:21, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

The list is a great idea-and most of these listed are great ideas. I'm not comfortable with #8. I don't think they're needed-the topic isn't that complicated, imo. This is a controversial topic (even the experts are polarized). We've already witnessed attempts at recruiting experts off-wiki from very polarized internet forums, and that just ignited more heat (and finger-pointing) among involved editors than light. As for #1, although the title is touchy it is used in the real world. The study is one category of "group difference" studied. So the question would be whether or not there is enough content for a stand-alone article. The background stuff about intelligence testing, heritability, and between group comparisons would be repeated for all "Intelligence and group differences" topics such as sex and social class. But of course race group differences have some unique components, such as whether it makes sense to treat race as a genetic group, concerns about racially biased tests, stereotype threat etc. I don't have an opinion on this one yet-I need to take a look at the closely related articles I think. Professor marginalia (talk) 16:45, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the several thoughtful comments. Are we about ready for removal of the full protection of the article (and, thus, resumption of normal editing) now that the ArbCom case is decided? -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk) 00:48, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

Professor marginalia, I have just replied to Victor (this same section) that perhaps a general title of "Group differences in IQ by [group class]" might say what the article is about, in common language, and in parallelism with other articles. The secondary literature strongly supports "race," quibbles and all, as the term for the group classification considered in this topic, and wavers between "IQ" and "Intelligence" (which of course is a synonym of "IQ" to mainstream psychometricians) for the other key term. I'm preferring "IQ" in my proposal mostly for fewer keystrokes and thus a shorter title. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk) 15:12, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

There are articles with titles similar in form to Race and intelligence, including Sex and intelligence, Fertility and intelligence, Race and genetics, Race and crime in the United States, and Race and health in the United States. What articles are there with titles like "Group differences in X by Y"? The current title is both consistent with those of similar articles, and concise, as recommended in WP:TITLE. 'Intelligence' is preferable to 'IQ' in the title, because to some extent the article deals with tests like SAT that are not strictly IQ tests.--Victor Chmara (talk) 19:16, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

Going back a bit, re "How about a general title of "Group differences in IQ by [group class]," e.g., Group differences in IQ by race and Group differences in IQ by sex and so on", sex is clear and distinct whereas race is less so; the danger is implying that races are as distinct and well defined as looking down and seeing what's there (and, indeed, that races form a statistical valid "group" in the first place, correlations may actually be stronger to some other variable). Group differences as applied to (self-identified) race is a far more subtle topic, although it does require background on understanding statistics and measurements of group intelligence. Just thinking out loud between spreadsheet rows... PЄTЄRS J VЄСRUМВА ►TALK 20:32, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure the vast majority of people aren't stupid enough to think that. They know, as eveybody has for thousanda of years, that race is a shorthand for clinal variation. I think you insult peoples intelligence by assuming that they would immediately assume races are homogenous just from seeing the word 'race' in a wikipedia article title. Using the phrase "Population groups associated with bio-geographic variation" would similarly make no difference, because it has the same meaning. I guess you may also imagine wikipedia has an iota of credibilty with the general public. Oh, wait, you're in the USA? Sorry. 146.179.213.147 (talk) 06:42, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

OK, let's not delete it this time. That post, while not as well mannered as it might be, is really as equally well mannered as the refusal of regulars on this article to even respond to my more polite posts about the stupidity of using race as a classifier, especially when the lead of the article itself effectively says just that. HiLo48 (talk) 07:02, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

HiLo48, you may think it's stupid to group people by race, and many people may agree with you, but there are many others who think otherwise, including scholars on every side of the academic debate about race differences in intelligence. Even if socially defined races did not correspond to genetic differences (they do), it would be meaningful to ask why there are differences in IQ between these social groups, which is what scholars who reject the hereditarian perspective do. In the article, these differences of opinion between scholars can be explicated.--Victor Chmara (talk) 10:33, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

The issue (which I have repeatedly raised and only gained a response when my own post was accompanied by one more effectively seeking attention) is that the second paragraph of the lead says "There are no universally accepted definitions of either race or intelligence in academia..." If that is true, the whole article is a waste of space. To me, the big problem is that so many editors ignored this situation for so long. HiLo48 (talk) 10:51, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

There are no universally agreed-upon definitions of thousands of other phenomena that nevertheless have articles in Wikipedia. It's normal that scientists disagree about concepts. In social science, it's more of a rule than an exception.--Victor Chmara (talk) 10:59, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

One can have some disagreement, but huge swags of this article are written based on the seeming certainty that "Black" is a race. Disagreement should not allow such ridiculous certainty. HiLo48 (talk) 11:07, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

Give me some examples from the article. In a typical study, people who identify themselves as black or white whatever are considered as such. Why is this problematic? Are studies that use self-identification to group people by sex, sexual orientation, age, relationship status, occupation and what have you also "ridiculous"?--Victor Chmara (talk) 11:22, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

And this is where it gets difficult to have a reasonable discussion with those obsessed with race. The answer to your question is so obvious that I almost wonder if you meant it rhetorically. From your list, there is absolutely never any question about self identification by sex, sexual orientation, age. They are simply facts. The others are a bit softer. But self identification of race is a social construct, with local definitions varying dramatically around the world. That brings me to another issue, the massive US-centric bias of the article. It's so sadly obvious. This is one of the worst "serious" article on Wikipedia. HiLo48 (talk) 12:30, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

If you think no one questions the meaningfulness of categories such as sex and sexual orientation, you have missed tons of academic research and debate on these topics. The article is US-centric, because most of the high-quality data and research on race and intelligence are from the US. In the US, racial self-identification is an excellent predictor of ancient continental ancestry[12] and thus of genetic differences between populations.--Victor Chmara (talk) 12:46, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

That's a very circular argument. You are using a definition of race to defend a definition of race HiLo48 (talk) 12:56, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

No one denies that there are recognizable categories of people that have traditionally been and still are called races. Everybody can reliably categorize people by race with their bare eyes. Even people who campaign against racism professionally and are hotly opposed to racial categories admit that they exist because there cannot be racism nor can policies like affirmative action exist if there are no recognizable races. The debate is really about if these socially constructed races differ from each other genetically not only in "superficial" characteristics like skin color, but also in "non-superficial" characteristics like intelligence. I don't see what's circular in my pointing out that socially constructed races in America correspond to rather distinct genetic clusters.--Victor Chmara (talk) 13:18, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

There is an excellent discussion of this, and many other of the basic issues surrounding race, in Dawkin's The Ancestor's Tale, specifically the section "The grasshopper's tale". 16:27, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

Racism exists because shallow people use shallow features such as appearance and language as a basis on which to discriminate. It doesn't exist because race is a simple construct. HiLo48 (talk) 21:13, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

And self-identification is often just a case of a less well educated person parroting what ignorant or discriminatory educators have told them. HiLo48 (talk) 22:06, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

If racial self-identities were as arbitrary as you claim, they would not be so highly correlated with ancient geographic ancestry as revealed by DNA markers. In reality, race is about ancestry, and people are interested in and know about their ancestry, including racial/continental ancestry.--Victor Chmara (talk) 22:17, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

Just to clarify this a bit more. The phenotypes identified as racial are about genetic ancestry, not personal ancestry which is another thing entirely. Stated another way, the organism family tree is universally very different from the family tree of any given gene. The genetic relationship between any two people is not modeled by a tree, but a web or network. aprock (talk) 22:25, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

It's no surprise to me that you are all still working so hard to define race. And that's my point! We have a huge article which must depend on a clear and agreed definition for it to mean anything at all apart from discriminatory views of the world, and you're still working on the basics. HiLo48 (talk) 01:31, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

You're welcome to suggest relevant sources. aprock (talk) 02:08, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

Won't be doing that. I cannot see how an article that correctly says "There are no universally accepted definitions of either race or intelligence...", then proceeds as if there is, is redeemable. This isn't a sourcing problem. HiLo48 (talk) 04:34, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

Ok. aprock (talk) 04:39, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

iq and myopia 2

i tried to discuss this issue in may but i'll try again. in the "molecular genetics"-section it is stated that:

"A few genetic disorders such as congenital myopia and torsion dystonia have been found to be associated with higher intelligence among members of the same population, as well as being more prevalent among racial groups with higher average IQs, and some researchers have proposed that the unequal distribution between groups of both IQ and these disorders is influenced by the same genes.[102][103]"

the references used (an article from the controversial "mankind quarterly"[13] and a paper from the equally controversial g. cochran) are clearly not secondary sources. also, there is a clear correlation between environmental effects and myopia [14]:

"For instance, 70 per cent of 18-year-old men of Indian origin living in Singapore have myopia, while in India itself the rate is roughly 10 per cent. Another study found myopia rates of 80 per cent in 14 to 18-year-old boys studying in schools in Israel that emphasise reading religious texts. The rate for boys in state schools was just 30 per cent."

in addition, i fully agree with the points raised by wapondaponda [15]. as wikipedia is an encyclopedia it should stick to secondary sources rather than unverified original papers.-- mustihussain (talk) 01:28, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

I've been reading about the correlation between high IQ scores and myopia for years (perhaps because of my childhood experiences). What I see in the professional genetics literature is that it is by no means clear which direction would be the causative direction in that observed correlation. As usual, there isn't enough experimental evidence to resolve the issue of causation. It is very clear in the professional literature that both IQ and myopia are subject to strong environmental influences that are not fully understood. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk) 22:54, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

exactly, the paragraph above should be removed as half-baked non-secondary sources are used. -- mustihussain (talk) 01:36, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

Mankind Quarterly should not be used as a source for anything. futurebird (talk) 01:42, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

Yes, that passage is very poorly sourced. The article is still under full protection, so none of us can fix that yet. I'm glad you're looking for passages that need to be fixed. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk) 03:24, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

I'd like to point out a couple things here that should be acknowledged in this discussion. The first is that one sentence was removed, and that sentence concerned the link between myopia, intelligence and the correlation of these two traits in a race or group context. While one editor has voiced a problem with the use of the Mankind Quarterly paper from 2007, the other source was G. Cochran, J. Hardy, H. Harpending, Natural History of Ashkenazi Intelligence. Journal of Biosocial Science 38 (5), pp. 659–693 (2006), which included a link to the full text article. One sentence supported by two citations from two recognized academic journals exceeds most other data for standards of Wikipedia:Verifiability.

There is undoubtedly a correlation between myopia and IQ -- a brief search at Google Scholar will reveal reems of support for this and more:(Sofaer JA, Emery AE. Genes for super-intelligence? J. Med Genet 1981 : 18:410-3); (Saw et al. IQ and the Association with Myopia in Children. Investigative Ophthalmology and Visual Science. 2004;45:2943-2948.); (Cohn et al. Myopia and intelligence:a pleiotropic relationship? Human Genetics, Volume 80, Number 1, 53-58, DOI: 10.1007/BF00451456); (Czepita D, Lodygowska E, Czepita M. Are children with myopia more intelligent? A literature review. Ann Acad Med Stetin. 2008;54(1):13-6; discussion 16.), etc. Whether or not there is a causation from one to the other is up for debate, but it is debated in the context of the subject of this article and therefore the debate itself, at least, should be included. What would be one's motivation to remove one well-cited and easily amend-able or expandable sentence? I think that as the issue of race and intelligence is a very politicized issue, political motivations should be examined. One of the citations for this sentence specifically linked (re:verifiability) myopia and intelligence in regard to Ashkenazi Jews. Taking politics into consideration, the authors of that study were not Jewish, and other non-Jewish authors have presented similar findings (On the Correlation of Myopia and Intelligence, Journal article by Edward M. Miller; Genetic, Social, and General Psychology Monographs, Vol. 118, 1992). Granted, Jewish authors have presented such findings, too (Mark Rosenfield, Bernard Gilmartin (1998). Myopia and nearwork. Elsevier Health Sciences. p. 23. ISBN 9780750637848). There is abundant evidence that myopia rates vary between races/ethinic groups, and there is abundant evidence that IQ varies between races/ethnic groups, and there is some evidence that myopia and IQ correlate across racial and ethnic groups. Those are the facts -- the causual relationships may not be clear for each of those associations, but the correlations shouldn't simply be ignored and swept under the rug.

The point is mustihussain spends a lot of editing time contributing-to and defending articles on Muslim scholars, Pakistanis, Islam and he spends a lot of time on this article. Other than overt religious motivations (and he doesn't seem like a nutjob), the other pattern in his edits is that he prefers to defend external biological relationships for IQ (iodine deficiency, etc.) over internal biological realtionships (genetics), but also has made some funny moves like this one: [16]. I'm not sure why the edit to remove content on myopia and IQ was so important, since the topic was valid and sources readily found for amending or expanding the point.

Everyone has views, and some are worth considering while others are obviously so flawed that they warrent no consideration. The issue of myopia, race and IQ is one which exceeds notability in academia, and therfore deserves mention in this article. Just my two cents. 24.240.67.205 (talk) 18:19, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

Protection template

{{editprotected}} A new protection template was added without removing the existing template. Please delete {{pp-semi}}, which miscategorizes the article. --Bsherr (talk) 22:41, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

Done Dabomb87 (talk) 03:47, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

All the graphics in the article need a lot of fact-checking, and perhaps deletion is best for some.

I just did a quick look at all the image files currently posted in the article. There is at least one that appears to have an unverifiable source, and at least one more that has a source that is surely veriable, but arguably not reliable by Wikipedia policies. It would be a good idea to discuss the factual basis for each of the data charts shown in the article, and undue weight issues or other issues of emphasis that may arise from their inclusion in the article. I'm still mostly on wikibreak, but I thought I should bring this up for everyone to discuss here. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk) 20:41, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

Semi-protection requested

The anon IP edit warring, the disparaging commentaries across a number of articles are getting in the way of building some good will and making progress. I requested semi-protection. PЄTЄRS J VЄСRUМВА ►TALK 21:25, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

It's obvious one of the IP's is a banned user. Any further such comments should be reverted on sight. Banned means banned. Professor marginalia (talk) 22:03, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

Semiprotection would be useful for this article. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk) 14:44, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

Keep checking for current sources--link to source list here.

Here's a friendly reminder to everyone that the Arbitration Committee case about this article and related articles included a reminder to editors to cite statements to reliable sources. For a few months now, I have been compiling a source list related to this article and related topics, and you are invited to suggest additional sources or to comment on the sources already included as you wish. This article can improve greatly as we all commit ourselves to follow the reliable sources where they lead. Recent, professionally edited, mainstream secondary sources can add a lot perspective to this article and show the way to shortening the length of the article and putting point of view into better balance. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk) 15:02, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

A small aside

I've mentioned here and there the source of my interest in the topic of intelligence testing, having been a subject for years myself (long term study of preemies at St. Vincent's Hospital in New York).

In all of this it is important we remember that "IQ" is the quantification of the result of a test. No test is "objective," every test is "subjective" in that it is looking for something. I thought I'd share an experience I still recall of a test of concepts: being shown quite an extensive set of cards with illustrations; for each being asked to choose which word of several choices spoken to me best matched the illustration. I still recall being quite upset that I missed "razed" (for a picture of a house bull-dozed down), a word I did not know at the time, hearing it as "raised", which of course made no sense with respect to the picture. From the perspective of the tester, I was unable to associate the concept with the picture; from the perspective of the subject, if you had spelled it for me I would have figured it out by process of elimination of it not being the other words.

There are two things at work here: "race and 'IQ'" (results of tests are only as "good" as their creators) and "race and 'intelligence'". It might help in our coverage of the topic to make the necessary distinction, as despite the mapping of the human genome, the last time I checked we still don't know where intelligence lies. Let alone, what is "intelligence" in the first place, it's merely correlation to a (what some would argue is an arbitrary, culturally skewed, etc.) set of particular "cognitive" skills. Ultimately, to the second of the two Lynn reviews above, it's still all about correlation. At least that's how it appears to me at the moment.

What I state editorially based on reputable sources may of course be different. :-) PЄTЄRS J VЄСRUМВА ►TALK 21:15, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

the sat- and lynn plots

the sat-plots used in this article are misleading. they seem to confirm the national iq-hierarchy as advocated by by lynn and his fellow travelers. however, "south asians" (e.g. indians), who according to lynn & co have average iq of 81, outperform "whites". it also seems to be the case in every country of the western world. clearly, lynn's hypothesis of a genetically induced national iq-hierarchy is shattered. in addition, i do not think sat-plots belong to this article at all as these are not iq-tests.

the plots by lynn and vanhanen give their pov undue weight. it is clear from the "iq differences outside of the usa"-section that their findings can not be trusted.-- mustihussain (talk) 12:54, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

In general I agree that most of the plots do not belong, but not because they agree or disagree with the conclusions of various authors. Rather they are generally WP:synth. That is to say, they were constructed using data from various sources, but that construction represents the view of the chart maker, and not necessarily that of the source. Likewise, without a researcher using the data in a study, their inclusion here is dubious at best. aprock (talk) 16:49, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

South Asians are not a single people but a collection of very different peoples, with vast religious, cultural, and, yes, genetic differences between them. South Asian immigrants to the US or Europe are not a random sample of those populations, so their performance tells us nothing about India as a whole. The SAT charts do not violate WP:Synth, because they are merely graphical representations of data published by the College Board. Each of them was constructed from one dataset.--Victor Chmara (talk) 18:25, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

I'm not sure what you're arguing here. Inclusion of SAT data here without source supporting their relevance to race and intelligence research is WP:OR and WP:SYNTH. aprock (talk) 18:32, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

i suggest you find out what lynn has to say about the average iq of the indian diaspora. he advocates that also these south asian immigrants have a very low iq-average. not very credible at all. anyway, the sat-plots are a clear case of synth.-- mustihussain (talk) 20:24, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

I agree with aprock that it's synth to include the sat charts without explaining why they're relevant. Instead of removing the charts though, I think it'd be better to include an explanation of the data in the article and how it's relevant to R&I. -Ferahgo the Assassin (talk) 22:59, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

Where could an interested reader go to verify the information that supposedly comes from the College Board? I read the College Board national SAT report each year, and some of the data charts I see on Wikipedia don't match the format or data presentation of any College Board publication I have ever seen. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk) 03:22, 2 September 2010 (UTC)

Click on the charts, WBB. The data tables were in fact created by the National Center for Education Statistics using College Board data, so they're secondary sources in that respect.--Victor Chmara (talk) 08:54, 2 September 2010 (UTC)

Mustihussain said "i do not think sat-plots belong to this article at all as these are not iq-tests". The SAT has been validated as a good measure of IQ. The intelligence researcher Douglas Detterman at Case Western has published peer reviewed papers showing that the SAT and the ACT are essentially the same as IQ tests, i.e. the SAT and the ACT measure g about as well as IQ tests do (g is the scientific term for IQ-type intelligence). refs: Frey, M.C., Detterman, D.K. Scholastic assessment or g? The relationship between the scholastic assessment test and general cognitive ability (2004) Psychological Science, 15 (6), pp. 373-378. Koenig, K.A., Frey, M.C., Detterman, D.K. ACT and general cognitive ability (2008) Intelligence, 36 (2), pp. 153-160.Rafrye (talk) 01:20, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

Well, that doesn't speak very well for the reliability of IQ tests then. But anyway these raw data are irelevant for the topic of R&I as the data hasn't been corrected for any factors such as forexample SES - drawing any conclusions about those data in the article is not just SYNTH but OR.·Maunus·ƛ· 01:25, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

Another way of looking at this, which I learned about from

* ℞ Hopkins, Kenneth D.; Stanley, Julian C. (1981). Educational and Psychological Measurement and Evaluation (sixth ed.). Engelwood Cliffs (NJ): Prentice Hall. ISBN 0-13-236273-2. Many parents are unaware that intelligence tests tend to measure primarily scholastic aptitude and that many other cognitive abilities that can be legitimately considered to reflect intelligence and special abilities are untapped. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)

is that SAT tests and IQ tests are about equally reliable, and about equally loaded on the same construct, which Hopkins and Stanley call "scholastic ability." As far back as Spearman and Terman you can find researchers acknowledging that tests that are largely validated by school performance largely relate to school abilities. They may or may not broadly reflect something that can unambiguously be called "intelligence." (This, by the way, is why I think the article should be retitled with "IQ" as the prominent term, although I certainly agree that the mainstream view of psychometricians—not all psychologists, but psychometricians—is that IQ operationalizes the concept of intelligence. The view of psychologists like Hopkins, Stanley, Sternberg, Gardner, the WAIS-IV authors, and others who point out that IQ and intelligence are not necessarily the same thing must be acknowledged as a prominent, although not unified, dissenting view.) -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk) 02:48, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

Okay, enough bull shit about Rushton!

> It's not clear that a review summary of data qualifies as secondary sourcing

> I think it's pretty clear that using the review paper by Rushton and Jenson does not address the problem of undue weight, but rather potential exacerbates the problem.

> Jensen and Rushton are not independent of the controversy which makes them not the most reliable source on the matter.

ANYONE who has done research in the field is involved in the "controversy". And as a matter of fact, Rushton's survey review IS the most reliable source on the matter, according to Wikipedia policy. Specifically, an academic literature survey of research is the most reliable source possible, and is to be considered as reliable as a standard textbook on a subject. According to that guideline, Rushton's Smoking gun paper is even more reliable here than individual peer-reviewed academic research results (virtually all of which support Rushton).

As icing on the truth-cake, Rushton is not responsible for the vast majority of the data he uses (though it's legitimate if he were). What he usually does is:

1) show us the results from hundreds of unquestionably unbiased studies by prestigious universities, and

2) run SPSS on publicly-available databases from reputable sources--statistics which you can verify yourself on your own PC. I'm sure many have already re-run those statistics in a (futile) effort to overturn the reality which you people are hell--bent on hiding.

For example, his assertion that blacks have, on average, both greater body weight and smaller head circumference is merely a restatement of data NASA collected when looking for astronauts. (A conclusion supported by many, many other objective databases).

And I imagine that's how he managed to publish the result that black men, in general, have larger dicks that whites: someone did a large data collection with many different measurements, and those measurements happened to include race and penis length.

You don't have to LIKE it for it to be true and proven. I don't like it either. Not only did I used to volunteer at Head Start, but I can assure you that I dearly wish it were white men who had the largest dicks--particularly in circumference.

But hey, you know what? The plumage don't enter into it: what I wish and what you wish don't matter in Wikipedia.

Remember that.

Write it down.

It is the contumelious mathsci who is be disregarded: it doesn't MATTER that the Pioneer Fund funded his purchase of SPSS and a PC. Nor does it matter what he thinks of blacks personally. Though as an aside, here's what he does think:

"Oh, no!" exclaimed Rushton when asked if he himself believed in racial superiority. "From an evolutionary point of view, superiority can only mean adaptive value--if it even means that. And we've got to realize that each of these populations is perfectly, beautifully adapted to their own ancestral environments."

All that matters is that his meta-analysis has been published in the most credible places possible AND widely cited.

As Dr. Pesta (an intelligence researcher who seems to have left this discussion in disgust) told us, Rushton IS the mainstream view and whatever disagrees with his conclusions is the fringe.

And even if you people somehow succeed in removing Rushton's summary of research which leads to the awful truth--and it IS awful--the individual research results will still support any factual statements for which Rushton's survey was the < ref >. And promise I will look up each of those studies and gleefully restore the bowdlerized statements with the published research as the citation.

You assassinated occam and others who objected to the shameful, biased spin and censorship that you're trying infect this article with. But if you want to succeed in that disgraceful crusade, you'll have to kill me too, as I will not allow lies to be put into my beloved Wikipedia.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have an article to correct... TechnoFaye Kane 07:27, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

Please define black HiLo48 (talk) 07:49, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

Most studies use self-identification to define races. In the United States, racial self-idenfication correlates almost perfectly with ancient continental or racial ancestry[17]. This three-dimensional principal components map[18] (for panel A, PC1 = 20% of the variance, PC2 = 5%, and PC3 = 3.5%; for panel B, PC1 = 11%, PC2 = 6%, and PC3 = 5%) from Tishkoff et al. 2009[19] illustrates the same in a global context and within Africa, although they used a rather small number of genetic markers, so the different populations/races are less distinct than would be if they had used more markers. This chart[20], adapted from Price et al. 2008[21], nicely shows how distinct genetically the three great races (black, white, "yellow") of traditional anthropology are, and also how Africans Americans are an admixed population, predominantly West African but with a substantial amount of European ancestry, too.

The old argument that hereditary behavioral and other differences between races are not possible because there are no systematic genetic differences between races is, in the light of modern population genetics, dead and buried. --Victor Chmara (talk) 16:02, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

This is very very wrong and unhelpful. Rushton is by no means the mainstream view and Dr. Pesta has made not such claim - neither has anyone who actually knows about the topic area in which Rushton is working when he makes claims about intelligence and races and human prehistory, which is evolutionary anthropology and not intelligence testing. Victor Chmara's bold statement about how diverse the human races are is a lie that can easily be disproved by simply referring to the most recent and basic text books in genetics that maintain that there is no such thing as geneticfally well-defined continental races and who would lend little or no credence to the pretty map. Cavalli-Sforza does not say that races exist, even though a layman looking at his maps might get that idea. This is complete and utter crap and lies and must stop. Not even David Kan and Captain Occam were so deluded in their rhetorics or so violent in their insistance of their views being closer to the mainstream than the actual mainstream one.·Maunus·ƛ· 20:49, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

Also Ms. Faye would do wisely in observing the editing restrictions on this article and work to establish consensus rather than simply get on a soapbox and scream about how she is going to correct articles if she wishes to continue editing here.·Maunus·ƛ· 20:51, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

"Those who subscribe to the opinion that there are no human races are obviously ignorant of modern biology."--Ernst Mayr, 2002

While the "there are no races" position is popular enough among scientists, it is by no means something that everybody agrees with. Many eminent geneticists, biologists, and anthropologists think that there are races in Homo sapiens. Neil Risch, who has been described as "the statistical geneticist of our time", has defended the use of race as an operational category in biomedical research, just like many of his colleagues. A quote from the NY Times[22]:

"Dr. Risch and nine co-authors say that ignoring race will 'retard progress in biomedical research.' Racial differences have arisen, they say, because after the ancestral human population in Africa spread throughout the world 40,000 years ago, geographical barriers prevented interbreeding. On each continent, under the influence of natural selection and the random change between generations known as genetic drift, people would have diverged away from the common ancestral population, creating the major races. Within each race, religious, cultural and geographical barriers fostered other endogamous, or inbreeding, populations that led to the ethnic groups."

Even if one thinks that there are no biological races, it does not mean social races cannot be genetically distinguished from each other. HiLo48 seems to suggest that it's impossible to define races, but in practise it has been rather unproblematic in race & IQ studies, because people will tell you what race they belong to if you ask them, and these self-categorizations seem to be highly correlated with specific genetic clusters in most cases.--Victor Chmara (talk) 21:33, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

I really can't be bothered to dig up the sources again, I've done it so many times now... Rushton is as discredited within his professional environment as a practicing scholar can be - I have not seen any one being stripped of scholarly credentials as he has been. In his case the pioneer fund, tenure rules and a couple of staunch supporters is all he has to keep him going. On the race note: Plenty of biologists and geneticists publishing in refereed journals and running billion dollar research projects are ignorant of modern biology according to Mayr in this sense then. In that case then being ignorant might be a good thing. Being useful as a correlate in biomedical research doesn't translate to "existing" just like "cranial capacity being a correlate of IQ" doesn't translate into brainsize determining IQ. We really really really need to heave this debate up on a different level. ·Maunus·ƛ· 21:42, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

If Rushton really has been thoroughly discredited among his peers, it's very strange that his articles keep getting published in well-regarded peer-reviewed journals[23]. What is common to most of Rushton's academic critics is that their vitas pale into insignificance next to Rushton's. Race is a useful concept in biomedical research simply because races differ in allele frequencies.--Victor Chmara (talk) 22:23, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

Where? Across the whole world? Every country? Every socio-economic niche? Or just the US? I entered this particular discussion in response to the use of the word black as a race. That is surely just a US phenomenon. This very discussion shows the lack of certainty about what race is. The definition if intelligence is also problematic. We have the issue of whether this article is about the whole world, or just the US. Basically, while some individuals think they are certain, we really have massive uncertainty in basic definitional stuff for this article, but many seemingly certain statements inside it. I still question its right to exist in anything like the current form. HiLo48 (talk) 21:40, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

Any conversation track that starts of with dick size is not likely to raise the level of intellectual discourse. PЄTЄRS J VЄСRUМВА ►TALK 21:54, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

HiLo48, this may come as a shock to you, but the ancestors of the people in the US actually migrated there from the Old World, so race is biologically real to the same extent in the rest of the world as it is in the US. It does not matter if you don't like this article, because this is a topic that has been and continues to be widely discussed in scholarly literature, and is thus a legitimate field of scientific inquiry. If you have good sources questioning the operationalizations of intelligence and race used in this literature, please cite them so we may perhaps discuss them in the article. Your personal opinions do not count.--Victor Chmara (talk) 21:58, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

Victor this might come as a shock to you but non-american cultures don't necessarily divide people into racial groups based on the same phenotypical traits as Americans, this means that it doesn't matter where the hell Americans migrated from but race is still socially constructed even if you can sometimes make it fit more or less with different biological variables. A man who is black in an american IQ survey could very well be white in a Brazilean survey and vice versa. Just like a man who self identifies as white and looks white - might well have a significant number of african ancestors. Now lets stop this stupid discussion, ignore Faye untill she goes away and get on with improving the article.·Maunus·ƛ· 22:26, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

I agree with you that in a heavily mixed country like Brazil racial categories are less correlated with actual ancestry than in the one-drop rule US. In contrast, European and African racial categories may be more highly correlated with actual ancestry than those used in the US, because Europeans and Africans generally distinguish between blacks and mulattoes. But, yes, let's stop this blathering.--Victor Chmara (talk) 22:39, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

@HiLo48 and Maunus, In the medical and human genetics research field we study racial and ethnic differences in genetic traits ALL THE TIME but perhaps you two are not aware of it because we use some special code words to keep the Boasian PC-police types from bothering us. You see, rather than saying "racial groups" instead we say "continental or large subcontinental human population groups" and instead of saying "ethnic groups" we say "human population sub-groups". We are always careful to remember to say "population" instead of "race" because then the PC-police give us a free pass to do our research on racial group genetic differences--oops I mean human population group differences.

For example we often use a site called HapMap that catalogs ethnoracial group genetic differences- http://hapmap.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/index.html.en

This site shows the ethnoracial group gene allele differences that are mapped throughout the human genome in regards to eleven ethnoracial groups, and more will be added soon. Now we have gene differences cataloged for the following eleven ethnoracial groups: Population descriptors:ASW: African ancestry in Southwest USA, CEU: Utah residents with Northern and Western European ancestry from the CEPH collection, CHB: Han Chinese in Beijing, China, CHD: Chinese in Metropolitan Denver, Colorado, GIH: Gujarati Indians in Houston, Texas, JPT: Japanese in Tokyo, Japan, LWK: Luhya in Webuye, Kenya, MEX: Mexican ancestry in Los Angeles, California, MKK: Maasai in Kinyawa, Kenya, TSI: Toscans in Italy, YRI: Yoruban in Ibadan, Nigeria.

Translation of "HapMap talk" into "race talk" : Black = ASW, LWK, MKK, YRI Hispanic = MEX White = CEU, TSI Asian Indian = GIH East Asian = CHB, CHD, JPT

In the past few years there has been a whole bunch of exciting new research on discovering genes that have undergone evolutionary selection during the history of modern humans as the racial groups developed (...now don't you kinda of suspect that this includes the genes that modulate intelligence???...) and what they are finding is that much of this selection for new gene alleles has occurred in Europeans (AKA Whites) and East Asians but not in Africans (AKA Blacks). Here are links to some of these new research discoveries on genetic differences between human population groups (AKA races):

Identification and analysis of genomic regions with large between-population differentiation in humans http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/fulltext/119387724/PDFSTART

Natural selection has driven population differentiation in modern humans http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18246066

How culture shaped the human genome: bringing genetics and the human sciences together http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20084086

The role of geography in human adaptation http://www.plosgenetics.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pgen.1000500

Genotype, haplotype and copy-number variation in worldwide human populations http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18288195

The genetics of human adaptation: hard sweeps, soft sweeps, and polygenic adaptation http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20178769

Signals of recent positive selection in a worldwide sample of human populations http://genome.cshlp.org/content/19/5/826.full.pdf+html

This last paper cited above ("Signals of recent positive selection in a worldwide sample of human populations" by Professor Jonathan Pritchard's group at U of Chicago) is all about how there has been positive selection for genes including a pathway called NRG-ERBB4 that controls brain development and brain synapse function and that has even been linked to cognitive function (e.g. see Wen L et al Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2010 Jan 19;107(3):1211-6). One point made in the Pickrell et al. paper is that selection for the new versions of these important brain influencing genes only occurred in Whites and Asians (not in Blacks). Finding this sort of scientific discovery does not bode well for your Boasian theory that all racial groups have the same genetic endowment for intelligence. Here is the abstract for the Pickrell et al. paper:

Genome Res. 2009 May;19(5):826-37. Epub 2009 Mar 23.

Signals of recent positive selection in a worldwide sample of human populations.

Pickrell JK, Coop G, Novembre J, Kudaravalli S, Li JZ, Absher D, Srinivasan BS, Barsh GS, Myers RM, Feldman MW, Pritchard JK.

Department of Human Genetics, The University of Chicago, Chicago, IL 60637, USA. pickrell@uchicago.edu

Abstract: Genome-wide scans for recent positive selection in humans have yielded insight into the mechanisms underlying the extensive phenotypic diversity in our species, but have focused on a limited number of populations. Here, we present an analysis of recent selection in a global sample of 53 populations, using genotype data from the Human Genome Diversity-CEPH Panel. We refine the geographic distributions of known selective sweeps, and find extensive overlap between these distributions for populations in the same continental region but limited overlap between populations outside these groupings. We present several examples of previously unrecognized candidate targets of selection, including signals at a number of genes in the NRG-ERBB4 developmental pathway in non-African populations. Analysis of recently identified genes involved in complex diseases suggests that there has been selection on loci involved in susceptibility to type II diabetes. Finally, we search for local adaptation between geographically close populations, and highlight several examples. Rafrye (talk) 23:46, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

@Rafrye (who ever you are): I would wear the epithet of "Boasian" as a badge of honour if that was relevant. However, I am not adverse to using the terminology of population - not because it is more PC but because it is more correct. The distinction between races and populations is crucial because it is the only way that genetic studies can make any claims to having validly demonstrated anything. Race, when used by everyone but racists and maybe geneticians in the privacy of their labs, is not genetically defined, and we Boasians have demonstrated this so aptly that it really is a wonder that it hasn't sunk through to educated people like yourself yet. I will gladly and interestedly read the papers you provided and I am not adverse to changing my opinions about the possibility of finding genetically based differences in measured intelligence in different populations, but I want to see the evidence first, and I am not the only one who would need to be convinced - there is an entire scholarly community of people just like me who also doesn't buy it when some old racist comes around saying "I've proven what I knew all along - black people are stupid and have big penises". They need to be convinced too before wikipedia will describe Lynn and Rushton's conclusions as uncontradicted fact.·Maunus·ƛ· 02:41, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

Victor - my opinion does count, just as yours does, when it comes to discussing the quality and style of the article. That's what editors do. When the second paragraph of the article quite accurately states "There are no universally accepted definitions of either race or intelligence in academia...." and then the rest of the article is written as if precise definitions DO exist, then Houston, we have a problem. HiLo48 (talk) 23:47, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

There are tons of concepts in social science that not universally accepted, but as long as the scholars involved tell us how they operationalize these concepts, it's not a huge problem. Moreover, most people doing reseach on race and intelligence agree that races can be defined using self-identification, and intelligence using IQ tests. When it is said that "There are no universally accepted definitions of either race or intelligence in academia", it mostly means just that there are a bunch of disgruntled social constructionists who reject the work of psychometricians without even understanding it. Your kvetching about this is useless.--Victor Chmara (talk) 08:30, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

@HiLo48 (who ever you are): You said "I would wear the epithet of "Boasian" as a badge of honour if that was relevant." I think it is relevant. In my opinion the history section of this Race and Intelligence article is pretty bad in that it omits Francis Galton and Franz Boas. The two key founders of the two sides of this nature/nurture race intelligence debate are Francis Galton (the nature/hereditarian side) and Franz Boas (the nurture/environmentalist side), yet neither are mentioned. We should have a statement about both Galton and Boas and their pictures (if necessary drop the picture of Binet, he is much more peripheral to this Race and Intelligence issue). Galton influenced Ernst Haeckel, an influential race hereditarian in Germany, and Galton at Univ of London founded the influential hereditarian "London school" of psychology. Galton's philosophical descendants (many who trained or did postdoctoral fellowships at Univ of London) included Karl Pearson, Charles Spearman, Cyril Burt, Raymond Cattell, Phillip Vernon, Hans Eysenck, Arthur Jensen, and J. Philippe Rushton. Franz Boas was similarly influential in building the opposing environmentalist school. From his post as head of anthropology at Columbia Boas essentially founded the field of Cultural Anthropology and set in motion the whole environmentalist view that all racial groups have the same innate level of mental abilities and that it is only environmental and cultural differences that account for any existing differences. Boas's philosophical descendants (many who trained or did postdoctoral fellowships at Columbia) included Melville Herskovits, Ruth Benedict, Margaret Mead, Otto Kleinberg, Ashley Montagu, and Jonathan Marks. Oh and I would wear the epithet of "Galtonian" as a badge of honor if that was relevant, and indeed it is! Rafrye (talk) 02:32, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

It was I who said that, I just forgot to sign. I think including a description of the foundation of the two schools and possibly pictures of Boas and Galton is a good idea. I first thought that you, Rafrye, were a former editor returned in new clothing, but now I see that you are much too well read to be who I thought you were. Welcome to the wikipedia, as long as we keep the focus on improving the article and giving a balanced view of the issues I think we can get along even though you wear the Galtonian badge and I the Boasian.

I agree that the different approaches of the Galtonians and the Boasians should be discussed more at least in History of the race and intelligence controversy if not in this article. Galton was the first to realize that intelligence is normally distributed in any population, and he thought that whites and blacks differ just in the means of the distributions, and that there is much overlap between these two races. His estimate of the size of the difference between whites and blacks was remarkably close to modern estimates.--Victor Chmara (talk) 08:30, 6 September 2010 (UTC)