Talk:Steve Sailer/Archive 2

Archive 1

Archive 2

Include: survey of experts - Sailer is the most accurate media source on intelligence

A 2014 survey of expert opinion on intelligence found that Sailer's blog was considered the most accurate media source for intelligence research.

This highly relevant information should be included. Intelligence_(journal) is a leading publication which reflects the existing scientific consensus. The referenced article was written by an international group of renown experts and is very well sourced. Please read the referenced article to express an informed opinion.

The article has a lot of criticism from left-wing sources, but not much describing his work in a neutral way. Yes, the article should include the above paragraph, as well as a neutral summary of what he has written. Roger (talk) 04:24, 20 February 2021 (UTC)

Might be the most notable thing about him.

I have added a section on Grayfell's talk page in hopes of shifting the edit war onto this talk page rather than the main article. I was concerned that edits continued on the article rather than Grayfell responding here. It's possible that only monitoring the main page meant being unaware of this section here and thus that the edits were made in good faith, so that should serve as an alert to check the talk page. TGGP (talk) 22:59, 20 February 2021 (UTC)

Heiner Rindermann's surveys have already been extensively discussed elsewhere. The most recent example I know if is here: Talk:Race and intelligence#RfC: Should this article by Professor Rindermann et al. be included, and if so in what context? where the OP was blocked as a sock puppet. There have, however, been many more discussions of Rindermann and cohort's academic's work, and sock puppetry excluded, consensus has been overwhelming that this falls under WP:FRINGE as pseudoscience. The supposed legitimacy of Intelligence is contested, and regardless, is not sufficient to overturn this consensus for any specific study. In addition to WP:FRINGE, using vague claims from a dubious source to imply the "accuracy" of a unqualified blogger's coverage of and academic field is a form of promotion, and violates WP:SOAP. It is also cherry-picking,a sit is barely even mentioned by the source. This survey a primary source which is poorly explained by the repeated addition. If this is significant, it should be possible to cite a reliable, independent source explaining why it is significant. There are also serious red flags over David Becker and Thomas R.Coyle publishing history. Since they all lack the reputation for accuracy and fact checking expected by WP:RS, this is not a reliable source.

A specific problem is that the n-102 is not a fair sample of actual experts in this field, as it is only a sample of those who would bother to respond to fringe figures like Rindermann. A walled garden is not a valid sample pool, which is something that should be painfully obvious to anyone outside of the "HBD" bubble. In addition to Sailer, the other blogger mentioned positively is Anatoly Karlin. I will leave it to you to figure out why that's extremely questionable. As the survey also cites OpenPsych and other blatantly unreliable pseudo-journals, this is not a credible source in the slightest. Grayfell (talk) 00:11, 21 February 2021 (UTC)

I see the WP:UNDUE tag there, but not WP:FRINGE. Could you link where the consensus on the latter was established? TGGP (talk) 04:40, 21 February 2021 (UTC)

Scroll up a section from the linked one, and from there you can see another discussion and a link to Wikipedia:Fringe theories/Noticeboard/Archive 70#RfC on race and intelligence. There are many places this has come up, as well, but that one is an RFC with wide participation. Rindermann's surveys are extensively discussed there. That discussion is very long, which should help explain why patience for more debate is very thin. My understanding of these discussions is that Rindermann's work is seen as unreliable for any content on Wikipedia related to race and intelligence.

You are free to disagree of course, but due to extensive sock-puppetry, ArbCom sanctions (explained at the top of the talk page), and for other reasons, at this point any continuation of this should be held at either WP:RSN or WP:ANI. Grayfell (talk) 05:06, 21 February 2021 (UTC)

I see in that link it opens with someone asking if "sources by Jensen, Rushton, Lynn, Piffer, and Gottfredson are fringe". Rindermann gets mentioned, but it wasn't clear if all Rindermann's publications are considered fringe or whether this specific survey is. The conclusion of the vote distinguishes between genetic & non-genetic theories, which is another matter from what news sources are considered reliable by researchers (the subject of the survey). I suppose the ideal would be if another researcher had done a similar survey to serve as an independent replication so that if there were some problem specific to Rindermann that could be avoided, but I don't know if any such survey exists. TGGP (talk) 07:53, 21 February 2021 (UTC)

Intelligence is not just a mainstream scientific journal from a mainstream scientific publisher, it is a top journal in the field and it's published by Elsevier. It is in no way "fringe". If Wikipedia excludes every sentence from every publication that has been criticized by someone, then it would be a very small web site. The survey result is a notable fact about Sailer and you shouldn't delete it just because you don't want any thing positive about Sailer. KHirsch (talk) 02:41, 22 February 2021 (UTC)

Welcome back to Wikipedia after, can we assume that you found this discussion from off-site? I don't think a neutral summary of this source would actually be all that "positive". As I have already explained, this tiny study is not mainstream, nor is it particularly good scholarship, and it therefore doesn't reflect positively on anyone involved. Grayfell (talk) 22:00, 22 February 2021 (UTC)

Also, it is extremely likely that this edit was block evasion, as an editor with this IP range (Special:Contributions/2600:1004:B100:0:0:0:0:0/40) and location has been indefinitely blocked from all topics related to race and intelligence, broadly construed. Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive1049#Race and intelligence block and ban issue explains this. Reverting this editor is exempt from WP:3RR. Grayfell (talk) 00:24, 21 February 2021 (UTC)

References

If you are part of some war against sock puppets, I don't know anything about that. There is a lot of criticism of Sailer in this article, and it is all from fringe sources with strong political views. Eg, Media Matters, SPLC, John Podhoretz, etc. If you really want to get rid of the questionable sources, get rid of them. They have been widely criticized. It would be much better for this article to focus on Sailer's work. Roger (talk) 01:07, 21 February 2021 (UTC)

"02:27, 21 February 2021‎ NorthBySouthBaranof talk contribs‎ 31,333 bytes −601‎ rv topic-banned IP"

This has nothing to do with me, but it looks as though a clique of Inner Party members is using some carte blanche ban on someone they hate (probably an honest, decent editor) to tar and ban as many people as possible with the broadest possible brush, and using tactics like tag-teaming to do it. Same old, same old. 2603:7000:B23E:3056:1920:48F:A553:49A1 (talk) 04:49, 21 February 2021 (UTC)

It would be nice if these articles would just describe the subject's work, instead of playing guilt-by-association games. Yes, he writes about racial matters. That is appropriate for the article. I am sure he has been called a racist. Everyone who writes about racial matters has been called a racist. Saying that he has been called a racist is just useless name-calling. This article is obviously not neutral. Roger (talk) 07:19, 21 February 2021 (UTC)

I can see how the survey might be inappropriate as a source on race and intelligence itself (as there are much more high-quality, non-fringe and better sourced research available), but how can it be inappropriate as a source on Steve Sailer's blog? The journal itself seems at least arguably reputable, so the issue would have to be with the survey itself. There's presumably no less-fringe science that contradicts its findings concerning the blog. Has the paper been retracted? Ornilnas (talk) 09:15, 5 April 2021 (UTC)

• Oppose I can't access the Intelligence article and have some concerns about its methodology (as well as why a 5-year old survey of 100 people was published at all, other than because the lead author is on the editorial board), but more importantly: we don't discuss his blog at all right now. Until there's some context of what was on the blog, just saying it's the "most accurate media source" according to a survey is inappropriate. power~enwiki (π, ν) 02:56, 22 February 2021 (UTC)

It is accessible alright, I just stored it with archive.is. tickle me 01:51, 23 February 2021 (UTC)

The entire article is available at sci-hub if you enter the DOI "10.1016/j.intell.2019.101406". I'm surprised that anyone would vote on this issue without having read the article. There's nothing fringe about it. KHirsch (talk) 14:20, 26 February 2021 (UTC)

• Support The article has criticisms from an assortment of dubious and partisan sources. And yet someone wants to exclude a notable mention from an academic journal? Why? I would like to see some explanation of why those bloggers and pundits are somehow more important than an academic journal. If not, then remove the over-opinionated critics, and put in the academic journal. Roger (talk) 08:57, 22 February 2021 (UTC)

• Oppose I concur with the points made by User:Grayfell and User:Power~enwiki. The position supported by this source and its author were held to be WP:FRINGE and not WP:RS by the rfc, and the survey is based on a small and biased sample of respondents. It is a questionable source at best. Skllagyook (talk) 09:11, 22 February 2021 (UTC)

• If the rules of Wikipedia require exclusion of the "Intelligence" article, then something has gone wrong with the rules of Wikipedia. 24.46.151.135 (talk) 10:48, 25 February 2021 (UTC)

• Support An extremely reliable source of experts in the field. "Fringe" is clearly being used as a dishonest excuse by biased editors to censor material they don't like. Spork Wielder (talk) 09:10, 26 February 2021 (UTC) (WP:SOCK)

• Oppose. The methodological flaws of this survey –– which are myriad and profound –– have already been discussed on other talk pages ad nauseam. Its inadmissibility as evidence for anything is already well established. Further, to anyone who is not aware: article talk pages are not an appropriate place to characterize the imagined motivations of other editors. It is considered whining and it persuades no one. Generalrelative (talk) 18:11, 26 February 2021 (UTC)

• Not an argument. Spork Wielder (talk) 06:50, 27 February 2021 (UTC)

  Yeah well, that's just, like, your opinion, man. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 07:14, 27 February 2021 (UTC)

• Oppose given the issues with this article which have been repeatedly discussed elsewhere. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 07:14, 27 February 2021 (UTC)

  Where? This? Spork Wielder (talk) 10:29, 27 February 2021 (UTC)

  Search for "Rindermann" in archives of Talk:Race and intelligence and you get lots of hits: [1]. Also, you should change your indenting by always copying the indenting from the contribution above, then adding a colon. Fixed it for you. --Hob Gadling (talk) 11:24, 3 March 2021 (UTC)

• Support. Intelligence is a leading and respectable journal which reflects scientific consensus. The referenced article was written by an international group of renown experts. This article in Intelligence is the most notable piece of scientific research mentioning the subject. There must be a reference to it in order to provide factual information about the subject. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Guybas (talk • contribs)

• Oppose per Grayfell. Also wanted to note the appearance of all the likely-sockpuppet accounts in this survey. Volunteer Marek 22:04, 2 March 2021 (UTC)
  • It's not sock-puppetry, it's WP:MEAT - Sailer made multiple blog posts [2] [3] about including this specific piece of information in his Wikipedia page. power~enwiki (π, ν) 22:08, 2 March 2021 (UTC)
    • Well, everybody needs a hobby, I guess. I just wish he'd pick one that would involve less wasting of our time. XOR'easter (talk) 23:53, 2 March 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose Obvious attempt to POV-push is obvious, and also comical. XOR'easter (talk) 23:49, 2 March 2021 (UTC)

  How is referencing experts in the field "POV pushing"? This is projection. Spork Wielder (talk) 10:30, 3 March 2021 (UTC)

• Oppose See Talk:Race_and_intelligence/Archive_102 and search for "rindermann". --Hob Gadling (talk) 11:24, 3 March 2021 (UTC)

WP:BE
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
The journal Intelligence is fringe, because a handful of Wikipedia editors said so. Interesting. Spork Wielder (talk) 18:47, 3 March 2021 (UTC) You invented that conclusion. Interesting. --Hob Gadling (talk) 18:51, 3 March 2021 (UTC) Clarification: The page I linked has discussions on the subject and links to other discussions on the subject. I linked it because it is not necessary to have the same discussion again and again and again and again and again and again and again. Those discussions contain something called "reasoning" and something called "sources". What those Wikipedia editors "said" was based on those reasons and those sources. If you were familiar with the concept of "what people say is occasionally based on reasons" and interested in exploring it, you could have looked at the reasoning and at the sources. Instead, you superficially condensed the whole discussion to the result. --Hob Gadling (talk) 19:03, 3 March 2021 (UTC) All I see is a handful of Wikipedia editors calling them "fringe". Meanwhile here's the editorial board of Intelligence. Absurd. Spork Wielder (talk) 08:08, 4 March 2021 (UTC) All I see As I said, you should look closer. Those users linked to sources and a previous discussion: Wikipedia:Fringe_theories/Noticeboard/Archive_70#RfC_on_race_and_intelligence. Look at the stuff right at beginning, headed "Sources:", "From the largest professional organization of anthropologists:", "A similar statement", "From the textbook", and "From the prestigious journal". And read more than just the word "yes" from the contributions below that. editorial board What is that supposed to prove? Some people who work at universities! Wow! "Oooo, look, I got a degree! [beats chest]" Superficiality, omitting the look behind the surface, is one of the hallmarks of proponents of fringe ideas. --Hob Gadling (talk) 08:36, 4 March 2021 (UTC) "It does not reflect a consensus of all members of the AAA, as individuals vary in their approaches to the study of "race."" I've no idea why you think your cherry picked sources are valid and Intelligence isn't. Is it because you like what they are saying more? This isn't a criterion for "fringe". Spork Wielder (talk) 09:02, 4 March 2021 (UTC) You think this is how discussions work? You find sentences on Wikipedia Talk pages and copy them here without saying where you got them, then I search for those sentences and copy the responses from those pages to here? Until you at least try to be coherent, this "discussion" makes no sense. EOD. --Hob Gadling (talk) 15:58, 4 March 2021 (UTC) It's from the AAA statement on race, which you would know if you had any familiarity with the cherry picked sources you falsely claim represent some kind of global consensus. You also have a book by pop-sci journalist Saini, the widely disputed Gould. The idea that these represent a scientific consensus is frankly laughable. Spork Wielder (talk) 06:49, 5 March 2021 (UTC) The idea that these represent a scientific consensus is frankly laughable. This seems to imply that you reject the process by which we make determinations here, a process which Hob Gadling has been very patiently explaining to you. You are of course absolutely free to believe whatever you wish (about race & intelligence, or Bigfoot, or the shape of the Earth), but refusing to accept that the community has made this determination through reasoned and evidence-based discussion –– and then move on accordingly –– means that you are either unwilling or unable to contribute here, and should simply be ignored until such time as your disruption rises to the level of a sanctionable offense. Generalrelative (talk) 08:28, 5 March 2021 (UTC) Good idea. Thank you, I will do that. --Hob Gadling (talk) 08:51, 5 March 2021 (UTC) I absolutely accept that some segment of the Wikipedia community has made this determination. I do not accept that this determination is anything other than biased dishonest garbage based on cherry picking sources and ignoring others. I agree that should be taken to administrative review, to see whom is deserving of sanctions. Spork Wielder (talk) 13:11, 5 March 2021 (UTC)

Include that Sailer himself considers the expert survey to be the most notable thing about him

Sailer has mentioned on numerous occasions that a survey of expert opinion on intelligence found that his blog was considered the most accurate media source for intelligence research. Most experts in that survey were Western and male, half were liberal, quarter were conservative. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Guybas (talk • contribs) 21:21, 3 March 2021 (UTC)

• Support. Sailer's insistent, repeated opinion that this is the most notable thing about him is important. Many Wikipedia articles about writers and authors consistently include their own opinions on their work, recognition, contribution and influence. This is objective information about a writer's own evaluation. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Guybas (talk • contribs) 21:31, 3 March 2021 (UTC)

Lol, this is quite the reach-around. I would suggest that we can all safely ignore this attempt to do over the previous discussion. There are plenty of people who insist all kinds of things –– and repeat them too –– but that doesn't make their statements inherently notable. Generalrelative (talk) 21:36, 3 March 2021 (UTC)

• Support. He's not an especially notable figure, so this is more relatively notable for him than it might be for others. And I think including more information generally makes for better articles. This wouldn't really be clogging it up to make it unreadable. TGGP (talk) 20:04, 20 March 2021 (UTC)

This is not a vote. As has already been explained this is not a reliable source, and his own self-aggrandizing comments cannot be used to establish its significance. Further, an obscure and unreliable survey does not impart notability, and saying it's relatively more notable for him boils down to "it's better than nothing", which is very weak. Grayfell (talk) 21:03, 20 March 2021 (UTC)

References

• Support. Intelligence is a "peer-reviewed academic journal of psychology," published by Elsevier, an established scientific publisher – end of story. That the recent woke revolution and/or some WP editors deem some of the published information racist, racialist, and/or fringe doesn't make it so, it's irrelevant POV. The article may or may not be correct as most published scientific research, it's a relevant and wikipedic source anyway. tickle me 02:25, 5 April 2021 (UTC)

Your speculation about other people's motives has no effect on the scientific consensus on race, nor is it relevant to this discussion for a variety of reasons. This is an encyclopedia, and as such, we reflect the scientific mainstream. We do not promote pseudoscience, nor would we accept a movie-critic and blogger's WP:PROFRINGE views as inherently significant based on a flimsy, primary source. Grayfell (talk) 03:16, 5 April 2021 (UTC)

This isn't to establish or reject the scientific consensus on anything or to reflect or not reflect the scientific mainstream, but about a reference to a peer-reviewed academic journal informing about a survey of experts on his publications. Whether WP editors think that his standing according to this survey is merited or not is irrelevant. tickle me 05:42, 5 April 2021 (UTC)

The source in question does not establish what it claims to establish, per consensus among Wikipedia editors. Consensus can change, but only with new evidence or fresh arguments, which you have not provided. Absent that, there really is nothing left to debate. Generalrelative (talk) 13:52, 5 April 2021 (UTC)

Are Wikipedia editors really supposed to vet the claims of sources like this? If it's clear what the source claims to establish, it seems unproblematic to me to inlcude it in the article (unless there are other, unrelated reasons to not include it, such as the source itself not being reliable, or the paper having been retracted). It could even be worded as "one survey claims that...", to make it clear that it's not a scientific consensus.Ornilnas (talk) 01:45, 6 April 2021 (UTC)

> The source in question does not establish what it claims to establish, per consensus among Wikipedia editors.

That is entirely irrelevant, what is relevant is that scientists in an established journal make that claim – merely by that virtue it is newsworthy. If other relevant scientific sources say otherwise, that can be included. This discussion is getting outright bizarre. tickle me 11:49, 7 April 2021 (UTC)

As I stated above, there really is nothing left to debate. So yes, it is bizarre that you're still debating it. If you think that WP:CONSENSUS is irrelevant then I can't imagine what you think you're doing here. Note that I will WP:DENY recognition to further arguments here unless I see that they have merit. There already is a clear consensus in the above thread not to include the source in question, so this subsidiary discussion is really just squirming. It is also a waste of time that we all could be using to improve the encyclopedia. Generalrelative (talk) 17:36, 7 April 2021 (UTC)

I agree that this sub-discussion is a little absurd, but I'm still confused about what you said above. Are Wikipedia editors really supposed to vet the claims of sources like this? Isn't usually the issue whether the sources themselves (the journals, newspapers etc.) are reliable in general? Ornilnas (talk) 01:29, 8 April 2021 (UTC)

The short answer is yes, we do indeed need to vet sources that touch on WP:FRINGE topics. We do not just indiscriminately describe everything that is published, even by sources that are otherwise considered reliable. This is stated very clearly in the policy Verifiability does not guarantee inclusion. When there is disagreement among editors about which sources belong in the encyclopedia, we rely on the consensus process to sort it out, and in this case that process has reached a clear conclusion. Remember that Consensus is Wikipedia's fundamental model for editorial decision making. Generalrelative (talk) 17:32, 8 April 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for the clarification and the references, that makes sense. I find the "Verifiability does not guarantee inclusion" policy a little too vague and catch-all; while I wouldn't argue that the survey is absolutely necessary to the article, it seems obviously relevant, and I think similar surveys would have been included in less polarized articles. Then again, perhaps consensus is more important than consistency except in egregious circumstances, which I agree this isn't. I'll leave this one be. Ornilnas (talk) 01:44, 9 April 2021 (UTC)

Regarding Elsevier being "reliable" - I note this Twitter thread where Elsevier published a paper claiming a genetic component to ESP; the study has the two obvious flaws that it only examined around N=20 people, and that there is no evidence ESP exists at all. You can read the details (and see more examples) there, but at this point I would not consider Elsevier publication, by itself, to mean that a journal article is reliable, and would object to anybody else doing so. User:力 (power~enwiki, π, ν) 23:02, 2 May 2021 (UTC)

• Support inclusion (and Sailer's opinion about it). Heiner Rindermann is a renowned scholar with more than 150 published papers, many thousands of citations, an h-index of 40 and an i10-index of 86. Cambridge University published his most recent book and he is is a Fellow of the Association for Psychological Science (APS). Those slandering him as "fringe" and the like without citing RS are patently violating WP:BLP, which applies to Talk pages as well as articles. Rindermann is not politically correct and his research touches on controversial issues—but neither of those is an acceptable reason to exclude his research from Wikipedia. He's one of the only people researching the views of intelligence experts, an important and topical subject. It appears that "human biodiversity" and intelligence research are the main thrusts of Sailer's work—and it's hard to imagine what could be more worthy of inclusion than the views of actual experts on human intelligence. The SPLC is not a group with scientific expertise, and it's shambolic to include their evaluation of Sailer while excluding evaluations from experts in his field. As with all papers and surveys, Rindermann's has limitations—indeed, many if not all are clearly spelled out in the paper itself—and in no way does that mean it must be excluded. I'm aware of neither any scientific controversy about nor solid rebuttal to the paper—but if there is, it can and should be cited as well. As for those arguing that Intelligence is a fringe publication—that's obviously false, and the Wikipedia article on the journal explains the "controversy", which has nothing to do with Rindermann. This entire episode smacks of the worst sort of political censorship: a published paper by an expert in the field, important to understanding the biographical subject of the article, is banned because some editors simply don't like what it has to say. Elle Kpyros (talk) 22:38, 2 May 2021 (UTC)

• Comment: I will just note that, while no one went through the trouble of closing this RfC, it should be considered dead and the result clear (i.e. before this laughable subsection was started). Rindermann's "survey" will not be added to the article for all the reasons discussed above. Generalrelative (talk) 23:19, 2 May 2021 (UTC)