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Article milestones Date Process Result June 14, 2005 Articles for deletion Kept June 24, 2005 Peer review Reviewed July 18, 2005 Featured article candidate Not promoted August 25, 2006 Good article nominee Not listed December 4, 2006 Articles for deletion Kept Current status: Former good article nominee

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Anti-racism

Anti-racism includes beliefs, actions, movements, and policies adopted or developed to oppose racism. In general, anti-racism is intended to promote an egalitarian society in which people do not face discrimination on the basis of their race, however defined. By its nature, anti-racism tends to promote the view that racism in a particular society is both pernicious and socially pervasive, and that particular changes in political, economic, and/or social life are required to eliminate it. --Jagz (talk) 21:36, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

That's nice. Why are you telling us that? JettaMann (talk) 02:23, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

"any doctrine of superiority based on racial differentiation is scientifically false, morally condemnable, socially unjust and dangerous, and that there is no justification for racial discrimination, in theory or in practice, anywhere" United Nations DeclarationELDRAS (talk) 14:17, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

"It is time to stop committing the 'moralistic fallacy' that good science must conform to approved outcomes." --Jagz (talk) 22:57, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

Agreed, good science does not have predefined outcomes. that is why racist science, like that sponsored by the Pioneer fund, Rushton etc., is such bad science - they twist anything to achieve their racist ends. Like some editors. Slrubenstein | Talk 00:15, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

Please stop being belligerent. --Jagz (talk) 02:34, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

nature vs nurture section

the text alun added is somewhere between trivially true (and hence could simply be given in the definition of heritability should we desire to define it) and irrelevant (as in not important to this article). lewontin's argument isn't an argument but a statement of the definition of heritability -- it's about population level variance, not the "causes" that are necessary and sufficient at an individual level. (for example, oxygen food and water are 100% necessary for an individual to develop a brain, but variation in these three factors contributes only some proportion to the total population level variance in brain development.) heritability is just ANOVA on the phenotypes of related (and unrelated) individuals with a certain ANOVA model. --Legalleft (talk) 18:03, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

Lewontin's article is about the non-independence of genes and environment, the section also makes specific reference to the fact that some researchers have conflated heritability with the effect of genes on traits, but heritability is about the effect of genes on "variance" and not on traits. Furthermore the fact that the effect of genes are not independent of environment is more than "trivial". Heritability is dependent upon environment, the same trait can be 100% heritable in one environment and 0% heritable in a different environmment. Considering part of Jensen's argument is based on heritability the edit is absolutely relevant. Jensen claims that because heritability is high for "intelligence" then the differences of "intelligence" between "populations" must be due to innate differences and not due to environment. When we argue that heritability is only measurable with fixed environments we are revealing a flaw to a least part of this logic. Furthermore it is revealing that you removed this edit almost imediately that I made it, indicating that you at least thought it detremental enough to the blatant pov you have been pushing to feel it was a challenge to you biased editing. Indeed your argument that it is about population level variance is relevant, or do you not consider "races" populations? Indeed your original reasons for removing this edit of mine was some humbug about it being a "critique of behavioural genetics", but none of the articles cited mention behavioral genetics at all, they are specifically about heritability and gene-environment interractions. The journals from which they derive indicate this, for example "The International Journal of Epidemiology", in this they discuss the interaction of genes and environment with regards to cancer, as well as with regards to "race and intelligence". Why are you so affraid of any edit that does not support your pov? You came to this article claiming that you want a "neutral" article, but your editing is blatantly pov, you have systematically removed text that undermines Jensen and Rushton. Worse your idea of "neutrality" is to include long sections of text supporting Jensen et al while relegating differeing opinions to little more than a footnote. For example take a look at the sections "Contemporary issues", "The Bell Curve" and the Genetics section in the "Natur nurture" section, these all provide very long sections detailing the work of people supporting a "genetic model" for the test score gap, and a line or two at the end giving little more than a nod to gainsayers. Thus it appears that the consensus is that the genetic model is accepted and only a small minority of scientists dispute it. This is neither neutral according to Misplaced Pages policies, nor is it honest, breaching the neutrality policy is taken very seriously on Misplaced Pages and you can be banned from editing for it. Given your initial claims for wanting a neutral article I can only assume that this was never your intent. The eminent neuroscientist Steven Rose has written "Every time we think we have buried the pseudo-science behind racist claims about differences in intelligence between Blacks and Whites, some attention-seeker attempts to re-ignite them." It seems you may well be one such "attention-seeker". Misplaced Pages works because we agree to follow the rules, there are few absolute rules, most rules are more like guidelines, breaking guidelines is not ecoraged, but sometimes it may be necessary. On the other hand we do have several policies, these cannot be broken, the most important of these policies are neutrality, no original research and verifiability. Constantly breaching these policies can lead to a ban from editing. I observe that you have made no effort to be neutral and I am warning you that this is not acceptable. You have tried to accuse me of lacking neutrality on this article, but you should observe that I have made very few edits to this article and have been more involved with discussions on the talk page. Misplaced Pages is not a free for all, we are collaborative, edits need to be discussed on the talk page and ideally there should be a consensus, especially for big changes to articles. It's one reason why I have made relatively few edits to this article, because it is difficult to get consensus here, and also because this is a contentious issue that is certainly not as clear cut as you would like to portray it. Excuse any typographical errors, I'm using an unfamiliar keyboard. Alun (talk) 13:01, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

For the record, as you accused me of pov-pushing on this article, I have made exactly 16 edits to the article on "Race and intelligence", 14 of them in the last week, most of these 14 were me trying to replace my perfectly good edit, that either you or Jagz had removed or moved to the bottom of the section because it did not support your pov. My total edit count over the last three years or so is 8196 at the time of writing. You have made a total of 110 edits, 38 of which are to this article and 39 of which are to this article's talk page, 2 of which are to the related article Minnesota Transracial Adoption Study, the remainder of which are to user pages and user talk pages. Clearly if I am pushing a pov on this article I am disguising it very well. Alun (talk) 13:50, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

Alun, it is very difficult to discuss anything with you because you don't appear to respond to what I actually write. I was trying to say that the entire section you added could be replaced with a non-argumentative statement that everyone agrees about the points being raised and that they were very simple and easy to understand if made directly. That is, it should require nothing much more then giving the defintiion of "heritability" to make that clear, assuming that's even necessary. We don't have room to correct all misconceptions here, and the existing text in that section already goes to some lengths to explain the relationship between heritability (within groups) and the causes of group differences. A further section, especially a long and detailed one, seems unnecessary. --Legalleft (talk) 18:13, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

Ha. I just wrote about your pov-pushing and you didn't respond to that. Furthermore I don't think it is you who decides what should be included and what should not, if so you would only mention the work of people like Jensen and Rushton on current form. Besides which you keep changing your mind. First it's about "behavioural genetics" (wrong) then it's "not relevant" (wrong) now it's "too detailed" (though any level of detail seems OK to you as long as it promotes a racialised pov far as I can see). When I do respond to what you say, you just change what you are saying. Alun (talk) 18:38, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

I'm doing my best to stay on topic and thus stay productive. The topic is the content of the genes and environment section. The current content is wholly unnecessary as written and at most we can make due providing the definition of heritability, but even that isn't clearly necessary as it is covered in so many other articles, and more importantly, the relationship between within group heritabilty and between group differences (the only part relevant to this article) is already spelled out in the section above that. --Legalleft (talk) 18:49, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

Hardly a correct statement. The topic of my edit was your blatant lack of neutrality when you edit. Your response was to ignore this. Indeed far from staying on topic you keep changing your mind, as I pointed out above. You appear to be a right wing racialist idealogue with little or no interest in producing a neutral article. Your edits belie your claims when you cane to this article. Originally you stated that you wanted to include Jensen's work in context, instead you have systematically removed any real discussion of the limitations and critisism of this work. I'm sorry to say that you are editing in a pov way and trying to produce an ideologically motivated article based on your own personal opinions and beliefs. You appear to have little or no interest in actually producing an encyclopaedia article that gives a neutral point of view. We can of course have a Request for comment regarding the article, or even a Misplaced Pages:Peer review. Furthermore if you contunue your pov-pushing and breaching of the Misplaced Pages policy on neutrality we can have a Request for comment on your contributions. As I have stated before this is not a free for all, any editor who does not follow policies can be sanctioned. You do not appear to understand this, I have stated this several times to you, but you continue to produce thoroughly biased edits. Articles are not here to promote the personal beliefs of editors, this is not a blog, and it is not supposed to promote one ideology over any other. You have had a relatively free hand over the last week or so, but have produced nothing like a balanced article. If it comes to it we can get the article locked so no one can edit it. Alun (talk) 07:37, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

The quality of the article has increased by a factor of 10 since it was unlocked February 1. --Jagz (talk) 14:11, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

Legalleft, I am not convinced everyone involved in the debate over IQ does agree with the way populaion geneticists and evolutionary biologists use the word "heritability;" I am pretty sure I read an ad in the Wall Street Journal several years ago signed by a number of psychologists that made false claims about heritability - well, certainly claims that wouldn't make it into a peer-reviewed journal. Or notable college textbook. Slrubenstein | Talk 19:43, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

Here's what I wrote. I don't think it's controversial, and I think it clears up what is being discussed. It largely says what heritabilility doesn't mean: --Legalleft (talk) 19:52, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

In a modern context, the issue often relates to estimating the relative contribution of genetic and environmental factors to difference between individuals. However, all commenters agree that these methods cannot and are not intended to distinguish genetic and environmental contributions to the development of individual people. Instead, they are meant to determine the extent to which difference between individuals, for example individual difference in IQ scores, can be attributed to genetic and environmental factors that differ between individuals. Thus, a heritability of 100% does not mean that environmental factors are unimportant for development, but rather that physical or behavioral difference between individuals are not caused by difference in environment.

Yeah, I know what you're talking about. They did say something that's at best clumsily worded and at worst just wrong. But it wasn't some kind of fundamental disagreement, just sloppiness. --Legalleft (talk) 19:59, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

I just don't know what to make of your comment. All we can do is judge the text of the ad, it is accurate or inaccurate. The ad was presented as a firm testament as to the beliefs of the signatories, and if you do not know, ads at a newspaper like the Wall Street Journal cost a lot - I would imagine the PhD's would be as careful in their wording in an ad. they pay for, as in the wording of anything else they sign their name to. If they were "sloppy" you would have to provide me evidence that the fault is sloppiness. Lacking any evidence I just cannot agree with you. What we do agree on is that what they claim about heritability is wrong. When we have a fringe view that we agree is wrong, we should be very careful not to give it undue weight in an encyclopedia article. And when we have notable views that we agree are right - well, explaining those views carefully, accurately, and clearly - isn't this juse avoiding the mistake you accuse the WSJ ad. signitories of? How can you fault Alun for wanting to avoid the fault you accuse them of? Slrubenstein | Talk 19:07, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

(1) It wasn't an ad, but an invited editorial. (2) What they wrote is technically correct, but sloppy. I know the authors personally and I suspect they would agree with my characterization. They wrote that if you eliminate environmental variation, then heritability goes to 100%. By environmental variation, they meant shared + nonshared environmental variation, but the common sense understanding of the term "environment" refers just to shared environmental variation, and it is not true that eliminating shared environmental variation will cause heritability to rise to 100%. That's where they were sloppy. I was very careful to avoid such pitfalls. (3) I didn't see any comment from Alun regarding the WSJ statement, and I was responding to your question. (4) So far, Alun has offered no speciifc suggestions for improving what I wrote other than to reintroduce an additional 4k of text, including a large block quote, to further explicatate what is an indirect point that should be covered in detail in any of a number of other articles. --Legalleft (talk) 19:25, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

Your text is at best an understatement, and conflates heritability with the actual effect of genes and nvironments on traits. Heritability is not a measure of the affect of genes or environment on a trait. I get the impression that you want to promote this misconseption because it appears to support your point of view. Furthermore you deliberately downplay the fact that genes do not act independently of environment. You really are not at all neutral or ballanced in the way you edit, and your hysteria about my small and correct edit clearly displays this. You can't even settle on why you don't like my edit, you just don't like it because it doesn't support the biased right wing ideology you are blatantly including into the article. Alun (talk) 07:37, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

If there is a problem with the text, then make corrections to it. --Jagz (talk) 13:51, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

Well, this is a surprise, Jagz supporting Alun's additions and changes to the article! Finally, an authentic spirit of good faith and cooperation!! Slrubenstein | Talk 19:02, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

Let me second Jagz -- if there are specific problems with what I wrote, then fix them, and we can make progress. Reintroducing a large block of text that only indirectly addresses the topic of this article is unnecessary. --Legalleft (talk) 19:25, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

Factual accuracy disputed

The article has a template disputing the factual accuracy of the article. It says, "Please see the relevant discussion on the talk page." I can't locate the discussion regarding the article's factual accuracy. What exactly is being disputed? --Jagz (talk) 14:21, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

The massive pov bias of the article, especially the refusal of certain editors to observe policies. The article is biased and does not represent anything like an unbiased encyclopaedia article. It is more like an opinion piece than an unbiased discussion of the subject at hand. See the constant attempts by legalleft to remove a soundly sourced edit by myself. I'd like to contribute more to the neutrality of this article and give it a less biased slant, but it is apparent that some editors are forming a cabal to push a specific Jensonian point of view. It's not encyclopaedia and is a clear breach of Misplaced Pages policy. Alun (talk) 15:09, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

I propose that the factual accuracy template be removed because Alun/Wobble has not raised a valid point concerning the factual accuracy of the article. See: Misplaced Pages:Accuracy dispute --Jagz (talk) 16:08, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

It is not accurate to present the Jensenian model as if it is a consensus and other models as if they are fringe. This article portrays Jenensen and Rushton's work as if it is a fact, when their theories are hotly disputed by a majority of researchers in several fields of life sciences, including molecular biology, genetics, population genetics, neurology, anthropology and psychology. You're just clutching at straws man.

If you come across an article with an accuracy warning, please do the following:
* don't remove the warning simply because the material looks reasonable: please take the time and make sure that content is from verifiable reliable sources and that it is unbiased and contains no original research. The article is biased, and therefore factually inacurate.

Alun (talk) 17:43, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

Could the position of the templates not be changed instead? I don't think there is any debate over the fact the Asians have the highest IQ's, followed closely by Whites, with Hispanics and Negroes clearly lower. Every test ever carried out has shown this, the debate seems to be merely over the existance of races (A laughable debate, in my opinion), and whether the mental inabilites of the Black race are caused by nature or environment. The article needs to be broken up more clearly into undebated test results, and discussion of those tests/results. --Confederate till Death (talk) 09:04, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

• Alun, please follow the Misplaced Pages policy regarding accuracy disputes. It says:

• if the neutrality of the content is in question, please look at Misplaced Pages:NPOV dispute.
• if only a few statements seem inaccurate:

• insert {{dubious}} after the relevant sentence or paragraph.
• insert a "Disputed" section in the talk page to describe the problem.
• (Or insert {{dubious|section}} replacing 'section' with the appropriate section on the talk page.) --Jagz (talk) 17:11, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

While I do not contest that "race and intelligence" is a valid field of study, and the article looks comprehensive enough, I find the terminology used in some cases somewhat suspicious. Is "whites" an acceptable indication for people of caucasian descent? Also, I find few references to the issue of racism and discrimination, which one would expect in this context. Also, some of the references seem biased. Note the table from the book "Cracking the bell curve myth" in which a distinction between people of British and Irish descent is made, but no such distinction or reference to ancestry is made for the "whites" in the North Americas. Gralgrathor (talk) 12:29, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

shockley

What precisely is the point being conveyed in with the Shockley text and does that existing text convey that point as well as it could? It seems important to point out that there were public debates on this topic in the 1970s, and that seems to be the real underlying point of mentioning Shockley.--Legalleft (talk) 19:22, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

The section the Shockley text is included in is attempting to provide a brief overview of landmark events from 1969 to the present. --Jagz (talk) 21:55, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

I think the section should mention the James Watson incident too. --Jagz (talk) 14:30, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

That seems appropriate. re: Shockley, it could probably do with a less detail. --Legalleft (talk) 21:28, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

I shortened the Shockley paragraph. --Jagz (talk) 22:03, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

tag frenzy

This article may need to be rewritten to comply with Misplaced Pages's quality standards, as needs to be shortened by the use of summary style; needs more historical perspective; should be expanded to include a worldwide view of the subject. You can help. The talk page may contain suggestions.

Can t this go on the talk page. There are way too many redundant tags on the page. Also: "The discussion page may contain suggestions" is a joke. The talk page is so cluttered that I couldn't find any suggestions. --71.184.193.227 (talk) 13:11, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

No. It needs to go on the article page because readers need to be informed of any concerns someone has pointed out. We cant assume readers will check the discussion page, and I am pretty sure guidelines ask to place it on article and not discussion. Brusegadi (talk) 05:47, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

Consensus on recent change requested

A recent change to the article added a "Primarily environment" section. The section looks unintelligible to me, like someone pieced together some vaguely related paragraphs, perhaps from a previous version of the article, and added it. I don't think that the section belongs in the article as written. I'd like some opinions from others. Here is the change I am referring to: --Jagz (talk) 23:18, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

I am fixing it. Copied if from an earlier lost article version which was not very good.Ultramarine (talk) 23:32, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

Remove the Manipulated and Controversial Data - for Better Consensus!

The IQ scores are not the benchmark in the determining the national IQ, the result can be manipulated and altered to give certain countries a significant advantage over others, especially in the western world which suffers from skin colour bias. These IQ scores can be used to reject people with dark skin in preference to light skin by assuming that they are of lower IQ. Chinese are light skin and are more acceptable to white men especially the chinese girls which are softer target for western males because of their stronger tilt towards multiple sexual partners. These IQ scores are nothing but a form of scientific racism, a old wine in a new bottle, to practice racism with a reason and even get a legal recognition for their evil deeds. You go and check the IQ score of a rural poor in developing countries who are illiterate and malnourished and brand whole country as of lower IQ is nothing but a consiparacy by the racist west. The IQ scores are more relevant in the countries where there is less social divide between the socio-economic condition of the urban middle class and rural populace. This article can be improved by removing the biased and manipulated data compiled by western editors to achieve the cause of white supermacist and vested interests. General discussion on race and intelligence with neutral point of view should be encouraged.--Himhifi 00:44, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

You forgot to use the word Nazi. --Jagz (talk) 00:57, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

http://groups.uni-paderborn.de/rindermann/materialien/PublikationsPDFs/07EJP.pdf -- see Figure 2 --Legalleft (talk) 04:22, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

Chinese girls do What????? This is bizarre. Can you provide a source to substantiate this racist statement that oriental girls are more promiscuous and into orgies?Die4Dixie 14:25, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

Article is biased, and written with racist POV of vested interests- requires cleanup!

The neutrality of this article is in doubt as it is contain racist point of view of vested interests who are trying to propogate there POV and false notion that bilogically race do exist and there is a direct correlation between the intelligence and colour of the skin. The data presented in the article is of little credibility or relevance which has been counter challenged and proved unauthentic by several authors of repute and should be removed. The neutrality check of this article should be carried out.--Himhifi 01:45, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

What specifically is your problem with the article? You need to state specifics. As the article states, "The contemporary debate on race and intelligence is about what causes racial and ethnic differences in IQ test scores." If you wish to present another POV, you can add it provided you cite your sources. --Jagz (talk) 19:40, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

I'm planning to take the POV tag off the article in a few days because there has been no discussion. --Jagz (talk) 20:06, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

Race-IQ Gap Remains

Here is a 2006 article from Rushton:

"Despite widespread claims that the gap is closing between Blacks and Whites in educational achievement and intelligence test scores, new research shows the 15-point IQ difference is as large today as it was 100 years ago."

--Jagz (talk) 11:28, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Different opinions on this with Nisbett having another.Ultramarine (talk) 16:15, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Mainstream view

It appears that the mainstrem view among the experts in the early 1960's was the predominantly environmental explanation for the IQ gaps but now the mainstream view among experts is that there is a significant genetic component. That being the case, I'm not sure why there is such a fervent effort among some editors to remove possible explanations for how this genetice component came into being. --Jagz (talk) 19:03, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

No evidence for what mainstream view is. No reason to give numerous Pioneer Fund theories similar to one another. Enough to mention Rushton's as one example.Ultramarine (talk) 19:10, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

Also, Gottfredson's theory does not discuss racial differences. Could be in an IQ or human evolution article.Ultramarine (talk) 19:23, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

You should leave your Pioneer Fund personal biases out of Misplaced Pages. Please start now. --Jagz (talk) 18:00, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

No, the Pioneer Fund is not a reputable scientific organization, it helps us identify fring groups. When editing the article on evolution we use affiliation with creation science institutes also to identify fringe groups. Slrubenstein | Talk 18:07, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

Unfortunately for you, your opinion about the Pioneer Fund is not supported by the Pioneer Fund article. It's an opinion that appears to be held by those opposed to their reseach. Even if it was a universally accepted opinion, you would be guilty of condoning guilt by association, a type of prejudice/discrimination. --Jagz (talk) 18:21, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

The Pioneer Fund's status is questionable and it does push a specific agenda. It is wise to be wary. Although at times the race and intelligence issue is a scholarly debate it is also a political debate. The article needs to avoid the double-danger of references, research and opinion being read only in one context.Nick Connolly (talk) 19:00, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

Jagz, I do not judge someone's guilt by association. Notability is indexed by a number of things. Research funded by the NSF is probably notable; research published in a prestigious peer-reviewed publication is probably notable. How else do you think we index notability in the scientific community? Similarly, funding from the Pioneer Fund or publication in a minor journal created specificially to publish specific views is an index of non-notability. This is not guilt by association, this is acknowledgment that "notability" is always a measure of standing within a community. Slrubenstein | Talk 19:54, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

I don't disagree with the recent edits -- describing Rushton's book is probably enough to cover the topic -- but the justification (based on Pioneer fund backing) is mistaken. Pioneer funded the MInnesota twins research which was subsequently published in Science. The funding of a research project doesn't tell you much about the notability of the research -- it's hard to imagine how it could in any direct way. --Legalleft (talk) 20:08, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

Respectable journals, especially in controversial subjects, always require that the author list any potential bias or influence. Source of funding is one such possible factor. Like the tobacco industry sponsoring research on lung cancer and smoking. No evidence of actual errors in the research is needed. So funding is important.Ultramarine (talk) 20:34, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

The Pioneer Fund article says, "Its stated purpose is to advance the scientific study of heredity and human differences. The fund focuses on projects it perceives will not be easily funded due to controversial subject matter." It seems that its purpose is to help remedy the discrimination researchers face in getting funds for their controversial research instead of being an actual source of bias. --Jagz (talk) 22:50, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

All -- doesn't this have absolutely nothing to do with Pioneer fund? The question was undue weight and notability. I pretty much agree that it's difficult to distinguish Rushton and Lynn's theories, so given that Rushton's book is pretty notable and Lynn's articles less so, it makes sense to describe the one and not the other. And all that has nothing to do with the Pioneer fund. Or am I missing something? --Legalleft (talk) 23:16, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

reaction time and BW IQ gap

here's a recent paper: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.intell.2007.07.004 --Legalleft (talk) 21:45, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

Correlations between IQ and reaction time are low.Ultramarine (talk) 22:09, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

i am not familiar with the doi organization. while the mere fact of my not being familiar is not to say that it is not a reliable source - the fact that its advertising sponsors send out phishing pop ups lends little to its credibility. And i did not see anything in the abstract where the authors identify reaction time as a facet of intellegence - they seem to be arguing that it is a correlating factor. Did I miss it or do you have some other source that says reaction time is part of intellegence? TheRedPenOfDoom (talk) 02:46, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

doi = Digital object identifier. reaction time = ECT (elementary cognitive task) = basic measures of information processing. Google around and you'll find more. Correcting for attenuation, the correlation between IQ test scores and ECT performance is about 0.5 (J. Grudnik and J. Kranzler, Meta-analysis of the relationship between intelligence and inspection time, Intelligence 29 (2001), pp. 523–535.) --Legalleft (talk) 03:19, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

hmmm there doesn't seem to be an article on elementary cognitive task. Anybody want to help write one?Nick Connolly (talk) 03:31, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

race and intelligence

an article about race and intelligence would also rightly discuss its correlates, such as school achievement, income, etc. several of the paragraphs removed by TheRedPenOfDoom (talk · contribs) directly discuss race (e.g. IQ and the Wealth of Nations) whereas others are themselves the topic of discussions regarding race (e.g. the Ashkenazi intelligence stuff). That should all be restored. --Legalleft (talk) 07:29, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

the items removed did not include identifying the correlations by the published authors thus being clear violations of WP:SYN - all analysis and conclusions in WP articles must be the result of third party reliable sources - not strung togethter by WP editors. TheRedPenOfDoom (talk) 12:08, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

Discuss on this Talk page then. --Jagz (talk) 12:17, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

I see you have added tags to the article but have not initiated discussions specific to the tags. You should initiate the discussions. --Jagz (talk) 13:44, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

TheRedPenOfDoom -- but (as I tried to explain above) they do discuss race. You'd have to read the sources to know whether they do or not. Most prominently, IQ and the Wealth of Nations / IQ and Global Inequality does explicitly, getting into details such as estimating the average national IQ from the racial demongraphics of the country. --Legalleft (talk) 17:01, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

Show the analysis made by the sources. The analysis by third parties wasn't there in the cited material. It appeared to be violation of WP:OR / WP:SYN. It was therefore removed.TheRedPenOfDoom (talk) 17:07, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

Also, let's please ensure we resolve this issue here on the talk page before reintroducing this material in the article, as per WP policies. Also, other further objections are that tables such as found in IQatWoN are national IQ values, therefore largely ethnic rather than racial; also they are highly controversial, and they certainly cannot be presented without the full context of what's controversial about them, and finally adding them would again put undue weight on theories adhered to by a very small minority of academics in the field.--Ramdrake (talk) 18:26, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

I disagree. All the data can be regarded from one POV as being largely ethnic rather than racial. The racial v ethnic issue is a fundamental aspect of this, as race as a biological criteria is itself in dispute AND even if it weren't the data is largely based on using ethnicity as a proxy for race. Is that a big problem for people who claim an intelligence-IQ link? Yes indeed. Should it therefore be avoided in the article? Absolutely not, expunging data based on ethnicity would make the article confusing and even more open to POV biases.Nick Connolly (talk) 18:56, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

The map that was removed is neither ethinic nor racial data- it was National IQ scores. To jump from national scores to 'race' or 'ethnicity' is not allowed under WP:SYN - therefore it cannot be included. TheRedPenOfDoom (talk) 19:16, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

For the national IQ map, it's much simpler than that -- the connection is explicitly made in the original source, the book IQ and Global Inequality. Therefore, it is not SYN to present it in this article. Please read the book to confirm for yourself if you doubt it. Otherwise, assume good faith when I tell you that I have confirmed the connection. --Legalleft (talk) 20:28, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

You would need to include the quotes from the original source. Without attributable third party analysis, it is SYN.TheRedPenOfDoom (talk) 20:33, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

There's no room to quote vast sections of a book. Look it up in a library. I can put various excerpts here, but that seems absurd. We can't quote at length from the hundreds of sources cited. --Legalleft (talk) 20:38, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

Look at Table 9.6 "The intelligence of nations categorized by race" or any of the ~100 other references to race in the book. --Legalleft (talk) 20:40, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

(e/c) Doesn't matter if I read the source and see it there. You can't include analysis in the article with out attributing it to the WP:RS that is doing the analysis. TheRedPenOfDoom (talk) 20:44, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

I don't have a clue what you're talking about. I'm saying that the book where the map is found talks about the data in the map in the context of racial differences in IQ. The analysis is done in the book where the map comes from. What part of that doesn't make sense? --Legalleft (talk) 20:49, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

If that is indeed the case, you need to find a way to accurately reflect what ever the processes (analysis/synthesis of data) were undertaken by the author(s) of the book to create a map of nations that somehow reflects race.TheRedPenOfDoom (talk) 20:58, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

Not to mention that the matter of undue weight hasn't been addressed yet, as this is a very controversial piece of research, and represents a very small minority opinion.--Ramdrake (talk) 21:29, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

Agreed.TheRedPenOfDoom (talk) 22:07, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

Dear TheRedPenOfDoom, I think you are misunderstanding the issue of synethsis in articles. An article should be an adequate representation of the issue. In this case the issue is an unresolved partly-scientific, partly-political debate in psychometrics about the relation (if any) of race and IQ. In that debate, far beyond the walls of Misplaced Pages and prior even to the existance of the WWW, all sorts of arguments and data have been thrown about. The synthesis you are objecting to is not that of the editors of the article, but of the assorted academics who have contributed to the discussion over many decades. National IQ is relevant to the article because it is VERIFIABLY part of the issue the article describes. Is National IQ actually a big enormous red-herring? In my opinion yes it is, but that has nothing to do with the article. The article should not be edited on the basis of the quality of the underlying ideas but on the basis of which arguments/data can be verified as having played a role in the external academic debate. Both critics and advocates of a Race-IQ link would probably include National IQ in a survey of the topic, the latter if only to debunk it. Nick Connolly (talk) 21:54, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

I am quite aware of the disputed nature of the topic outside Misplaced Pages. However, I am specifically objecting to SYN by the editors of the Misplaced Pages article who are attempting to include a map of IQ by nations under the rubric that it is somehow related to the topic of 'race' and intellegence. If the map under discussion is indeed on topic for this article, it is up to the editors who wish to include it to provide the analysis from the source that shows how national IQ scores are related to the topic of 'race and intellegence'.TheRedPenOfDoom (talk) 22:01, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure of your point here. If you are aware of the debate then surely your objection isn't SYN but that the map wasn't properly explained in the context of race & IQ. If that is your point then why didn't you just add some text to explain it? That would have reduced the net amount of typing in the world by, erm, lots. Suggestion reinstate the map and add better explantory text eg "Attempts to measure national IQ has played a role in the ongoing debate over Race and IQ". Nick Connolly (talk) 22:10, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

No - it is SYN for WP editors to take a map of national IQ scores and drop it into an article on 'race and intellegence'. If the source of the map does indeed make claims somehow linking national IQ scores to race, and I will state that it is entirely possible that someone does try to make that claim, it is not my responsibility to read the book and summarize the authors arguements. That is the responsibility of the editors who want to include that information in the wikipedia article - and so far it has not been done. Therefore the map does not belong.TheRedPenOfDoom (talk) 22:22, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

I think we may have to agree to disagree on the issue of synthesis and editorial responsibility. In the meantime do you agree with my suggestion? Reinstate the map with a better (none synthetic) explanation as to why the map appears ina Race IQ article. Seems like a happy compromise :) Nick Connolly (talk) 22:37, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

What I have continually stated in nearly every one of these posts is that the map of national IQ would need to have the analysis that somehow claims to link 'national' IQ to 'race' summarized or quoted from the source material before it could be considered for inclusion. However, since, as Ramdrake has indicated, there may also be concerns about undue weight, you may want to show a draft of your proposal for re-inclusion here or in a sandbox to gain concensus prior to adding that material to the article.TheRedPenOfDoom (talk) 22:55, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

Consensus is a wonderful word. I note that in this case to achieve consensus I really need to find a form of words that would be agreeable to you. My mind reading powers are not what they where after that unhappy incident with the martian milkfloat. So perhaps you could suggest a form of words that you'd find agreeable? Cordially Nick Connolly (talk) 23:01, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

Next time I am at a library I will see if they have the book. If they have the book I will see if I am able to find a coherrent way to express how someone is attempting to conflate current national IQ scores to race. TheRedPenOfDoom (talk) 16:26, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

So in the meantime you wouldn't actually have a way of judging whether the form of words I might put up is fiathful to the source or not. How about you assume good faith, let me fix up the issue of National IQ - and in the event of you looking it all up and thinking it should say something different you can then change the wording later. Nick Connolly (talk) 19:07, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

I changed the caption of the current average IQ map. It may fix the problem. --Jagz (talk) 03:51, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

The addition to the caption had no relation to the topic of the article as far as I could see and was removed. It would seem to be appropriate to add to the 'See Also' section a link to WP article on "National IQ rates", if such an article exists. However, there is no need within this article to continue the conflation of current 'National' identities with ethnicity/race. TheRedPenOfDoom (talk) 16:20, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

I disagree with you and believe the caption should be changed back to the way I had it as shown below. It is a good compromise. Instead of including the other map, we can just include a link to the article with the map. --Jagz (talk) 17:24, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

You are continuing to conflate 'national' IQ and race/ethnicity. National IQ rates are not the topic of this article. TheRedPenOfDoom (talk) 17:33, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

The authors of IQ and Global Inequality think that national IQ has a lot to do with race. Who are we to say otherwise? --Legalleft (talk) 17:46, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

That is the nub of the issue. IMHO the national IQ is 1. probably meaningless and 2. probably not comprable across populations and 3. tells us nothing about race and IQ anyway. BUT my opinion isn't what the article is about and it is verifiable that notable people in notable works on the topic of IQ and group variations in intelligence really, really, really do think national IQ is relevant to race. Are they wrong? Probably. Are they motivated by racism or some sinister variation of right wing politics? Probably. Does that have a bearing on this article? Nope. What I assume to be a well intentioned attempt to police the veracity of this article is having the (unintended) effect of disrupting it. RedPenofDoom, you seem to be saying you haven't read the reference - in which case you can't claim synthesis and your objection stands only on a lack of proper explanation. The correct thing to do is to add a short account of how national IQ gets thrown into the academic argy-bargy of Race and IQ. Nick Connolly (talk) 19:07, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

(e/c w/Ramdrake below) The point is that no one has included how these authors (or anyone) has converted nationality into race. You need to include their analysis of how they managed to accomplish this - or the article is in violation of SYN. TheRedPenOfDoom (talk) 19:18, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

Well I keep suggesting that we do exactly that. I'm happy to do the leg work if one of you two can't. We could have fixed it all in the time we've spent on this conversation. I'll make the edit later.Nick Connolly (talk) 19:46, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

Nick, here is a critique of one of the two studies. As you can see, some of the same concerns are raised.:

IQ and the Wealth of Nations. A Critique of Richard Lynn and Tatu Vanhanen's Recent Book

Thomas Volken

Recently Richard Lynn and Tatu Vanhanen have presented evidence that differences in national IQ account for the substantial variation in national per capita income and growth. However, their findings must be considered as highly problematic. The authors neither make use of state-of-the-art methodological techniques nor can they substantiate their theoretical claims. More precisely the authors confuse IQ with human capital and fail to adequately discuss the causal sequence of their argument.

Hope this helps.--Ramdrake (talk) 20:30, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

OK useful. Critical appraisal of this sort of research enhances its notability.Nick Connolly (talk) 23:58, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

In case that wasn't obvious, I totally agree with TheRedPenOfDoom: conversion of "national IQs" (such as they are) into "racial IQs" is SYN at best. Above all, it is intellectually dishonest to present them as legitimate science when they have been so highly disputed.--Ramdrake (talk) 19:33, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

It isn't synthesis by an editor of WP but synthesis by a referenced third party. The first is naughty, the second isn't. Nick Connolly (talk) 19:46, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

Actually, I can supply sources to the effect that the view such as represented in those books is held by a small minority of researchers only, and is thus close to being a fringe view. From this perspective alone, one can challenge the inclusion of this theory in the article. I don't have time now, but I'll be back soon with those... and yes, they can already be found in the list of references of this veyr article (or one of its previous version).--Ramdrake (talk) 19:13, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

Smallish. In the field of IQ testing its a largish minority. This is why it isn't as clear cut as it may seem.Nick Connolly (talk) 19:46, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

Actually, in the field of intelligence, it's not even a majority then. However, many try to pass themselves off as a majority.--Ramdrake (talk) 20:30, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

You are right. The field of intelligence is massive and cross-disciplinary. IQ testing is a much smaller field and although the race-IQ view is a minority it 1. has some heavyweights involved and 2. is provocative research. That second point is the biggest issue -demonstrating that Jensen et al are wrong is motivating factor in psychometric research. The minority view is heavily influential - for example the concept of stereotype threat etc. Race and IQ is a big topic in intelligence testing and directly pertinent to making sense of the history and research trends in the subject. This isn't like creationists and biology - creationist "research" has no (or very little) impact on biology as an actual subject.Nick Connolly (talk) 21:09, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

• Here is the section you removed from the article:

"Some people have attributed differential economic growth between nations to differences in the intelligence of their populations. One example is Richard Lynn's IQ and the Wealth of Nations. The book is sharply criticized in the peer-reviewed paper The Impact of National IQ on Income and Growth. Another peer-reviewed paper, Intelligence, Human Capital, and Economic Growth: An Extreme-Bounds Analysis, finds a strong connection between intelligence and economic growth." --Jagz (talk) 21:00, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

Indeed - That material was removed because as you can plainly see, the sources quoted/cited are discussing the supposed impacts of 'national IQ' and not race. TheRedPenOfDoom (talk) 21:31, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

If that is your position then it was removed in error. Read the source ]

Lynn and Vanhanen (2002:23; passim)

have claimed that the widespread assumption that the peoples of all nations have the same average level of intelligence is seriously incorrect and that therefore these national differences in intelligence are bound to have significant effects on national economic development and rates of economic growth. The argument is however twofold; in the first part, it is hypothesized that average national IQs are different because IQ is mostly determined by race-dependent genetic predisposition. The second part of the argument supposes a substantial link between national IQ

and economic success.

The critical reference given explicitly refers to race. VERIFIABLY "IQ and the Wealth of Nations" makes contentions about race and IQ, contentions that have been criticised (IMHO thoroughly debunked) in cited references.Nick Connolly (talk) 00:26, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

Because the material removed did not include the connection made by the authors in the source material, it was properly removed. If you/another WP editor can find some way of including the source materials' connection of nationality to race without giving UNDUE weight, please feel free to post your suggestions. TheRedPenOfDoom (talk) 15:38, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

You are allowed to read quoted sources :) . The sources confirm the connection, do you agree?Nick Connolly (talk) 19:43, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

I do not feel that the above mentioned content meaningfully adds to a reader's understanding of the topic of the article and am therefore not willing to spend my time attempting to craft words to make the content appropriate for the article. But thanks for offering me the opportunity! TheRedPenOfDoom (talk) 20:00, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

Your feelings should, of course, be respected but we must strive for dispassionate criteria. The criteria has to be on the basis of whether there has been academic debate on this issue by known experts in the field and/or in scholoraly journals. That way we avoid POV and WP:UNDUE in the nearest thing to an objective way. No? If you have better criteria that we can hold Legalleft and Jagz to as well then do tell, before this talk page takes over Misplaced Pages :) Nick Connolly (talk) 20:15, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

There is also the problem that the connection as purported by the authors has been severely criticized as being bad logic and bad science. If we were to include the material, we'd need to include criticism of the purported connection, and the resulting section size would almost certainly violate WP:UNDUE.

If the issue has been discussed (and yes, debunked) then giving that discussion sapce wouldn't be WP:UNDUE. As I keep pointing out the basis for including things isn't if the science is sound (if it where then the article would "there is no significant evidence of a link between race and IQ" and nothing else) nor is it a matter of counting up numbers of supporters v detractors. The basis has to be the significance within the whole discussion. Arguably within the wider discussion the view of a vocal minority gets undue weight BUT that isn't the same as the ARTICLE giving undue weight. It isn't Misplaced Pages's job to tell the IQ testing community that they should send Jensen or Lynn to Coventry. This is basically the same conceptual error RedPenofDoom is making with synthesis. Undue weight, synthesis etc aren't criteria that we apply to sources from beyond Misplaced Pages. Arguably psychologits and psychometricians shouldn't feed the trolls, but they do (probably because they are big, loud and influential elder trolls). Also by avoiding certain aspects of the Jensenites you avoid the substantial criticism. That criticism is far more than debunking - it has been a spur for more sophisticated psychometric approach to intelligence testing. Lastly the national IQ data and dodgy pseudo-evolutionary arguments that have been published that argue (for example) that colder-climes were the spur to evolving greater intelligence is out there and not out-there in a fringe-press sort of way but in scholraly peer-reviewed journals. Unless it is addressed the article will appear both incomplete and out-of-date.Nick Connolly (talk) 19:43, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

"the same conceptual error RedPenofDoom is making with synthesis" - My statements and stated concerns of SYN have all applied to Misplaced Pages editors/the way the content within the Misplaced Pages article is presented and not to the original source material. If I have been unclear about that, I am sorry. TheRedPenOfDoom (talk) 20:06, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

My point is that I believe you made an error. That the synthesis (linking National IQ to the issue of race and IQ) was made external to Misplaced Pages rather than by the editor. I think I have now established that this was indeed the case and that if the editor who included this material made an error it wasn't one of synthesis EVEN IF if may have looked that way :) Nick Connolly (talk) 20:15, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

I guess that I just don't see any practical difference to the article between an editor's whole cloth SYN and an editor adding material without including/referencing the analysis done by the published RS. Analysis in an article needs to be attributed to attributed to the party making the analysis, and in this instance there were missing components. TheRedPenOfDoom (talk) 20:39, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

With all due respect, I disagree. Would, for example the article on Earth have a long section discussing the concept (and debunking thereof) of the Flat Earth concept? Would the article on Evolution have a long section explaining the pros and cons of the Creationist concept? No. I'd say we treat this article the same way. These theories, if they go anywhere, belong in the Scientifc Racism article.--Ramdrake (talk) 19:48, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

BINGO! think about it! Proponents of a flat Earth are an utter irelevance to current geology. Proponents of creationism or ID have almost zero effect on biology. Biologist don't conduct research or improve their methodology to counter creationists, they don't need to. Both groups are an irrelevance to the actual content of the discipline (except in a deep historical sense). No prominent geologist over the past few decades have been flat-earthers, no biologist of great significance has been a creationist in recent times. That doesn't hold for the field of intelligence testing. The race-IQ debate is an active discussion within the IQ-testing academic community and within its peer-reviewed jounarls - it acts as a motivator of research and other research is often discussed in terms of its role in the debate eg the Flynn effect. The ideas might be wrong but their relationship with the mainstream is not like that of flat-earthing, creationism or holocaust denial (or even aquatic ape theory). A closer analogy would be climate sceptics but without the slam-dunk IPCC position, perhaps to climate sceptics in the 1980s when the anthropogenic global warming hypothesis wasn't as well established as it is now. Psychometrics just isn't strong enough to slay this particular beast yet. I suspect once the elderly proponents of the race-IQ link die off the issue may get less airplay in the journals, but who knows? Like it or not the various flawed hypotheses of the race-IQ proponents are of academic significance and do get space in the relevant journals. Hence the article should, in general, cover those issues that have recieved coverage within peer-review that are affirm or deny a race-IQ link. To do otherwise is POV. Nick Connolly (talk) 20:05, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

I disagree that mentioning an idea or concept would constitute undue weight. --Jagz (talk) 19:57, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

Needs editing: High-achieving minorities

Most of this section of the article was removed recently. Let's see if we can edit and improve it here. I request that RedPen not participate because he contested it and also Ramdrake to not participate for now. --Jagz (talk) 14:14, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

Jagz, you just CANNOT ask other editors to not participate because they disagree with you.

I don't do things just because I don't agree with people or their message. It is more complicated than that. I know you probably don't believe what you said though, it was just kind of fun for you to say it. --Jagz (talk) 17:12, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

For starters, I find it's a bad idea to try to reintroduce ethnic differences in this article. Also, there is no explicit link between intelligence and the Nobel Prize (just a widely assumed link, but that's not good enough). Attribution of the Nobel prize has obviously as much to do with the presence of high-level research facilities in a given country than with a purported higher ethnic intelligence.--Ramdrake (talk) 15:51, 19 March 2008 (UTC) --Ramdrake (talk) 15:51, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

Will you please stop stirring up trouble in all articles you participate in? Everything was going peaceful until you decided to start participating again. All of RedPen's objections would have been addressed had you not intervened. --Jagz (talk) 16:40, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

What you call stirring trouble, I call trying to make the article more neutral, or at least less biased. Furthermore, there are several other editors besides myself who object to many of your edits. Please remember that WP is not a license to edit what you want whichever way you want; it's meant for editing within the consensus of editors. If your edits can't find consensus, then ask yourself how encyclopaedic and neutral they really are. Go ahead, label me an anti-racist if you will; I'd rather be mistaken for that than for the contrary.--Ramdrake (talk) 16:48, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

I have moved the "High-achieving minorities" section in question to my Sandbox here: . Let's see if we can edit and improve it there. I request that RedPen not participate because he contested it and also Ramdrake to not participate because I don't feel it would be helpful. --Jagz (talk) 16:59, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

It appears very counterproductive to attempting to build concensus to try to exclude the voices that have concerns about material in the article. In fact WP:BRD would suggest that you and I would be the primary editors of the contested content so that we reach an agreement. But ... its your sandbox. Just keep in mind that my concerns for that material were that no WP:RS were making the claims that 'success' was an aspect of intellegence. TheRedPenOfDoom (talk) 17:30, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

Don't worry, you'll get a crack at it later. There is just no sense continuing an edit war now on a draft section. It would have been easier to have left the section in the article and edited it while discussing on the Talk page. Taking it out makes it more difficult. It was counterproductive. --Jagz (talk) 17:38, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

Tagging this article

I've tagged this article again, as it seems there is a definite push from at least one editor to impart a racialist POV to the article again. The numerous attempts at inserting lengthy and multiple racialist theories when these theories are endorsed by a handful of people is just one example; trying to present extremely controversial studies (such as the tables from IQatWoN) without mentioning they're far from mainstream is another. Work needs to be done to present the racialist POV as the extremely controversial position that it is, with few adherents, rather than as the mainstream position, which it manifestly isn't.--Ramdrake (talk) 15:59, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

If there is no discussion, I'm taking the tags off in about a week. --Jagz (talk) 17:06, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

The initiation of the discussion is right there Jagz.

• inserting lengthy and multiple racialist theories when these theories are endorsed by only a handful of people
• present extremely controversial studies (such as the tables from IQatWoN) without mentioning they're far from mainstream
• present the racialist POV as the extremely controversial position that it is, with few adherents, rather than as the mainstream position

Until those concerns are met or shown to be without basis, then the tags stay. It is up to YOU to address those concerns if you want to remove the tags, not just ignore the concerns then claim there was "no discussion" and remove the tags. (This instance is different than the tags that appeared a few weeks ago (and subsequently were removed by you). Those tags did not come with any specific concerns to the talk page. )TheRedPenOfDoom (talk) 17:19, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

You need to discuss specific items. --Jagz (talk) 17:33, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

What references do you have that state what is and is not mainstream? --Jagz (talk) 19:19, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

Simple: just read up on the matter. Pretty much any researcher related to the Pioneer Fund isn't mainstream. That includes Rushton, Lynn, Gottfredson, and a number of others. When you start reading Neisser, Lieberman and the multitude of researchers who are mainstream, then you'll see.--Ramdrake (talk) 19:29, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

Ok, let's discuss. I've expressed the issues I see. How do you plan to address them? The ball is in your court.--Ramdrake (talk) 19:15, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

Your mind is in a different space than mine obviously. I have no idea how to reply to your generalizations. --Jagz (talk) 19:21, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

Take your time to answer, that's fine. The tags can certainly wait. :) --Ramdrake (talk) 19:29, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

It looks like this may require an RfC but it won't be this week. Sorry if the article does not support your vision of the world. --Jagz (talk) 19:39, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

Jagz, the problem is not that this article does not support Ramdrake's vision of the world. The problem is that this article does not comply with our policies of NPOV and NOR, and it does not provide an adequate account of the notable debates among respected scholars. It sounds like you are projecting - you are scared that science does not support your vision of the world. Well, sorry. Get used to it. We who wish to work on an encyclopedia should have open minds, and not come her trying to push our own racist agendas. Slrubenstein | Talk 10:21, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

Hiya Jagz! So nice of you to respond to my comment. You know, when you requested that two editors not participate in editing this article, I myself had no idea how to respond! So good to be communicating, now, isn't it! Slrubenstein | Talk 15:06, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

I don't wish to communicate with you anymore. --Jagz (talk) 20:37, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

Comment on the three preceding sections

I doubt that the three preceding sections - race and its correlates, high-scoring races, and tagging the article - will go anywhere because all three issues suffer from the same fundamntal problem. These three discussions just provide more examples of the ill-conceived nature of this article that starts with an imprecise topic. "Intelligence" is a vague and ultimately meaningless term that can be described an infinite number of ways - why not make it "IQ scores" which is specific, concrete, and what most of this article really is about, anyway? The confusion between "race," "ethnicity" and "nationality" is another example of sloppy thinking - sloppy thinking which is abundant in fringe theories but not the top scientific research. There is one body of literature that looks at the role of heritability in the difference in IQ scores, and this literature works through twin studies which is the most scientifically reliable way to get at the question. Race, ethnicity and nationality are all social constructs and inevitably bring in socio-economic status, or (for nationality) various development indices. Indeed, there is a separate body of literature on SES and IQ score variation, and that too could be a meaningful article.

The only excuse for a single article on race and intelligence is specifically to do one thing Misplaced Pages articles are not supposed to do which is forward fringe theories, because it is only in fringe theories that the issues are presented in such an unscientific and muddled way. This is why Jagz and others will always be confused by POV violation tags, or accusations of promoting fringe theories ... with the title "Race and intelligence," one can only provide fringe theories. Mainstream scientific discussions are always slightly of to the one side or another, and in fact form distinct, i.e. non-overlapping (and thus meriting different articles) bodies of research.

It is also why this article will always be plagued by violations of NOR, specifically in the orm of synthesis. "Race and Intelligence" can only be discussed in an NPOV and NOR compliant way by bringing together separe bodies of research, which will require synthesis on the part of editors to make it work.

Good luck, fellas, but as long as you have an article designed to promote fringe theories, you will always have these kinds of conflicts.

By the way I know some views on race and intelligence are too notable to exclude from Misplaced Pages, or rather, let me say, do merit encyclopedic attantion. Murray and Hernstein's The Bell Curve is one example. But it just proves my point - it is a book that has not really been engaged by scientists - I mean either social scientists studying SES and IQ variation, or population geneticists and biologists looking at heritability and IQ variation (except to trash the book). For this reason, I think that such work merits its own article. We do have entire articles on books ... we have an article on Guns, Germs and Steel ... and I see no reason why we shouldn't have an article on The Bell Curve and its reception. But general (meaning, topical) articles should be based on notable views from reliable sources and in this case we need more precise language that reflects the research that is out there and that leads to two different articles. Slrubenstein | Talk 19:55, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

"Human intelligence is one of the most important yet controversial topics in the whole field of the human sciences. It is not even agreed whether it can be measured or, if it can, whether it should be measured. The literature is enormous and much of it is highly partisan and, often, far from accurate." (Bartholomew, D. J. (2004). Measuring intelligence: Facts and fallacies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press., p. xi). --Legalleft (talk) 03:01, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

And this should be covered extensively in the article on human intelligence. But most virtually all of the notable literature this article or people working on it have cited refers to actual test score gaps. I think many conflicts could be avoided if we limited ourselves to this more clearly defined issue, and had an article (or two) whose titles reflected this focus. Slrubenstein | Talk 10:19, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

Let me put it another way - and I am truly really seriously sincerely genuinely trying to be constructive with what I think is a simple, easily addresed point: "race" and "intelligence" are both ambiguous terms - for some, race is biological, for others it is an SES or marker for SES. As Legalleft points out, intelligence too can mean many things. As long as the title of this article is race and intelligence, editors will reasonable want to cover both meanings of race and debates over its meanings, and debates over meanings of intelligence. Then there are various permutations over the different ways different meanings of race relate to different meanings of intelligence. The opportunities for this article to become overwrought will necessarily multiply endlessly. Evidence of the soundness of my reasoning? The edit history of the article itself. Identifying more precise terms, whose relationships are addressed by large bodies of notable literature, will spare us a good deal of controversy and conflict. Slrubenstein | Talk 10:19, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

It is a constructive suggestion but I'm afraid it doesn't work. Misplaced Pages doesn't get to decide the terms in which an external debate are cast. The extended, decades-long argument is over race and intelligence. Much as I'd like to Three Stooges style knock the heads of assorted psychologist together and shout "listen up knuckle heads, keep the speculation to a minimum - this is supposed to be science" I can't. Consequently the reality is that there really is a race-intelligence debate which is full of confused ideas, poorly defined terms and sudden leaps of inference. That is what has to be documented, not the debate we'd rather they had had.Nick Connolly (talk) 20:26, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

"Misplaced Pages doesn't get to decide the terms in which an external debate are cast." is precisely my point. Casting the debate in terms of race and IQ is popular in the popular media, but not in the mainstream scientific community. In the mainstream scientific community, people who look at differences in IQ scores between people of different self-identified races examine the issue in terms of sociological factors, not biological ones. In the mainstream scientific community, those scientists who are concerned with the heritability of IQ do not look at differences between races - there is a huge literature based on twin studies. The problem with this article is that it does not draw on these two large bodies of literature. Indeed, it would be hard to fit both literatures in one article (without a Misplaced Pages editor violating SYNTH) because the two discussions are separate. The attempt to connect race with heritability is made only by fringe scholars. So the situation is this: a few Misplaced Pages editors have decided to dedicate an article to a fringe view, and systematically to ignore the terms in which the external debate is cast by scientists. That is the problem. Slrubenstein | Talk 21:45, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

Yes and no. The field of intelligence testing is large and it is true that the use of race as an explantion of intergroup differences in IQ is a minority opinion. However firstly the race explanation is of historical significance and secondly there exist a large critical literature from modern researcher who posit other explanations (or critique methodology) that are cast in terms of race-intelligence debate if only to explain why there is no such connection. That debate is of significance both in historic and contemporary terms. Racially based hypotheses have an impact the goes beyond a mere fringe theory. They are of significance enough to be the cause of debate and further scholarly rebutall within the wider discipline. For example Denny Borsboom excellent debunking of Kanazawa's evolutionary claims ] comes from an academic primarily focused on IRT rather than IQ, demonstrating the extent to which this debate has wide impact. The debate exists and it is a difficult one to document because the counter-argument is wide and complex, multi-levelled and multi-disciplinary. However, that counter-argument verifiably exists and hence although seperate fields of inquiry exist, scholars in those fields have joined the fray overtly (i.e. explicitly mentioning race and intelligence for the purpose of debunking hypotheses that link them). I think it is demonstrable without synthesis to show an ongoing debate in terms of race and intelligence which has had a significant influence on research in IQ, sociology and psychometrics. Nick Connolly (talk) 22:53, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

Then, if you wish to present these fringe theories, they should be presented as they are in the real world, as the highly disputed fringe theories that they are, in fact bordering on pseudoscience. They should not be presented under the guise of being the current state of the art mainstream research, as nothing is further from the truth. This research is conducted by a handful of researchers, most of them being affiliated to one another (some through the Pioneer Fund), and their theories are highly debunked. If this are framed this carefully (as say, "creationist science" is properly framed), then indeed it might be worth an article. What I most strongly object to is presenting them as if they were mainstream, legitimate science with a large following; nothing is further from the truth.--Ramdrake (talk) 00:01, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

That is a valid point. I dusted off my copy of Ashley Montagu's 'Race & IQ' (ed) which if you haven't read is a comprehensive debunking by various authors of Jensen's position and the Bell Curve's position. He does refer in his introduction as how one account for "differences in indiviudal abilities and group achievment of the different 'races'?" as a legitimate question. The answer to the question is not, of course, that somehow one group is genetically inferior. I'd see this article as being about that question and what was, historically, the default answer and how opinions have changed and diversified. It is like dealing with creationists but in this case we don't have a Darwin (or a DNA) because the ambiguity and lack of a deep theory of intelligence cuts both ways. Much of the structure is here. I think the right approach is to evolve this article towards a stable POV free survey of a controversial topic while bearing in mind that this is not the Intelligence article, the IQ article, the Psychometrics article or the Race article. Imagine an intelligent person who finds themselves embroiled in a debate on race and intelligence - I'd hope they'd be able to come to this article and have a good idea what positions will be argued and what data will be thrown at them.Nick Connolly (talk) 02:28, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Genetically different does not infer genetically inferior. Statements like this appeal to emotion and add nothing to the discussion.--Die4Dixie 14:33, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

Um, we are talking about claims that genetic differences lead to superior or inferior IQ scores, so obviously this is about inferiority and superiority. Slrubenstein | Talk 17:24, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

Well, I have to say this is the most reasonable and constructive approach to the article I have heard. It sounds to me like you are talking about an article that addresses a "meta-scientific" debate, one that is embedded in popular culture to an extent to which mainstream scientists must in some way acknowledge. I see some value in this. I do not think that it would be a substitute for a solid article on research on SES and IQ score variation (drawing largely on work by soiologists, anthropologists, and other social scientists), and another article on the heritability of IQ (drawing largely on work by population geneticists and developmental biologists, especially twin studies). Slrubenstein | Talk 11:34, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Agreed. It would not be an article on mainstream current research on SES and IQ score variations, but it could be encyclopaedic if presented from the side of a popular debate. These theories aren't scientifically notable, but they have certainly garnered the attention of a segment of the population, at least in the USA. Care would need to be taken to properly represent the debate outside the USA, as, AFAIK, the debate is much less notable there.--Ramdrake (talk) 13:39, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

*The current Achievment gap article could do with some work for example. I think the earlier points about undue weight make more sense in that context - i.e. what is the current state of research into achievment gaps between ethnic groups. This article then can be the 'whats all this fuss about race and IQ all about then?' article. For this a NPOV standard can be used - to be included the research has either appeared in a scholraly peer-reviewed jounarl or has been discussed in one (perhaps critically). That means Jensen or Lynn's views get a proper airing but not the views of some mindless racist. This standard allows for both race-IQ hypotheses and debunkings of them and is consistent with other controversial topics.Nick Connolly (talk) 19:37, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

The purpose of this Talk page is to discuss this article. --Jagz (talk) 13:47, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

In case you can't read this very section, this article and its orientation are precisely what we're discussing here. If I didn't know better, I'd think you're having severe comprehension problems.--Ramdrake (talk) 14:26, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Why don't you do an RfC on the article splitting idea? You can also consider doing an RfC on the neutrality of article. --Jagz (talk) 15:22, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Whether or not the consensus of editors wants to split the article, at this point I have no committed opinion. However, my point is that your previous comment that this section isn't discussing the article was totally off-base. You may want to dial down your attitude. If you do, I'll dial down mine, I promise. :)--Ramdrake (talk) 15:32, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

This has been repeatedly discussed in the past to no avail. --Jagz (talk) 15:52, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Ramdrake, I am sorry you just do not get it. Slrubenstein, Nick Connolly, and Ramdrake were having reasonable exchange of ideas, leading in a constructive direction. This very possibility firghtens and upsets Jagz. As soon as he sees a few people working towards some kind of constructive engagement, he simply has to intervene with a meaningless, unconstructive comment. It is his attempt to derail the constructive discussion we were having. The only thing to do is ignore it. I made a point, Nick made a point, I made a point, you made a point - let's just wait for Nick or other grown-ups to join us in our grown-up, reasonable, and constructive discussion. Understand tht any time this happens Jagz will try to derail the discussion. Just ignore it. Slrubenstein | Talk 17:40, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

You keep talking about the same things over and over. --Jagz (talk) 17:54, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Many comments today (including some of my own) appear to be veering from constructive content comment towards divisive/derisive commentary and personal attacks. Perhaps we should all have a cup of tea.

For the record, you can include me as one who is intrigued by and probably supportive of the possible realignment of this article that is being discussed. TheRedPenOfDoom (talk) 18:23, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

See Alun's comments, and my comments, in the race section below, as to why the reorganization I propose would be an improvement. Slrubenstein | Talk 21:23, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

Race

In a recent article, Leonard Lieberman and Fatimah Jackson have called attention to the fact that although the concepts of cline, population, and ethnicity, as well as humanitarian and political concerns, have led many scientists away from the notion of race, a recent survey showed that physical anthropologists were evenly divided as to whether race is a valid biological concept. Noting that among physical anthropologists the vast majority of opposition to the race concept comes from population geneticists, any new support for a biological concept of race will likely come from another source, namely, the study of human evolution. They therefore ask what, if any, implications current models of human evolution may have for any biological conception of race.<ref>Leonard Lieberman and Fatimah Linda C. Jackson (1995) "Race and Three Models of Human Origin" in ''­American Anthropologist'' Vol. 97, No. 2, pp. 232-234</ref>--Jagz (talk) 22:39, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

Excellent point! It is worth reading the article to find out (1) precisely how they define "race" and (2) what they conclude. Slrubenstein | Talk 22:53, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

"Some geneticists have long argued that human genetic variability is so profound that race is not a scientifically useful label. Others point to clear disparities in health outcomes to argue that race matters. Recent research has found clusters of genes that can be used to identify broad racial categories like white, African-American, Hispanic or East Asian." http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/18/washington/18nih.html?ref=us --Jagz (talk) 22:39, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

Race is the word that English speaking people use to describe the categories "white", "black", "Asian" and so on. The extent to which human population genetics structure reflects those labels is of secondary concern. Even if there were no correspondence between population structure and racial labels, the continued pervasive use of those labels in research and in society would explain existence of discussions of "race and intelligence". Racial groups also differ in a myriad of social/cultural ways. In the 1960s the prima facie explanation of racial group differences in IQ scores was social-cultural-economic. Yet the discussion was still about race per se -- 'why do white children tend to score better than black children on tests?'. --Legalleft (talk) 22:50, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

Race in Biology

Actually I can cite several sources that directly contradict you claim. One of the best review articles is Keita et al. (2004) that states "'Race' is applied in formal taxonomy to variation below the species level." and "..the correct use of the term 'race' is the most current taxonomic one, because it has been formalized. 'Race' gains its force from its natural science root." and go on:

Current systematic theory emphasizes that taxonomy at all levels should reflect evolutionary relationships11. For instance, the term 'Negro' was once a racial designation for numerous groups in tropical Africa and Pacific Oceania (Melanesians). These groups share a broadly similar external phenotype; this classification illustrates 'race' as type, defined by anatomical complexes. Although the actual relationship between African 'Negroes' and Oceanic 'Negroes' was sometimes questioned, these groups were placed in the same taxon. Molecular and genetic studies later showed that the Oceanic 'Negroes' were more closely related to mainland Asians.
Arguments against the existence of human races (the taxa 'Mongoloid', 'Caucasoid' and 'Negroid' and those from other classifications) include those stated for subspecies10 and several others15. The within- to between-group variation is very high for genetic polymorphisms (approx85%; refs. 16,17). This means that individuals from one 'race' may be overall more similar to individuals in one of the other 'races' than to other individuals in the same 'race'. This observation is perhaps insufficient18, although it still is convincing because it illustrates the lack of a boundary. Coalescence times19, 20 calculated from various genes suggest that the differentiation of modern humans began in Africa in populations whose morphological traits are unknown; it cannot be assumed from an evolutionary perspective that the traits used to define 'races' emerged simultaneously with this divergence15. There was no demonstrable 'racial' divergence.
'Race' is a legitimate taxonomic concept that works for chimpanzees but does not apply to humans (at this time). The nonexistence of 'races' or subspecies in modern humans does not preclude substantial genetic variation that may be localized to regions or populations.

So the word "race" has a formally recognised taxonomic meaning, but it does not apply to human variation based on current concepts of "race" or subspecies. On the other hand "race" is used arbitrarily by non scientists and may well have very different meanings in different environments. As Keita et al. state

'Race' is not being defined or used consistently; its referents are varied and shift depending on context. The term is often used colloquially to refer to a range of human groupings. Religious, cultural, social, national, ethnic, linguistic, genetic, geographical and anatomical groups have been and sometimes still are called 'races

The Race, Ethnicity, and Genetics Working Group of the National Human Genome Research Institute advise geneticists thus:

One way for geneticists to ease the dilemma they face is to try to move beyond racial, ethnic, or ancestral categories in their work (Ota Wang and Sue 2005; Shields et al. 2005). Rather than using racial, ethnic, or ancestral labels as proxies for much more detailed social, economic, environmental, biological, or genetic factors, researchers can try to measure these factors directly. For example, controlling for socioeconomic status by use of census tract data can substantially reduce the excess mortality risk observed in disadvantaged minority populations (Krieger et al. 2005). Similarly, genotyping to estimate biogeographical ancestry can be a better control for population substructure than self-identified race, ethnicity, or ancestry (Shields et al. 2005)......When the use of racial or ethnic categories in research is deemed necessary, researchers can avoid overgeneralization by using labels that are as specific as possible. Today many genetic investigations label populations with the same loose terms used by the public (Sankar and Cho 2002; Clayton 2003; Collins 2004; Comstock et al. 2004). But labels such as “Hispanic,” “Black,” “Mexican American,” “White,” “Asian,” “European,” or “African” can have ambiguous or contradictory meanings among researchers, research subjects, and the general public. Use of such broad labels without careful definitions can impair scientific understanding and imply that distinctions between socially defined populations are genetically well established....A number of journals, including Nature Genetics (Anonymous 2000), Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine (Rivara and Finberg 2001), and the British Medical Journal (Anonymous 1996), have separately issued guidelines stating that researchers should carefully define the terms they use for populations, and some journals have asked researchers to justify their use of racial or ethnic groups in research.

Genetics publications take the utility of their research very seriously, and geneticists know the pitfalls of overly simplifying when it comes to human biological categories. When social sciences make claims founded on concepts outside their field of expertise they have just as much duty as geneticists to properly define their research groups. When a social scientists, such as a psychologist for example, makes a claim that a constructed category of people in a society has produced a significantly different result from a different socially constructed category within the same society, this it is reasonable to take them at their word as long as their theory for explaining this difference is based on social sciences. As soon as they remove themselves to the field of biological sciences, for example by claiming that the differences in the results are due to innate genetic differences, then the criteria for defining their categories are required to be just as vigorous as we would expect for a research biologists. If these scientists want their research to have validity in the field of biology, then they need to meet the same set of criteria that biologists set themselves for group definition. Or in other words, to claim that social construct A is different to social construct B because of reasons founded in society is reasonable. But to claim that social construct A is different to social construct B for biological reasons is not reasonable, in this case the social scientists need to be held to the same standards group identification as geneticists and biologists use for themselves. If a social scientists wants to make claims about "biological differences", then they need evidence firmly grounded in biology, and not grounded in social constructs. But I digress.
My initial point was this: The term "race" is not "the word that English speaking people use to describe the categories "white", "black", "Asian" and so on." It is a word that is sometimes used to mean these categories, and sometimes used to mean completely different categories. It has a specific and well understood meaning in the biological sciences, but the biological sciences have shown over and again that humans do not meet the criteria set for classification into "races". I've made this point several times before on this page, but many people here do not want to accept what biology tells us, only what non-biologists using non-biological categories claim is a the product of "biological differences", i.e. they accept the tiny bits of pseudoscience that support their own racial prejudices and biases. Alun (talk) 14:35, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Possible copyright infringement above. --Jagz (talk) 14:40, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

How population geneticists use the word "race" is not necessarily how it has been used in the research reported in this article and in many ways diverges from the meaning that the (English-speaking) audience of this article will understand. Thus, fixed and precise definitions are neither necessary nor desirable where they interfere with the mission of writing an article that can be understood by a general audience. --Legalleft (talk) 21:15, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

It is precisely BECAUSE different groups use the term to mean different things that in this article we need to be ABSOLUTELY precise in defining how each source is using the term so that an unknowledgeable reader entering the topic will not be confused.TheRedPenOfDoom (talk) 21:42, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Legalleft, your response doesn't even approach a convincing argument. You claim that the "English speaking world" use the term "race" consistently, so that everyone "understands" the constructs under investigation. I provide a quote above from a paper that specifically states the opposite, regardless that the quote is from a paper written by geneticists, these geneticists are not talking about the technical use of the word race, they are talking about everyday use of the word "race". I'll include the quote again so there's no confusion:

'Race' is not being defined or used consistently; its referents are varied and shift depending on context. The term is often used colloquially to refer to a range of human groupings. Religious, cultural, social, national, ethnic, linguistic, genetic, geographical and anatomical groups have been and sometimes still are called 'races'.

Besides this specific quote that undermines your claim, your contention amounts to original research. I see no reason why I should be expected to take your word that your set of categories are universal normal English colloquial usage, how do you know? Do you know the way this word is used colloquially in every English speaking country? Can you provide a source that states that in every part of the English speaking world, these "races" are always used specifically and absolutely to mean the same social constructs? Can you show evidence that if I were to visit Australia, then everyone would understand that when I say "race" I am always and invariably referring to "the categories 'white', 'black', 'Asian' and so on."? And that if I were then to visit South African and used the same set of terms, people would automatically understand that these terms encompass the same set of categories? Are the labels consistently used? I know for a fact that in the UK it has been common for any person of non-European ancestry to refer to themselves as "black". See Black British where it states "Historically it has been used to refer to any non-white British national." and "In some circumstances the word "Black" still signifies all ethnic minority populations." I have myself heard people of Indian sub-continental descent refer to themselves as black in the UK. It is also true that in the UK the term "Asian" is invariably used to refer to someone of Indian subcontinental origin, but in the USA I get the impression that it is primarily used to mean someone from the far East (though I'm no expert in US social constructs). Besides what do you mean by "Asian"? You claim it is a universally understood "race" in the "English speaking world", but what are it's referents? Does it include the indigenous peoples of Siberia, Han Chinese, Indian people, Pakistani people, Arabs, Turkish people, Kalash etc. all as part of the same Asian "race"? And exactly what "race" is "so on"? I've never heard of that one. You claim the use is consistent and specific in the "English speaking world", but you yourself do not seem to be able to list these invariant categories. So what do you actually mean? Do you include "Hispanics" as a "race"? Are "Hispanics" different to "Latinos"? Do "Hispanics" constitute part of the "white" category you list, or are they comprised of people from different "races"? Your claim that these are universally known and understood categories is not only not supported by any sources, you do not even seem able to list them yourself. It's not good enough to take the attitude that "everyone understands what I mean", because they do not. What you, specifically as an American (I assume), understand as a set of socially constructed categories is not the same set as someone would understand who lives in a different social environment, which clearly would have it's own specific set of social constructs. Even within the USA you have not provided any evidence that these constructs are always used consistently. Likewise you have no reason whatsoever to assume that the categories your society constructs are identical to the constructs of other societies, even if those societies happen to speak the same language as you. Alun (talk) 20:56, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

Race in the Social Sciences

Here is the definition of "race" forwarded by Eric Wolf in his 1982, Europe and the People Without History. This book was itself a synthesis of forty years of research by a host of cultural anthropologists. It was one of the most important books to come out in culural anthropology in the 1980s. I would not claim that all cultural anthropologists agree with it or love it, but I would wager that all cultural anthropologists would include it in their list of top ten books to have come out that decade. All would consider his views "notable" even if they do not share them.

The opposing interests that divide the working classes are further reinforced through appeals to "racial" and "ethnic" distinctions. Such appeals serve to allocate different categories of workers to rungs on the scale of labor markets, relegating stigmatized populations to the lower levels and insulating the higher echelons from competition from below. Capitalism did not create all the distinctions of ethnicity and race that function to set off categories of workers from one another. It is, nevertheless, the process of labor mobilization under capitalism that imparts to these distinctions their effective values.

In this regard, distinctons of "race" have implications rather different from "ethnic" variations. Racial distinctions, such as "Indian" or "Negro," are the outcome of the subjugation of populations in the course of European mercantile expansion. The tern Indian stands for the conquored populations of the New World, in disregard of any cultural or physical differences among Native Americans. Negro similarly serves as a cover term for the culturally and physically variable African populations that furnished slaves, as well as for the slaves themselves. Indians are conquered people who could be forced to labor or pay tribute; Negroes are "hewers of wood and drawers of water," obtained in violence and pu to work under coercion. These two terms thus single out for primary attention the historic c=fact that these populations were made to labor in servitude to support a new class of overlords. Simultaneously, the terms disregard cultural and physical diferences within each large category, denying any constituent group political, economic, or ideological identity of its own.

Racial terms mirror the political process by which populations of whole continents were turned into providers of coerced surplus labor. Under capitalism these terms did not lose their association with civil-disbility. They continue to invoke supposed decent from such subjugated populations so as to deny their putative decendents access to upper segments of lthe labor market. "Indians" and "Negroes" are thus confined to the lower ranks of the industrial army or depressed into the industrial reserve. The function of racial categories within capitalism is exclusionary. They stigmatize groups in order to exclude them from more highly paid jobs and from access to the information needed for their execution. They insulate the more advantaged workers against competition fro below, making it difficult for employers to use stigmatized populations as cheaper substitutes or as strikebreakers. Finally, they weaken the ability of such groups to mobilize politically on their own behalf by forcing them back into casual employment and thereby intensifying competition among themfor scarcde and shifting resources.

While the categories of race serve primarily to exclude people from all but the lower echelons of the industrial army, ethnic categories express the ways that particular populations came to relate themselves to given segments of the labor market. Such cateories emerge from two sources, one external to the group in question, the other internal. As each cohort entered the industrial process, outsiders were able to categorize it in terms of putative proveniance and supposed affinity to particular segments of the labor market. At the same time, members of the cohort itself came to value membership in the group thus defined, as a qualification for establishing economic and political claims. Such ethnicities rarely coincided with the initial self-identification of the industrial recruits, who thought of themselves as Hnovarians or Bavarians rather than as Germans, as members of their village or their parish (okiloca) rather than as Poles, as Tonga or yao rather than "Nyasalanders." The more comprehensive categories emerged only as particular cohorts of workers gained access to different segments of the labor market and began to treat their access as a resource to be defended both socially and politically. Such ethnicities are therefore not "primordial" social relationships. They are historical products of labor market segmntation under the capitalist mode.

I quote Wolf extensively because I think he fits in with some claims made by Legalleft. But i have a larger point to make. Now, this view of race is radically different from the one presented by Alun. But this does not indicate a debate between evolutionary biologists or population geneticists and cultural anthropologists. That they happen to use the same popular term - race - is perhaps a coincidence; as technical terms, these are homonyms, really two completely different words, that mean completely different things, and are used in completely different contexts. Only lay people would mix them up, which is why there is some confusion among lay people (which I suggest explains why they are drawn to fringe theories that have no standing among scientists, biological or social). There is simply no reason to connect this definition of race to the one advanced by Alun. We are citing two incomensurate bodies of literature, bodies of literature that are concerned with different questions and different methods for answering their quesions. They might belong in one article on "race" that tries to cover the entire spectrum of views of race held by academics, but that is the only conceivable framework that would include both literatures. To put them in the same article on race and intelligence would be like having an article on Monkeys and intelligence, and have one section refer to cercopithecoida and another section refer to a made-for TV pop-music band. Slrubenstein | Talk 09:02, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

That's really a brilliant analysis Slr! Of course it's obvious to anyone who actually knows what they are talking about that the term "race" (which I just managed to type as "arce" and that made me laugh) is not, and never has been, used consistently as Legalleft claims. Even the terms "white" and "black" are not at all as clear cut as Legalleft is trying to claim, and that's a citable fact. Alun (talk) 21:12, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

'High Achieving Minorities' -> Variations by ethnicity_Variations_by_ethnicity-2008-03-21T14:30:00.000Z">

While the previous subject heading is incorrect I am not sure why the following material was removed from the article. If the sources are reliable sources, it seemed to be some of the only on topic material in the article.

Some IQ subtest profiles show variations by ethnic group. Ashkenazi Jews, for example, demonstrate verbal and mathematical scores more than one standard deviation above average, but visuospatial scores roughly one half standard deviation lower than the White average, whereas East Asians demonstrate high visuospatial scores, but average or slightly below average verbal scores. The Asian pattern of subtest scores is found in fully assimilated third-generation Asian Americans, as well as in Inuits and Native Americans (both of Asian origin).

Any comments? TheRedPenOfDoom (talk) 14:30, 21 March 2008 (UTC)_Variations_by_ethnicity"> _Variations_by_ethnicity">

It's too abbreviated and incomplete. The quality is very poor. --Jagz (talk) 14:42, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

The sources are poor quality? TheRedPenOfDoom (talk) 14:58, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Your not going to improve the article by being disagreeable. --Jagz (talk) 15:08, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

??? TheRedPenOfDoom (talk) 15:09, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Read it. It sucks. --Jagz (talk) 15:16, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

It does not tightly define some of its use of terms and some of the wording is still angled POV, but what specifically do you mean when you say 'it sucks'? TheRedPenOfDoom (talk) 15:24, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

The section fails to explain how these groups can be considered minorities since it is a relative term. East Asians are not minorities in East Asia for example.
Ashkenazi Jews- They have higher average IQ in US and Britain than in Israel, possibly by World War II migration of disproportionate numbers from right side of bell curve (those more well off) See Race Differences in Intelligence
East Asians demonstrate high visuospatial scores- how high?
The Asian pattern of subtest scores is found in fully assimilated third-generation Asian Americans, as well as in Inuits and Native Americans- what does this have to do with the price of tea in China?
The section no longer discusses achievement, just test results. There is another section in the article for discussing test results. --Jagz (talk) 16:10, 21 March 2008 (UTC)_Variations_by_ethnicity"> _Variations_by_ethnicity">

Your comments are applicable to most of the current article - My orignal pruning of the article grabbed only some of the most obvious low hanging material. I will be happy to continue to get more crap out the article this weekend. TheRedPenOfDoom (talk) 16:14, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

This is what the article looked like on January 1, 2008. --Jagz (talk) 16:33, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

So ...it has been a not very good article for several months at least? TheRedPenOfDoom (talk) 17:11, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

That was after all the sub-articles were merged into this one after an AfD discussion. In October 2007 it looked like this: --Jagz (talk) 18:13, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

So, (I am just guessing here since you have not provided me really anything to go on) your point is that the article has been in piss-poor shape for over 6 months? Agreed. But that is no reason to let it continue to wallow in that state. TheRedPenOfDoom (talk) 01:03, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

I think it's getting better. The article got unlocked on February 1. I didn't do much until February 1. The vast majority of what's in the article now has been in there a long time, just organized differently. It's best to remove things a little at a time or else it becomes a pain for everyone else. --Jagz (talk) 01:27, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

Dogma

The following paragraph was in the article but Ramdrake repeatedly removed the second sentence:
In 1961, the psychologist Henry Garrett coined the term equalitarian dogma to describe the then mainstream view that there were no race differences in intelligence, or if there were, they were solely the result of environmental factors. Garrett contended that Jews spread the dogma and that most Jewish organizations "belligerently support the equalitarian dogma which they accept as having been 'scientifically' proven" (Garrett, 1961 a, p. 256).

Garrett was a racist; this is typical of the racist crap we do not want racists to put into the article. Slrubenstein | Talk 22:25, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Don't be belligerent. --Jagz (talk) 00:40, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

It is you who are being belligerent by posting an anti-semitic comment, out of context. You aren't bringing it upo in the context of any discussion, you had to create a new section for it. That suggests to me that you are just responding to my criticizing you for pushing a racist POV, and since you believe I am Jewish you post an anti-semitic remark. Slrubenstein | Talk 21:22, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

I'm not familiar with Garret, but he does seem to be notable enough to be included as the subject of a WP article, though the sources seem to be autobiographical. Right or wrong he may be pertinent to the history of this topic. I think that we need to carefully walk the fine line between a whitewash of the history and promoting inflammatory racism, especially from non-notable sources. Considering the brevity of the history section, we should limit the discussion to fairly mainstream views. I’d like to know more about how widespread his effect was at the time. --Kevin Murray (talk) 14:27, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

Hi Kevin. If I understand you correctly, it would be important to mention Garrett and his views as long as they are placed in context. I have no problem with that. I do have a problem with just plopping him in. According to Misplaced Pages's biography of him, he was a segregationist and racist 9and i had no hand in writing Misplaced Pages's article on him!) and this background information about his own personal politics and political agenda are I think essential to presenting an honest and balanced account of his ideas. Slrubenstein | Talk 15:18, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

Was his work well known at the time and waws he influential? If not then I don't see him as relevant. Clearly what ever we add should be in context. --Kevin Murray (talk) 00:17, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

Request for Comment

Template:RFCsci Template:RFCpol The article is currently tagged, stating, "The neutrality of this article is disputed." Is the article sufficiently neutral? Please be specific and suggest improvements.

Comments by editors of article

• No it is not sufficiently neutral that the NPOV tag should be removed. TheRedPenOfDoom (talk) 18:56, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Please specify your reason. --Jagz (talk) 18:57, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

I believe that comments from outside readers will provide the most insight and that further elaboration from me at this time is just a waste of electrons.TheRedPenOfDoom (talk) 22:16, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Umm...The reason given is "it is not sufficiently neutral". I don't think it could be more obvious. Alun (talk) 19:31, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for your input Alun, I am looking for a more detailed answer.--Jagz (talk) 19:35, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

A more detailed example is no, the entire article is non-neutral ab initio. The very title is essentially a POV nightmare. The two main words: Race and intelligence presume the existence of 1)Race, and 2)Intelligence as meaningful terms in the context.

Further, the article goes on to use tests of "IQ" as measures of intelligence as if intelligence were measurable with a single value on a single scale. This is not a neutral point of view, and is widely debated.

Further, the methodology is flawed, you cannnot compare test scores of disparate tests, different IQ tests give different scores to the same individual. And different cultural influences and social norms affect the responses -- by people within different cultures -- to the SAME test.

This article is a waste of time. This is an encyclopedia, we should at least acknowledge scientific reality... or put the "fictional universe tag" on this one. User:Pedant (talk) 22:56, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

• Confusing and bity. I think as well as there being tension between editors who fall on either side of the basic question there is also confusion about what purpose this article serves. Valid concerns about synthesis and undue weight have been raised but I'm of the opinion that these arise primarily out of the fact that much of the published peer-reviewed research is of poor quality. This issue isn't exactly like a scholarly dispute, nor is it quite a science versus pseudoscience but it shares features of both. Finally the issue splits along two major US political fault-lines: the perception by conservatives of leftist academic bias and social inequality based on race/ethnicity. POV minefield but either that is dealt with here or a plethora of POV forks.Nick Connolly (talk) 19:48, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
  • Actually, it might be even worse than that. There is a strain of thought, represented by Turkheimer's comments here, which states that anyone who happens to disagree with the position he holds is deserving of opprobrium. Notably a position which Ceci and Flynn disagree with him about. An editor who held the same position as Turkheimer would feel morally compelled to minimize the POV they dislike. --Legalleft (talk) 21:09, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
• Yes, it is about as neutral as it is ever going to get even though it won't please everyone because of the controversial subject. --Jagz (talk) 20:36, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
• Don't know -- but I'm sure it would be much easier to improve the article if the neutrality issues were enumerated or at least made more specific. --Legalleft (talk) 21:09, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
  • Comment -- What would help is to find a heuristic for selecting which details are salient and which are not. For example, I imagine there doesn't need to be an entire section for Clancy Blair's gF' theory, as (IIRC) there has been no experiment work done on it since Blair's initial publication. Perhaps the "biotechnology" section can go too. OTOH, there really does need to be more on minorities other than Blacks and also more on the social and economic consequences of group differences. --Legalleft (talk) 21:23, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
• Not neutral - Note that the article is highly volatile, so making a statement about its neutrality at a certain point in time is tricky. The article seems like a battleground of POVs, it needs more cohesion. Brusegadi (talk) 07:32, 22 March 2008 (UTC)
• Not neutral - In its present state, which like Brusegadi said is highly volatile. POV seems to give undue weight to widely criticized studies, trying to present them as uncontroversial, mainstream research.--Ramdrake (talk) 10:49, 22 March 2008 (UTC)
• Not Neutral The lead says the article does two things. First, "Seeks the causes of any differences that appear in the measurements" - this is legit, there is a huge body of literature in the social sciences on the social, economic, and psychological causes of differences in test scores. But while the article mentions this, it does not give due weight to this body of literature by any stretch of the imagination. Second, "seeks to determine whether human intellectual abilities vary between races." This is entirely unacceptable. For one thing, Misplaced Pages articles never seek to determine anything; they provide accounts of notable views. But even if we were to read (or rewrite) this as saying that it will cover views of scholars who seek to determine this, it is still unacceptable as it is just a tarted up way of suggesting some races are naturally superior to others. That is just plain racism, and bad science. Indeed, there are scientists who do seek to determine this, and they are not only racist scientists, they are bad scientists who represent a fringe view among researchers. And the problem is, this article gives undue weight to these fringe theorists. The belief that some races are inherently superior is indeed a notable view, but not among scientists; it is notable among the gneral public. But the article doesn't present a good account from say media studies, or comunications scholars, or social scientists about the ways Westerners tend to biologize social difference, even though this literature exists. Instead, it elevates the fringe views of a few racist scientists (typically pscyhologists who have no training in evolutionary biology or population genetics) and presentes them as mainstream science. That is a clear NPOV violation. Slrubenstein | Talk 13:00, 22 March 2008 (UTC)
• No. I'm not really a major editor of this article, but I have been on the talk page a bit recently and done a small amount of editing, so I'll put my two penneth here. There's been some attempt to make this article neutral, but it's an uphill struggle. When I tried a little while ago to include some observations regarding the non-independence of biological systems and environment all I got an edit war and scorn. Clearly there was an attempt to keep the information out the article, or to move it to an inconspicuous place. No sort of acceptable reason was given for this, the reasons varying from some nonsense about "behaviour genetics" (sic) (the source did not even mention behavioural genetics, and neither did my edit), "it's not relevant" (which was demonstrably not true") to "it's not important" (even though the authors of the several articles were stating that it was directly relevant and important to the subject at hand). And it wasn't like it was an article written by an obscure scientist, it was by Richard Lewontin. There was clearly a concerted effort going on to either remove the edit, or at least give it as little prominence as possible. There was, and still is, a serious attempt to promote one pov while suppressing or giving as little prominence as possible to any information that does not support this pov. It is absolutely evident that some editors of this article are neither interested in neutrality nor acting in good faith, and if this means that I'm not assuming good faith, then tough, one can assume good faith for only a certain amount of time, but eventually it becomes obvious that it is pointless to assume good faith because it becomes obvious that other editors are not acting in good faith. This article is bound to be a magnet for certain types of people with an axe to grind, and they'll never act in good faith. The article certainly hasn't got any better recently, with even my small, but relevant, edit having been removed, with the only mention of Lewontin now being rather obscure and somewhat dishonest. Alun (talk) 22:06, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

Comments by outsiders

• Not Neutral per the reasons given by Slrubenstein. The asininity of the theory and the article itself is simply astounding. I could go on, but I'll just get truly nasty. Suffice it to say that the article, and the theory it fails to present in an NPOV manner, are shit. &#0149;Jim62sch&#0149; 17:56, 22 March 2008 (UTC)
• Not Neutral I'm going to give the same reasoning as Jim and Slrubenstein. This is pseudoscience, and it should be presented in the same manner as any other pseudoscientific theory on Misplaced Pages. We are giving undue weight to crap. And I'm seeing way too many anti-semitic Slr--I'm Jewish and lot less tolerant than Slr is. This is a sickening article. OrangeMarlin 18:03, 22 March 2008 (UTC)
• Not Neutral From the reading I have done on this issue over the years, the impression I have is that this is an extremely amateurish attempt at an article, and is not particularly encyclopedic. It does cover some (although I think not all) of the historic studies which have a somewhat biased view. However, the mainstream or other side of the issue seems almost entirely absent. The scientific criticism seems quite weak and almost absent, which is disturbing when NPOV is supposed to be our guiding principle here. I will confess I have not read all of this article, but I read enough to be quite disappointed.--Filll (talk) 20:19, 22 March 2008 (UTC)
• Not Neutral The premise and title of the article are flawed from the start. This article is an embarrassment to Misplaced Pages. As it stands, there seems to be very little content that can be salvaged to use in a good article... and I've seen good articles, this sir, is no good article. User:Pedant (talk) 23:03, 22 March 2008 (UTC)
• Not Neutral, but not hopeless As most everything has been discussed on this talk page ad nauseum, I won't go into to much detail. I agree that this article definitely gives undue weight to those arguing for a significant difference of intelligence amongst races, but at the same time I don't feel that their work constitutes a fringe theory or pseudoscience. There are many scientists with good credentials that hold these views, but as it is an inherently highly controversial subject, its detractors are quick to brand it a pseudoscience. I think in essence there hasn't been convincing evidence shown on either side of the argument, but the burden of proof is on those that suggest there is a difference- thus this article must devote more to those who defend nurture over nature, as is implicitly suggested in the opener but not really carried out in the article. DJLayton4 (talk) 03:35, 25 March 2008 (UTC)
• Not Neutral Not even remotely in the neighborhood of neutral. It is racist and based on questionable material; the academic literature that should be cited is mostly missing. It's all written from one side, the side that does not represent the best thought on the question. Woonpton (talk) 04:13, 25 March 2008 (UTC)
• Not neutral The article is bias against black people, depicting them as somehow less intelligent than other races. Yahel Guhan 05:49, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

Reorganizing the article

When I and others started pruning and reorganizing the article after it was unlocked on February 1, I expected that environmental factors would be by far the predominant view; however, surprisingly, as the article developed, it became clear that this truly wasn't the case. The significantly genetic view is far more prevalent than I expected and it was in the article all along, just buried. It appears that the environmental view was prevalent in the early 1960's and people who expressed disagreement could possibly be fired from their jobs questioned these views put their careers at risk; this was perhaps partly in reaction to Nazi Germany and the Civil Rights movement in the USA. It seems that the tide has turned since then in favor of the significantly genentic view and there are probably quite a few "closet" believers we will never know about because of policitical correctness or fear of being labeled a racist, etc. I was never expecting that the article would show this but that is how it has turned out. --Jagz (talk) 19:57, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

I know of no evidence that someone airing racist views in the 1960s was at serious risk of losing their job, except perhaps if they worked for the ACLU or B'nai Brith. It also seems to me that the strongest data about the relationship between poverty and social stigmatization and low IQ scores emerged in the 1980s and contines to emerge, as in the very important recent book by Flynn. I have a simple prediction to make: if someone does there research relying on the internet, they will find much material claiming that IQ differences between races reflect innate differences. if one conducts their research through a sample of the most prestigious peer-reviewed journals in the social or life sciences, and books published by academic presses, they will find much material documenting environmental causes. Slrubenstein | Talk 20:21, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

To Jagz: if you're judging by the slant of the article as it was back early this year, yes, it was still of course slanted on the side of the racialist view. This is because that is how the article was originally written, in conformity with the views of a handful of editors who took a WP:OWN attitude to the article, and eventually left sometime in 2007. Since then, no one has had the time to do a systematic overhaul. However, I can tell you this: if you overhaul this article based on the relative weight of the different views when the articles were merged, you will still have an article which is in violation of NPOV. The only way to remedy this is to have someone go through the actual scientific literature on the subject (as opposed to the crumbs we can access on the internet) and rewrite the article accordingly.--Ramdrake (talk) 20:35, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

What about research funding bias? --Jagz (talk) 20:37, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

Yes, certainly. I'm taking you mean the Pioneer Fund?--Ramdrake (talk) 20:42, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

My prediction is that if someone rewrites the article heavily favoring the environment view, it will in time be changed back to a balance similar to what's in the article now and it won't be because of anything I did. If you'd like, go ahead and try. --Jagz (talk) 20:50, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

I agree with your prediction under one condition: it will come true only if POV-pushing racists continue to use this article to forward their fringe views. If editors follow our NPOV guidelines and do serious research, however, I would have to reject your prediction. Slrubenstein | Talk 21:19, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

Are you expecting a change? --Jagz (talk) 21:34, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

Do I expect the article to change? Indeed I do. In a section above, my "comment on the preceding sections," I explained what I thought was a fundamental problem with this article; that there should be two different articles; that trying to create one article will inevitably push it to fringe POVs; with the sole exception of you, people responded favorably to my thoughts. Then, in the section on "race," Alun and I provided further explanation as to why any attempt to ground this discussion involving race in sound science would require two different articles, otherwise this attempt will continue to violate NPOV. Someone put in an RfC as to whether the POV tag was warranted and whether the article complies with NPOV and now there is an overhwelming majority of editors who agre, this article is fatally flawed and privileges a fringe POV and misses entirely mainstream science ... so yes, given that we know this article is a POV mess and that an accurate account of mainstream science requires two articles, I'd say that we can all expect not only a change but a big change. Or did you mean, do I expect you to change and stop pushing a fringe, often racist, POV? One can always hope! Slrubenstein | Talk 23:27, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

LOL --Jagz (talk) 01:42, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

Slr is correct: the issue is socio-economic in scope (environmntal, if you wish to eschew the sociological term), not "racial" (for whatever that term is worth -- not much in my opinion, but so be it). &#0149;Jim62sch&#0149; 15:58, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

As stated in the article:

"The January 1997 issue of American Psychologist published eleven critical responses to the American Psychological Association (APA) report, most of which criticized the report's failure to examine all of the evidence for or against genetic contributions to racial differences in IQ. Charles Murray, for example, responded:

Actually, there is no direct evidence at all, just a wide variety of indirect evidence, almost all of which the task force chose to ignore."

As long as this indirect evidence keeps getting ignored by social scientists, there will be many people who will not blindly accept your view that the issue is only socio-economic in scope; that will be seen as smoke and mirrors. --Jagz (talk) 16:17, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

Indirect evidence is their pathetic excuse for no evidence. Slrubenstein | Talk 00:10, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

Then it is like religion. --Jagz (talk) 04:32, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

I propose:

I propose that we extract any factual information this article may contain, scrap the rest, research the relevant literature, and write a new article to replace this one. And maybe it would need a new title at that point. Which is a lot like deleting the article. Which I would also support. User:Pedant (talk) 23:09, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

Page protected to stop edit war

Please solve the disputes on the talk page, and not by reverting the article back and forth between preferred versions. --Jayron32.talk.contribs 23:18, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

We'll do our best, thanks.--Ramdrake (talk) 23:21, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

Everything was peaceful after the article was unlocked on February 1 until you decided to start participating again. --Jagz (talk) 22:34, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

Jagz, be warned, do not violate WP:NPA. You do not own this article and cannot dictate who can and cannot participate. Since Ramdrake knows a lot more than you do, and is a better editor, I'd say his involvement is ndespensible. Slrubenstein | Talk 00:09, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

Please stop being belligerent. --Jagz (talk) 02:36, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

Jagz, this is a difficult enough topic without inflaming things further. Knock off the personal attacks and snide remarks. Raymond Arritt (talk) 02:42, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

Now that the page has been protected

We have about one week (March 29) to come up with a plan. I would say we should first take a look at the RfC responses and some of the last sections; IMHO, they did contain some useful suggestions about what to do with the article.--Ramdrake (talk) 23:21, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

How to move forward

I have a procedural and a substantive suggestion for moving forward.

Procedural suggestion

My first suggestion is that we avoid researching this article in an unconstructive way. In my experience, here is the least constructive way to research an article, especially one on a controversial topic: begin with a personal belief, for example blacks are less intelligent than whites, or there are no differences in IQ, or IQ doesn't exist; whatever the belief is it leads one to start with clear ideas about the contents or structure of the article. Then insist on an article that caters to that belief, and they they just go out looking selectively for whatever sources would fit their belief. Obviously this second method leads only to bad scholarship - one ends up taking things out of context and misunerstanding them, or making connections between different sources when none exist.

What would be the opposite procedure? Do not start with a proposal about the contents or structure of thye article. Instead start by trying to identify reliable, verifiable sources; we can then distinguish between different kinds of debates (like, the debate over the reason ofr a certain average heritability of intelligence among single-chorion twins among biologists; the debate over funding for public education in the US among politicians and policy-makers; research on racist representations of diferent groups of people, largely by historians and sociologists) and between notable views, like Phillips 1993 and Stromswold 2006, and fringe views, like Rushton, in one discussion among scientists. It is by doing this kind of research that people figure out merits an encyclopedia article or articles, and what they should cover/include.

In other words, start with an open-minded question: what do the most respected scientists doing the actual research think? For me the answer to my question would come from reading the most notable books and scientific articles to see how the scientists themselves frame the issue. We might discover that there is a major controversy these scientists are debating and it actually is not about genetic versus environmental causes for the IQ gap at all, but something else. What? i have no idea - that is my point, let's not make any assumptions.

How do we know what are the best books and articles? I have a few suggestions that are meant to generate a list of publications we can all agree are notable among scholars: see if we can get syllabi for graduate school courses on the topic and see what books and articles they assign. See what books are published by university presses, and see if they were well-reviewed in the major relevant journals (in psychology, anthropoloogy, sociology, biology). Then see what other books and articles these books cite as authoritative. See what articles have come out in major peer-reviewed journals, and see what books and articles these articles cite as authoritative. I know one needs access to a good library to do this kind of research ... but I think this is the kind of research one must do to write a great encyclopedia article.

Let me be very concrete and propose a task we could divide up and do over the next week: I am saying it is premature to come up with a title until we have trawled the literature. I also think we have enough people who know enough to know how to do this, even before knowing what the right titel for an article would be. We are concerned with the following key words: "race", "intelligence", "genetics", "environmental" and either "SES" or a proxy (social or status would probably work). I suggest anyone with a good library and therefore a good reference librarian request a search for articles with these keywords in the major relevant journals. These would be:

• Interdisciplinary

• Critical Inquiry
• Public Culture
• Social Science Research
• Social Text

• Anthropology

• American Anthropologist
• American Ethnologist
• Annual Review of Anthropology
• Cultural Anthropology
• Current Anthropologist
• Identities: Global Studies in Culture and Power
• American Journal of Physical Anthropology

• Communications (includes media studies)

• Communication Theory
• Human Communication Research
• Public Opinion Quarterly

• Education

  Review of Educational Research

• Educational Psychology

• Child Development
• Education Psychology
• Education Psychology Review
• Journal of Learning Science

• Genetics

• American Journal of Human Genetics
• Annual Review of Genetics
• Genetics and Development
• Genome Research
• Nature Genetics
• Nature Review Genetics

• History

• American Historical Review
• Comparative Studies in Society and History
• Journal of Modern History
• Journal of Social History
• Past and Present

• Sociology

• American Journal of Sociology
• American Sociological Review
• Annual Review of Sociology
• Journal of Historical Sociology
• Law and Society Review

• Psychology

• American Psychologist
• Annual Review of Psychology
• Behavior Genetics
• Behavioral Brain Science
• Biological Psychology
• Cognitive Psychology
• Psychological Bulletin
• Psychology Review

I have provided a long list of journals precisely in an attempt to capture a wide range of approaches and views. However, I bet many of these journals have not had any relevant articles in the last few years. So while I realize this is a lot of journals, I bet if we restrict searches to all keywords, I bet the results would be managable. I am pretty sure I got the leading journals in these relevant disciplines but yes, it would be great if there were other editors who could sy "no, this is not a respected journal" or "Add the following to the list ..."

A keyword search of these major journals would not I think assume or imply any particular point of view. As I said I think that if we use enough keywords, the results will be managable but perhaps someone can suggest a way to further limit it (for starts, we can ask the reference librarian to search just the past three years. I bet that won't turn up much and we will want to expand it to the past five or even ten years.

The result will be a determinate set of articles that would tell us what the main debates are which would dictate to us the articles and article titles and contents. The key point is not to cherry-pick sources or quotes we like. I have no idea whatr this process would yield; that is the whole point.

But if we want to slide over this stage, based on what I know, I believe this method would lead to three articles, which leads me to my substantive proposals:

Proposal One: "Controversies over Race and IQ in Popular Culture"

This article is ostensibly about debates concerning the relationship between race and intelligence; much of it seems to be about the view that racial differences cause differences in IQ. This is a nonsense view among scientists. But it seems to be a view popular among many non-scientists. So let's call a spade a spade. I see this article as following on some discussion from above:

The field of intelligence testing is large and it is true that the use of race as an explantion of intergroup differences in IQ is a minority opinion. However firstly the race explanation is of historical significance and secondly there exist a large critical literature from modern researcher who posit other explanations (or critique methodology) that are cast in terms of race-intelligence debate if only to explain why there is no such connection. That debate is of significance both in historic and contemporary terms. Racially based hypotheses have an impact the goes beyond a mere fringe theory. They are of significance enough to be the cause of debate and further scholarly rebutall within the wider discipline. For example Denny Borsboom excellent debunking of Kanazawa's evolutionary claims ] comes from an academic primarily focused on IRT rather than IQ, demonstrating the extent to which this debate has wide impact. The debate exists and it is a difficult one to document because the counter-argument is wide and complex, multi-levelled and multi-disciplinary. However, that counter-argument verifiably exists and hence although seperate fields of inquiry exist, scholars in those fields have joined the fray overtly (i.e. explicitly mentioning race and intelligence for the purpose of debunking hypotheses that link them). I think it is demonstrable without synthesis to show an ongoing debate in terms of race and intelligence which has had a significant influence on research in IQ, sociology and psychometrics. Nick Connolly (talk) 22:53, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

Then, if you wish to present these fringe theories, they should be presented as they are in the real world, as the highly disputed fringe theories that they are, in fact bordering on pseudoscience. They should not be presented under the guise of being the current state of the art mainstream research, as nothing is further from the truth. This research is conducted by a handful of researchers, most of them being affiliated to one another (some through the Pioneer Fund), and their theories are highly debunked. If this are framed this carefully (as say, "creationist science" is properly framed), then indeed it might be worth an article. What I most strongly object to is presenting them as if they were mainstream, legitimate science with a large following; nothing is further from the truth.--Ramdrake (talk) 00:01, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

That is a valid point. I dusted off my copy of Ashley Montagu's 'Race & IQ' (ed) which if you haven't read is a comprehensive debunking by various authors of Jensen's position and the Bell Curve's position. He does refer in his introduction as how one account for "differences in indiviudal abilities and group achievment of the different 'races'?" as a legitimate question. The answer to the question is not, of course, that somehow one group is genetically inferior. I'd see this article as being about that question and what was, historically, the default answer and how opinions have changed and diversified. It is like dealing with creationists but in this case we don't have a Darwin (or a DNA) because the ambiguity and lack of a deep theory of intelligence cuts both ways. Much of the structure is here. I think the right approach is to evolve this article towards a stable POV free survey of a controversial topic while bearing in mind that this is not the Intelligence article, the IQ article, the Psychometrics article or the Race article. Imagine an intelligent person who finds themselves embroiled in a debate on race and intelligence - I'd hope they'd be able to come to this article and have a good idea what positions will be argued and what data will be thrown at them.Nick Connolly (talk) 02:28, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Well, I have to say this is the most reasonable and constructive approach to the article I have heard. It sounds to me like you are talking about an article that addresses a "meta-scientific" debate, one that is embedded in popular culture to an extent to which mainstream scientists must in some way acknowledge. I see some value in this. I do not think that it would be a substitute for a solid article on research on SES and IQ score variation (drawing largely on work by soiologists, anthropologists, and other social scientists), and another article on the heritability of IQ (drawing largely on work by population geneticists and developmental biologists, especially twin studies). Slrubenstein | Talk 11:34, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Agreed. It would not be an article on mainstream current research on SES and IQ score variations, but it could be encyclopaedic if presented from the side of a popular debate. These theories aren't scientifically notable, but they have certainly garnered the attention of a segment of the population, at least in the USA. Care would need to be taken to properly represent the debate outside the USA, as, AFAIK, the debate is much less notable there.--Ramdrake (talk) 13:39, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

I still think the key to an NPOV article is to find reliable, notable sources first, however, and then decide on the contents and structure later.

Montagu's book is good, but here are three other, more recent, and I think essential for the article I am proposing or any comparable article on the popular beliefs about race, or racist science:

• The Problem of Race in the Twenty-First Century. Thomas C. Holt. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2002. 146 pp.
• Race in Mind: Race, IQ, and Other Racisms. Alexander Alland Jr. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002. 219 pp.
• The Funding of Scientific Racism: Wickliffe Draper and the Pioneer Fund. William H. Tucker. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2002. 286 pp.

(Anyone who doubts that Rushton and Hernstein and Murray are fringe theories and wants to know what good sources are, should read these books!!) Is there any chance Ramdrake and Nick Connolly could divide up these three books along with Montagu's book and write a first draft of this proposed artcile, using their won discussion above as a starting point for clarifying the scope of the article?

Draw on major popular magazines (Time, Newsweek) and newspapers to see how the popular media reports the issue. Also, look for articles in the major media studies journals:

• Communication Theory
• Human Communication Research
• Public Opinion Quarterly

To see how they analyze the portrayal of this issue in the medial.

"Constructing Paper Dolls: The Discourse of Personality Testing in Organizational Practice" Majia Holmer Nadesan. Communication Theory, Volume 7, Issue 3, Page 189-218, Aug 1997,

"Poverty as We Know It: Media Portrayals of the Poor" Rosalee A. Clawson; Rakuya Trice The Public Opinion Quarterly > Vol. 64, No. 1 (Spring, 2000), pp. 53-64

"Race, Public Opinion, and the Social Sphere" Lawrence Bobo The Public Opinion Quarterly > Vol. 61, No. 1, Special Issue on Race (Spring, 1997), pp. 1-15

It is also worth looking at:

• Public Culture
• Representations

for possible analyses of this issue in popular culture.

"The Regents on Race and Diversity: Representations and Reflections" Marianne Constable Representations > No. 55, Special Issue: Race and Representation: Affirmative Action (Summer, 1996), pp. 92-97

"The Trope of a New Negro and the Reconstruction of the Image of the Black" Henry Louis Gates, Jr. Representations > No. 24, Special Issue: America Reconstructed, 1840-1940 (Autumn, 1988), pp. 129-155

"Individual Fairness, Group Preferences, and the California Strategy" Troy Duster Representations > No. 55, Special Issue: Race and Representation: Affirmative Action (Summer, 1996), pp. 41-58

"Darwin's Savage Mnemonics" Cannon Schmitt Representations' > No. 88 (Autumn, 2004), pp. 55-80

Proposal Two: "The Heritability of IQ"

What do people mean when they claim that racial differences cause differences in IQ? According the the lead, it sounds like some people think that race stands for biological differences. In the "Race" section above Alun demonstrates that for biologists race is subspecies and there are no meaningful human races in a biological sense. The question is whether there is a genetic component to differences in IQ scores and this question has nothing to do with "race." Study on the biology of IQ hinges on twin studies. Here is a fair sample of the major sources:

To start us off, I propose we look at these articles:

• Bouchard, Arvey, Keller, Segal, 1992, Genetic Influences on Job Satisfaction: A Reply to Cropanzano and James,” Journal of Applied Psychology 77(1): 89-93
• Devlin, Daniels, Roeder 1997 “The heritability of IQ” Nature 388: 468-471
• Jacobs, Van Gestel, Derom, Thiery, Vernon, Derom, and Vlietinck, 2001, “Heritability Estimates of Intelligence in Twins: Effect of Chorion Type,” Behavior Genetics 31(2): 209-217
• McCartney, Harris, and Bernieri, 1990, “Growing Up and Growing Apart: A Developmental Metanalysis of Twin Studies” Psychological Bulletin 107(2) 226-237
• Phelps, Davis, Schwartz, 1997, “Nature, Nurture and Twin research Strategies” in Current Directions in Psychological Science 6(6): 117-121
• Plomin and Loehlin, 1989, “Direct and Indirect IQ Heritability Estimates: a Puzzle” Behavior Genetics 19(3): 33-342
• Race, Townswend, Hughes, 285-291, “Chorion Type, Birthweight Discordance, and tooth-Size Variability in Australian Monozygotic Twins” Twin Research and Human Genetics 9(2) 285-291 (no, not about IQ – but as it is about other clear phenotypic traits it provides a good benchmark for assessing the value of twin studies and the various factors one must also take into account)
• Reed, Carmelli, Rosenman, 1991, “Effects of Placentation in Selected Type A Behaviors in Adult males in the national Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute Twin Study,” Behavior Genetics 21(1) 1-19
• Segal, 19999, Entwined Lives: Twins and What They Tell us About Human Behavior
• Sokol, Moore, Rose, Williams, reed, and Christian, 1995, “Intrapair Differences in Personality and Cognitive Ability Among Mynozygotic Twins Distinguished by Chorion Type,” Behavior Genetics 25(5) 456-466
• Stromswold, 2006, “Why Aren’t Identical Twins Linguistically Identical?” Cognition 101(2): 333-383

I repeat, the point is not to cherry-pick quotes that we agree or disagree with. The point is to examine reliable sources to find out - yes, find out, as if e may actually learn something new - what the notable views are. From what I gather from this literature, most of the current scholarship - mainstream scholarship - on IQ scores is not even concerned with the debate "is it environmental or is it genetic." There is a body of literature, and I provided many citations above, and obviously an article on this research must be organized around the most notable and mainstream views on the matter - it should include all notable views ... but I think that the major notable views should be the principle factor in the organization and presentation of the article.

Virtually all scientific research on the genetic determinants of variation in IQ scores is based on twin studies and above (perhaps now in archived talk) I provided a bibliography of major (i.e. from major peer-reviewed journal journals, and which are frequently cited) articles. These studies indicate an ongoing debate between scientists who measure the heritability of intelligence at .40, and others who measure it at between .60 and .70. In addition to these contrasting calculations, there is a debate over the effects of of the shared prenatal environment - some argue that identical blood supply should lead to greater similarities between monochoriatic twins than dichorionic twins; others argue that competition for blood supply should lead to greater differences between monochorionic twins than dichorionic twins. I think we need to have a good article that provides a clear account of this research and these controversies.

Perhaps someone who has training in genetics and access to these journals could take the first step in sketching out an article on Heritability and IQ.?

Here is the existing article: Heritability of IQ. --Jagz (talk) 18:57, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

Thanks - the article is indeed a start but does need work. But you are right about this being the article in which to address the heritability of IQ. Since this article exists, I think we can reserve other articles (like the present one) for other issues. Slrubenstein | Talk 19:40, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

The article also confuses heritability with inheritance. Heritability is a measure of the contribution of genes to variance, the article states this specifically in the section "Heritability calculations", but in the introduction it states "The degree to which IQ, or intelligence quotient, is passed down through the generations has been the subject of extensive research. " This is untrue, heritability does not measure this, it attempts to measures the relative contribution of genes to the Variance of a phenotype. Regardless of the validity of IQ as a measure of phenotype (something not necessarily accepted by many scientists), heritability does not measure the contribution of genes to a phenotype. As such it is a relative measure. When we can control for environment, then the genetic contribution to variance in a trait that is under both environmental and genetic influence will be high, when we can control for genes the environmental contribution to variance will be high for the same trait, the measurement is not a fixed, constant for any given trait, but varies depending upon the study design etc. The article is also incorrect in claiming that "Heritability is defined as the proportion of variance in a trait which is attributable to genetic variation within a population." Heritability is the proportion of variance in a traight that is attributable to genetic variation when we control for environment. This article seems to have been written by someone whith a pov to push who does not know what they are talking about. Alun (talk) 06:25, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

It is a pretty poor article, but that's not important here. -- The article is also incorrect in claiming that "Heritability is defined as the proportion of variance in a trait which is attributable to genetic variation within a population." -- That one is correct. You can estimate heritability by a number of methods, some of them don't involve controlling for environment, such as MZ twins reared apart. http://psych.colorado.edu/~carey/hgss/hgssapplets/heritability/heritability.intro.html --Legalleft (talk) 06:32, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

I'm sure it is possible to measure heritability without controlling for environment. But we are not discussing the estimation/measurement of heritability, we are discussing the definition of heritability.

Heritability refers to the genetic contribution to variance within a population and in a specific environment.

In this article Stephen Rose also states that heritability estimates are little more than an example of GIGO, which is the opinion of a reliable academic source and therefore citable on Misplaced Pages. Alun (talk) 07:32, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

That's not the same thing as "controlling" for environment as the term is commonly used, but rather a matter of the fact that the heritability of a trait is a function of the existing genetic and environmental factors in a population when you measure it. If the genes or environment changes (if the population changes), you can't necessarily say what the heritability is any longer. Also, one can cite Rose or Kamin or whomever, but they're opinions are extremely marginal. See Not in Our Genes. --Legalleft (talk) 15:39, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

Without controls no scientific experiment is ever valid. The measurement of heritability is clearly more applicable when the environments of the individuals under investigation can be assumed to be relatively uniform, it was invented for measuring crop yields, where environment can be relatively easily controlled. Likewise the measurement of environment can only be done when genetic factors are relatively homogeneous (or why bother to use identical twin studies? this is controlling for genetics). I don't know how the term "control" is "commonly used", but I do know how it is used in science and that's how I was using it. Alun (talk) 07:14, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

Proposal Three: "IQ and SES"

In the "Race" section above, I explain how for anthropologists races have nothing to do with biology. Anthropologists and sociologists do howeve recognize races as social constructions. What this means is that "race" is a marker of social differences. So if someone says that race may cause difference in IQ, they could be saying that social factors cause differences in IQ. Indeed, social scientists argue that to understand differences in IQ between races we have to look at non-biological stuff. By the way, we might want to include various achievement scores given to school children at different ages. In any event the book by Flynn is robably the state of the art in current research on the matter and would be invaluable.

James Flynn, What is Intelligence

But we should also just put the terms "IQ" and "SES," or even "race" and "intelligence," into search engines for these journals and see what we come up with.:

• Review of Educational Research
• American Anthropologist
• American Ethnologist
• Anthropology Quarterly
• Cultural Anthropology
• Current Anthropologist
• Journal of Anthropological Research
• American Journal of Sociology
• American Sociological Review
• British Journal of Sociology
• Journal of Historical Sociology

Again, I do not know what we would come up with - that is my whole point, this is unbiased - but whatever we come up with would reflect good solid scholarship.

I did a search of some anthropology journals and came up with this:

"Institutionalized Racism and the Education of Blacks" Arthur K. Spears Anthropology & Education Quarterly. Jul 1978, Vol. 9, No. 2: 127-136

Blacked Out: Dilemmas of Race, Identity, and Success at Capital High. Signithia Fordham . Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996. 411 pp.

"Social Stratification and the Socialization of Competence" John U. Ogbu Anthropology & Education Quarterly. Apr 1979, Vol. 10, No. 1: 3-20.

Minority Education and Caste: The American System in Cross-Cultural Perspective. John U. Ogbu .

"High-Stakes Accountability, Minority Youth, and Ethnography: Assessing the Multiple Effects" Kris Sloan Anthropology & Education Quarterly. Mar 2007, Vol. 38, No. 1: 24-41.

"The Comparative Motor Development of Baganda, American White, and American Black Infants" Janet E. Kilbride , , Michael C. Robbins , , Philip L. Kilbride American Anthropologist. Dec 1970, Vol. 72, No. 6: 1422-1428.

"The Collection and Analysis of Ethnographic Data in Educational Research" Stephen E. Fienberg Anthropology & Education Quarterly. May 1977, Vol. 8, No. 2: 50-57.

"Social Economic Status and Educational Achievement: A Review Article" George Clement Bond Anthropology & Education Quarterly. Dec 1981, Vol. 12, No. 4: 227-257.

Interrogating "Blackness": Race and Identity-formation in the African Diaspora Crosscurrents: West Indian Immigrants and Race. Milton Vickerman . New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 1999. xi + 2)1 pp.

Black Identities: West Indian Immigrant Dreams and American Realities. Mary C. Waters . Cambridge, MA, and London, UK: Russell Sage Foundation and Harvard University Press, 1999. xii - 413 pp.

I haven't read these so I have no idea what view they support- again, that is the idea of not cherry picking.

You can use this article, it needs help: Environment and intelligence. --Jagz (talk) 19:00, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

No, this can just lead to more confusion. Geneticists debating the heritability of IQ address, among other things, fetal environment. This is not about reproducing an arbitrary and unscientific distinction between genes and environment, this is about adequatly representing notable bodies of research and scholarly debates. There is a body of research (some of which i cite) that addresses social and economic status, this is much more precise than "environment". Slrubenstein | Talk 19:38, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

There's nothing arbitrary about distinguishing between genes and environment when it comes to population-wide individual variation (as compared to individual-level causation) -- unless you are generally criticizing the methods of behavior genetics. Also, while issues such as chorion and prenatal effects are discussed in the literature, you have to dig pretty deeply to hit that level of detail. At that level, the primary literature is too complex for a novice to summarize (or even catalog). Bouchard and McGue's massive review reported this on chorion :

The applicability of the equal environmental similarity assumption extends to the prenatal as well as the postnatal environment. In utero, twins can be distinguished in terms of whether they share a chorion, and thus have a single placenta. MZ twins can be monochorionic (MC) or dichorionic (DC) depending on the timing of their division; DZ twins are always DC. MC twins almost always share the same placenta and if this makes them more similar than DC and DZ twins we may have a specific example of violation of the trait-relevant equal environment assumption (Prescott et al., 1999). A small number of studies comparing very small numbers of MC and DC twins suggested that MC twins are more similar than DC twins on some, but not all, measures of mental abilities (Melnick et al., 1978; Rose et al., 1981). A greater number of small-sample studies (Brown, 1977; Welch et al., 1978; Sokol et al., 1995; Gutknecht et al., 1999; Riese, 1999), however, failed to replicate these chorion effects. Moreover, a recent, large epidemiological study (Derom et al., 2001) using a near-representative sample from the East Flanders Prospective Twin Survey could not replicate the specific effects previously reported and found no chorion effect on total IQ (rMC = .83, n = 175 pairs; rDC = .82, n = 95 pairs; rDZ .44, n = 181 pairs). This latter study did report a chorion effect for two different mental ability measures, but the effects were very small, prompting the authors to emphasize caution and the need for replication. Nevertheless, careful assessment of twin placentation at birth would be highly desirable and significantly improve the quality of twin studies. It would also be very useful to parents and physicians as some rare physical disease processes occur in MC twins that do not occur in DC twins (Machin, 2001). For these diseases chorion type is a trait-relevant environmental variable. Generally speaking, however, twins do not differ in terms of their disease related characteristics (Andrew et al., 2001), but see Phelps et al. (1997) for arguments regarding viral influences on schizophrenia, Phillips (1993) for arguments regarding placentation and the fetal origin of disease hypothesis (i.e., that adult-onset disorders are affected by in utero stress and trauma), and subsequent defense of the twin method by a number of investigators (Braun and Caporaso, 1993; Duffy, 1993; Leslie and Pyke, 1993; Macdonald, 1993; Christensen et al., 1995). An entire issue of the journal Twin Research was devoted to the fetal origin of disease hypothesis (Lambalk and Roseboom, 2001), but none of the articles dealt with behavioral phenotypes. Fortunately, inferences about the nature and existence of genetic and environmental influences on individual differences in behavior do not rest solely with twin studies....

Also in that review they critically discuss the Devlin et al Nature paper. That kind of analysis is beyond the scope of a wikipedia editor. Thus, a reliance on 2ndary sources is essential. --Legalleft (talk) 05:28, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

Proposal Four: How to deal with theories that are fringe among scientists but notable in popular culture?

I would propose additional single articles. So, for example one article on J. Philippe Rushton, that goes into great detail about his book and its reception. One article on The Bell Curve that goes into its arguments and the reception. (e.g. The Bell Curve Wars: Race, Intelligence, and the Future of America Steven Fraser , ed. New York, NY: Basic Books, 1995. 216 pp.)

The idea is simple: to comply with NPOV, we need a way to include notable views in Misplaced Pages while keeping fringe and pseudoscientific views out of articles on scientific topics/areas of research. Specific articles on controversial books seems like the most elegant way to accomplish this. After all, what is notable is the controversy provoked by the book - not the contribution of the authors' views to any scientific research. So let's have articles on those controversial books!

Discussion of four Proposals

It is my believe that the method I propose is the best method for producing NPOV and NOR compliant, truly encyclopedic articles that do justice to the range of actual scientific researchy. I have proposed a minimum of three, perhaps up to six or seven, articles that would together provide comprehensive comverage of these issues while avoiding all the problems that have made this article a collosal waste of time, and useless to our readers. Slrubenstein | Talk 00:38, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

One item that needs to be done once this article is unprotected is slap a Pseudoscience cat on it. This article is essentially a science article, so we should not give undue weight to fringe theories. The fringe theories should be mentioned only as a section called Popular but very unscientific theories (OK, we can clean that up), with verified and reliable references stating where they are mentioned, and certainly adding verified refutation of the fringe theories. OrangeMarlin 17:26, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

Pseudoscience is not a determination we should make without imposing our own POV. The point I've made repeatedly still remains: the views people find objectionable (for good reason) are still views that get coverage within peer-reviewed journals within the domain of IQ-testing. Yes much of the research is flawed, and is flawed in three fundamental ways; a lack of a clear theory of intelligence, poor understanding of the relation between IQ and intelligence and weak methodology in studying the differences. However much of those criticisms cannot be confined solely to those proposing a race-IQ link. Gardener's multiple intelligences, explanations of the Flynn effect, hypothesis behind SES and IQ, stereotype threat can all be regarded as weak science and arguably pseudoscience. This inevitable in a science which is still stumbling around in the dark. In short the above does not bring peace to the edit war. That edit war will only be resolved by including those views which do appear in referenced literature - no other solution is possible because those views easily meet the core criteria of Misplaced Pages which is VERFIABILITY - they are easily and comprehensively referenced. Consequently they can and will keep popping up without an editor engaging in vandalism. After all even if we cast the discussion in terms of SES (as indeed the historical discussion in the UK was primaily about I and social class) then a supporter of Jensen's view or proponent of the Bell Curve can still point to research which suggests that varitaions in SES may have a race/genetic origin. You need a better answer than that those views aren't popular. The danger is this issue metastatising into multiple articles.Nick Connolly (talk) 20:21, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

I must side with Nick on this point, that few researchers have actually called the "Race and IQ" studies actual pseudoscience (although they have been largely debunked, and called "fringe" repeatedly. Is there a Fringe Theory cat we could slap on this rather than a pseudoscience tag, just for the sake of complete honesty?--Ramdrake (talk) 22:34, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

Pseudoscience is a definition, much like scientific method defines science. It does not always require a citation to prove it so. However, I'm sure we can find one. The casual reader needs to know that this so called "theory" is in fact unsupported by anything scientific, but those who engage in it utilize a process called "pseudoscience." The anti-semites and racists will believe whatever they want, but our job is to present it in a manner so that the innocent bystander doesn't come to this article and think, "yeah, there's evidence that some race is dumber than another one." OrangeMarlin 23:59, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

In this case I'd regard that as a definite POV imposition on the article. The methodological problems with the Race IQ claims would extend to many areas of psychology. These claims lie within an academic discipline and within the limits of that discipline.The people who have proposed such links are not minor fringe figures within intelligence testing but figures of some note in their own right . The discussion (and debunking) of these theories has taken place within scholarly peer-reviewed journals. Whilst the race-IQ claims may (like holocaust denial) be motivated by racism and promoted by racist groups that doesn't mean that the race-IQ claims are of the same pseudo-scholarship as holocaust denial. Seperating our distaste for the views that underpin the claims for the disputed evidence for the claims is important if a stable article is to be created. I agree with Orangemarlin that the innocent bystander is the person we should be thinking of, but we don't want that same bystander to be swayed by claims that supposed evidence has been hidden. We aren't doing that innocent bystander any favours if they don't come away adequately briefed. Nor should we pretend that there is a slam-dunk counter-explanation that transcends the methodological flaws in Jensen et al's work. The reality is we don't know why IQ varies across groups or whether there are heridtary differences between groups or even how big those differences are. That gap in our knowledge means that the more race based theories aren't as thoroughly debunked as we might like. Pretending otherwise is an error.Nick Connolly (talk) 03:31, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

If it's any help, Francisco Gil-White is one of the few who actually called it "pseudoscience".--Ramdrake (talk) 00:28, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

Well, that works for me. Can we use it? OrangeMarlin 02:59, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

smile you could but be prepared for a meta-argument about the argument. Once the argument comes down to which is the mainstream position and which is the fringe position the other side aren't unarmed. The next step after that is the meta-meta-argument in which all and sundry argue about which bit of research about which bit of research is the mainstream position is the proper kind of research and so on... Nick Connolly (talk) 03:31, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

There is also the fact that Francisco Gil-White is also a somewhat fringy character in his own right. Since he is an anthropologist, maybe Slrubenstein would be more familiar with his works and the controversy about him. I'm no anthropologist myself.--Ramdrake (talk) 12:37, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

Nick Connolly is correct (in everything I've read from him about policy).. Picking up where his comment left off. You can't categorize an article as Pseudoscience when there isn't a signficant scholarly consensus that the topic is pseudoscience. Categories appear without annotations, so be careful of NPOV when creating or filling categories. Categories that are not self-evident, or are shown through reliable sources to be controversial, should not be included on the article; a list might be a better option. Misplaced Pages:Category. --Legalleft (talk) 03:53, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

Legalleft, there isn't a significant scholarly consensus that the "pro" side of research is pseudoscience, but there is an easily demonstrable scholarly consensus that it is sloppy science. That, and the fact that the one peer-reviewed journal which publishes a significant number of these studies Ingtelligence, has several Pioneer Fundees (including JP Rushton as the head) on its review board should speak amply for itself.--Ramdrake (talk) 11:31, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

There is little understanding in science now of the biology of race, what intelligence is, and the biology of intelligence. An article about race and intelligence is mostly speculation from both the environmental and genetic standpoint. It is my understanding that the AfD on this article showed that people do not want this article split up as they called for all sub-articles to be merged with this one. They also did not want this article deleted. The fact is that environmental factors only show their effects via genes and that people are genetically different, so trying to separate environmental factors from genetics is impossible. --Jagz (talk) 12:38, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

Nonsense, human variation (both physical and genetic) has been extensively studied. Biologists understand how variation is distributed within the human species, and have concluded that there is no biological justification for the subdivision of our species into subspecific categories. Our taxonomy is well understood and our biology has been more extensively studied than the biology of any other organism. Any claim that human variation is somehow not "understood" displays either a lack of knowledge or a fundamental bias. Obviously we don't know everything, but to claim little understanding is simply wrong. Alun (talk) 12:44, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

You shouldn't use the word nonsense any more, it is offensive. --Jagz (talk) 13:03, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

Jagz, no one here is saying that individual differences in IQ aren't at least partly genetic; in fact, there is good evidence that they are at least in part genetically driven. What most editors (and the majority of the scholars in related subjects) object to is introducing the notion of race, which in the human race species is entirely an empirical, social construct, and use it as a valid proxy for human genetic diversity. While there is good evidence for a genetic cause to individual differences in IQ, there is no direct evidence for group differences in IQ, much less racially-based. That a dozen or so researchers publish a gazillion papers trying to demonstrate that this isn't the case doesn't change the fact that mainstream science has oft deconstructed such arguments and found them faulty, even sloppy thinking.--Ramdrake (talk) 12:50, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

What about the AfD? Actually, I believe this article survived two AfDs. --Jagz (talk) 13:19, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

The AfD has nothing to do with this. In fact, several editors from the latest AfD thought the article needed to be rewritten extensively (some even from scratch). The AfD was not a license saying the article was balanced, NPOV or anything of the sort. It was just a consensus that the subject was noteworthy enough to be kept. It didn't say anything about how correct or incorrect the science behind this field of research is.--Ramdrake (talk) 13:35, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

The proposals essentially involve deleting an article with the name "Race and intelligence", do they not? The AfDs seemed to indicate that the consensus is to not delete this article. The AfD also seemed to show that people do not want the article broken up into sub-articles. No? --Jagz (talk) 13:59, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

No, the proposals essentyially involve a complete rewriting of the subject matter, and possibly a change of title, if appropriate. The need for a complete rewriting has already been raised several times in the different AfD. People didn't want the subject broken up into several different articles, but the proposal is to write this one as the fringe science that it is and to write another one on the legitimate science of IQ heritability studies. Not sure why you'd be confused here.--Ramdrake (talk) 14:11, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

• Here is my request for a rewrite of the article from last year. --Jagz (talk) 14:52, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

I am not sure Jagz's comments are useful - the proposals I made above make it clear that intelligence is heritable. Tere is no debate over that. There is some debate ove the actual heritbility, and an article should go into it. And whether one of us is interested in this or not, geneticists are debating the influence of fetal environment in twin-studies and this is highly relevant and we should cover that as well, t least in some article. Jagz brings up the AfD - old history, but maybe because he recently put in and RfC on the neutrality of this article and the overwheloming majority say it violates NPOV. An article with such NPOV problems either needs to be completely rewritten or replaced by other articles. At the time of the RfC there were no clear, workable alternatives. Let's see if can develop some. I have proposed three specific articles.

I also used the word "pseudoscience" which I now fear turns out to be a red-herring. If several constructive editors take issue with my use the word, let's just drop the matter, I take it back, okay? ersonally I do have serious qualms when psychologists start to make claims about fields of knowledge outside their own disciplinary expertise (e.g. evolutionary theory); I would be just as skeptical of an anthropologist making original claims about astronomy. But no Misplaced Pages article can suggest that an entire academic discipline is pseudoscience and that was not my intention.

Finally, about Gil White: disclaimer, I know him personally. Bracketing our personal relationship, I would say that his claims about psychology itself as being pseudosciece are fringe. In fact, he had a tenure track position in the University of Pennsylvaia's psychology department and one could say he is as much a psychologist as anthropologist. Be that as it may, he was dismissed from his position and much of his work is controversial. Did he call psychology pseudosicence in a peer-rviewed publication? If so tht may count as a reliable source and as long as we identify him as a controversial figure perhaps it could go in. But if it came from his website I would not include it.

Rather than argue about pseudoscience, perhpas others could start revising, reformulating, or building on my proposals? Slrubenstein | Talk 13:50, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

SLR, I have no more wish than you to argue about R&I research putatively being pseudoscience. Gil-White's comment about this was in his online self-published book "Resurrecting racism", so I have reservations possibly just as severe as you about including it. However, the question which is bugging me is this: how can we fairly, neutrally represent a field of research which (as my father used to say) is famous for being infamous? What I mean to say is that the volume of science dedicated to debunking the theories of Rushton, Murray, Lynn and co. is to the best of my knowledge larger than the even very prolific writings of these authors. If you also figure that many may also have found the theories unworthy of a dignified response, this is a field with far more debunkers than proponents, whether or not we want to call it pseudoscience. That is why I originally asked if there was a clear "Fringe theory" cat distinct from the pseudoscience category. The pseudoscience tag may not apply in all rigor, but reality commends that this be treated with a fair warning to the reader that this isn't seen by many as good science in any sense of the word. Constructive suggestions and comments most welcome.--Ramdrake (talk) 14:05, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

• SLR, you state, "Jagz brings up the AfD - old history, but maybe because he recently put in and RfC on the neutrality of this article and the overwheloming majority say it violates NPOV." It is unfair of you to publicly question my motives in this manner. --Jagz (talk) 14:09, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

Ramdrake, you write, "how can we fairly, neutrally represent a field of research which (as my father used to say) is famous for being infamous? .... a field with far more debunkers than proponents ...." I think we should skip the semantic argument over pseudoscience entirely and stick with the point that you so clearly make. I believe that in these cases, the matter is best served by articles on the specific controversy itself. If The Bell Curve is notable because it spawned loads of critiques, especially in trade presses or intended for popular audiences, and is not part of any notable scientific debate, I think it is too fringe to be included in any article on a scientific debate. But the controversy itself is notable. This is my fourth proposal: we have an article already on The Bell Curve; cover the controversy there. We have an article on on Race, Evolution and Behavior - cover the article there. This is a content fork: some articles cover controversial books (proposal four). My proposals two and three are meant to cover notable scientific debates. Slrubenstein | Talk 14:21, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

I don't see any merit in the kind of a priori rewrites being proposed. For example, the *precise* heritability of IQ in the US population (mostly from data on whites) has little importance to the scholarly debate regarding the cause of group differences. The solution -- there are similar, shorter-than-book length articles on this topic in the secondary and tertiary literature. Just model the article after them. Here are many from the external links section:

• APA Task Force Examines the Knowns and Unknowns of Intelligence
• Statement on "Race" and Intelligence. American Anthropological Association. Adopted December 1994.
• Mainstream Science on Intelligence. Intelligence, v24 n1 p. 13–23 Jan–Feb 1997
• James Flynn and Charles Murray debate – news summary
• June 2005 issue of Psychology, Public Policy, and Law, Vol. 11, No. 2.
  • Thirty Years of Research on Race Differences in Cognitive Ability J. Philippe Rushton & Arthur R. Jensen
  • There Are No Public-Policy Implications Robert J. Sternberg
  • What if the Hereditarian Hypothesis is True? Linda S. Gottfredson
  • Heredity, Environment, and Race Differences in IQ Richard E. Nisbett
  • The Cultural Malleability of Intelligence and Its Impact on the Racial/Ethnic Hierarchy Lisa Suzuki & Joshua Aronson
  • Wanted: More Race Realism, Less Moralistic Fallacy J. Philippe Rushton & Arthur R. Jensen
• Race, Genetics and IQ Richard E. Nisbett (PDF)
• The Inequality Taboo Charles Murray archived version
• The Black-White Test Score Gap (1998) online (page-image) version of ISBN 0-8157-4609-1

All one need do is *report* what's written in this articles and others like them. It should be fairly easy and most of the article content is already aimed in that direction. --Legalleft (talk) 18:24, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

Also, it's probably advisable to keep the level of technical detail to a minimum. The level of complexity reported in a magazine such as The Economist or Scientific American is probably where we want to limit most discussions. That itself should limit the agglomeration of esoteric details. --Legalleft (talk) 18:34, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

Legalleft, it seems you are making a priori judgments. I merely observe that there is a considerable body of research, including debate among scientists, cncerning the heritability of IQ. I think this encyclopedia should have an article providng an account of this research and debates. That is all. That this body of literature happens to address things you personaly are interested in, or that I personaly am interested in - or not - is neither here nor there. You seem to want to cherry-pick sources that address a qustion you are interested in. I want to avoid cherry-picking and write encyclopedia articles about (among other things) questions scientists are interested in. Slrubenstein | Talk 19:35, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

(1) My aim was less ambitious than that and (2) I appear to have misunderstood your suggestion. However, if I understand your suggestions correctly now, it means that there is very little take-away for this article. It also means that the point which I intended to make originally still stands: anything written by scientists about both race (widely-construed) and intelligence (widely-construed) should be written up, making as much use of journalistic style and the organizational structure of available source materials as possible. That means making as little use as possible of attempts at grand organizational schemes that presume one or another theory about what is true about the topic (this is what thought you were suggesting) -- just simple reporting, sub-topic by sub-topic. Lastly, (3) I wasn't saying that there shouldn't be articles in wikipedia about each of the topics you listed, just that this article isn't appropriate for all of the material that should be covered under each topic. --Legalleft (talk) 22:13, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

Yet another proposal

Based on Slrubenstein's ideas and above comments I think it is clear some forking is inevitable. Based on Ramdrake's comments and others there are clear concerns about undue weight and the unsoundness of much of the methodology in works that have advanced claims about Race & intelligence. However Legalleft and others have (IMHO) legitimately attempted to include in the article research that has been discussed in peer reviewed journals (if only critically).

• Suggest rename the article "Race and IQ" or perhaps with a modifier such as "debate" or "controversy" (though consider POV issues there also). (The current article and the Jensen et al position centres around IQ scores and the intelligence issue is speculative, so it is not imposing a POV to refer in the title to IQ rather than intelligence). The article then stands primarily as an overview of claims of a link between race, IQ and hence intelligence and how those views have been debated. This way the views of Jensen et al get their day in court but likewise the extensive debunking literature gets a sensible place to live within its proper context (i.e. journal articles explicitly criticising Jensen's views make less sense in a more general article about IQ and heredity). Many links already exist to the associated articles such as The Bell Curve and The Mismeasure of Man so some pruning can be done. I think this is pretty much in-line with what Slrubenstein has already suggested. The other articles that they suggested can then avoid being dragged into same edit-war situation by making this article the proper place to explain those issues which may be notable within IQ-testing but are fringe in comparison to a wider domain (eg anthropology, genetics or cognitive science). Nick Connolly (talk) 00:02, 25 March 2008 (UTC)
• Weak support -- I suppose that helps to emphasize the psychometric origins and emphasis of the discussion. No particular word choice is going to be perfect, however, and that change does bring certain problems. For example, "IQ" would tend to exclude some measurements that are otherwise relevant. Also, IQ itself is a "vehicle" in the language of Jensen (1998) not the "construct" of interest. I don't have any better suggestions. --Legalleft (talk) 05:34, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

Other measures wouldn't be excluded if given in the context of correlation with IQ.Nick Connolly (talk) 18:45, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

• it's better than what currently have TheRedPenOfDoom (talk) 05:38, 25 March 2008 (UTC)
• Comment Most of us agree that this so-called "theory" is bogus, and is unsupported by the vast wealth of research. It is notable, and it can retain it's current title. If you read Intelligent design, which is also a bogus theory, you'll note that it is accepted for what it is, an attempt by Christians to force feed an anti-science and anti-evolution stance on US schools. It is clearly stated what it is and what it is NOT in the lead. We aren't giving undue weight to the anti-science POV pushers by acknowledging that this issue has some unfortunate supporters. But with verified and reliable references, we must write most of the words debunking this theory logically. Most admins will support that effort, and keep the racists out of this article. OrangeMarlin 05:47, 25 March 2008 (UTC)
  • Obviously this is going to spin off topic, but it must be pointed out that this comment is almost completely inaccurate. The accurate bits are (1) intelligent design is pseudoscience and (2) public discussion of this topic does damage science. However, the black-white difference in performance on tests designed to measure cognitive abilities is one of the most precisely quantified value in all of psychology. It has been an active topic of research since at least the 1970s, and has spawned a massive body of research literature which has evolved over time. Moreover, there is much more to the topic than the very contentious issue of causal hypotheses, about which, for example, The Bell Curve had very little to say. --Legalleft (talk) 06:09, 25 March 2008 (UTC)
    • That was a bit insulting. So, in the spirit of insults, do you know anything about intelligent design? Apparently not, because it is also the subject of intensive research, most of which I personally dismiss, like I dismiss the research for this article, but that doesn't mean someone doesn't believe in it. And I would contend that psychology has about as much interpretation and no "black/white" differences as does religion. OrangeMarlin 14:36, 25 March 2008 (UTC)
      • I don't mean to be insulting, and thus used language like "inaccurate" rather than "wrong". However, your opinions are apparently not well informed. :) Intelligent design involves little to no actual research and is mostly obfuscation -- it has none of the character of normal science. The difference in average test scores by self-identified racial and ethnic groups in the US is a plainly observable and extremely well documented fact (also known as the Achievement gap when applied to "achievement" test scores), toward which much research has been directed -- ultimately with the aim of ameliorating whatever problems are causing the gaps. It is clearly controversial and people react strongly to all aspects of the topic, but that doesn't change the fact that this research operates as normal science (to the extent that any social science can be described as such). --Legalleft (talk) 15:55, 25 March 2008 (UTC)
        • I think the point here is NPOV. Legalleft says that ID research has none of the character of normal science and i am sure he believes it. But ID proponents sincerely believe that they are doing good science. Misplaced Pages cannot take sides concerning the sincerity of beliefs about right or wrong. That is why we have NPOV - so that views we judge differently can all be accomodated. In Misplaced Pages, content forks are allowed but not POV forks; all articles must comply with NPOV. My proposal was an attempt to create certain content forks that would facilitate coherent NPOV articles. Slrubenstein | Talk 16:17, 25 March 2008 (UTC)
          • • The difference between ID and this topic is that this one occurs within the subject domain and that subject domain itself has methodological flaws. 18:45, 25 March 2008 (UTC)
          • Right. Proposals 2 and 3 are definitely solid ideas, although I just assumed those topics were for the IQ article anyway. --Legalleft (talk) 16:31, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

Proposals 2 & 3

Reading through the above the discussion I think there appears to be consensus that Slrubenstien's proposal 2 (An article on intelligence and heredity) and proposal 3 (an article on intelligence/IQ and socioeconomic status) make sense and are basically uncontroversial. Perhaps those articles should be started, whilst the role of this one is still under discussion? Maybe once we agree on what this article isn't, there may be more consesnus on what it is. Nick Connolly (talk) 18:53, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

Article should present contemporary debate

As the article states, "The contemporary debate on race and intelligence is about what causes racial and ethnic differences in IQ test scores." The debate includes genetic and environmental factors and these points of view are presented in the article.

No, the debate does not include genetic factors; people who say so are fringe ... and so here we go again, Jagz insisting we keep the article an NPOV-violating, fringe POV-pushing mess. Why not give others a chance to work our way out of this mess with some better alternatives? Slrubenstein | Talk 12:43, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

So there you go again, criticizing someone for making a comment. --Jagz (talk) 13:38, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

So there I go again, criticizing you for making a disruptive and unconstructive comment. Slrubenstein | Talk 13:52, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

Slr, don't you just love the victim mentality? This article is NOT going to be much fun. OrangeMarlin 14:37, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

Can we keep the discussion on this page limited to the content of the article pls? TheRedPenOfDoom (talk) 14:52, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

The contemporary debate does include the issue of genetics as a causal factor, and has since at least 1969. The 1987 survey by Snyderman and Rothman suggests it was far from a fringe view at that time among those in IQ research. All of Flynn's work stems from an attempt to get around the heritabilty paradox that Jensen recognized. Flynn, Gottfredson, Turkheimer, and Ceci were discussing the topic in November 2007 , and there have been myriad public debates at various venues over the past few years, including the Flynn/Dickenson vs Murray debate at AEI and in the literature in 2006. --Legalleft (talk) 15:46, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

Secondly, the genetic hypothesis at least has the status for this topic that the multiregional hypothesis has for the evolution of modern humans. It matters less what the current vote-count is for one hypothesis or the other so much as the existence of evidence and arguments in both directions has shaped contemporary understanding. Moreover, the existence of theories such as the Dickens-Flynn model or Templeton's "Out of Africa again and again" theory make no sense unless you understand the background of competing theories. --Legalleft (talk) 16:06, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

Legalleft, I'd be cautious with the Snyderman and Rothman poll, as it has been called a push poll more than once. I'd rather stick to the APA statement on the Bell Curve to figure out where the mainstream opinion really lies. I wouldn't either say that the genetic hypothesis has a status comparable to the multiregional hypothesis (unless you can find a WP:RS which says so); I'd say we're considerably benath that in credibility.--Ramdrake (talk) 18:21, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

Every pro-genetic study has been spit or pissed on. --Jagz (talk) 03:55, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

Please keep your comments in civil terms. As I noted earlier, this topic is difficult enough without unnecessarily inflaming the discussion. Raymond Arritt (talk) 04:49, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

This topic has been getting discussed for over six years. Don't single me out. --Jagz (talk) 10:38, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

Then, please refrain from making unconstructive comments and you won't be singled out. Your comment on pro-genetic studies for example was unconstructive.--Ramdrake (talk) 10:42, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

Genetics determine hair color, eye color, height, weight, skin color and all anthropological features such as bone size and length, cranial shape and muscle distribution et cetera. It is just common sense that gentics also determine intelligence. If you deny that, you might as well deny the existance of DNA while you are at it. The only reason this is such a contentious subject is because of the high value we, the white culture, place on intelligence. It has been a defining mark of our race and culture for millenia. Therefore to us, questioning one's intelligence is seen as an insult, and politically correct folks henceforward seek to equate all man with the same intelligence. --Confederate till Death (talk) 10:44, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

POV pushing

• ]

"POV pushing is a term used on Misplaced Pages to describe the aggressive promotion of a particular point of view, particularly when used to denote the promotion of minor or fringe views. While calling someone a "POV-pusher" is always uncivil, even characterizing edits as POV-pushing should be done carefully. It is generally not necessary to characterize edits as POV-pushing in order to challenge them.

If you suspect POV-pushing is happening, please remember to assume good faith and politely point out the perceived problem either on the article's talk page or the user's talk page. If the problem persists, consider filing a request for comment, get a third opinion, or if appropriate, file a report at fringe theories noticeboard. There are other options available to resolve such situations explained at dispute resolution."
--Jagz (talk) 09:58, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

Not sure where you're getting at. Why are you quoting policy at us?--Ramdrake (talk) 10:36, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

WikiProject Neutrality

This is a possibility to help resolve the neutrality problem:

Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Neutrality aims for promotion of the neutral point of view (NPOV) guidelines as set out in WP:NPOV, removing bias from articles and helping to resolve POV-related disputes.

The goal of this WikiProject is to help to better establish Misplaced Pages as a legitimate encyclopedic source by removing bias from Misplaced Pages. Its focus will be on pages which contain visible bias towards some political or racial group, as this is the most flagrant form of NPOV violations on Misplaced Pages, however it endeavours to ensure that all articles are sufficiently neutral.
--Jagz (talk) 10:28, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

Jagz, tha latest RfC on this specific question returned an overwhelming consensus that this article isn't neutral. You were the only one thinking it was neutral enough. Now you seem to want to refer this article to another WP mechanism to ask the same question. Do you really expect it will return a different opinion? Or are you in fact forum-shopping in order to try to find someone who'll agree with you?--Ramdrake (talk) 10:36, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

Your post seems to be inflammatory so I will not reply. --Jagz (talk) 10:44, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

1. based on World distribution of the intelligence of indigenous peoples from Lynn (2006) p. vi
2. Thomas Volken, "The Impact of National IQ on Income and Growth."
3. Jones and Schneider 2005
4. Eric Wolf, 1982, Europe and the People Without History, Berkeley: University of California Press. 380-381
5. Cochran et al. 2005, p. 4
6. Lynn, , Mackintosh 1998, p.178)
7. Murray and Herrnstein 1994
8. Lynn 2001 pp. 67–69
9. http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0341/is_n1_v54/ai_21107572/pg_5

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