Talk:IQ and the Wealth of Nations

Wicherts et al on African I.Q.s, Lynn Thesis

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/01/100121155220.htm

Controversial Study of African IQ Levels Is 'Deeply Flawed'

ScienceDaily (Jan. 21, 2010) - The controversial study on African IQ levels conducted by psychologist Richard Lynn is deeply flawed. This conclusion is the outcome of studies by Jelte Wicherts, Conor Dolan, Denny Borsboom and Han van der Maas of the University of Amsterdam (UvA) and Jerry Carlson of the University of California (Riverside).

Their findings are set to be published in Intelligence, Personality and Individual Differences, and Learning and Individual Differences.

In an oft-quoted literature study conducted in 2006, Lynn concluded that black Africans have an average IQ of less than 70 (compared to an average western IQ of 100). Lynn suggested that these low IQs are indicative of a low intelligence level, claiming this offered an explanation for the low level of economic development in sub-Saharan countries.

Lynn's study is well known among psychologists, and has been referenced by academics such as Nobel laureate James Watson, and the authors of the controversial book The Bell Curve -- Intelligence and Class Structure in America (Richard Herrnstein and Charles Murray: Freepress, 1994).

African IQ scores prove flawed

Wicherts and his colleagues examined over 100 published studies, concluding that there is no evidence to back up Lynn's claims. Amongst other flaws, Lynn used selective data by systematically ignoring Africans with high IQ scores. The researchers also claim that African IQ test scores cannot be interpreted in terms of lower intelligence levels, as these scores have different psychometric characteristics than western IQ test scores. Until now, the incomparability of Western and African IQ scores had never been systematically proven.

The scientists point out that the average African IQ is currently comparable to the average level in the Netherlands around 1950. However, IQ scores in Western countries have risen sharply over the course of the 20th century. In view of this trend, Wicherts and his colleagues claim there are no reasonable grounds to conclude that sub-Saharan countries are poor due to the lower IQ scores of their populations. As it turns out, the average IQ of African adults is seeing a similar rising trend, which is expected to continue if living conditions in Africa improve in future.

Story Source:

   Adapted from materials provided by Universiteit van

Amsterdam (UVA).

Journal References:

[see below]

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Personality and Individual Differences
Volume 48, Issue 2, January 2010, Pages 91-96
doi:10.1016/j.paid.2009.05.028
Copyright c 2009 Elsevier Ltd All rights reserved.

Review

Why national IQs do not support evolutionary theories of intelligence

Jelte M. Wicherts, Denny Borsbooma and Conor V. Dolana

aDepartment of Psychology, University of Amsterdam, Roetersstraat 15, 1018 WB Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Received 16 February 2009; revised 19 May 2009; accepted 26 May 2009. Available online 24 June 2009.

Abstract

Kanazawa (2008), Templer (2008), and Templer and Arikawa (2006) claimed to have found empirical support for evolutionary theories of race differences in intelligence by correlating estimates of national IQ with indicators of reproductive strategies, temperature, and geographic distance from Africa. In this paper we criticize these studies on methodological, climatic, and historical grounds. We show that these studies assume that the Flynn Effect is either nonexistent or invariant with respect to different regions of the world, that there have been no migrations and climatic changes over the course of evolution, and that there have been no trends over the last century in indicators of reproductive strategies (e.g., declines in fertility and infant mortality). In addition, we show that national IQs are strongly confounded with the current developmental status of countries. National IQs correlate with all the variables that have been suggested to have caused the Flynn Effect in the developed world.

Keywords: Evolutionary psychology; Flynn Effect; Race differences

Article Outline

1. Introduction
2. Temporal constancy over the course of evolution?
3. Climate change
4. Changes in reproductive strategies
5. Migration and geographic distance
6. The temporal stability of IQ-scores
7. The many confounds of national IQ
8. Method
9. Results
10. Discussion
Acknowledgements
References

Corresponding author. Tel.: +31 205257067.

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Personality and Individual Differences
Volume 48, Issue 2, January 2010, Pages 104-106
doi:10.1016/j.paid.2009.08.020
Copyright c 2009 Elsevier Ltd All rights reserved.

Short Communication

Evolution, brain size, and the national IQ of peoples around 3000 years B.C

Jelte M. Wicherts a, Denny Borsboom a and Conor V. Dolan a

aUniversity of Amsterdam, Department of Psychology, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Received 22 August 2009; accepted 26 August 2009. Available online 18 September 2009.

Abstract

In this rejoinder, we respond to comments by Lynn, Rushton, and Templer on our previous paper in which we criticized the use of national IQs in studies of evolutionary theories of race differences in intelligence. We reiterate that because of the Flynn Effect and psychometric issues, national IQs cannot be taken to reflect populations' levels of g as fixed since the last ice age. We argue that the socio-cultural achievements of peoples of Mesopotamia and Egypt in 3000 B.C. stand in stark contrast to the current low level of national IQ of peoples of Iraq and Egypt and that these ancient achievements appear to contradict evolutionary accounts of differences in national IQ. We argue that race differences in brain size, even if these were entirely of genetic origin, leave unexplained 91-95% of the black-white IQ gap. We highlight additional problems with hypotheses raised by Rushton and Templer. National IQs cannot be viewed solely in evolutionary terms but should be considered in light of global differences in socio-economic development, the causes of which are unknown.

Keywords: Evolutionary psychology; Flynn Effect; Race differences; Brain size

Article Outline

1. Introduction
2. IQ avant la lettre
3. Brain size
4. The Big picture
5. Conclusion
Acknowledgements
References

Corresponding author. Address: Department of Psychology, University of Amsterdam, Roetersstraat 15, 1018 WB Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Tel.: +31 205257067.

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Intelligence
Volume 38, Issue 1, January-February 2010, Pages 1-20
doi:10.1016/j.intell.2009.05.002
Copyright c 2009 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

A systematic literature review of the average IQ of sub-Saharan Africans

Jelte M. Wicherts, Conor V. Dolan a and Han L.J. van der Maas a

a Department of Psychology, Psychological Methods, University of Amsterdam, Roetersstraat 15, 1018 WB Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Received 8 October 2008; revised 6 May 2009; accepted 12 May 2009. Available online 9 June 2009.

Abstract

On the basis of several reviews of the literature, Lynn [Lynn, R., (2006). Race differences in intelligence: An evolutionary analysis. Augusta, GA: Washington Summit Publishers.] and Lynn and Vanhanen [Lynn, R., & Vanhanen, T., (2006). IQ and global inequality. Augusta, GA: Washington Summit Publishers.] concluded that the average IQ of the Black population of sub-Saharan Africa lies below 70. In this paper, the authors systematically review published empirical data on the performance of Africans on the following IQ tests: Draw-A-Man (DAM) test, Kaufman-Assessment Battery for Children (K-ABC), the Wechsler scales (WAIS & WISC), and several other IQ tests (but not the Raven's tests). Inclusion and exclusion criteria are explicitly discussed. Results show that average IQ of Africans on these tests is approximately 82 when compared to UK norms. We provide estimates of the average IQ per country and estimates on the basis of alternative inclusion criteria. Our estimate of average IQ converges with the finding that national IQs of sub-Saharan African countries as predicted from several international studies of student achievement are around 82. It is suggested that this estimate should be considered in light of the Flynn Effect. It is concluded that more psychometric studies are needed to address the issue of measurement bias of western IQ tests for Africans.

Keywords: Group differences; Black-White differences; Flynn Effect; Race differences; Cross-cultural comparison; National IQ

Article Outline

1. Scholastic achievement surveys
2. A systematic review of the literature
3. Method
3.1. Search of studies
3.2. Our inclusion criteria
3.2.1. Norms
3.2.2. Standardized test administration of entire IQ test
3.2.3. No reported problems during testing
3.2.4. No measurement bias
3.2.5. Normal samples
3.3. Statistical analyses
4. Results
4.1. Draw-a-Man test
4.2. Kaufman-Assessment Battery for Children
4.3. Wechsler Scales
4.4. Culture Fair Intelligence Test
4.5. Other IQ tests
4.6. Meta-analytic analyses
4.7. Publication bias
5. Conclusion
Appendix A. Appendix
References

Corresponding author. Tel.: +31 205257067; fax: +31 206390026.

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Intelligence
Volume 38, Issue 1, January-February 2010, Pages 30-37
doi:10.1016/j.intell.2009.11.003
Copyright c 2009 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

The dangers of unsystematic selection methods and the representativeness of 46 samples of African test-takers

Jelte M. Wicherts, Conor V. Dolan a and Han L.J. van der Maas a

a University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands Received 13 October 2009; accepted 6 November 2009. Available online 3 December 2009.

Abstract

In this rejoinder, we criticize Lynn and Meisenberg's (this issue) methods to estimate the average IQ (in terms of British norms after correction of the Flynn Effect) of the Black population of sub-Saharan Africa. We argue that their review of the literature is unsystematic, as it involves the inconsistent use of rules to determine the representativeness and hence selection of samples. Employing independent raters, we determined of each sample whether it was (1) considered representative by the original authors, (2) drawn randomly, (3) based on an explicated stratification scheme, (4) composed of healthy test-takers, and (5) considered by the original authors as normal in terms of Socio-Economic Status (SES). We show that the use of these alternative inclusion criteria would not have affected our results. We found that Lynn and Meisenberg's assessment of the samples' representativeness is not associated with any of the objective sampling characteristics, but rather with the average IQ in the sample. This suggests that Lynn and Meisenberg excluded samples of Africans who average IQs above 75 because they deemed these samples unrepresentative on the basis of the samples' relatively high IQs. We conclude that Lynn and Meisenberg's unsystematic methods are questionable and their results untrustworthy.

Keywords: Systematic literature review; National IQ; Group differences in IQ

Article Outline

1. Introduction
2. The full database
3. Inconsistent rules to determine representativeness
4. What is representative?
5. Conclusion
Acknowledgements
Appendix A. Supplementary data
References

Corresponding author. Department of Psychology, Psychological Methods, University of Amsterdam, Roetersstraat 15, 1018 WB Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Tel.: +31 205257067; fax: +31 206390026.

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Learning and Individual Differences
Article in Press, Corrected Proof - Note to users
doi:10.1016/j.lindif.2009.12.001
Copyright c 2009 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Raven's test performance of sub-Saharan Africans: Average5 performance, psychometric properties, and the Flynn Effect

Jelte M. Wicherts a, Conor V. Dolan a, Jerry S. Carlson b and Han L.J. van der Maas a

a Department of Psychology, Psychological Methods, University of Amsterdam, Roetersstraat 15, 1018 WB Amsterdam, The Netherlands

b University of California, Riverside, United States

Received 19 May 2009; revised 19 November 2009; accepted 3 December 2009. Available online 16 December 2009.

Abstract

This paper presents a systematic review of published data on the performance of sub-Saharan Africans on Raven's Progressive Matrices. The specific goals were to estimate the average level of performance, to study the Flynn Effect in African samples, and to examine the psychometric meaning of Raven's test scores as measures of general intelligence. Convergent validity of the Raven's tests is found to be relatively poor, although reliability and predictive validity are comparable to western samples. Factor analyses indicate that the Raven's tests are relatively weak indicators of general intelligence among Africans, and often measure additional factors, besides general intelligence. The degree to which Raven's scores of Africans reflect levels of general intelligence is unknown. Average IQ of Africans is approximately 80 when compared to US norms. Raven's scores among African adults have shown secular increases over the years. It is concluded that the Flynn Effect has yet to take hold in sub-Saharan Africa.

Keywords: Black-White differences; Cognitive abilities; Cross-cultural comparison; Measurement equivalence; Measurement invariance

Article Outline

1. Introduction
2. Is average IQ of Africans really below 70?
2.1. Method
2.1.1. Selection bias
2.1.2. Search of studies
2.1.3. Exclusion criteria
2.1.4. Converting raw scores to IQ
2.2. Results
2.2.1. Raven's Standard Progressive Matrices
2.2.2. Coloured Progressive Matrices
2.3. Conclusion on the average IQ of Africans
3. The Flynn Effect
3.1. Flynn Effect in Africa
4. Measurement problems and psychometric comparability
4.1. Reliability
4.2. Convergent validity
4.3. Factor analytical results
4.4. Measurement invariance
4.5. Criterion validity in educational settings
4.6. Conclusion on psychometric properties
5. General discussion
Acknowledgements
Appendix A. Appendix

Converting raw scores to IQs

Appendix B. Appendix References

Corresponding author. Tel.: + 31 205257067; fax: + 31 206390026.

Request for comment

​​ Should this article as well as IQ and Global Inequality contain the national rankings from the books? Acadēmica Orientālis (talk) 20:54, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

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Additional information:

1. The list of rankings can be seen here: [1].
2. In late 2011, the list was factored out into an standalone article[2]. That article was later deleted by uninvolved parties after sparse AfD participation: [3]

aprock (talk) 18:45, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

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Misleading to state this as as "additional information" when you are an involved party. That a separate article containing the scores was deleted 5 years ago is irrelevant. Acadēmica Orientālis (talk) 18:48, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

The AfD was closed about a month ago, apparently, not 5 years ago. siafu (talk) 18:54, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

Yes, misleading title of the deletion discussion. Regardless, a separate "list" article containing only the scores from two books was clearly inappropriate but not what is discussed here. Acadēmica Orientālis (talk) 18:58, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

• Responding from RfC I have not read the article, but solely from this question which can be applied to all articles, it may be biased to include statistics from the subject (itself) if it can be found elsewhere. In otherwords, if you are sourcing the statistics from the subject (discussed) it may be biased to do so if the identical statistics can be sourced from somewhere else.Curb Chain (talk) 05:04, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

Perhaps you should have read the article and taken the time to understand the issue before making a comment. The statistics in question are not about the subject (such as book sales numbers) but from the subject, and are highly significant to its premise. Whether the statistics reflect reality is controversial, whether they are actually found in the book, and what they are stated to be in the book, is not.Rangoon11 (talk) 14:38, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

But that's exactly why they have no place (well, one of the reasons) in the article. They're a violation of WP:PRIMARY since they present controversial content of their source in a way which suggests factual accuracy. So perhaps, you're the one who should read up on Wikipedia's policies and guidelines.VolunteerMarek 18:28, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

• Comment What is contentious about this? Are these national rankings controversial? Excessively long? In violation of some other policy or guideline? I'm having a hard time seeing why these rankings would not be acceptable to be included in an article about the book in which they appear. siafu (talk) 18:26, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

They're a violation of WP:PRIMARY, they're a violation of WP:NPOV (in that they present sketchy "research" from the book as factual info), they're a vandal magnet and yes, they do violate WP:MOS.VolunteerMarek 18:28, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

Incorrect. WP:PRIMARY is about primary sources discussing another topic, e.g. personal diaries as sources on historical events. It does not apply to this, an article about a source itself. Part of the responsibility of this article is accurately represent the argument put forward in the source, and also to accurately represent its treatment in other sources. Doing the former does not just allow the inclusion of these statistics, it requires that they be at least paraphrased and sourced. As for NPOV, this is also a canard: if the book actually puts forward these tables, it is not a matter of perspective to say so. Interpretting them or presenting them as fact in the voice of wikipedia (as opposed to the voice of the source) would be an NPOV violation-- is someone proposing that? Lastly, you'll have to be more specific regarding the WP:MOS, since it's not obvious where the violation is. siafu (talk) 18:37, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

The source can be adequately presented and summarized without the table. The table is primary because in this case the underlying document is the book itself. What we would need here is a third party source - a secondary source which discusses the table in detail - and even then we would run into the NPOV problem which results from the form of presentation.

Hence, POV is NOT a canard. While we should describe the book and summarize its argument, we MAY NOT, in the interest of NPOV, legitimize or give support to the argument. And as is painfully obvious, putting the table up does exactly that - it gives support to this so-called "research". Obviously, all the dozens of IPs and non-IPs who come to this article and change the table to make their country "smarter" or countries they don't like "dumber" perceive the table as cold hard fact. Likewise the support from some editors for inclusion appears to be simply due to the fact that they see it as an efficient way of pushing their POV (that POV being "this book is teh awesome!"). And that is because the table format itself is constraining in a way which does not lend itself to a NPOV presentation.

The reason for that is simply that in a table format it is impossible to present the information in sufficient detail. In text, the methodology, the statistics, the outside reviews (secondary sources) can all be mentioned and enumerated. But the table constrains the information to be just the numbers itself.VolunteerMarek 04:00, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

Putting the table in is not an endorsement of its content, but an endorsement of the fact that the book contains this content, which it does. It's trivial to present it this way as well: "As presented by the authors, the rankings are..."; this is essentially how it is done in other contexts as well. The fact that it's subject to IP vandalism doesn't seem like it's helpful in making this decision, as framing content to avoid vandals seems like a rather dubious motivation. siafu (talk) 21:08, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

Again, the book is a literature review and thus not primary. While certainly controversial, lots of peer-reviewed scientific papers have used the scores and they correlate very well with student achievement tests. Wikipedia has many similar national rankings:

Acadēmica Orientālis (talk) 18:39, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

none of those charts are concocted by one person making guestimates based on data from surrounding countries. 75.73.44.170 (talk) 02:56, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

None of the data tables included those nations but only those nations for which there was data. Acadēmica Orientālis (talk) 03:13, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

thats even worse! the author created a bogus "data set" to work from and wikipedia tries to whitewash ? NO FRICKEN WAY75.73.44.170 (talk) 12:35, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

• do not include the huge chart is an eye magnet that will draw unsuspecting readers eyes away from the text that shows the third party review that the "data points" themselves are complete garbage thus leaving the impression that these are some type of valid comparison. In addition, the numbers are a vandal magnet. And in addition there is copyright concerns from lifting the whole crux of the authors argument and dumping it wholesale into the article. This is not at all like having a chart of the wavelengths of various colored light or any other scientific data because the unique set of specifically chosen "data" (and in fact "data" personally created by the author when actual data didn't exist). 75.73.44.170 (talk) 02:56, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

Yes, this is exactly correct.VolunteerMarek 04:00, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

Regarding copyright, data cannot be copyrighted. The data list is no different from many other similar data lists Wikipedia has in other articles. Acadēmica Orientālis (talk) 03:13, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

if the chart consisted of "data" in the normal sense of the word, but it does not. It is in large part a group of arbitrarily selected numbers particularly placed by the authors = the definition of a creative work which is indeed covered by copyright. 75.73.44.170 (talk) 00:41, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

Note to others: there are obvious differences with "similar data lists" on Wikipedia - they are not similar. They are based on secondary sources and are not used to legitimize very controversial topics. There *may* be a few of these lists which are also problematic, but that's obviously the WP:OTHERSTUFF argument, a fallacy. Also, I seem to recall that a proposal to move the table to a separate article was on the table once, but then the article itself was deleted. Hence, in a way the inclusion of the table here is just POV-forking of a deleted article.VolunteerMarek 04:00, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

Again, the book is a literature review and thus a secondary source. Ranking nations regarding for example democracy is extremely controversial and regularly condemned by the regimes not given good results. See Freedom in the World (report). Having a separate list article only containing data is not allowed by Wikipedia policy but that is not the issue here. Again, Wikipedia has numerous similar data lists as noted above.Acadēmica Orientālis (talk) 04:41, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

the book cannot be a secondary source about itself. by definition, it is a primary source for this article.75.73.44.170 (talk) 13:38, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

The book is more than a literature review. The IQ scores for all the nations are novel research done book, and as such are a primary source for those scores. If it were not a primary source for the list of scores, they would exist in some other source. They do not. aprock (talk) 04:44, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

That is not how literature reviews works. All literature review analyze and draws some conclusions from the primary studies. They are not just a collection of quotes from the primary studies. Such conclusions cannot be found anywhere else. Literature reviews and their contents are still secondary sources. Acadēmica Orientālis (talk) 04:48, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

The whole line of argument is entirely fallacious - and whether the book is a literature review or a purely independent work is irrelevant - as the list in itself is not being presented as either accurate or not, but as highly significant content within the work which is helpful to understanding its core premise. In just the same way that the web sites or annual reports of companies are wholly acceptable sources of information for purely factual infomation about the subject (such as organisational structure, financials, purely factual historical narrative), the subject of this article is a wholly acceptable source for purely factual information about it.

Any analysis which is added to this article concerning whether or not the list is accurate should of course be cited from third-party sources, but that is an entirely separate issue. Rangoon11 (talk) 14:38, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

This is a good summation of the actual policy and guideline view on this issue. siafu (talk) 21:09, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

• Exclude list A violation of WP:PRIMARY, the list is an eyemagnet that draws attention away from the article. Providing the list adds no value to the article, aside from it's use to push POV. Hipocrite (talk) 15:50, 9 February 2012 (UTC)
• Comment

I am unwilling to get mixed up in a topic of marginal interest to me personally, when it can raise hackles as dramatically as this one does. So I am ignoring the factual details of the article subject matter. Instead, as far as I can tell, the essential point at issue is the quality of the of the sources cited in terms of the principles WP establishes, and nominally demands, especially when wikilawyers begin to peddle their preferred views.

1. The question of misleading presentation (of charts, graphis, etc) is nothing new in WP and elsewhere. If some editors reckon the contentious presentation can be toned down or even deleted without depletion of factual content, go ahead and start a fight if that is what it takes. If the dust settles, problem solved. If not, issue another, more tightly focussed, RFC dealing with the presentation only.

2. The question of valid citation is no novelty either. The arguments in favour of exclusion so far seem to me adequate for exclusion. This does not mean that the material is intrinsically unacceptable, let alone wrong, but it does put the ball in the court of the inclusionists, which is where the ball normally is to be found. It is up to such inclusionists to find more substantial, less assailable, citations, or await a new generation of publication of unimpeachable citations. It is not enough to say: "Don't say rude things about my existing sources." If it is possible to present a reasonable criticism of the sources, it is better to replace them instead of arguing the toss, or at least to support them with extended refs or citations until you have something incontrovertible. And if nothing incontrovertible is available, tough luck! What else is new? JonRichfield (talk) 08:29, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

Are you arguing that the data may not be correct and therefore should be excluded? Wikipedia does not aim to decide what is the truth. As noted above there are many controversial national rankings regarding things like democracy and corruption in Wikipedia. See for example Freedom in the World (report). Inclusion of these rankings does not mean that Wikipedia endorses the rankings as correct. Rather, other criteria like notability applies. The rankings in this article are notable and have been used in many scientific, peer-reviewed journals. Acadēmica Orientālis (talk) 11:15, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

I apologise for misleading wording; I am agnostic concerning the quality of the data. When I said: "... as far as I can tell, the essential point at issue is the quality of the of the sources cited in terms of the principles WP establishes..." it would have been better to say something like: "...as far as I can tell, the essential point at issue is the quality of the citation of the sources in terms of the principles WP establishes..." Those who are complaining about the citations seem to be dissatisfied with them and have been urging reasons for their dissatisfaction. Unless both sides are willing to bring it down to a persistent exchange of spittle and ink (which I hope they are not) or to an exchange of violent physical encounters (which I certainly hope they are not), the most obvious approach is to present alternative (or, if the existing material is as good as you say it is, supplementary) citations in a format or tone that will persuade the unpersuadable. WP may not decide what is the truth, but that is not the issue; we all (which arguably implies WP as well) want the arguments for and against any proposition presented in such a mode that the truth, if known, will be clear to reasonable parties reading the articles, or where it is unknown, in such a mode that interested parties at least can assess the arguments and uncertainties for themselves with as little prejudice as may be. One (of many) possible source of confusion could be inadequate, inappropriate, or badly presented citations. Another could be stubborn resistance to adequate citation, to which one possible response sometimes is crushing citation. Of course, sometimes opposing parties prefer conflict, but there is not much I can do about that. Does that help to clarify my previous comment? JonRichfield (talk) 16:57, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

The content was longstanding, highly relevant, entirely properly cited within the requirements of WP policy, and removed without consensus. Everything else is frankly bluster.Rangoon11 (talk) 18:00, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

Well, as I said, I am agnostic. Not my field anyway, though I am not necessarily unsympathetic. If you think it is as clear as that then it seems to me that your next step is to go to arbitration, where I for one will not be, for the reason I gave. If you fail to make your point, you will not be the first to fall foul of contentious or PC topics and the firefights they engender. Good luck, whoever most nearly has right on his side in this case. JonRichfield (talk) 18:27, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

• Comment After further reflection, I found this even more confusing. So, to those invoking WP:Primary: What is the violation of primary here? From a naive perspective, if a book cannot be used as a source on what is in the book itself, in principle, then it seems that this brings up a number of serious problems with sourcing anything at all. Basically, this would require, for each source, another source to indicate that the first source does actually contain what it is purported to contain. This just pushed it back one level, though, because these "secondary" sources couldn't be sources for what they contain either. siafu (talk) 18:28, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

This part may be: "Primary sources that have been reliably published may be used in Wikipedia, but only with care, because it is easy to misuse them." On my computer, when included the chart under question takes up 6 screens worth of space - simply the chart itself. All of the actual content of our article takes up only 3 1/2 screens - so the content lifted directly from the primary source is almost twice as big. The article is about the book IQ and the Wealth of Nations. For the reader, coming to the encyclopedia to find out about the book we provide a summary of the content and the thesis of the book IQ_and_the_Wealth_of_Nations#National_IQ_estimates and as required, a number of secondary sources analyzing the content an impact of the book (and the contents of the chart) IQ_and_the_Wealth_of_Nations#Reception_and_impact. Adding the content of the chart does not in anyway help the reader understand the subject of the article, the book, in any way that the text does not. In fact, because the chart has always been placed first, it drives the scientific third party analysis that the contents of the chart are pure garbage those additional 6 screens from view. Casual readers coming to this article will see a 6 screen chart and often be led to believe that the contents of the chart is somehow encyclopedic, when it is most assuredly NOT. 75.73.44.170 (talk) 02:01, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

If I'm reading your comment correctly, it seems that the objections are not based on WP:PRIMARY or even WP:NPOV, but rather just stylistic issues related to the size of the table relative to the text. AFAICT, the tables are basically the substantive conclusions of the book, and if there's an agreement in principle that including information from the book when discussing the book and its thesis neutrally, then I think this discussion could probably move forward in a more substantive way. For example, would it be acceptable to include a truncated version of the table, including, say, the top ten and bottom ten? This would surely take fewer than six screens (it's more like 4 screens as it was on my laptop, btw). It could also be moved down to the bottom of the article, or made into an expandable table made collapsed by default so as not to overwhelm the text. 16:28, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

Including representative values is more than reasonable, but should be done in the body of the text, not as a table. Including the entire table violates the WP:WEIGHT section of WP:NPOV. With respect to WP:PRIMARY, this book is the original source for the synthesized national IQ scores. As such, care must be taken to make sure the the content included is not misused. Including the entire table contrary to WP:NPOV and WP:TABLES, is misuse. aprock (talk) 19:38, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

It seems a bit difficult to bring WP:WEIGHT to bear, since the article is about the book itself, and not about the issues raised by the book per se. It's not a matter of POV whether or not the data is in the book, or whether or not the data is part of or a result of the thesis put forward by the authors. What would the balancing POV be? That these two facts are not true? Certainly, care should be taken to not misuse or interpret the data in any way using the voice of wikipedia, but that is a question of the accompanying text, not the table itself. The argument involving WP:TABLES is certainly valid, however, but this is not so much a point of principle as a point of style. siafu (talk) 21:40, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

• Exclude list There is no encyclopedic value to including the entire list. It is a violation of WP:WEIGHT policy and the WP:TABLE guidelines. Specific cases can and should be discussed in the body of the text as context requires. aprock (talk) 19:38, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

Please explain how these policies are supposed to be violated. There are numerous similar data tables in Wikipedia:

Acadēmica Orientālis (talk) 19:43, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

That is a classic WP:OTHERSTUFF fallacy. As has already been said numerous times, yes, in some of these cases of "similar data tables", these should be removed as well. In some other cases, they shouldn't. Here it should. Please stop engaging in the tendentious WP:IDIDN'THEARTHAT practice, which is disruptive.VolunteerMarek 10:00, 19 February 2012 (UTC)

WP:WEIGHT is wholly irrelevant as the table is not a viewpoint but a reproduction of content from the book in a wholly factual manner. That might be a relevant policy if this was an article simply about IQ and race/nationality, but it isn't. It is an article about a single book. WP:TABLE is 1. not a policy but a manual of style and 2. contains nothing relevant to this discussion.

I would support the table being made collapsible purely to make the page more easily navigable. Rangoon11 (talk) 19:52, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

Your argument that WP:WEIGHT is wholly irrelevant makes no sense. The scores generated by the authors and presented in the book do in fact represent their viewpoint. If the scores were factual, there wouldn't be any controversy surrounding the article. Suffice it to say, the poor methodology used makes it clear that the scores are not factual, but are a mishmash of other data. As a simple example, see the text for discussion about the score fabricated for South Africa. aprock (talk) 19:58, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

The scores are based on a literature review of other studies. All literature reviews draws some independent conclusions and may perform various mathematical calculations on the composite results of the studies. The reviews are still reviews and secondary sources. Inclusion in Wikipedia does not mean that Wikipedia accept that the scores are factually correct anymore than that applies to other controversial rankings. See for example Freedom in the World and the Freedom_in_the_World#Evaluation. Great controversy but Wikipedia still has the scores and rankings. The same applies to for example Economic Freedom rankings. Really irrelevant for inclusion, since Wikipedia does not judge truth but rather use criteria like notability which certainly apply, but if you want to discuss how accurate they are, even some of their worst critics like Wicherts et al. acknowledge that except for sub-Saharan Africa the scores correlate very well with international student assessment tests. Acadēmica Orientālis (talk) 20:13, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

That is a classic WP:OTHERSTUFF fallacy. As has already been said numerous times, yes, in some of these cases of "similar data tables", these should be removed as well. In some other cases, they shouldn't. Here it should. Please stop engaging in the tendentious WP:IDIDN'THEARTHAT practice, which is disruptive.VolunteerMarek 10:00, 19 February 2012 (UTC)

Your response here indicates that you're not familiar with the methodology used in the book. I suggest you review both the book, and some of the peer reviewed papers critical of it and similar studies. As a launch point, allow me to suggest: http://wicherts.socsci.uva.nl/wicherts2010.pdf. aprock (talk) 20:19, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

Let me quote what these authors wrote : "these four studies appear to validate national IQs in other parts of the world, they do not appear to support the national IQs in sub-Saharan Africa".[4] So even if they disagree regarding sub-Saharan Africa, the results are supported elsewhere. But again, Wikipedia does not judge truth and inclusion of claims in Wikipedia is not an official stamp of approval by Wikipedia. Rather, criteria like notability apply. Again, Wikipedia has many other similarly controversial data rankings of nations. See my earlier comment above. Acadēmica Orientālis (talk) 20:29, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

That is a classic WP:OTHERSTUFF fallacy. As has already been said numerous times, yes, in some of these cases of "similar data tables", these should be removed as well. In some other cases, they shouldn't. Here it should. Please stop engaging in the tendentious WP:IDIDN'THEARTHAT practice, which is disruptive.VolunteerMarek 10:00, 19 February 2012 (UTC)

I'm not at all sure what point you're making here. The source makes it clear that the table represents the research of the authors and isn't factual data. Thusly we can dispose of your "it's just review data" canard. aprock (talk) 20:33, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

That is one view regarding the data. Many other researchers have accepted the data as valid and has used them in numerous peer-reviewed scientific studies. It is not the purpose of Wikipedia to decide who is right. WP use other criteria like notability. Again, Wikipedia has many similar national rankings and data tables which are often controversial and whose factual accuracy are disputed. Acadēmica Orientālis (talk) 20:41, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

That is a classic WP:OTHERSTUFF fallacy. As has already been said numerous times, yes, in some of these cases of "similar data tables", these should be removed as well. In some other cases, they shouldn't. Here it should. Please stop engaging in the tendentious WP:IDIDN'THEARTHAT practice, which is disruptive.VolunteerMarek 10:00, 19 February 2012 (UTC)

Your statement in no way contradicts the notion that the table represents the research, conclusions, and viewpoints of the authors. aprock (talk) 20:48, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

The same could be said regarding secondary review articles in general. They are not just a collection of quotes from the primary studies but draw conclusions. The same could also be said of all the other national rankings and data tables, often very controversial and disputed by some, which are presented in other Wikipedia articles. Acadēmica Orientālis (talk) 20:56, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

That is a classic WP:OTHERSTUFF fallacy. As has already been said numerous times, yes, in some of these cases of "similar data tables", these should be removed as well. In some other cases, they shouldn't. Here it should. Please stop engaging in the tendentious WP:IDIDN'THEARTHAT practice, which is disruptive.VolunteerMarek 10:00, 19 February 2012 (UTC)

• Do not include. I don't see this as the black and white issue that many of the commenters are presenting it as. The question, to my mind, is an editorial judgment: The article is about a book. Does the value of the list in helping the reader understand what the book is about (and the criticisms discussed) outweigh the distraction of having such a long table in the article. Although a judgment call, I don't think this is a call -- the descriptions already in the article do an excellent job of discussing the IQ "data" used in the book. The data itself adds almost nothing. Although I hesitate to call the numbers in the table "statistics", The following discussion from the WP:NOT is somewhat relevant: "Excessive listings of statistics. Long and sprawling lists of statistics may be confusing to readers and reduce the readability and neatness of our articles." This long table definitely detracts from the readability of the article. If the ultimate consensus is to include it, I'd put it at the very end. As an aside, although I agree with their conclusion that the table should be excluded, I disagree with the reasoning of those who are citing the policy against WP:OR, WP:WEIGHT, or WP:NPOV, none of which apply to this table in the context of this article. I also disagree with the commenters who are trying to apply the criteria of notability to the table to support its inclusion, or argue that the table is useful in and of itself. The only legitimate rationale for including this table in an article about the book is its usefulness in explaining the book. If the table has some independent usefulness to a different topic (an article on IQ, for example, or one on factors determining national weath), then notability, reliability etc. as to the issues in those articles would come into play, but not, IMO, here.--Sjsilverman (talk) 18:24, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

The same argument could be applied to numerous other Wikipedia articles containing national rankings and data tables. Are you arguing that these should also be removed? Acadēmica Orientālis (talk) 18:41, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

That is a classic WP:OTHERSTUFF fallacy. As has already been said numerous times, yes, in some of these cases of "similar data tables", these should be removed as well. In some other cases, they shouldn't. Here it should. Please stop engaging in the tendentious WP:IDIDN'THEARTHAT practice, which is disruptive.VolunteerMarek 10:00, 19 February 2012 (UTC)

To elaborate (and in response to those who say that the table has independent usefulness), a table of data may or may not have value in itself. Thus, an example of List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nominal) is a perfectly valid article. That same table wouldn't however, belong in a particular book about national GDP's, even if the book were the source for the table. I don't believe that the table in this article could stand on itself as list of countries by IQ, because it doesn't appear to be reliable. But the place for that discussion, would be in the context of that article. Here the question should just be whether the table contributes or detracts from discussion of the book. And the more I look at the article, the more convinced I am that it doesn't.--Sjsilverman (talk) 02:13, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

• Include These data are widely used in cross-national econometric studies. It's relatively easy to scrape data from WP, and really inconvenient to check the book out of the library, and scan the tables. So I really appreciated that someone went to the trouble to create the list--just as I appreciate all of the many great data tables in WP.--Anthon.Eff (talk) 19:56, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

It's ... really inconvenient to check the book out of the library: Personal convenience/usefulness is not a policy rationale for inclusion. aprock (talk) 20:35, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

There's a fair amount of support here for the notion that WP should be useful to readers (e.g., Wikipedia:Make articles useful for readers). I am simply saying that I found the list useful--a lot of R users are scraping data off of WP, so all of these lists are useful.--Anthon.Eff (talk) 21:27, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia is an encyclopedia with one purpose being making information easily available. All sourced information in Wikipedia can be found somewhere else with varying degree of inconvenience.Acadēmica Orientālis (talk) 21:29, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not merely a collection of factiods. This particular article is about a book - the contents of the article need to explain to the reader about the book. The long list of of arbitrary numbers selected by Lynn does not help the reader understand the book unless they carefully dive into the inner workings of the authors mind. IQ_and_the_Wealth_of_Nations#Reception_and_impact gives the the average reader pretty much everything they need to know about the book in a much better and faster manner. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.73.44.170 (talk) 06:07, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

Again, Wikipedia has many other controversial national rankings and tables in other articles. Should they also be removed? Like those for Freedom in the World? Acadēmica Orientālis (talk) 08:23, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

That is a classic WP:OTHERSTUFF fallacy. As has already been said numerous times, yes, in some of these cases of "similar data tables", these should be removed as well. In some other cases, they shouldn't. Here it should. Please stop engaging in the tendentious WP:IDIDN'THEARTHAT practice, which is disruptive.VolunteerMarek 10:00, 19 February 2012 (UTC)

If they are out of scope of the article they appear in or do not provide encyclopedic of the subject YES THEY SHOULD BE. 75.73.44.170 (talk) 12:42, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

Why should the rankings be out of scope? They are an important part of the book. Regarding encyclopedic importance they have generated much debate and have been used in many peer-reviewed papers. 13:19, 17 February 2012 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Acadēmica Orientālis (talk • contribs)

Asked and answered several times. Please stop. 75.73.44.170 (talk) 14:55, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

• Do not include per 75.73.44.170 above, particularly about copyright. We shouldn't be replicating so much content. If this were data it would be in other sources. Further, this article is about the book, not about the book's topic. For this article, the book is a primary source. Tom Harrison ^Talk 14:31, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

Data cannot be copyrighted and Wikipedia has numerous similar data tables and national rankings which are often controversial. See for example Freedom in the World (report). Acadēmica Orientālis (talk) 14:37, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

That is a classic WP:OTHERSTUFF fallacy. As has already been said numerous times, yes, in some of these cases of "similar data tables", these should be removed as well. In some other cases, they shouldn't. Here it should. Please stop engaging in the tendentious WP:IDIDN'THEARTHAT practice, which is disruptive.VolunteerMarek 10:00, 19 February 2012 (UTC)

data cannot be copyrighted, but this is NOT "data" - it is a collection of numbers arbitrarily selected and particularly placed by the authors -a purely creative work that IS copyrighted. 75.73.44.170 (talk) 14:52, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

The IQ scores were calculated from numerous IQ tests in different nations not done by the authors. Certainly not arbitrary. Certainly not more arbitrary than, say, the data in Freedom in the World (report) which are picked by Freedom House in an unclear process based on unclear judgements on the degree of democracy in a nation. Acadēmica Orientālis (talk) 15:09, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

That is a classic WP:OTHERSTUFF fallacy. As has already been said numerous times, yes, in some of these cases of "similar data tables", these should be removed as well. In some other cases, they shouldn't. Here it should. Please stop engaging in the tendentious WP:IDIDN'THEARTHAT practice, which is disruptive.VolunteerMarek 10:00, 19 February 2012 (UTC)

Does not seem to have been said numerous times until you added this message numerous times to the text. WP:OTHERSTUFF is primarily about article deletion which is not the case here. Just to clarify, I will not add the material to the article so long there is not a consenus for this. I hope for more input by uninvolved editors.Acadēmica Orientālis (talk) 12:40, 19 February 2012 (UTC)

LOL. "we see an edifice built on layer upon layer of arbitrary assumptions and selective data manipulation. The data on which the entire book is based are of questionable validity and are used in ways that cannot be justified." They also wrote that cross country comparisons are "virtually meaningless."

That is one view. There are many others, such as many peer-reviewed papers that accepted have used the scores, or studies finding high correlations with international student assessment tests such as the Programme for International Student Assessment and Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study.[5] Acadēmica Orientālis (talk) 17:02, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

Its beyond my ability to continue to assume as having good faith intentions of improving the encyclopedia anyone who continuously makes arguments for treating that assemblage of numbers as anything other than the pile of crap that it is. 75.73.44.170 (talk) 02:46, 19 February 2012 (UTC)

• do not include. All that detail about individual IQ scores defocuses from the article topic—the book itself; if included, it becomes a vandalism magnet; including the detailed list is arguably a copyright problem. OTOH, if reading the article online I would like to be able to peruse the detailed list online—and it is available in an online source cited in the article. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 04:01, 19 February 2012 (UTC)

Regarding copyright problem, this has been discussed here: Wikipedia_talk:Copyright_problems/Archive_14#Copyright_for_large_tables_of_data. Your point regarding the online availability of the data from IQ and the Wealth of Nations is interesting but I do not think there is an online source for the more recent and more important data from IQ and Global Inequality. Acadēmica Orientālis (talk) 13:09, 19 February 2012 (UTC)

• Comment: Okay, let's shed some light on the copyright issue here. In Feist v. Rural, the landmark case in this area of copyright law, the test for originality (and hence copyright protection) was decided as the presence of a "creative choice of what data to include or exclude, the order and style in which the information is presented, etc." This was then applied in CCC Information v. Maclean and CDN v. Kapes, which found respectively that projected used car values and project collectible coin values were copyrightable. For example, one summary of the decision in Kapes is given as "The court came to a similar conclusion [to that in Maclean] that a compilation of wholesale prices of collectible coins was copyrightable because the author analyzed the different sources of information, excluded information thought to be unreliable or inaccurate, and extrapolated predictive prices." It seems to me on this basis that the copyright issue here must be thought through very carefully. I am not an expert on the table being discussed here, but from reading the discussion, it seems to me that the key issue is whether the table was extrapolative (copyright) or basically mechanically produced with little thought to weeding out bad data (no copyright). I shall leave that more knowledgeable about this specific table to decide, but I would lean towards the latter interpretation. - Jarry1250 ^{[Deliberation needed]} 14:52, 19 February 2012 (UTC)

Oh there was lots of thought given to weeding IN bad data. 75.73.44.170 (talk) 23:20, 19 February 2012 (UTC)

Is that your personal editorial WP:POV, or do you have a WP:V source supporting that? The article is about the book, not the data, and WP:OR by the book's authors is allowable. Including the data in the article is an invitation to weeding-in of bad data by WP:VANDALs. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 00:29, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

have you read IQ_and_the_Wealth_of_Nations#Reception_and_impact? if you havent, it makes interesting reading, but I will highlight one of the reviews that we quote: "an edifice built on layer upon layer of arbitrary assumptions and selective data manipulation. The data on which the entire book is based are of questionable validity and are used in ways that cannot be justified." its not just me.75.73.44.170 (talk) 01:31, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

I'm not saying that it's just you. Inclusion of material such as what you quoted above, well supported in the article and having plenty of topical weight in an article about the book, is great (see WP:V and WP:DUE). Expressing an editorial judgement on behalf of Wikipedia in an article, regardless of how strongly held the opinion behind that judgement is or how well informed that opinion might be, is not great. Expression of such judgements in an article would conflict with WP's WP:NPOV policy, and this talk page exists to provide space for editors to discuss changes to its associated article, not to discuss personal opinions about the book which is the topic of the article (see WP:TPG). Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 02:01, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

my statement was in response to the question about whether the contents of the table are merely a restatement of some data fields or whether they fall under the "creative construction" covered by copyright. the quote does not specifically state "the table is copyright" but it does go to the point that others see the specifically constructed nature. 75.73.44.170 (talk) 03:30, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

If the data are wrong, then the best approach would be to make the data easily available for others to examine, rather than suppressing them. Lynn and Vanhanen may not be completely correct in their conclusions, as indicated by this study, which shows that controlling for health makes IQ an insignificant predictor of GDP. IQ data in that study could well have been scraped from WP. To me, that suggests that WP provides a service in achieving truth on this and other contentious topics, precisely because it makes data more easily available. Therefore, I would like the table to be present.--Anthon.Eff (talk) 03:45, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

• Include. The list was an extremely useful part of the article. I imagine it was what a lot of our readers came to this page looking for. The reasons given for removal are tenuous at best (in particular: 'it might be vandalized'....). TheTrunchbull. (talk) 14:40, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

articles about entertainers that include their upcoming concert schedules are useful and something that users may come to the wikipedia article to find, however, that is not what wikipedia's encyclopedia articles are for. 75.73.44.170 (talk) 01:01, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

• Do not include. I don't think the table is needed or even helpful in conveying what this book is about and the place of this book in contemporary scientific racism. futurebird (talk) 06:49, 21 February 2012 (UTC)
• Exclude per Aprock and others. This book is highly controversial - it is the controversy rather than the book's scholarly quality that justifies there even being an encyclopedia article on it. To present data from it out of context gives undue weight to the chart that serves only to advance a POV rather than to inform readers about the nature of the controversy. Slrubenstein | Talk 12:31, 21 February 2012 (UTC)
• Include I'm reversing my position! And these are my reasons:

1. Wikipedia does not shy away from controversy, does not take sides and is not afraid to offend! The material is, admittedly, controversial and stirs strong emotions. The (heated) arguments against the inclusion reflect the passionate disapproval of the book by some commentators. But this is not a valid criterion for exclusion.

2. Wikipedia is not a scientific journal, presenting only what's been "peer reviewed". Therefore, the arguments about the subject matter being "unscientific" have mo merit. Once again, notability decides.

3. Moreover, the opinions expressed by 75.73.44.170 and other editors ("garbage", etc) are clearly personal points of view that have no place in the current discussion. (FWIW, I happen to strongly dispute the book's findings and have written on the subject elsewhere.)

4. The book is notable, if not notorious, precisely for its claims that nations can be categorized hierarchically in terms of IQ. Irrespective of the scientific worthiness of those claims (something to which, as we established above, Wikipedia is indifferent), there has not been, before that book, such a categorisation of nations. At the center of the notability/notoriety of the book is this categorisation. That it would not be shown anywhere in Wikipedia is unthinkable, in encyclopaedic terms.

Prosposal: Create a separate article, wikilinked from the section National IQ estimates, in which the lists are to be extensively quoted.-The Gnome (talk) 23:14, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

Well, I was waiting for the onslaught of comments, which never came. I support your proposal, Gnome. I think there is a bigger issue here for WP: more and more people are empowered to do data analysis, with R or other tools, and WP provides such a wonderful resource in its data tables. For cross-national data (the present case) the data would be even easier to use were there some standards regarding country identifiers (best option: require all tables to have a field with ISO_3166-1_alpha-2)--I would hope that someone notify me if the discusion on this issue ever comes up. Anyway, two of us agree on this. Does anyone seriously oppose? --Anthon.Eff (talk) 04:38, 15 March 2012 (UTC)

I can support this as being a big step forward on the present situation of the data being entirely censored from WP. My firm view is that the table should never have been removed from this article however. Rangoon11 (talk) 19:44, 1 April 2012 (UTC)

Request to add back the list of I.Q scores

Honestly, I don't see the commonsense or logic to add an map showing "I.Q statistics from 2002" which is less informative than the list ( that someone removed) which already showed way better and accurate information that displays the number of I.Q scores in each countries from 2002. And their both basically the same thing, only difference is the list was way more accurate and informative on statistics. How exactly do we know which country has the highest I.Q to lowest I.Q? please stop vandalism and reducing accurate information. (And sorry for my english). WarriorsPride6565 (talk) 6:51, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

The section directly above this is a detailed discussion about whether the table should be included. You can make your opinion made known there and read other editors reasonings 75.73.44.170 (talk) 00:42, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

The map should not be included for the same reason as the table. Two wrongs don't make a right and having two inappropriate images is not "better" than having neither.VolunteerMarek 00:49, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

Hello, I would just like to add my vote FOR re-inserting the two lists. The data is very useful and furthermore tends to tally with the research conducted by Rindermann, which is based on international standardized tests that no-one should have an issue with. In my observations, arguments against appear to be politicized - i.e., they show the "wrong" results, hence they should be suppressed. --SublimeWik (talk) 03:11, 13 July 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia does not engage in copyright violation. See Talk:IQ_and_the_Wealth_of_Nations#Copyright_in_lists. -- The Red Pen of Doom 07:05, 13 July 2012 (UTC)

WHY is an open encyclopedia, whose stated goal is to "compile the sum of all human knowledge into a Web-based, free content encyclopedia" attempting to REMOVE content? I stumbled upon this today, and I'm baffled as to why a legit table with useful knowledge would be removed? All the sourcing is correct, there are two easy-to-read columns for 2002 and 2006, and yet it's been removed for what reason? It's much easier to read the information from a table than a cluttered graphic, AND there are competing articles with this wikipedia entry which show the exact same tabled information. I'll be adding this content back, and once someone states an actual reason as to why we shouldn't allow it, then we can discuss it here. --68.100.142.201 (talk) 04:14, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

Removal of maps

Could we get an explanation for the removals of the maps? Obviously some of the stated reasons for the removal of the list does not apply. A map does not attract vandals and there is no possible copyright issue. The issue of "truth" is not something that Wikipedia aims to judge so an inclusion in Wikipedia is not a endorsement of correctness of the national IQ scores. Rather, the scores has caused widespread debate both inside and outside academia and have been used in many peer-reviewed studies (such as a number of studies finding high correlations with several international student assessment tests and there are many studies examining how other factors are associated with the national IQ scores [6][7])so they are notable which is a criteria for inclusion. Acadēmica Orientālis (talk) 05:16, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

It is pure censorship, sinister and extremely worrying. Wikipedia should not be governed by the thought police. There is no coherent and logical reason for the removal of this content.Rangoon11 (talk) 15:55, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

I also strongly oppose any kind of censorship. Just because reality is more bleak than what you want it to be is not a reason to hide facts of a scientific nature. Yes, reality can be quite offensive. However, the computer on which you edit Wiki would not exist had a few brave men not gone against politically-correct worldviews (like that of the Inquisition back in the day). If you want to prove Lynn wrong, the proper avenue is to go to Africa and measure the IQs of people there yourself, and present your data to the world - not to hide his findings for fear they might offend others.--Wyqtor (talk) 08:04, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

This article exists because of the controversy surrounding the book and Lynn's use of data, in a highly questionable manner, in order to prove his point. Any "reality" is purely of Lynn's making. —ArtifexMayhem (talk) 20:45, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

Any evidence for that claim?Rangoon11 (talk) 21:48, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

Try this or the other sources found in the article itself. —ArtifexMayhem (talk) 04:02, 18 May 2012 (UTC)

That is a book review, an interesting read but not a piece of evidence, and it is clearly pushing a certain narrow viewpoint. And many of the premises within it are really rather curious. For example, what is the definition of "middle class" - it is a wholly unscientific concept. Are "working class" people in China and Japan and South Korea supposed to have a lower IQ than those in the "middle class"? Or an IQ the same as "working class" people in Africa? Why do different racial groups within countries have markedly different IQ scores, with for example a very large gap between Askenazi Jews and blacks in the US?

We are still left with the key point that information which is very key to understanding the topic of this article - the actual IQ results - is being withheld from readers as if they are children who might be given bad dreams. By all means let's have a detailed discussion in the article on the merits of both the actual collection of the IQ data (which I think most would agree was imperfect), and on the analysis given in the book about the relationship between IQ and national wealth. And in that we can also mention alternative theories such as that given in the book review about the size of the middle class.

But please let's not practice censorship in WP, and try to shy away from things which we may find uncomfortable.Rangoon11 (talk) 14:35, 18 May 2012 (UTC)

From WP:CENSOR: Discussion of potentially objectionable content should not focus on its offensiveness but on whether it is appropriate to include in a given article. None of the rationales given for not including the data have relied on offensiveness. Your repeated attempts to imply that the data was removed because it was offensive are hollow, pointless, and verging on disruptive. aprock (talk) 20:23, 18 May 2012 (UTC)

edit request

That the chart of national estimates of IQ be removed.

Per the previous discussions, there has been no consensus to indicate that the inclusion of the numbers: 1) provides additional encyclopedic information about the subject of the article - a book which put forth a widely discredited theory, and in fact due to the length and visual eyemagnet of the huge chart obscures that fact which is the most notable feature of the book 2) does not to a casual reader present the discredited information in a way that appears that Wikipedia is endorsing it 3) does not violate copyright as a very significant portion of creative method of arriving at the numbers. -- The Red Pen of Doom 16:18, 29 June 2012 (UTC)

I'm new here, but while it's fairly obvious, I suspect it might be desirable to spell out that the table with bold heading "IQ estimates given in the book" (down to heading "Special cases") should be removed because it is reproducing key points from the book (such reproduction does seem at least unethical, although I don't know about the copyright situation). Johnuniq (talk) 02:22, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

yes, that is the portion that should be removed. -- The Red Pen of Doom 03:00, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

re copyright see this [8] and then IQ_and_the_Wealth_of_Nations#National_IQ_estimates and then IQ_and_the_Wealth_of_Nations#Criticism_of_data_sets -- The Red Pen of Doom 03:07, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

Note: The table was flagged as Copyvio here, and the table was removed by clerk and closed at Wikipedia:Copyright_problems/2012_April_13 after removal. --Tgeairn (talk) 03:36, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

Copyright in lists

Lists of uncreative fact are not copyrighted in the U.S. However, one must be clear that a list is "fact" and not speculation. See Wikipedia:Copyright in lists. There is ample evidence that this list is not purely formulaic, including that the authors did not use consistent standards even within their own work: "In some cases, the IQ of a country is estimated by averaging the IQs of countries that are not actually neighbors of the country in question. For example, Kyrgyzstan's IQ is estimated by averaging the IQs of Iran and Turkey, neither of which is close to Kyrgyzstan."

The copyright question, of course, can be overcome in the same way that all copyright issues are overcome - by seeking and obtaining permission. Wikipedia:Requesting copyright permission gives some recommended text; it's generally a good idea to start with the publishing house, as this is a service they're used to. That would leave the editors of this article needing only to assess other inclusion factors, since the copyright barrier would be removed. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 12:42, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

A redirect for discussion

National IQ and National iq have previously or currently directed to this article. Those redirects have been nominated for discussion at Wikipedia:Redirects_for_discussion/Log/2012_July_10#National_IQ. -- The Red Pen of Doom 18:47, 10 July 2012 (UTC)