Talk:Race and intelligence

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Worldwide View tag

I removed the worldwide view tag. Ramdrake added it back in and noted "Still needs more worldwide literature." I am fairly familiar with the literature on this topic. No important "worldwide literature" is missing from the article. So, the tag should go unless Ramdrake can cite some specific books and articles that are missing. (He does not need to add them to the article himself. I, and others, will do that. But he can't simply assert that something is missing without providing specific examples.) David.Kane (talk) 13:13, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

It's been over a day since you asked about this, and nobody has provided an example of worldwide literature that's missing from the article, so I think the tag can be removed. --Captain Occam (talk) 22:11, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

May I remind you that Wikipedia is under no deadline? I'm still assembling refs on this.--Ramdrake (talk) 22:17, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Most elements of Wikipedia are under no deadline, but WP:TAGGING states that tags shouldn't be left on articles indefinitely if nobody is providinig a justification for their inclusion. "If an argument on the talk page has been made as to the reason for the tag, but someone still feels that the tag is inappropriate, he or she should explain the reasoning on the talk page. If there is no reply within a reasonable amount of time (a few days), the tag can be removed." --Captain Occam (talk) 22:41, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

If Ramdrake says he is assembling refs, it is important for us to wp:AFG that this is the case. The above response can be perceived as wp:Wikilawyering. T34CH (talk) 23:17, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Fair enough. But in the interest of fairness: tagging without actionable criticism can be perceived as tag bombing to promote a point of view. If Ramdrake has a case - and I'm assuming he does - he can easily rectify the matter within a few days. --Aryaman (talk) 23:25, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

From your edit, it seems you are proposing to remove the tag now and replace it later. Can you wait a few days and AGF as T34CH asked?--Ramdrake (talk) 23:28, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

(Assuming the question is directed at me:) If a person thinks a tag is needed, then, assuming good faith, they have a good reason for adding it. In this case, you said that the literature was not "worldwide" enough. It is safe to assume you're basing that on some kind of knowledge as opposed to a hunch or gut instinct, i.e. you personally know of some literature which is not included at present. I think the above editors are simply indicating that, if you know of literature which is missing, you should add it. If you can't, then one must assume that you were mistaken, and such a one would be justified in removing the tag. Of course, you should be given ample time to do so. But a few days really is enough in my opinion. Thanks, --Aryaman (talk) 23:53, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

It has been 4 days, so I have removed the tag. If anyone would like to revisit this issue, please feel free to. Also, anyone with knowledge of research articles (whether from outside the US or not) that have not been included should feel free to add them. David.Kane (talk) 12:21, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

Aprock, I notice you've just put the tag back. How long do you think we need to wait for its presence to be justified before it can be removed? WP:TAGGING says that "a few days" is a reasonable amount of time. It certainly shouldn't be there without justification for more than a week.

Fairly soon now, this discussion will become so old that it will be moved to the discussion archives. If Ramdrake has not replied by that point, it will become too late for him to do so, because archives aren't supposed to be modified. I hope you'll agree it's not reasonable that after a tag is challenged, it would continue to remain in the article for so long that the person who wants it there fails to justify it within the maximum amount of time that Wikipedia's format allows for replies on talk pages. --Captain Occam (talk) 00:58, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

I went through my old list of WW references. Turns out that many of them were integrated since in the article. However, a friend of mine was kind enough to send me these also:

[1][2][3][4][5][6][7]

Sorry for the delay, but I'm in the hospital most days these last couple of weeks, dealing with ESRF and related issues. Therefore, I don't have as much time for this as I used to.--Ramdrake (talk) 01:04, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the references. Good luck with your health issues. I will review these citations. If any of them seem useful and relevant, I will add them to the article. (But note that we already have 100 or so references, so I won't be adding them to just to add them. And, of course, other editors are free to add them (or delete them) as they see fit.) Once I have done so, I will delete the tag. David.Kane (talk) 01:21, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

David, the question isn't whether all the refs we find are in the article or if there are too many refs already (not really a valid arguing point in any situation that I can think of). The question is whether the topic is addressed from a worldwide view or not. It would seem to me that the case has been made that the article is US centric. That means the article should be developed to remove this bias. Simply integrating the refs above (presumably wherever they fit) would not solve that problem. The tag currently serves to inform readers that they should not assume the article is fully representative of the world view on issues surrounding race and intelligence. T34CH (talk) 18:26, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Relative to what ideal? Using such a standard, one could reasonably apply that tag to almost every article in Wikipedia. Now, obviously, this being English Wikipedia, there is a bias toward sources in English. I believe that this article is "representative" of world views on this topic. To show that it is not, you must provide examples of specific views that it does not represent (and make a case that this are worth including in an article that is already on the long side). Am I unreasonable to be concerned about WP:Tag bombing in this case? Note also WP:OVERTAGGING: "It is very rare that more than two or three tags are needed, even on the worst articles." If the Worldwide tag were the only one for this article, it might be reasonable to keep it. But there are 3 others, all more important/relevant, in my view. David.Kane (talk) 15:45, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

Let's consider a specific (hypothetical) example> I don't know Chinese, but I am happy to believe that there are articles in the Chinese academic literature about race and intelligence, articles that address the issue from a non-US centric focus, perhaps comparing the intelligence of Chinese and Koreans. If someone reads Chinese, knows this article, and wants to use the information in this article with an appropriate citation, then great! More power to them. But the article does not merit a Worldwide tag until this happy event (for the academic literature in China, Japan, Malaysia, Brazil . . .) occurs. David.Kane (talk) 15:49, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

It has been 10 days since this discussion started and 4 days since my last comment. Does anyone object to removing the Worldwide tag? David.Kane (talk) 12:33, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

10 days in which a lot of other issues have been discussed. Why not wait until we all come around to that issue rather than to keep pressing this single issue? I don't see that this issue is any more important than the rest.--Ramdrake (talk) 15:30, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

It does not matter whether you (or I) see this issue as more or less important than any other issue. Is this tag justified or is it not? If you believe that it is, then you should engage in discussion about it. Tags must be defended. In particular, you must provide an argument for overruling standard Wikipedia practice that "It is very rare that more than two or three tags are needed, even on the worst articles." If you do not have the time and/or inclination to debate this now, no worries. We can simply remove it and come back to the topic a week or a month or a year from now. David.Kane (talk) 19:39, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

I just strongly object to this philosophy of "work on it, or else..." The case has been made that this article lacks a worldwide view. Currently, editors are engaged resolving other issues. Your demand that this issue be adressed now or else you're going to remove the tag doesn't strike me as appropriately constructive behaviour, especially under the current circumstances.--Ramdrake (talk) 19:47, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

Outline

I think the outline of the article is very convoluted. As suggested above by Aprock, I think one great addition would be to discuss current consensus up front as described by the most appropriate lit reviews. The current outline is very unclear (e.g. are "test score differences" and "genetic and environmental factors" not contemporary issues???), mislabeled (e.g. the 1970s is "history") and misleading (e.g. the majority of academia seems to be criticizing those who hold the strongest hereditarian beliefs, but having a "criticism" section suggests the opposite). Even the "external links" section needs a lot of attention (e.g. the "review papers" are not review papers).

I suggest a format roughly as follows:

• Academic consensus based on lit reviews
• Discussion of the major issues
  • Issues in discussing race
    • Historical definitions of race, Social interpretations of race, Race and genetics, Racial realism
  • Issues in discussing intelligence
    • Triarchic theory of intelligence, Theory of multiple intelligences, Social intelligence, Emotional intelligence,
  • Issues with the use of IQ tests for making such determinations
    • Heritability of IQ, IQ testing environmental variances, etc etc
  • Statistics issues
• Evidence of environmental factors affecting intelligence
  • Testing bias (e.g. Chitling Intelligence Test and BITCH-100
  • Effects of health
    • Health and intelligence, Race and health, Ethnicity and health
  • Effects of culture
    • Minnesota Transracial Adoption Study
  • Effects of differences in education (parents' level, local funding, etc etc,)
    • TIMSS (showing how school culture can affect test scores)
  • Cognitive/social psychology (e.g. self-fulfilling prophecy, stereotype threat)
  • Institutional racism
  • etc etc
• Evidence of genetic factors affecting intelligence
  • As related to individuals (Race and genetics)
  • As related to populations

There are other issues that might be worth mentioning, such as Scientific racism and Racialism. Much of the 3rd level headers are just examples and sources of information, not a full outline. How does this look to others? T34CH (talk) 16:48, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

I agree that redoing the outline is important, but I worry that it will require a lot of meta effort. One way to break down the effort is to agree to a future outline here on the talk page, and then work incrementally on the article page, adding missing sections, rewriting required sections and eliminating redundant, or non-relevant sections. In building a future outline, I think we should just start at the highest level where consensus should be easier to build. So I might suggest:

• Academic consensus
• Discussion of the major issues
  • Issues in discussing race
  • Issues in discussing intelligence and IQ
  • Statistics issues
• Evidence of environmental factors affecting population IQ
  • Effects of health
  • Effects of culture, education, ses
  • Institutional racism, castes
• Evidence of genetic factors affecting intelligence
  • As related to individuals (Race and genetics)
  • As related to populations
• History
  • prior history
  • recent history
  • current viewpoints

Even that may be too fine grained to achieve a starting consensus, but I think coarse to fine is the way to go here. Aprock (talk) 16:59, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Agree. Nice outline. Alun (talk) 17:10, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Also agree, with the caveat that it may be changed by consensus as appropriate.--Ramdrake (talk) 17:23, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Nice outline. I like the discussion of major issues right upfront because that seems to be what appears most talked about, the social issues surrounding this kind of thing. --Nealparr ^{(talk to me)} 18:21, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

One concern about this outline is that it doesn't leave much room for history. Putting it at the end of the article may be reasonable, or possibly creating a separate article and referring to it here. It seems like a large enough topic to warrant it's own subject, and different enough from current understanding that we probably want to separate the two topics. Aprock (talk) 22:14, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

I was just about to say the same thing regarding History. I think an inherently controversial topic such as this one needs to be presented in its historical context. Also, the history of a controversy should be something editors can agree upon and work together to improve, as it mostly revolves around more or less concrete events with little room for commentary. This might help to repair some of the damage that has been done recently in the collegiality department. However, I think it would be best to expand the History section considerably before considering a split-w/-summary-type move. --Aryaman (talk) 22:23, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

I agree about the article needing some space to discuss history. There are also a couple other elements that I think it ought to include:

1: Somewhere, we ought to mention what the actual average tests scores are. Perhaps it could go in the "academic consensus" section. (Everyone agrees on what the test score difference is, even if they don't agree on its cause.) Since the explanation of this data is the central point in this controversy, the data itself ought to be somewhere.

2: Somewhere we need to mention the viewpoints of various researchers about this. The article currently does this in two parts: the "genetic hypothesis" section mentions Jensen, Eysenck and Cattell as supporting this viewpoint, and the "viewpoints" section lists 15 researchers who support this viewpoint (although oddly omitting Cattell) and seven who support the environmental hypothesis. At the very least, the two lists of researchers who support the genetic hypothesis should be combined into one. --Captain Occam (talk) 22:34, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

I agree that there should be a discussion of actual test results. One might put a broad description in results in the Academic Consensus section, with more detailed information in the issues area, probably in intelligence/IQ area, but maybe it's own subsection. With respect to viewpoints, I think that should generally be wrapped up into a History section. I've added that to the outline above, keeping in mind that the outline is currently fluid. Aprock (talk) 22:39, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Agree to the history. Test results, no opinion. Viewpoints of individuals, I disagree that it should be in here. The reason I'm opposed to listing of individual's view points is because this is an overview article, meant to be written in WP:SUMMARY style. The articles devoted to those view points are the proper place for a list of individuals who agree with it and their views. We also run several risks related to WP:UNDUE, that is, giving non-notable or less notable view points more weight than they deserve. --Nealparr ^{(talk to me)} 22:47, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

If folks are generally in agreement with the idea that more needs to be done on the History section, would it be in order to suggest that editors discuss literature which could be used for such a section, i.e. identify solid, neutral, secondary reviews of the history of this controversy? The neutrality of such sources might be an issue which requires careful consideration, but identifying possible sources should be a relatively straightforward matter, should it not? Perhaps a new talk section could be created for listing candidates for inclusion. --Aryaman (talk) 23:00, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

I agree that the history of the debate might be useful, but it may be difficult to get right without overshadowing the rest of the article (as it does now). Putting it at the end is a decent stop-gap. The test scores of course should be mentioned because that's what all the fuss is over in the first place. That should have gone without saying that you have to talk about the scores in the IQ section. Aprock makes an excellent appoint above by suggesting that we start with a spare outline and work from there. As for a list... that could become very misleading as not every researcher has explicitly published their personal view. There may be selection bias in compiling such a list. T34CH (talk) 23:06, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Setting aside for a moment the issue below of naming names, can we assume we have consensus to begin reformatting the existing text to fit the suggested outline? That much does seem uncontroversial to me given the positive comments from everyone thus far. I do think we should wait a day or two so that we're proceeding with an abundance of caution... so that there may be no doubt that we have consensus. T34CH (talk) 00:35, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

I think so. --Nealparr ^{(talk to me)} 00:36, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

Although I approve of the suggestion to clean up the article, I would recommend that we create a draft for the new version in someone’s userspace, rather than trying to immediately make these changes to the article directly. Individual sentences in this article have been so contentious, it seems like it could easily be a nightmare to try and edit the entire article at once. --Captain Occam (talk) 00:50, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

You may have misunderstood Occam. I suggest moving sentences around to conform with the proposed outline, not writing new sentences. Writing an entirely new draft was one of the old suggestions. I don't think that getting consensus to get consensus about consensus is productive. T34CH (talk) 00:58, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

Moving sentences around would be fine, but if there was any content that you were thinking of actually removing, it might be prudent to obtain consensus about that first. --Captain Occam (talk) 01:52, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I would very much like to see outline editing be separate from content editing as well. Maybe we should all try to set aside content issues over the next couple of days and work on getting something that is in the general shape of the outline (although certain sections would be missing). Aprock (talk) 03:03, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

List of supporters

"Selection bias", that's the point I was trying to make with the potential WP:UNDUE problems. Thanks. I was going to say, if you list off supporters of position A, and list off supporters of position B, you get into pissing contests of which list is longer. Say you listed off five supporters of position A and five supporters of position B (because that's all you could find that wrote a paper), but an entire scientific body agrees with position A and states that position B is unproven, you run the risk of giving position B greater weight than it deserves. Fortunately, summarizing the positions avoids all of that. --Nealparr ^{(talk to me)} 23:13, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

I humbly disagree. If the article states that "most experts agree that X is Y", it becomes irrelevant who is listed in favor of that view, as you've already said that the majority hold it. At the same time, listing those who disagree with the majority view by name becomes even more important, for these individuals stand out from the majority, and - assuming they are not crackpots - must do so for some very good reason, which is exactly what the reader needs to know. There is no need for such a "pissing contest". Stating the majority view as the majority view and providing one or two experts explaining the majority view is enough. But the qualified "deviant" experts need more detailed coverage. If that conflicts with WP Policy, so be it. That's common sense and good editorial practice as opposed to writing academic propaganda. --Aryaman (talk) 23:35, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure how you can say "If that conflicts with WP Policy, so be it." This is exactly why wp:UNDUE exists. There can be a separate List of people who think that white people are innately smarter than black people, but in this article it is entirely inappropriate and in fact amounts to nothing less than "propaganda". T34CH (talk) 23:41, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Right. Listing the "qualified 'deviant' experts [with] more detailed coverage", in this article, would be directly conflicting with NPOV policy. A list of that type, itself, would conflict with guidlines for how overview articles should be written (ie. summary style). There's nothing barring naming names and giving details about their views in spinoff articles. It's a matter of where such things are appropriate. --Nealparr ^{(talk to me)} 23:50, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Nothing I suggested goes against WP:UNDUE as far as I can tell. If is appears to do so, then I have failed in communicating my position clearly, and I apologize. I'm not going to quote WP:UNDUE, as it's there for anyone to read. But qualified minority views need to be explained in enough depth so that readers can understand exactly how and where they differ from majority views. Shuffling them off to their own "spin-off" articles is not in the spirit of NPOV. Reading the phrase "in proportion" to mean we sit down and start counting experts is childish - not that I'm accusing anyone here of childish behavior (though I cringe at having to add that caveat). --Aryaman (talk) 00:09, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

I think minority viewpoints should generally be mentioned in the text of the article where appropriate. Aprock (talk) 00:14, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps I was unclear in the use of the phrase "more detailed". I meant for the emphasis to be on the word "detailed" as opposed to "more", i.e. I'm not talking about the quantity of coverage, I'm talking about the detail of the coverage of the minority views. I'll try to be more precise in the future. Thanks, --Aryaman (talk) 00:18, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

The NPOV policy is pretty clear about both the depth of coverage and details in regards to minority views. --Nealparr ^{(talk to me)} 00:31, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure that we need an actual "list" per se, but the identifies of some of the especially prominent researchers who hold the minority viewpoint about this (that is, the hereditarian view) probably ought to be mentioned because they're one of the main reasons why this hypothesis is taken as seriously as it is. If you just look at raw numbers, the researchers who believe the IQ difference is purely environmental probably outnumber those who take the hereditarian view by at least three to one. But on the other hand, the hereditarian theory's supporters include some of the most highly-respected psychologists of the past 40 years, such as Jensen, Gottfredson, Eysenck and Cattell. Omitting this fact seems like it would be omitting an important piece of information. --Captain Occam (talk) 00:04, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

This is what I'm talking about. Say hereditarian is position B. You list off these people because they're "highly-respected psychologists", not because the view itself is widespread, it's an appeal to the credentials of supporters, an appeal that doesn't have much to do with how widespread the view itself actually is. You line up 5 experts with great credentials, just because they have great credentials (nothing whatsoever to do with the merits and acceptance of the view itself) and you run the risk of giving that view (the view itself) greater weight than it actually deserves. An appeal to credentials is ultimately meaningless because "OMG, the guy's a nobel laureate, it must be true!" when the view may be discounted completely by the scientific community at large. Trust me. I edit a lot of parapsychology related articles. You have actual nobel laureates who support parapsychology, but the view of parapsychology is almost completely dismissed by the scientific community at large. It's undue weight to the view itself, given by an appearance of acceptance based only on the PhD following the supporter's name. --Nealparr ^{(talk to me)} 00:31, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

If you agree that it's important to attribute the research in this area to the people responsible for it, this may be a moot point, but I'm not sure the analogy you're using is a good one. Do the supporters of parapsychology who have impressive credentials actually have those credentials in the relevant fields? The four psychologists whom I mentioned are all experts in psychometrics, which is very relevant to the topic of race and intelligence. But it makes much less of a difference if parapsychology is supported by someone who's received a Nobel Prize in economics. --Captain Occam (talk) 00:44, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

Yes on the parapsychology question (physicists, psychologists). An appeal to their credentials would make it look like parapsychology enjoys more acceptance than it actually does. But let's step back to my earlier point. List off the four psychologists with impressive credentials who support that view, what about the ones with impressive credentials who don't? Say there's hundreds of them? We're back at selection bias. An appeal to credentials of supporters, rather than the merits of the view itself, or having to pick and choose who to list in a selection bias, either way, it has problems. Fortunately (again) summary style avoids those problems. --Nealparr ^{(talk to me)} 01:00, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

Well, an argumentum ad populum isn’t exactly a stronger argument for any viewpoint than an appeal to authority is.

I still think there might be a way to include the names of some of the hereditarian view’s supporters, while still avoiding the problem of making it sounds like it has more support than it does. We could say something like “While the genetic hypothesis is considered a minority view among psychologists, it enjoys the support of several prominent researchers in this area, such Arthur Jensen, Linda Gottfredson, Hans Eysenck, and Raymond Cattell.”

However, I also agree with what T34CH said, that it probably isn’t necessary to resolve this right now. --Captain Occam (talk) 02:02, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

For better or worse, Wikipedia does, in fact, appeal to popularity in the WP:UNDUE clause of NPOV. It doesn't claim truth through popularity, but it does rank ideas according to their popularity (Wikipedia isn't interested in "truth"). It's just the nature of the Wikipedia environment. Your sentence I would object to, by the way, but I'll wait to see if it ends up in the article, per T34CH, because until you put it in it's moot. --Nealparr ^{(talk to me)} 03:04, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

Keeping in mind general balance, I think the work of most, if not all, of those researchers have some place in the article. Aprock (talk) 00:17, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

I agree, but it's important to actually mention them by name. Most readers can't be expected to look carefully at the authors of the material being cited, so if it's significant that a particular piece of research was performed by Jensen or Cattell, the article should specifically mention who performed it. --Captain Occam (talk) 00:22, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

Naming them by name really depends on the context. I expect naming prominent researchers like Rushton and Jensen will occur naturally. For the others, it'll really depend on the content. Specifically, I don't think there's much need for a laundry list of position results. Aprock (talk) 00:26, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

If material is notable enough to include, it is appropriate to attribute this work to the researcher. That sort of summary style is appropriate, as opposed to just listing supporters off. --Nealparr ^{(talk to me)} 00:31, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure this discussion is going to end productively. It boils down to different interpretations of NPOV, but at the same time the end result everyone is mentioning sounds remarkably similar. In any case, this is a very small issue when considering the whole of the article and a bridge we should cross when the time is more appropriate. I'd prefer if we let smaller details be mentioned and recorded, and perhaps discussed on the side, but our efforts should be concentrated on working together on big picture issues. It is noted that at least two editors want to retain mention of the prominent supporters of the "strong" hereditarian hypothesis, and that at least three other editors support the mention of such researchers in the context of their significant contributions to the field. T34CH (talk) 01:07, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

That's fair. For the record, I'm only opposed to an actual list-list. Including supporters in-line along with their work (if notable), I am not opposed to. But, yes, definitely, it's only an issue if it becomes an issue so we can move on. --Nealparr ^{(talk to me)} 01:27, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

With regard to that section of Aryaman's statement(23:35, 12 October 2009)that follows, Stating the majority view as the majority view and providing one or two experts explaining the majority view is enough. But the qualified "deviant" experts need more detailed coverage. If that conflicts with WP Policy, so be it. That's common sense and good editorial practice as opposed to writing academic propaganda. I disagree. An over-representation (dominance) of "qualified "deviant" experts need more detailed coverage" is what got this article into an unreadable state in the first place along with under-representation of majority views. The naming of the article, Race and intelligence presumes differences that the majority disavows. This matter should be settled in accordance with and not in conflict with WP Policy. It is academic propaganda to give greater space and more detailed explanation to the equivalent of Flat Earth theories.Skywriter (talk) 10:55, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Split article into two parts?

I am in favor of this new outline, but wanted to mention a (vaguely) related idea. Would it be useful to split this article into two parts. The first would be something like "Human groups and intelligence." This would, one would hope, be much less contentious. It would allow us to thresh out many of the underlying difficulties in a somewhat less charged atmosphere. We would still have to deal with how to define intelligence, how to determine "groups" and so on, but with, I would hope, less drama. Then, subsets of this article could cover topics like race and intelligence, sex and intelligence, other-groupings and intelligence and so on. David.Kane (talk) 04:19, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

That's interesting... though it might be hard to manage without too much syn. I do like the idea though. Are there lit reviews on the concept that would help guide us? Certainly there must be in the psychometrics literature... as dry as it is and lacking in pop-notability, I'm sure the general concept of group differences in intelligence over-shadows (and even encompasses) the arguments extant here in terms of practical importance within testing theory and practical application of the results of studies. This (reframing the article as Observed between-group IQ differences) also deals with something that's really been bothering me for quite a while: the present article isn't about any sort of thing. It's simply functioning as a place-holder for the thing Controversy over the link between ethnicity and intelligence. T34CH (talk) 04:55, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

Why not simply frame this article as a spin-off of the Intelligence article? In other words, limit its content to that which actually discusses the connection between race and intelligence - naturally, with the all-important caveat that this connection is contested. There are already articles on Health and intelligence, Environment and intelligence, Height and intelligence, Sex and intelligence, etc. The Intelligence article should summarize all of these as potential factors influencing intelligence. Maybe we could defuse the nature vs. nurture argument by letting Environment and intelligence and Race and intelligence present these views individually, and have Intelligence carry the burden of refereeing between them? --Aryaman (talk) 05:29, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

I like the idea of having an article that deals with the variation in IQ in a general sense. Though the issue of group differences has been the most thorny issue, there is significant variation in IQ scores between individuals within a population, since all populations have a normal distribution of IQ scores. The controversial book The Bell Curve, is most famous for its discussion on race. However, only two chapters discuss race, the rest of the book is devoted to the general variation in test scores. Wapondaponda (talk) 05:44, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

As far as I can tell, this is best covered here. I don't see why that section cannot be properly expanded and become a better summary of several of the spin-off articles I mentioned. --Aryaman (talk) 05:51, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

RFC: The usage of a blog source in the article

Resolved

Pending that the dispute was not resolved after the post at WP:RSN, I would like everyone to get going here on an RFC. What I would like to see first here is one concise, neutral sentence explaining the dispute going on in which all parties can agree on. That sentence can be written below here. Once we get agreement on paper as to what the dispute is, we can get the RFC going. MuZemike 18:59, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

I think we can agree that the blog is no longer being used as a source. That issue has been resolved. T34CH (talk) 19:05, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

I agree. I think it's been resolved. --Nealparr ^{(talk to me)} 19:22, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

OK. I don't think I saw the latest edits. However, I am still concerned about the ANI post. MuZemike 19:32, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Ah, well that's a different matter, and one which has only just now come to anyone's attention here. Might want to suggest to Occam that they let involved parties know about such postings. T34CH (talk) 19:43, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Anyone interested in discussing the trolls here and the sudden resurgence-of-interest-in and reincarnations-of-certain race related articles should go to Wikipedia:Ani#Trolling and POV-pushing in race-related topics. T34CH (talk) 19:46, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Good grief, it was resolved at WP:RSN - as was the use of pisspoor journals such as Medical Hypotheses. Verbal chat 20:15, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

This isn't the same issue that was discussed at RSN. What I'm talking about there is Alun's personal attacks on talk pages (including talk pages for other articles), and the removal of properly sourced information (cited from peer-reviewed journals, not the NYT or Medical Hypothesis) by him and Muntuwandi without any explanation. Bringing up this issue at ANI was suggested to me by the admin user:Dbachmann. --Captain Occam (talk) 22:17, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Occam, please try not to spread discussions all over the place, but also keep them in the appropriate place. Discussing content disputes is not appropriate at RSN or ANI, and should be confined to this talk page. Discussing behavior is not appropriate here, and specific issues should be confined to specific forums (ANI, 3rr, etc.). Complex issues may be combined, but try to work out disagreements on user talk pages first. Sorry to post this here as it should actually be on your talk page, but I want to stop this thread now as the issue is resolved. T34CH (talk) 23:11, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

And yet you call me a troll above. Alun (talk) 06:53, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

CHRM2 is mentioned as a possible candidate gene for intelligence. A recent study

• Lind (2009). "No Association Between Cholinergic Muscarinic Receptor 2(CHRM2) Genetic Variation and Cognitive Abilities in Three Independent Samples" (PDF). Behavioral Genetics. doi:10.1007/s10519-009-9274-z.

states:

In summary, although CHRM2 does appear to be related to dementia in animal models, and initial genetic work suggested it was associated with human intelligence our findings in three independent cohorts differing in age from early adulthood thru middle age to early-old age must cast doubt on the involvement of CHRM2 in intelligence, at least in the normal population.

I therefore suggest that there is probably no need to mention candidate genes whose association with cognition is only speculative. Wapondaponda (talk) 13:31, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

heritability of intelligence within races (2nd break)

Ok I'm really uncomfortable with the current wording of this sentence. I tried to change it, but obviously many here thought my change went too far, I'm sure we can come up with something better. Here's what it currently says (again).

The consensus among intelligence researchers is that IQ differences between individuals of the same racial-ethnic group reflect real, functionally and socially significant, and substantially heritable differences in intelligence.

Here are the problems as I see them.

• Confusion between the words hertability and heritable, these can mean substantively different things.

• heritable:

able to be inherited, passed from parents to their children

• heritability:

(uncountable) The condition of being inheritable

(countable, genetics) The ratio of the genetic variance of a population to its phenotypic variance; i.e. the proportion of variability that is genetic in origin

So what are we trying to say? I think we are trying to say that intelligence is highly heritable, ie passed from parents to offspring (and that doesn't necessarily have to mean genes obviously), and that is currently what the statement says. But then it goes on to discuss within group variation, which is heritability right? So is the statement about how heritable the trait it, or is the sentence about how much genes affect within group variation (heritability)? I think we need clarification, if we're saying that intelligence is highly heritable (i.e. transmissable from parent to offspring, a property of the trait, in this case intelligence), then we don't need to mention within "race"/ethnic group estimates of genetic contribution to variance (heritability) at all, although we might want to mention, as Neisser et al do that Vocabulary size, for example, is very substantially heritable... although every word in an individual's vocabulary is learned., to emphasize that heritable traits are not always genetic in origin.

On the other hand if we are trying to say that the contribution of genes to variation within group is always very high (a property of a population that can vary between populations), then we need to use the word heritability and nor heritable. I also think we need to make sure that our sources really do say that this is true generally for "racial"/ethnic groups if we are going to use them to support this claim (e.g. a blanket claim of high heritability in a source may apply to the global human population, but does not necessarily apply to sub-populations). I also think that, because heritability is quantifiable, we need to give numbers, and if they are different between groups we need to clearly say that. On that note I went to have a look for the source I was talking about above, there are several:

• The general pattern of results showed consistently higher measures of heritability for White than for Black families and for advantaged as against disadvantaged groups of both races. Indeed, the observed genetic effects in the lower socioeconomic groups were so small as to prompt Scarr-Salapatek to conclude that "genetic factors cannot be seen as strong determinants of the aptitude scores in the disadvantaged groups of either race"(p.1292) From "Race and IQ Expanded Edition" (1975, 1999) Ashley Montagu (ed.) in Nature with Nurture: A Reinterpretation of the Evidence by Urie Bronfenbrenner p. 173.
• Briefly, their argument is that heritability is not a measure of the magnitude of the genetic contribution to a given trait (as Jensen leads us to believe) but a measure o the extent to which the variability of a trait is due to genetic factors relative to environmental factors. For example, in a uniform environment the heritability estimate will be high. Correspondingly, in a population which is uniform genetically (i.e. homozygous for the trait in question), the environmental estimate will be high. (this is important because if heritability estimates are taken only fro, say the "White" population, then it cannot be claimed int he article that they apply to all human sub-populations because of the possible environmental differences). From "Race and IQ Expanded Edition" (1975, 1999) Ashley Montagu (ed.) in On the causes of IQ differences between groups and implications for social policy by Peggy R. Sanday p. pp 279-280
• The rational for rejecting the hypothesis of genetic equality between the samples is based on the ubiquitous heritability estimate of 0.80 for the white population. as above p.281
• A second interesting result that can be noted in these data is that most of the within-family variances (e²) are larger for black twins than for white twins, and most of these values for the black twins are larger than the 0.20 figure suggested by Jensen for the total amount of environmental variance. as above put p. 286. (this is particularly interesting, the within family environmental influence on intelligence between black twins is often greater than the 0.2 it is for the whole of the white population as measured by Jensen. That implies that the family environments of black twins are more heterogeneous than the environments of the whole "white" population that Jensen measured).

I think there are three possible things that can be done.

1. Only talk about how heritable the trait is, but to avoid confusion I'd use the word inheritable.
2. Only talk about heritability, but be sure we're more precise about the differences in estimates between groups.
3. Split the sentence into two, with one discussing inheritance of the trait, and the other discussing the heritability of the trait within different groups.

How does that sound? Cheers, Alun (talk) 06:21, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

First, let me say that I am certainly no expert in this field, so I'm just going off of common sense and what I've read. As far as I can tell, "heritability" in this context is being used in a very specific way, i.e. the proportion of inter-individual phenotypic variation within a population that can be attributed to genotypic differences among the individuals. Thus, heritability is specifically referring to the genetic component, and not to a non-genetic environmental influence. I think these sources really do intend to apply their claim across racial boundaries, i.e. that what holds true in the case of a White population should hold true in the case of Black or Asian populations. Whether or not they are justified in doing this, however, is clearly open to criticism. Now, in light of the results in the studies you mention, this statement might need to be qualified by stating that some research has pointed out the weakness of a trans-group claim. However - and this is just me talking - I'm really wondering if there isn't some confusion as to environmental vs. genetic homogeneity/heterogeneity here. The studies developed for and performed on White groups seem to assume a relatively high level of genetic homogeneity, and subtract a high mean accordingly. Fine so far. But - and this question has been raised, if I remember correctly, in qualified sources - it seems that, in light of the high degree of heterogeneity in the "Black" population (i.e. the high degree of admixture resulting in higher degrees of expressed variation, even within children of the same parents, due to the unique heritage of African Americans), we should only use these tests with great caution outside the "White" population. In other words, the results which seem to indicate lower levels of heritability in "Blacks" might be due to factors which the tests were not designed to account for. But, I digress. To the point: I think the statement as given is correct, though I also think this difference in heritability should be made mention of. But, I'd like to wait a few more hours and see what Captain Occam has to say about this, as he's done far more research and has a far better grasp of this issue than I do. Thanks, --Aryaman (talk) 11:25, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

I think being more clear about what is being said is important here. I find the sentence very misleading. Specifically the use of the fragment "of the same racial-ethnic group" isn't clear to me. I fully support any editing which makes the lead to that section clearer and more straightforward. Aprock (talk) 15:30, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

Apparently there are differences in how scholars use the term "heritability". Rushton gives the most easily understandable definition I have run across (though other have criticized this definition for being too simplistic), which is this: Heritability tells us to what degree the variations in the expression of a trait are determined by genes, as well as to what degree they are - presumably - determined by the environment. A heritability of 1.00 means that the variations are determined purely by genes, while a heritability of 0.00 means that the genes do not determine the variations, the assumption being that they are determined by the environment. What this means in the context of the statement under discussion is that most intelligence researchers have found that variations in IQ between individuals of the same racial-ethnic group are closer to 1.00 than they are to 0.00, i.e. something greater than 0.51 (my assumption, not a real number). As far as we're using something close to Rushton's definition, the statement seems clear enough. The concerns Alun raised (assuming I've understood them properly) is whether this conclusion is based upon studies which have tested outside a white population. I personally do not know the answer to that question. However, I also think that we're not supposed to second-guess the accuracy of that statement provided that it's properly sourced, and I believe it is (based on the limited research I've done). If, however, there can be found credible and reliable sources which explicitly make that criticism, i.e. that the conclusion reached by the above mentioned experts is to be understood as misleading as it is based upon studies conducted on white-only test subjects, then we should also mention that. Thus, rather than change the statement as it now reads, I think we should focus on sourcing possible criticism of it. Though, like I said, I'm really not the one to be asking about the details here. --Aryaman (talk) 18:36, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

attempted explanation

Aryman, there seems to be some confusion here. Heritability is an estimate of the genetic contribution to variation within any group. It is a proportion. That part of the variation that is not estimated to be of genetic origin is of environmental origin. That's clear and undisputed. It therefore follows that if one environment is heterogeneous, heritability estimates will be low, whereas is one environment is homonegeous, heritability estimates will be high. In fact this is the whole rationale for using identical twin studies, because with identical twins the amount of variation due to genes is zero, so all variation is environmental. I have tried to explain how a heterogeneous environment affects genetic contribution to variation in the accompanying image file that I made. I'm not sure how well it uploaded here though.

Also I don't understand why you say "I think the statement as given is correct". The question is not about the correctness of the statement, it is about the precision of the statement. Currently it is unclear what the statement is trying to say. I have covered the reasons why I think it is unclear. But you didn't really respond to that part of my post. Furthermore, whether you personally think the statement is correct is neither here nor there, what's important is whether the statement accurately reflects what reliable sources say, not whether editors believe it to be true.

"stating that some research has pointed out the weakness of a trans-group claim." I'm not entirely sure what you mean by this. It's not about any trans-group claim, it's about whether the sources we are citing explicitly say that heritability is substantial across "racial"/ethnic groups. As I said, a blanket statement that heritability is high is not the same as claiming that it is high in all human sub-populations.

These are not easy ideas to get to grips with, and I may not be explaining myself very well. But I am clear in my mind about what I mean. So I repeat, we need to

• Remove the confusion between inheritance and heritability, by not using the word heritable.
• Have a comment about the fact that intelligence is highly inheritable. (i.e. that clever people have clever children)
• Have a more precise couple of sentenses about heritability wrt within group magnitude.

Cheers Alun (talk) 18:18, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

At a fundamental level, I think the complex jargon and overloaded meaning is part of the problem. The lead paragraph of the section should strive to explain things as clearly as possible. Further details and subtleties can be covered in the body of the section. As it stands now, I agree with User:Wobble that it need to be updated to clearly reflect the underlying sources. Aprock (talk) 19:39, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

When I said "correct", I meant that I think it correctly reflects what is being reported in the sources, not that I think its contention is correct. ;) I don't see removing the word "heritable" as an option given its importance in the literature. But, like I said, I'd really prefer to wait for Occam to get back his editing powers before making a change, as I'm sure he'd have an informed and intelligent opinion on this. I was just reading Sternberg & Grigorenko (2002:314-315), and - though this is based on research (Wadsworth, 2000; Olson, 1999; Wechsler, 1974) limited to reading disabilities and word-recognition - it seems that heritability is intelligence-dependent. Specifically, that when the base IQ>100, then the studies produce a heritability estimate of 0.72, but when the base IQ<100, the heritability was estimated at 0.45. That makes good sense to me, but I don't see how it squares with what Alun was posting. Thus, I really don't know enough to say one way or the other, lol. (Unless this means that the low heritability in non-white groups has to do with a low base IQ?) Occam? --Aryaman (talk) 20:15, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

All right, here I am again. VA, I largely agree with you that we need to make our sentence consistent with what the source material says, and not try to second-guess it unless some of the sources explicitly dispute this conclusion. That also means that if the sources use the word “heritable”, we should use it also. However, there’s also something else I’d like to point out:

Although the distinction between within-group heritability and between-group heritability is definitely worth making, I’ve never seen any source draw the distinction between within-group heritability and within-group parent-to-child inheritability. I know they have slightly different definitions, but trying to distinguish them really seems to be splitting hairs. And the reason why I don’t think this distinction matters is because if the parent-to-child inheritability of a trait is 80% (or any other percentage) for all members of a single population, then as long as that number is approximately the same for all members of the population, the amount of variation of the trait in that population which is due to genetic factors will inevitably be 80% also. Unless we’re specifically discussing something where this extremely subtle distinction matters, I don’t think it’s one that needs to be made.

I know that Wikipedia articles are supposed to be as precise as possible, but a line needs to be drawn somewhere, and that line probably ought to be at trying to be more precise than the source material is. In addition to it simply being unnecessary, it runs the risk of us misrepresenting what the source material was intending to say. --Captain Occam (talk) 00:25, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

• "if the parent-to-child inheritability of a trait is 80%"

What does that mean? What is being measured here? Heritability is a population based measure. You seem to be giving a measure for a trait. How would one calculate this figure? Heritability and inheritability are totally different. Clearly they do not have "slightly different meanings". One is the transmission of something from parent to child, it is a property of the trait, the other is a measure of the genetic contribution to the variation of a trait within a population, it is a property of the population. All reliable sources say this clearly, it is this confusion between inheritance and heritability that is the root of this subject. As my quote above from Peggy Sanday states clearly "Briefly, their argument is that heritability is not a measure of the magnitude of the genetic contribution to a given trait (as Jensen leads us to believe) but a measure o the extent to which the variability of a trait is due to genetic factors relative to environmental factors." You are trying to say that heritability is a measure of the contribution of genes to intelligence within a population. This is incorrect, it is an estimate of the contribution of genes to the variance within that population, and not a measure of the contribution of genes to the magnitude of the trait, even within a population. You seem to be as confused about this as everyone else, which is why we need to change this sentence. Let me have a think about some alternatives, I'll suggest something and we can discuss the best way to go about making the necessary changes. Cheers Alun (talk) 03:38, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

"What does that mean? What is being measured here?"

What I meant by parent-to-child heritability is the extent to which the IQ of the child is the result of the IQ of his or her parents, and the extent to which it’s the result of the environment in which he or she was raised. This can’t be measured for individuals, at least not as far as I know, but when looking at several parents and children it’s possible to measure it by examining the extent of regression toward the mean, via Galton’s Law.

Let’s take a primarily genetic trait, such as height, as an example. According to Galton’s Law, if one compares the height of fathers who are above or below this height to that of their sons, their sons will be an average of halfway between the height of their fathers and the average male height. The same is also true in reverse, with people of above-average adult height tending to have fathers with a height halfways between their own and the population average. On the other hand, for a trait that has virtually no genetic component, the number will be much less than 50%. For example, if you were to compare hair length between fathers and sons, you would not find any meaningful correlation. For all quantifiable traits in sexually reproducing organisms, the extent of regression towards the mean varies directly with the extent to which the trait is genetic, from 50% for purely genetic traits to 0% for purely environmental traits. Since you’ve said that you’ve studied genetics, I’m assuming you’re already familiar with Galton’s Law.

Incidentally, the parent-to-child heritability for IQ among blacks can be measured via Galton’s Law. According to Jensen’s 1973 study about this, the degree of regression towards the mean in IQ for whites in the United States is 40%, and for blacks it’s 38%. (This was actually based on siblings rather than parents and children, but since siblings share 50% of their genes also, it’s another way of measuring the same thing.) Since the maximum is 50% for purely genetic traits, this means that more than half of the within-population variation for both groups is genetic.

Now, back to the point I was making: you seem to be wanting to second-guess what the source material about this says, and state something that isn’t explicitly supported by it. Unless it’s only a minor change of wording that you’re suggesting, this sounds an awful lot like WP:SYNTH. --Captain Occam (talk) 04:35, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

Captain Occam, everything you just wrote was synth. When you have a reliable source, by all means share it. In the meantime, Alun and Muntuwandi seem to have things well in hand here. Why not leave the work here to people who actually know what they are talking about? Slrubenstein | Talk 05:19, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

This isn’t synthesis. Everything I just wrote is explained in pages 467-472 of Jensen’s book The g Factor.

In any case, why does it matter whether this is synthesis? This information isn’t actually going in the article. Alun was claiming the article shouldn’t say that IQ has high within-group heritability in general, because he thinks the only evidence of this is for whites, and now we’re having a discussion to see whether what he suspects about this is actually the case. There’s no rule against engaging in synthesis in a discussion on a talk page about what the data does or doesn’t say. --Captain Occam (talk) 06:03, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

Not true Occam, why do you constantly misrepresent what I say? What I said was that the sentence in question does not appear to accurately reflect at least one of the sources. I also think the sentence is badly written and confusing. I want to simplify it and make it more precise. Alun (talk) 06:24, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

• "What I meant by parent-to-child heritability is the extent to which the IQ of the child is the result of the IQ of his or her parents, and the extent to which it’s the result of the environment in which he or she was raised."

Yes, that's what I thought you meant, but you're wrong, heritability estimates don't measure that at all. Heritability estimates measure the contribution of genes to the variation of the trait within a population not the contribution of genes to the trait as passed from parent to child. So when we say it's 80% heritable in "white" populations we don't mean that in those populations 80% of intelligence is inherited from parent's genes. What we are saying is that 80% of the differences in intelligence between individuals are caused by genes. Or to put it another way, if we take two people from this "white" group, and one has an IQ of 110 and the other an IQ of 100, an 80% heritability means that 80% of the ten IQ point difference between the two is due to genes, i.e. 8 IQ points out of the 10 difference is genetic in causation.

"the parent-to-child heritability" again, this makes no sense, heritability is a measure of variation, not the contribution of genes to a trait. Heritability is a population level trait. See also my response above.

Regression towards the mean (what you call Galton's law) simply states that the progeny of outliers in a trait (e.g. the extremely tall, the extremely intelligent) will tend towards the mean. That is irrelevant to heritability estimates. Can you provide a reliable source that states that regression towards the mean can be used to estimate heritability? I don't think that's right and would like to see a source that claim this, you quote Jensen's analysis of regression towards the mean, but this is not a measure of heritability, or of populations, it is a property of outliers. I think we should stick to the point.

I think you have to do better than accuse me of synthesis. Indeed you haven't addressed any of the salient points I am making. I'm not suggesting a synthesis, I am suggesting that the sources don't support what the sentence currently states. Especially I don't think the sources specifically make reference to "the same racial-ethnic group". I've noticed that the word "heritable" is often used as the adjective of heritability, so I don't have a problem with this word now, it is clear that we are talking about heritability estimates and not heredity. But I think that we should be clear that heritability varies from group to group depending upon environment.

I also don't like the round about language of the sentence, we should say what we mean in a straightforward manner.

• "The consensus"- who says it's a consensus?
• "IQ differences between individuals"- i.e. variation
• "of the same racial-ethnic group"- at least one of the sources doesn't say this, "Intelligence knowns and unknowns" doesn't say this, it says "It is clear (Section III) that genes make a substantial contribution to individual differences in intelligence test scores, at least in the white population." which is not the same at all.[8] BTW the article also states, as I do above, that "So defined, heritability (h2) can and does vary from one population to another. In the case of IQ, h2 is markedly lower for children (about .45) than for adults (about .75)" and "The value of h2 can change if the distribution of environments (or genes) in the population is substantially altered."
• "reflect real, functionally and socially significant"- I don't know what this part is supposed to be saying. I don't see why it can't just say "reflect".
• "and substantially heritable differences in intelligence"- this is just a convoluted way of saying that the differences mentioned earlier in the sentence have a substantial genetic component, right? But it's written in a confusing manner.

I'd suggest this:

It has been estimated that genes contribute substantially (40-80%) to IQ differences between individuals within some human groups.

I think it says pretty much the same thing, but in a simpler and easier to understand way. I also think it more accurately reflects what at least one source says.

Cheers Alun (talk) 05:58, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

“Regression towards the mean (what you call Galton's law) simply states that the progeny of outliers in a trait (e.g. the extremely tall, the extremely intelligent) will tend towards the mean. That is irrelevant to heritability estimates. Can you provide a reliable source that states that regression towards the mean can be used to estimate heritability? I don't think that's right and would like to see a source that claim this, you quote Jensen's analysis of regression towards the mean, but this is not a measure of heritability, or of populations, it is a property of outliers. I think we should stick to the point.”

Galton’s Law involves more than just regression toward the mean, although regression toward the mean is one of the principles that it involves. Its full name is “Galton's law of ancestral heredity”. I’m kind of puzzled that you aren’t familiar with this principle, claiming to have studied genetics, but if you Google for it you’ll be able to find more information about it. It’s a principle that’s quite specific to heredity.

I guess I’ll quote Jensen about this, although I can explain in more detail about how this works. This is on page 468 of The g Factor:

In quantitative terms, Galton’s law predicts that the more that variation in a trait is determined by genetic factors, the closer the degree of regression (from one parent to one child), on average, approximates one-half. This is because an offspring receives exactly one-half of its genes from each parent, and therefore the parent-offspring genetic correlation equals .50.

Jensen isn’t making this up; he’s just summarizing a basic principle of genetics. If a trait is 100% genetic and a child has 50% of his parent’s genes for it, the child will tend to regress to halfway between their parent and the mean. If the trait has no genetic component, then the child will tend to be at the mean of whatever the trait is, regardless of what the trait was like in their parent. For a partially genetic trait, it will be somewhere between 0% and 50%. The way in which the degree of regression towards the mean corresponds to the degree of heritability of a trait was established by Ronald Fisher in his 1918 paper, "The Correlation between Relatives on the Supposition of Mendelian Inheritance".

Based on Fisher’s analysis of this, we can determine what portion of black Americans’ IQ is inherited from their parents. Since the degree of parent-to child IQ correlation for them is 38%, this means the degree to which their IQ is based on that of their parents is approximately twice that, or 76%. (Remember, 50% is what it would be if their IQ were 100% genetic.) So I think this shows that the within-group heritability of IQ among blacks is fairly high also.

Now, if any of the sources currently being used specifically reject this idea, then the sentence in question in the article should be changed to reflect what its sources say. However, the only one of them that draws any kind of distinction in this respect merely says “It is clear (Section III) that genes make a substantial contribution to individual differences in intelligence test scores, at least in the white population.” In other words, this particular author is uncertain as to whether this also applies to more than whites. And it seems like most of the other sources being cited just state that the within-group heritability of IQ is high in general, without even adding that qualitication.

I know you’ve been able to find sources disputing the heritability of IQ among blacks, but how much of an “academic consensus” is this? I could find sources disputing the same thing for whites, if I wanted to, as well as sources claiming that IQ doesn’t mean anything significant at all. (Gould’s Mismeasure of Man comes to mind.) That doesn’t mean it's any kind of consensus. If you want to change this sentence, what you’ll need to demonstrate is not only that this sentence of the article as it stands is unsupported by the current source material, but also that the academic consensus goes against what it says. --Captain Occam (talk) 07:33, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

• "we can determine what portion of black Americans’ IQ is inherited from their parents. Since the degree of parent-to child IQ correlation for them is 38%, this means the degree to which their IQ is based on that of their parents is approximately twice that, or 76%."

Even if one accepts this claim (and it looks like OR to me, if it were that simple to estimate the contribution of genes to a trait, then we wouldn't be having this discussion at all, it would have been resolved long ago), you are not attempting to measure heritability, you are attempting to measure the contribution of genes to a trait. That is not heritability, heritability is an estimate of the contribution of genes to the difference (variation) in a trait within a population. You don't seem to understand this difference, it is important and I've repeated it four or five times now, without an understanding that heritability is a measure of differences (variation) and not causation (i.e. contribution of genes to a trait), then it's impossible to have a sensible conversation about this. Alun (talk) 08:24, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

I want to stick to the point. I want to change this sentence, I've made a proposal, do you think you could comment on my proposed change? I'm not interested in discussing Galton, or regression towards the mean. I'm interested in the fact that this statement, as it stands, does not accurately reflect what the sources say. This is about heritability and not Galton. You appear to be trying to move the conversation towards a discussion of Galton and regression towards the mean. We are discussing a specific sentence in the article that deals with heritability. You are not talking about heritability, you are talking about transmission of a trait from parent to offspring, that is not heritability. Heritability is a measure of genetic contribution to variation within a population, it is a population level measure, what you are saying is irrelevant to heritability. The sentence is about heritability and makes claims about "race/ethic groups" that are not made in at least one of the sources. As I say, this sentence has several other structural problems. I have outlined these above, maybe you could respond to my comments on those? I think that would be more constructive. If you don't have specific comments about my suggestion, then I'll assume you're happy with it.

I also notice that you don't comment about my observation about heritability being an estimate of genetic contribution to variation, and not about genetic contribution to an inherited trait. I assume that this means that you accept what I say.

Cheers, Alun (talk) 08:08, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

I already said earlier, the genetic contribution to a trait in any population is a direct result of the degree to which it’s transferred from parent to child. The percentage for one is the same as the percentage of the other, so most sources don’t bother to distinguish between the two. For that reason, I don’t think it’s appropriate for our article to make this distinction.

You’ve presented one source that states IQ is highly heritable “at least for whites”, while not saying either way about other groups, but it seems that all of the other sources currently being used state that the within-group heritability of IQ is high in general, regardless of what race is being discussed. If you think that one source doesn’t support this sentence, then we can just stop citing it, and have this sentence cited to the remaining eight sources. Other than possibly needing this one source removed, I don’t believe you’ve demonstrated that there’s anything wrong with this sentence. You’ve complained about it’s conflation of inheritance and heritability, but I’ve explained why I don’t think this distinction matters, and you’ve also claimed that there’s no evidence of high within-group heritability of IQ in blacks, but I’ve presented one example of that based on Galton's law of ancestral heredity. So in my opinion the sentence is clear, it’s factually accurate, and it’s supported by eight of its nine sources, so in my opinion it can be left the way it is.

As I side note, you ought to follow the advice from the admin noticeboard about being less antagonistic. The wording of your comment makes it pretty clear you aren’t happy with shown to be wrong about regression towards the mean having nothing to do with how heritability can be estimated, even though this was only marginally related to what’s actually going in the article. You shouldn’t take things this personally, especially when they matter this little. I notice that for two days, your userpage said that you were retiring from Wikipedia this month, until you removed that notice today; doing so might be worth considering if this sort of thing tends to make you upset. --Captain Occam (talk) 10:15, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

• "the genetic contribution to a trait in any population is a direct result of the degree to which it’s transferred from parent to child"- no geneticist would agree with that comment, I know of no geneticist who would claim that there is no such thing as a gene x environment interaction, besides it is irrelevant to heritability, which is a measure of variation and not genetic contribution.
• "all of the other sources currently being used state that the within-group heritability of IQ is high in general"- but do they? But it doesn't matter if they say that heritability is high in all groups, I want them to specifically state "racial"/ethnic groups, because that's what our sentence says. Unless they specifically say "racial" groups, then we need to change our sentence.
• "I don’t believe you’ve demonstrated that there’s anything wrong with this sentence."- Oh well, we'll see what the consensus is. I think this is a very poor sentence that is confusing, poorly written and very imprecise. You actually haven't actually made any arguments as to why this sentence is any good. Maybe you should spend some time saying why tyu think the sentence is any good, that would be more constructive than your previous deviation.

Cheers Alun (talk) 11:38, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

(outdent) If I may, I'd like to point something out. I pointed it out long ago, but either it was overlooked or simply ignored: There is not 100% agreement on what heritability means. Jensen and everyone who follows Jensen's line of reasoning thinks it means one thing. Jensen's critics think it means something else. Specifically, the issue is about "heritability being an estimate of genetic contribution to variation, and not about genetic contribution to an inherited trait", which Alun keeps harping on like it's some incontrovertible fact. It's not. It's - politely put - one interpretation of heritability. (Put another way, it's an example of "Let's keep changing the method until we get the results the sociopolitical climate dictates we should get" - but that's my commentary.) Case in point: Take a look at Heritability of IQ. You'll notice that the reference given for the definition in the header links to this article. If you read that article, you should notice that, instead of being a general interest article, it's actually a highly contentious, non-neutral opinion piece which has the "correct" definition of heritability as one of its main points of contention. (Whether this article should be used to source the definition of "heritability" on the Heritability of IQ article is another matter.) In regards to the matter at hand, it boils down to this: Do the references cited as being in support of the statement in question understand heritability as Jensen does, or rather as Lewontin does? That alone would tell us what these sources are really trying to say, and how far we can use them to support such a statement. Is anyone following me here? --Aryaman (talk) 10:04, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

I think you are wrong, there is no dispute about what heritability measures. Heritability measures the contribution of genes to variation within a group. I don't know any reliable scientist who would deny that. Analysis of variance is a well know statistical tool, but it is analysis of variance and no one, not even Jensen, pretends that they are measuring anything else. You don't provide any sources to support your claim that "It's - politely put - one interpretation of heritability." So what's the other? Where are the sources that say that heritability estimates are not measures of the contribution of genes to within group variation? You don't provide any sources to support your contention. You only provide one source, which actually disagrees with what you say, and then say this source is biased and unreliable without providing any evidence that this is the case. If what you say is correct, then you should be able to find a reliable source that says that heritability is not a measure of variation. Then you could use that source to change the Heritability of IQ article. I also suggest you go and change the Heritability article, which currently states Heritability is the proportion of phenotypic variation in a population that is attributable to genetic variation among individuals. Variation among individuals may be due to genetic and/or environmental factors. Heritability analyses estimate the relative contributions of differences in genetic and non-genetic factors to the total phenotypic variance in a population You should definately change that definition if what I am saying is only one point of view. In fact I suggest you take it to the genetics wikiproject and discuss it on the talk page there, clearly you believe that the article about heritability is unbalanced. Alun (talk) 11:38, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

Are you saying that there is, to your knowledge, no disagreement or dispute in the academic world regarding Jensen's understanding of the meaning of heritability? This was and continues to be one of the major areas of discussion of Jensen's work, no? --Aryaman (talk) 12:16, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

Whether there is a debate about how Jensen applies the concept of heritability in his research is one thing. But the meaning of heritability is very straightforward. There is no wriggle-room. Just like other concepts (genetic drift, for example) the word heritability has one definition that all geneticists, all evolutionary biologists, all physical anthropologists, agree on, there is just nothing controverial about this. Slrubenstein | Talk 13:09, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

• "Are you saying that there is, to your knowledge, no disagreement or dispute in the academic world regarding Jensen's understanding of the meaning of heritability?"

Yes, that is exactly what I'm saying. Jensen has never claimed to be measuring anything other than genetic contribution to variation within a group. Where Jensen has been criticised is his use of a heritability estimate calculated for a "white" American test group of 80% and claiming that this high estimate applies to "black" Americans. The fact is he couldn't measure the heritability of African Americans because there just hadn't been enough twin studies on African Americans, so he used the statistic from the "white" group, and got rightly and soundly criticised for being less than scientifically rigorous. His claim that this "high" heritability statistic proves that some groups are "ineducable" was also correctly roundly criticised because it ignored the fact that heritability does not mean that environment cannot affect the average group score when the environment changes (e.g. if education becomes better). But of course those claims of his have been debunked time and again and I don't want to go into all that now. If you want to read about criticism of Jensen's interpretation of heritability results, then there is plenty of material out there. I can recommend Ashley Montagu's "Race and IQ", it's really cheap to get a second hand copy from amazon. Cheers. Alun (talk) 17:32, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I've read some of that critical material. I've also read Flynn's treatment of it, in which he guardedly defends Jensen's approach over and above the dozens of critics (particularly pointing out the critical flaw in Lewontin's corn analogy, which Jensen's critics apparently love to recite without, according to Flynn, really understanding it as far as its true implications go). Flynn comes to a different conclusion than Jensen, for his own reasons which are worth considering (particularly in regard to "factor X"). But, as you're quite well-read, I feel safe in the assumption that you know all this already. You must also know that Jensen tried repeatedly to make the environment responsible, but eventually considered it impossible in light of the extreme and very peculiar requirements of "factor X". But, then, are you intentionally ignoring that fact in order to push one particular view? No, I must assume good faith here. Then, do you honestly do believe that Jensen and Lynn are quacks, and that this issue was decided long ago? Then why on earth is there still controversy in the academic world? Or do you think there is no controversy? --Aryaman (talk) 19:03, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

I think this discussion was specifically about the meaning of heritability. About that, I think there is no controversy. Aprock (talk) 19:33, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

Suggested change, comment on the proposed 'change

The consensus among intelligence researchers is that IQ differences between individuals of the same racial-ethnic group reflect real, functionally and socially significant, and substantially heritable differences in intelligence.

My problems.

• "The consensus"- which source says it's a consensus?
• "IQ differences between individuals"- i.e. variation
• "of the same racial-ethnic group"- at least one of the sources doesn't say this, "Intelligence knowns and unknowns" doesn't say this, it says "It is clear (Section III) that genes make a substantial contribution to individual differences in intelligence test scores, at least in the white population." which is not the same at all.[9] BTW the article also states, as I do above, that "So defined, heritability (h2) can and does vary from one population to another. In the case of IQ, h2 is markedly lower for children (about .45) than for adults (about .75)" and "The value of h2 can change if the distribution of environments (or genes) in the population is substantially altered."
• "reflect real, functionally and socially significant"- I don't know what this part is supposed to be saying. I don't see why it can't just say "reflect".
• "and substantially heritable differences in intelligence"- this is just a convoluted way of saying that the differences mentioned earlier in the sentence have a substantial genetic component, right? But it's written in a confusing manner.

I'd suggest this:

It has been estimated that genes contribute substantially (40-80%) to IQ differences between individuals within some human groups.

I think it says pretty much the same thing, but in a simpler and easier to understand way. I also think it more accurately reflects what at least one source says.

Cheers Alun (talk) 08:08, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

This is clear and precise and accurate - I am all for it! Slrubenstein | Talk 12:53, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

I prefer this to what is there, but it's not clear what "within human groups" means in this context. Aprock (talk) 14:24, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

We could change "human groups" to "population" or even "breeding population" if you prefer. What is confusing about the word "group?" Slrubenstein | Talk 16:00, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

I just don't know what "within human groups" means in this context. Maybe if I read the cite I'd know. But that's that basic problem I guess. If I have to read the cite to understand the sentence, it's not a good summary. Aprock (talk) 16:21, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

You are justt repeating yourself, I was hoping you would explain why you don't understand it. I have read some of the sources but even if I had not the meaning seems pretty clear to me. There is a definable group of human beings. Members of this group scored differently in IQ tests. According to one study, genetic differences accounted for forty percent of the variation among these members of the group. According to another study genes accounted for 80% of the variation in IQ score among members of this group. Which part of this is obscure to you? Slrubenstein | Talk 16:41, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

As I said this is better than what was before, but I don't know what groups means here. How large are the groups, how are they defined, how were they formed, are they from clinical trials, are they racial groups, are they families. Aprock (talk) 16:59, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

I see your point Aprock, but it really means any group of humans, however defined. So it could be a group of children, or a group of people living on a specific street, or a group of people who worship at the same church, or a group of people who identify as belonging to the same nation, or who share the same citizenship, or even who identify as belonging to the same ethnic group. Essentially it doesn't really matter how we define the group. I can't think of a better way to say this, unless we say something like "within some human groups, however defined)"? Alun (talk) 17:17, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

That clears it up more for me. But the sentence is particularly confusing because of the topic of the article. A cursory reading of the sentence gives me the impression that groups here refers to racial groups. Maybe it should be "any group" instead of "some group"? Or maybe "any collection"? Aprock (talk) 17:38, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

This is where it is especially important to make a distinction between "race" and group. A race is a category, it is a way of thinking of people. A group is an aggregate of people who interact or are interconnected in some way. In the United States, segregation ensured that for over a hundred years (the era of Jim Crow) the "Black" race and the "White" race were also groups. I may not agree with Alun here - if the White and Black races are expanded to include everyone living in Europe plus Arabs, and everyone living in Africa and Melanesia, I am not sure they are "groups" any more. Someone just decided to classify people into two classes. I bet if you go back to the articles that measure heritability, there is some criteria for group. In sociology a group and a class are not the same thing. In practice, they may overlap, but they are still two different things. For the purposes of determining heritability, you are looking at a group. But race is a social category. In the US, when studies are made and the group is defined as white or black, it is very important to attend to scale - they are usually talking about American whites and American blacks, and these indeed may be groups but the results do not automatically transfer to other people who for one reason or another are classified as "white" or "black." Slrubenstein | Talk 18:08, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

I think I understand that. Is there a citation which shows that heritability is related to distinct groups of people, as opposed to the group of all people? Aprock (talk) 22:43, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

You could use the word "set" instead of group I suppose. By group, what we really mean is that set of individuals that supplied the data that we have used to calculate the heritability estimate. This estimate will vary from group to group, depending on how environmentally homogeneous the group is. So, for example let's take a group of individuals who share many environmental characteristics, say they all have parents who are both graduates and who both worked, they all went to the same school at the same time, and grew up in the same village, and all of their parents stayed married etc. etc. The amount of environmental variation is smallish, so we will probably find that our estimate of heritability is high. Now let's take the same number of people of the same age, but make them a random sample taken from the whole of the USA, this group will almost certainly be much more environmentally heterogeneous, and well probably find that our heritability estimate is much smaller. The thing about heritability of IQ is that we always find some within group genetic contribution to the variation in intelligence, which just means that some of the difference between the high scoring ones and the low scoring ones is due to genes (remember it's the difference between individuals within group). So how one defnes one's group is very important for heritability estimates. The reason it's "some groups" is that we can't say "all groups", because we simply can't know how heritability estimates will look for all possible groups. Alun (talk) 05:30, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

(outdent) The fact that people are assuming this statement refers to "any group" is proof enough that the change was most decidedly not an improvement. The tests that were performed to determine heritability were performed on people of the same racial/ethnic group - most reliably on twins. To obscure this fact reduces the rest of sentence to gibberish. If you guys really want to have the statement as it reads now, then you need to get rid of that whole string of citations and go find new "sources" claiming that some "universal heritability" of .40-.80 exists so that, regardless who you take, any group will give you that result, like Slrubenstein says - which you won't find, because it defies the concept of heritability altogether. This is just bizarre, lol. --Aryaman (talk) 18:09, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

The old sentence was no more clear about this than the new sentence. Maybe you could propose an improvement? Aprock (talk) 18:30, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

How about this? I'll give you a standard explanation as presented by Flynn (2001:155-156), and you guys can decide how the summary should read, and whether consensus supports the old statement or what's up there now:

There are two principal kinds of evidence pointing to the conclusion that intelligence is substantially genetically determined and from which its heritability can be calculated. The first of these consists of studies of monozygotic twins reared apart. It has been found that these have highly similar IQs, represented by a correlation between adult twin pairs of .72 (Bouchard, 1993). This figure needs to be corrected for the unreliability of measurement. Assuming the test has a reliability of .9, the corrected correlation between the twin pairs in .80. This correlation is a direct measure of heritability. The second method consists of comparing the degree of similarity between identical twins and same-sex, nonidentical twins brought up in the same families. Because identical twins are genetically identical, whereas nonidentical twins have only half their genes in common, if genetic factors are operating, identical twins should be more alike than nonidenticals. The simplest method for quantifying the genetic effect was proposed by Falconer (1960) and consists of doubling the difference between the correlations of identical and same-sex nonidenticals. Studies of the intelligence of adult twin pairs have been summarized by Bouchard (1993, p. 58). He found correlations of .88 for identical twins and .51 for same-sex, nonidenticals. The difference between the two correlations is .37, and doubling this difference gives a heritability of .74. This figure needs to be corrected for the imperfect reliability of the tests. Using a reliability coefficient of .9, the corrected correlations become .98 for identicals and .56 for same-sex nonidenticals. The difference between the two correlations is .42, and doubling this difference gives a heritability of .84. This is very close to the heritability of .80 derived from the first method. This is why most experts on the issue estimate the heritability of intelligence as approximately of .80, or 80 percent.

As you can see, this is not derived from studies of "any group", but has a very specific meaning. Good luck with summarizing. --Aryaman (talk) 18:41, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

I see nothing in that blockquote about racial or ethnic studies. If I were to use that information as the source of the summary, I would strike all reference to the word group. Aprock (talk) 18:47, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

Arya is confusing many things. Race and ethnicity are two different things. Both are social ategories, not biological groups. Which of these studies is about "race" and e carefu. of they use the word race, what do they mean by it? Arya seems to have a racialist agenda, inserting race where it is not an issue. Slrubenstein | Talk 19:38, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

Judging from the section "Personal opinions regarding current areas of activity" on his User page, you may be right. Aprock (talk) 20:07, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

:-) Forgive me for laughing, but I have to. I quote a section from Flynn, and now I'm a "closet racist"? Oh, bother, lol. The only reason any of this is being discussed as far as I'm concerned is to explain the existence of "racial-ethnic group" in that original statement - which I most certainly did not write, I might add. If you want someone to "blame" for introducing "race" into the discussion, look to Jensen, Rushton, Flynn, etc. They are the ones using heritability to make claims regarding differences in the intelligence of racial-ethnic groups, and the fact that the original statement included that phrase was, as far as I could tell, motivated by nothing other than intellectual honesty on their part. As far as the use of twin-studies go: if you don't see the connection between doing studies on "white" twins and "black" twins and making statements about the heritability of intelligence in "white" populations and "black" populations, then this topic will require more explanation than I am willing to go into. I was perfectly happy with the original statement leaving the specifics of race out of the equation, and I was not the one who initiated changing this statement. So, please, leave the race card well alone.

With that aside, are you truly satisfied with the changes to the statement? Do you think that the sources you're using to support this new statement actually say what you portray them to say? --Aryaman (talk) 20:35, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

No one called you a closet racist. Defending yourself against such is probably not very useful. It would probably be better if you focused on constructive contributions instead. In this section we are discussing a specific sentence. I have asked what the meaning of group is in this context. Given that the blockquote in your response don't indicate any grouping whatsoever, I'm curious as to which source the grouping phrasing is from. I'm more than capable of examining the source myself, but I'm not going to read a dozen sources just to find this one (poorly defined and sourced) claim. Aprock (talk) 20:41, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

Someone insinuated I could have a "racialist agenda". OK, I'll work on not seeing that as ad hominem. ;-)

I really was hoping the Flynn passage would help clear this up. I'm doing the best I can with WP:AGF. Maybe I'm trying too hard to give the different views a fair shake here. Maybe I'm trying too hard to prevent uncritically applied changes from leading this article into blatant self-contradiction. Maybe I need to relax, let you guys do your thing, and wait until you've made the changes you see as fit, and then go through it. Because this is getting us nowhere. I'm startled at the proposition that the behavioral genetics research conducted on twins - chosen precisely because of their genetic similarity/identity - is being interpreted as applying equally to "a group of children, or a group of people living on a specific street, or a group of people who worship at the same church." This has nothing to do with my personal views on race, ethnicity or anything else. This has to do with reporting sources in a credible manner. What I personally think regarding heritability is entirely irrelevant. The question is: Is this what the sources are saying? Not that I can see. They are not taking groups of people off the street at random and testing them to determine heritability. But maybe Alun can prove me wrong there. If s/he can show that these researchers we've been discussing have in fact done their research on more or less randomly selected populations with no genetic or even ethnic affiliation (or is religious affiliation counted to ethnicity these days?), then I will stand corrected and promise to give you folks free reign. :-) --Aryaman (talk) 21:15, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

I was really hoping the Flynn passage would help too. Unfortunately, it didn't reference race, ethnicity, or groups of any kind. I share your apprehension about the use of the word group here. It's not at all clear where it comes from, or how the original sources use it. That is the specific thing I've been trying to clear up. As far as I can tell, and I haven't spent much time with those source, none of them are making any group level conclusions at all. Aprock (talk) 21:28, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

The problem with the Flynn passage is that all it does is explain how one measures heritability. That is not the point, no one disputes that heritability can be high. What the Flynn passage does not do is give estimates for heritability for different types of data. Assuming that Flynn's data are the usual data used for these analyses, then he's dealing with a very homogeneous sample group. The problem with the Flynn quote is that it doesn't really address the difference of different heritabilities between different groups. The quote you give is irrelevant to this discussion. Alun (talk) 06:11, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

If it would help, I could reference quite a few sources which make it patently clear that "groups" in this discussion are referring - particularly in the case of Jensen's, Flynn's and Lewontin's discussion of heritability - specifically to "white" and "black" groups. Would that help at all? --Aryaman (talk) 21:39, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

By all means, going over sources is what we're here to do. Aprock (talk) 21:41, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

(outdent) OK. I'm picking more or less at random, but here's one which, though slightly leaning in one direction - as is probably justified given the relative support the positions discussed enjoy - makes it perfectly clear that, in this discussion, "group" has a specific meaning (from: Snyderman & Rothman The IQ Controversy, the Media, and Public Policy (1990:123-124):

Compounding the difficulties in maintaining rational discourse about group differences is the fact that genetic influences on race and class differences in IQ are extremely difficult to estimate. Within-group heritability, because it is tied to the particular environment and genetic variation existing within the group, has little relevance to the causes of between-group variation. Jensen has argued that the high degree of heritability for IQ within the black and white populations makes it more probable that between-group differences have some significant heritable components as well. Richard Lewontin and others disagree, citing examples from genetic studies with other organisms demonstrating that high within-group heritability can be associated with almost any degree of genetic influence between groups."

[Then he gives a summary of Lewontin's corn analogy which I have removed.]

Lewontin's point is that even if we know that the within-group heritability of IQ is substantial, this tells us nothing about the possibility of genetic between-group differences; they are independent questions. Jensen demonstrates, however, that high within-group heritability necessarily implies substantial between-group genetic influences, as long as the sources of environmental variation are the same between as within groups. Large within-group heritability is only consistent with no genetic influence between groups if there is some source or sources of environmental variation that exists only between groups, like the variation in nutrients in Lewontin's example. But black and white Americans are two populations where such a source of environmental variation is very likely to exist: it falls under the heading of "racial discrimination". Thus, if the environments of black and white Americans differ in ways that are not generally seen between families or individuals within the black and white communities, estimates of within-group heritability are of dubious relevance to the between-group question.

The major obstacle to the study of the causes of group differences is that it may be impossible to randomize or control the relevant environmental factors, and thus separate genetic from environmental sources of variation. How can one be sure, for example, that a black and a white child have been raised in similar environments, when genetically based racial differences remain obvious? Even black and white children raised in the same home may be treated very differently because of their skin color. Many experts in the study of genetics have argued that the nature of the situation makes it impossible to adequately assess the question of the genetic influence on groups differences in psychological traits.

Thus, as I hope is clear, I'm not trying to push any "hidden agenda" here. I'm simply trying to see to it that an important aspect of the cited material is not mistakenly deleted. It is important to note that the groups under discussion - especially as it related to the Jensen/Lewontin debate on heritability - are "racial and ethnic" groups. If that is removed, the figures given become meaningless, as they were derived from race-ethnic group-specific studies. Does this help to clarify things? Or at least clear me of trying to push some "agenda"? --Aryaman (talk) 22:10, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

Arya, all this is irrelevant. My problem is not about between group differences. That is a different question and irrelevant to the change I want to make. My problem is that we need to make clear that heritability estimates vary between groups, however we define our group (and it can be defined by self described "race"). We also need to make sure that we do not try to make claims that the sources don't make. So the Snyderman study you quote from does not say "racisl"/ethnic groups, it say "black" and "white". Well that is not the same thing. We need to say what our sources say. Besides the Snyderman study is not a reliable source, it was not written by academics but by two right-wing journalists with a political point of view to push. We just had a discussion about citing the NYT, I don't think we should cite this for the same reasons, it's not peer reviewed, not published in a reliable academic journal, and not written by experts. Alun (talk) 06:11, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

It seems here that within-group and between-group are being used here with very specific meanings. Which citations refer to research results regarding within-group heritability? Aprock (talk) 22:40, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

Don't be fooled by the debate about within to between group variation, that is irrelevant to thie problem with the current sentence. The problem is that within group heritabilities are different for different groups. So perhaps for one set of data the heritability of IQ is 80%, but it can be as low as 25 or 30% for another set of data. This basically means that one set of data derives from people who have a homogeneous environemnt, and the other other set of data derives from a group of peope with a heterogeneous environment. Let's try to stick to the point. Everything Arya is saying is irrelevant to the changes I want to make. Alun (talk) 06:11, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

I have not researched the entire list of citations (I'm not even sure who originally found and cited them, as that was before my involvement with the article and I haven't searched through the very long history of this article), but I would say that the question is actually irrelevant. The original statement was simply stating that "the consensus among experts is that IQ differences between individuals of the same racial-ethnic group are significantly heritable", with it being assumed that "heritable" in this case is in reference to genes and not environment, as the very method being used to determine within-group heritability was specifically designed with the intent of isolating the role of genes in the expression of intelligence. Until someone shows me sources which specifically state otherwise, I don't even see this statement as contentious insofar as it's not advancing a claim which is under serious dispute, and if I were editing this article in isolation, I wouldn't even think it to be necessary to source it without an outside objection. What is under dispute is whether within-group differences can be used to make claims regarding between-group differences. (Jensen argues that it can, provided no "factor X" can be found (he did not find what he considered to be persuasive evidence for its existence); Flynn thinks that "factor X" exists, and many feel that "racial discrimination" is "factor X" (note that Snyderman & Rothman say "very likely"), with the debate as to the magnitude of discrimination taking place both within as well as beyond the domain of behavioral genetics.) However, regardless whether the sources cited are discussing within-group heritability or between-group heritability, and if the latter, regardless of which side of the debate they support, all of them must operate on the assumption that IQ differences between individuals of the same racial-ethnic group are significantly heritable, for that is the basis or starting point of the subsequent discussion. If this statement needs any qualification, in my opinion, it is in the direction of expansion, not simplification and reduction. Specifically, I think that there is equally little room for doubt - even from Jensen, as he was the one of the first to even discuss "factor X" - in the academic community that heritability can be demonstrated to vary with environment. This, too, is one of the fundamental assumptions upon which the discussion operates. But this is discussed as an "obstacle" at present, as there are currently too few reliable tools for isolating environment-dependent variation in heritability. That's not to say that better tools can't or won't be developed - I'm sure someone this very minute is working on exactly that somewhere in the world.

My point in discussing all this is that I think the current leading statements in the Genetic Factors section are misleading at best. Beyond the discussion of the first statement, I find the phrase "Lewontin suggests that some genotypes are more influenced by environments than others" in need of a much closer inspection. From my reading, his saying that some genotypes are subject to greater environmental influence than others is pointing to real-world, external circumstances, not inherent differences in genotype. But, like I said, this needs to be examined very closely.

Anyway, I hope I have been able to make clear why I think the original statement is far superior to what we have now. But, if the involved editors fail to perceive the genuineness of my concern and remain adamant, then I will refrain from continuing to try to explain myself. These discussions are proving quite useless as far as improving the article goes, and I do not enjoy wasting either my own time or the time of others. Thanks, --Aryaman (talk) 23:47, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

• "The original statement was simply stating that "the consensus among experts is that IQ differences between individuals of the same racial-ethnic group are significantly heritable", with it being assumed that "heritable" in this case is in reference to genes and not environment,"

Actually the original sentence says no such thing. What you say is far better, and I think I could live with something close to what you say here. I still think it is a bad idea to include the term '"racial"-ethnic group'. Even your Snyderman study doesn't use this term, it says "white" and "black". I'm also not sure which sources say this is a consensus. But what you say is actually very close to the changes I suggest. The problem is that you seem to think that the changes I suggest create a change in meaning, but they don't, the change I want to make doesn't substantively change the meaning of the sentence at all. That was never my intention, what I think the sentence actually is actually trying to say is correct with regards to the citations, I just don't think it does a very precise or accurate job of representing what the citations say. BTW heritability never refers to genes, it is a group level trait, it refers to the group in question. i.e. in this group the amount of variation attributable to genes is 80%-that is what heritability means. That is why a heritability estimate for one group cannot be applied to another group. When Jensen applies his 80% figure (calculated in a homogeneous "white" group, to all other groups, that is a mistake, and he has been rightly critisised for it. He is making the error of assming that heritability is a property of the trait (i.e. intelligence), and he was wrong. Now you are making a similar mistake. Hope that finally clears things up for you, I have after all explained this to you four or five times over the last day or so and you still appear to be confused about what heritability actually measures.

• "the very method being used to determine within-group heritability was specifically designed with the intent of isolating the role of genes in the expression of intelligence."

That statement is not correct at all. Heritability estimates cannot be used to "isolate the role of genes in intelligence", they are measures of variation within a trait. It is a statistical treatment of data. Seriously, the only way to to determine the role of genes in intelligence is to find the actual genes involved, that would mean molecular biology and not statistical analysis. I don't know where you get this idea from, but you are mistaken, no reliable source would make this claim.

• "What is under dispute is whether within-group differences can be used to make claims regarding between-group differences."

Well actually no, Jensen isn't stupid, he knows that he can't use within group variatio to make claims about between group variation. But he does claim that if the environments of African-Americans and "white" Americans are similar, then there can be no environmental explanation for the difference. But I digress, the discussion about within to between group variation is irrelevant to the changes I want to make to the article. The fact that you bring it up indicates to me that you don't clearly understand what my problem is. I suggest you take a look at the problems I have with the sentence again and respond to those. Thanks. Alun (talk) 06:11, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Why has this sentence already been changed? The previous consensus that the sentence was fine in its original state can only be overruled by a new consensus that it should be changed, and there certainly isn’t one yet. VA’s points about this haven’t even been addressed yet.

I’m going to change it back to what it was originally. Everyone else, we need to continue following the original consensus about this until we’ve come to a new decision. --Captain Occam (talk) 00:52, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

I'm going to ask that you undo your revert. The working version is better than the version you reverted it to. If you'd like to be constructive, it would help if you described the problems with the way it currently is. Flying in and reverting a currently discussed topic is not constructive behavior. Aprock (talk) 01:06, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Varoon Arya already described the problem with the new version of this sentence in his last few posts, and why he considers the earlier version of this to be better. So did I, in the earlier sections where we debated about this. Whether you choose to read our comments about this is up to you, but the explanations are there, and most of them haven’t been addressed yet.

In any case, that isn’t what matters here. What matters is that you and Alun are going against the previous consensus about what this sentence should say by editing it, when there is no new consensus for changing it. Consensus can change, but in this case it hasn’t yet. Until it does, we need to stick with what consensus originally determined that this sentence should say. --Captain Occam (talk) 01:18, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Where was the current phrasing determined to be consensus? The version you reverted to has problems (see the root posting by Alun). I'll ask again that if you have a problem with the version you reverted from to state the problem. As far as I can tell, it was a working consensus. If it wasn't, what is the point of dispute? The only one who was raising issues about it was me, and I thought it was good enough until something better came along. Aprock (talk) 02:02, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

“Where was the current phrasing determined to be consensus?”

If you aren’t familiar with this article’s history, you need to look through the discussion archives to find this. I’ve been watching this discussion since 2007, and I remember this being resolved at some point during that time, but I don’t remember exactly when it was.

“I'll ask again that if you have a problem with the version you reverted from to state the problem.”

I already have, but I guess I’ll summarize what I’ve said already: Alun (and now you) have been trying to second-guess what the source material for this sentence says, based on what’s being reported in sources that aren’t currently being used for this sentence, even though those other sources do not appear to reflect the academic consensus. In fact, according to VA’s last post, the academic consensus appears to be the opposite for what Alun is claiming. Only one of the nine sources currently being used for this sentence does not support its original phrasing (the one from Neisser), so the obvious solution to this is to just stop using that source, and continue using the other eight.

I’ve explained this before, and it’s usually been ignored. That’s fine if you want to do that, but until the concerns raised by me and Varoon Arya have been addressed, the original consensus about what this sentence should say still applies. --Captain Occam (talk) 02:34, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

• "trying to second-guess what the source material for this sentence says"

Could you point out where I've "guessed" what the source says? Actually what I've done is to ask for clarification about what the sentence says, and to stste that at least one of the sources says something different.

• "based on what’s being reported in sources that aren’t currently being used for this sentence"

Actually I say that "intelligence knowns and unknowns" doesn't support what the sentence currently says, and that's the very first source cited to support the sentence. So I don't know where you get the idea that I'm only referring to sources that aren't used from. You appear not to have read my posts, or else to not know which sources are being used.

• "Only one of the nine sources currently being used for this sentence does not support its original phrasing"

So provide evidence that all of them say that heritability is high in "race-ethnic" groups, because the sections from the sources quoted above to support their use, none used this term at all. I repeat, if we are going to say that the sources claim that heritability of IQ is substantial in all racial-ethnic groups, thenw e need a source that makes this explicit claim. None of the sources make this claim in the sections quoted.

• "according to VA’s last post, the academic consensus appears to be the opposite for what Alun is claiming."

Actually VA's last couple of posts are irrelevant to my concerns. He appears to be interested in having a debate about within to between group variation. I am not interested in that debate, it is irrelevant. I say again, my concerns revolve about use of the term "racial-ethnic groups", which is not used by at least one of the sources, and the claim that heritability estimates are always "substantial". I'd like to remove the reference to "racial-ethnic groups" because I don't think anyone claims that they are substantial in "racial-ethnic groups", although they may claim that they are high in all groups that have been measured. I'd also like to say categorically that heritability estimates do vary between groups, and that they may be higher in some populations and lower in others, I'm concerned that we don't fall into the fallacy of saying that heritability is a property of the trait in question, it is a property of the population (or group) in question, and therefore if two groups have different environments, they may have different heritabilities for intelligence. Alun (talk) 07:56, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

The original statement is a correct reflection of the consensus. The terms "racial-ethnic", "substantially" and "heritable" are specific and necessary if the meaning is not to be distorted or easily misunderstood. (That misunderstanding is clearly possible with the suggested alternative should be clear from Alun's and Slrubenstein's comments above.) Including these terms in no way favors one bias or another. Also, please note that the original statement makes no attempt to quantify the role of genetics in intelligence - least of all for a "random" group. Different studies have yielded different results. But the consensus is that, even with those reported variations, the genetic contribution to intelligence is substantial, as opposed to trivial. That's just about as clear as I think this can be made. --Aryaman (talk) 03:49, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

I've asked several times for the citation which refers to the "racial-ethnic" group results. So far, there has been none. I'll add the appropriate tag till that gets sorted out. Aprock (talk) 04:18, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

It's in each of the citations, but you have to know what to look for. As pointed out above, the "groups" relevant to heritability are not arbitrary collections of people. There are actually two different kinds of groups which all of the sources emphasize, each sharing the property that sibilings/twins are always from the same group: SES and race/ethnicity. For example, from "Intelligence Knowns and Unknowns" they add this caveat after describing the heritability point estimates:

"These particular estimates derive from samples in which the lowest socioeconomic levels were underrepresented (i.e., there were few very poor families), so the range of between family differences was smaller than in the population as a whole. This means that we should be cautious in generalizing the findings for between-family effects across the entire social spectrum. The samples were also mostly white, but available data suggest that twin and sibling correlations in African-American and similarly selected White samples are more often comparable than not (Loehlin, Lindzey, & Spuhler, 1975)."

So emphasizing that heritability estimates refer to differences within races/ethncities (and also SES groups) is important. I also know why the original text says "real, functionally and socially significant", but that doesn't seem to be in dispute. --Distributivejustice (talk) 04:30, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

If it's in each of the citations, then someone should be able to pick one for me to go to the library and check out. As your blockquote points out, the conclusions in the first source weren't about racial-ethnic groups, but family groups. I suspect the same thing is true of the other sources. But if you can name one of the other sources which mention specifically that conclusions about with-racial-ethnic groups were made, I'd be happy to go look it up. Aprock (talk) 04:35, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, maybe I'm not explaining myself well. It's a common and appropriate caveat added to descriptions of heritability that they are within racial/ethnic groups; and that caveat is universally applied when describing racial group differences. All of those sources include a similar description. This is mostly done because the majority of the data comes from "white" populations. It's been a long time since I read many of those books but I recall Brody (1992) for example saying that clearly. Could someone explain why that phrase elicits particular concern? Could it be said more clearly? --Distributivejustice (talk) 04:41, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

That is certainly a much better explanation than some of the others. I'll go look up Brody. And yes, it appears that the problem is that this introductory sentence is burdened by the use of overloaded jargon. As I mentioned above, it would probably be better to use a more straightforward description in the opening paragraph of the section, and discuss the very issue you mention directly in the body of the section. Aprock (talk) 04:45, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

• "It's a common and appropriate caveat added to descriptions of heritability that they are within racial/ethnic groups"

Really? I don't know if that is true. Usually they refer to a specific group. So they may say something like" the heritability of IQ within the "white" group is 80%" or "the heritability of IQ within the "black" group was 40%". But that's the point isn't it? We need a source that says that heritability of IQ is high for "racial-ethnic" groups, notone that says that it's high for a specific group that has been measured. Even if we find a source that states that heritability was measured as high for a white set of subjects and a black set of subjects, it doesn't follow that it is high generically for "racial-ethnic" groups. Mostly the high estimates have been derived from specific "white" populations. Alun (talk) 07:58, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

I think I understand what wasn't clear now. The key thing is that family-based IQ heritability studies only and always measure the heritabilty of "IQ differences between individuals of the same racial-ethnic group". It would take some other kind of study to measure the heritabilty of IQ differences between racial-ethnic groups, a value for which there definitely is not a "consensus among intelligence researchers". So, it seems that the very dense single sentence should be two or more sentences to give proper context because it's been misunderstood here. --Distributivejustice (talk) 16:31, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Although what you say is absolutely true, that's not what I mean. The heritability of differences between groups is certainly an issue, but it is not relevant to my problem. My problem is more run of the mill. The article stated that IQ was highly heritable within "racial-ethnic" groups. But the sources don't say that, the sources say that IQ is highly heritable in specific self-identified groups that have been measured. So if one of the citations states that the heritability of IQ within a specific "white" set of samples is 80% and the same study states that the heritability of a specific "black" set of samples is 70% we can cite the source as saying that heritability has been measured as high whin these two groups as defined by the sources, but we can't use that source to support a sentence in the article that claims that heritability of IQ is generally high within all "racial-ethnic groups". That's what I mean. I think this has been sorted by use of the word "population" and clarification by saying that in "race and IQ" research these populations are nearly always self identifying "white" and "black" populations. Alun (talk) 06:14, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

Another break

I repeat my problems, include my suggested change, and Arya's suggested compomise (thanks for that Arya, your suggestion about what the sentence actually means was far better than what the original sentence said):

Original text:

The consensus among intelligence researchers is that IQ differences between individuals of the same racial-ethnic group reflect real, functionally and socially significant, and substantially heritable differences in intelligence.

My problems.

• "The consensus"- which source says it's a consensus?
• "IQ differences between individuals"- i.e. variation
• "of the same racial-ethnic group"- at least one of the sources doesn't say this, "Intelligence knowns and unknowns" doesn't say this, it says "It is clear (Section III) that genes make a substantial contribution to individual differences in intelligence test scores, at least in the white population." which is not the same at all.[10] BTW the article also states, as I do above, that "So defined, heritability (h2) can and does vary from one population to another. In the case of IQ, h2 is markedly lower for children (about .45) than for adults (about .75)" and "The value of h2 can change if the distribution of environments (or genes) in the population is substantially altered."
• "reflect real, functionally and socially significant"- I don't know what this part is supposed to be saying. I don't see why it can't just say "reflect".
• "and substantially heritable differences in intelligence"- this is just a convoluted way of saying that the differences mentioned earlier in the sentence have a substantial genetic component, right? But it's written in a confusing manner.

My suggestion:

It has been estimated that genes contribute substantially (40-80%) to IQ differences between individuals within some human groups.

I don't think I am in any way changing the meaning of the sentence, only making it more precise and accurate. But Arya has also offered an alternative, which might provide the basis for a compromise.

Arya's suggestion:

the consensus among experts is that IQ differences between individuals of the same racial-ethnic group are significantly heritable

I can live with Arya's suggestion with some minor changes, how about

My version of Arya's proposed change, I include a footnote to clarify the nature of heritability:

There is a consensus that IQ differences between individuals within the same population (usually self identified "Black" or "White" in studies of race and intelligence) are significantly heritable.

• Footnote reads

How does that sound? Cheers Alun (talk) 07:56, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

In his book "Intelligence" Nathan Brody states:

There is little or no doubt that IQ is a heritable trait among white individuals. There is considerably less data on the heritability of IQ in black samples. And, these studies do not provide ideal data for an analysis of heritability.[11]

Which is what others also say. Alun (talk) 09:05, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

I claimed Arya has a racialist agenda, because even when she provides a quote where heritability is not about race, she insists that we must explain it in terms of race. The key line in the lengthy quote above is, "Within-group heritability, because it is tied to the particular environment and genetic variation existing within the group, has little relevance to the causes of between-group variation." Arya challenges us to summarize the point. In fact, Alun did a fine job. Some people may not be sure what "group" means. Well, the solution ot htat is not to delete what Alun wrote, the solution is to add another sentence defining "group." But Alun's sentence is a vast improvement over what someone else wrote because it is clearer and more accurate. Arya provides a long passage where Flynn talks about studies of heritability based on twin-studies. Understandably so. Now, the studies do not make any claims about race, or even about ethnicity (which is not the same thing as race). Why does Arha insist that these are about "racial/ethnic groups" which mixes together two different kinds of identity? The bottom line is in the quote, above: heritability measures the proportion of variation within a group owing to genes. It says nothing, and cannot be twisted to say anything, about diferences between groups. Now, if you want to demand that because heritability is not about "race" then really, we should just remove all discussion of inheritance and genes from this article, okay, that is a position that is at least consistent with the science.

The problem is simple: some people start out believing that because there are some genetic differences between people of different races, genes must explain all differences, or at least one that matters a good deal in our society (and perhaps even moreso to people who would like to write an encyclopedia): inferior or superior intelligence. So they go about looking for anything that they can distort in order to support the argument that yes, some people are just born smarter. The irony is, this is just such a dumb and ignorant position! Anyway, NPOV and all, let's include multiple viws. But heritability remains a measure of variation within a group and NOT between groups, let's at least get the definition right. Slrubenstein | Talk 09:30, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Believe it or not, I do not want to start a big edit war. I have no objection to the article saying that some intelligence researchers (I see no evidence of a consensus among intelligence researchers, which describes a large number of people doing many different kinds of research) believe that differences in IQ between races is largely explained by genetics. What I do objct to is the word heritability being misrepresented. As long as the proper definition of the word is made clear, I do not object to presenting a view about intelligence differences. Let's not get bogged down in the wrong debate. What characterizes the view of Rushton is not his view (right or wrong) of heritability, but his view (right or wrong) or differences among races. Let's be clear about that. We need to go through thoe sources and make sure that we use only those that specifically say that the difference in IQ scores among races is due to biology. To include citations of twin studies that say that heritability of intelligence is high ... and that do not discuss differences between races ... violates NOR. This is an issue we need to resolve, and we do it simply: articles about heritability that do not mention race support the sentence Alun proposed. Articles on differences between races can support a sentence on the biological cause view. Slrubenstein | Talk 10:41, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

I don't think this sentence is about differences between groups. I think this is about whether the sources say that heritability is high amongst individuals within "racial-ethnic" groups. I don't think the sources say this. I think the sources either say that heritability is high within specific defined groups (e.g. "white" or "black") or they give a general comment about the heritability of intelligence being significant. But here's the thing, even if heritability is high within one group, it can be low in another group, and it's wrong for our article to say that it's "substantial" generically within "racial-ethnic groups" unless that's what the source states.

Interestingly it might be more important to specifically include the word "adult" in this sentence. From a reading of much of the literature, there is no disagreement that heritability is always lower in groups of children than in groups of adults. It therefore seems to me that we need to emphasise, when we talk about a high heritability for intelligence, that this applies to adult populations. I think that's particularly important when we take into account that childhood environment has a massive effect on educational achievement, and that environment is much more important for IQ in children than it is for adults. Effectively it might mean that it's the childhood environment that dictates the average IQ differences. This is certainly the belief of people like Geoffrey Canada, and the results of his Harlem Children's Zone certainly give credibility to the huge effects of childhood environments. Alun (talk) 13:13, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Slrubenstein, you say that you don’t want to have an edit war over VA’s proposed changes, yet you continue to change this sentence in a way that he’s clearly expressed a problem with? Something isn’t lining up here.

Alun, let’s take a look at this sentence you proposed: "There is a consensus that IQ differences between individuals within the same population (usually self identified "Black" or "White" in studies of race and intelligence) are significantly heritable."

I don’t think this is any better than the sentence as it was originally phrased, but at least it isn’t significantly worse either. One thing I would suggest changing, though, is to leave either the term “intelligence researchers” or “experts” in the sentence—just saying “there is a consensus” doesn’t mean anything if it doesn’t say among whom. I think we should wait for VA’s input about this before the sentence is changed, though. --Captain Occam (talk) 19:47, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

I appreciate your attempt to be more constructive, but I do find your "revert first, ask questions later" approach to be rather rash. I think the sentence above is certainly better than what you keep reverting it to. It's still not clear to me what it is about that sentence which you think is worse than what you keep reverting it to. Could you explain that? Aprock (talk) 19:53, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

The main thing I preferred about the original version of this sentence was that it also mentioned another aspect of the consensus among researchers, which is that IQ is a socially and functionally significant measurement of intelligence. However, now that this is explained by the first paragraph of the “test score difference” section, I suppose that mentioning it in the first sentence of the “genetic factors” section is no longer essential.

I’ve now changed the sentence to what I quoted above, since this is at least better than what Slrubenstein changed it to. I still think we should wait and see what Varoon Arya has to say about this, though. --Captain Occam (talk) 20:05, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for clarifying that. Also, thank you for updating the sentence. I don't doubt that this may not be the final version, but it is better than what it was before. Aprock (talk) 20:08, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

"There is a considerable body of research which has shown that differences in IQ measurements in individuals of the same population (typically "white" or "black" in studies correlating race with intelligence) are significantly and substantially heritable. Concordance rates for IQ from studies conducted on both identical and same-sex nonidentical twins indicate a correlation of approximately 80% in adults, and most experts in the study of intelligence view this as a reliable estimation of the heritability of intelligence." -- That would be my suggestion, but I'm not particularly dissatisfied with Occam's change. I think the finding that heritability may vary with age should be mentioned a little later, particularly with a discussion of the role of environment, but I'm not set on that. --Aryaman (talk) 21:00, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

At a fundamental level, I think information like this should be in the article. The main issue here is that this sort of detail really isn't appropriate for the lead paragraph of the section. I think this basic view may be where a lot of the friction is coming from. From my perspective, the intro paragraph of a section should be as straightforward and jargon free as possible. As it stands right now, it's better in that regard, but is still awkward. Aprock (talk) 21:05, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Well, I don't think it's contested that most experts agree that, in all groups, intelligence is to some degree heritable. No one is arguing for 100% environmental conditioning. So, if you'd rather start off with a general statement such as "There is consensus among experts that intelligence is a partly heritable trait, though the degree of that heritability remains an area of intense research." and then follow with what I or others have suggested, I don't think that would set the house on fire. :) --Aryaman (talk) 21:11, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

This sentence has just been changed again, by Muntuwandi, to an entire paragraph. His new version is pretty different from anything that we've discussed, and I don't believe that it's supported by the sources being used. Since Aprock approved of what I most recently changed this sentence to, and Alun is the one who suggested this change originally, I this consensus probably goes against this newest change.

For these reasons, I think Muntuwandi's change needs to be reverted. If he wishes to replace this sentence with his new paragraph, he'll need to justify to me, Alun, Aprock, and Varoon Arya why his new version is better than the one that the four of us have agreed on. --Captain Occam (talk) 01:56, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

For the record, I agree with this revert. While a rewrite should probably occur (to make it clearer, and ensure that important information into the body of the text) I think it's clear by now that that will have to happen through talk. Aprock (talk) 07:01, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

Agreed. I think anyone involved in this discussion would have made that revert, regardless whether Muntuwandi made it in good faith or not. (Which makes me wonder whether the article couldn't benefit from a temporary "Under development" template while these discussions are ongoing. It gives a clear warning to other editors who may not be aware of the current discussions that they should check the talk page before making any substantial changes. It's worth considering, even if it accomplishes nothing other than to prevent editors just like Muntiwando from becoming frustrated if their well-intentioned edits get reverted.)

"There is overwhelming consensus among experts that intelligence is a partly heritable trait, though the degree of that heritability remains an area of intense investigation. There is a considerable body of research which has shown that differences in IQ measurements in individuals of the same population (typically "white" or "black" in studies correlating race with intelligence) are significantly and substantially heritable. Concordance rates for IQ from studies conducted on both identical and same-sex nonidentical twins indicate a correlation of approximately 80% in adults, and most experts in the study of intelligence view this as a reliable estimation of the heritability of intelligence."

Is this something we could agree on? --Aryaman (talk) 02:11, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

That sounds pretty good as far as content is concerned, but it seems like it might be a little longer than is necessary. Do you think that information could be condensed into two sentences, rather than three? --Captain Occam (talk) 04:43, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

(reset indent) I have made some rather minor changes to the present formulation. First, most of those IQ studies were not aimed at studying the relationship between race and intelligence. Second, if we are to start quoting heritability numbers, we need a good source, such as a review or better (secondary or tertiary source).--Ramdrake (talk) 03:51, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

Arya, I think your suggestion is not a bad starting point for discussion. It covers many of the positions, but I think it does need some work. Here are my problems with it, but let's not get side tracked or draw "red lines in the sand", we're here to cooperate after all.

• "There is overwhelming consensus among experts that intelligence is a partly heritable trait"

You don't need the word "overwhelming", consensus is consensus, the word "overwhelming" is hyperbole and is anyway redundant.

• "the degree of that heritability remains an area of intense investigation"
• "Concordance rates for IQ from studies conducted on both identical and same-sex nonidentical twins indicate a correlation of approximately 80% in adults, and most experts in the study of intelligence view this as a reliable estimation of the heritability of intelligence."

These two passages contradict each other. How can it be an area of "intense study" and also be the settled view of "most experts"? I don't follow this.

• "Concordance rates for IQ from studies conducted on both identical and same-sex nonidentical twins indicate a correlation of approximately 80% in adults, and most experts in the study of intelligence view this as a reliable estimation of the heritability of intelligence."

I'm also a little confused by use of the word correlation here, is this 80% a measure of r², or is it a heritability estimate? That's not clear. If it is 80% heritability, then we should use the word heritability and not correlation. I also think it's extremely important to say which group this 80% estimate was taken from. As I have stated repeatedly, it is not ever valid to claim that an 80% heritability from one set of samples represents a heritability estimate for all populations at all times. Heritability is a population level trait, and so that 80% measured only applies to a specific set of samples drawn from a population (even then there may be some dispute as to whether it represents an unbiased sampling). But I digress. Very important to say which group this 80% is measured from. Indeed if we are going to give this 80%, which is the upper measure, then we should also give some of the lower estimates used by other researchers, I've seen estimates as low as 30%, why don't you want to include these? My feeling is that we should give a range (e.g. 30%-80%). You can't say that "most exerts view this as a reliable estimation of the heritability of intelligence." 80% is an estimate from a specific sample set drawn from a specific population. It is not an estimate of the "heritability of intelligence" it is an estimate of the "heritability of IQ within this sample set". What's the evidence that "most experts" believe that heritability is a trait level measure? I think most experts understand absolutely that heritabilityy is a measure that only applies to a specific set of samples drawn from a specific population.

So I'd say something like this:

"There is a consensus among experts that IQ is partly heritable, though the degree of that heritability remains an area of intense investigation. There is a considerable body of research which has shown that differences in IQ measurements in individuals of the same population (typically self-identified "white" or "black") often have a large genetic component. IQ studies conducted on both identical and same-sex nonidentical twins indicate a heritability of between 30%-80% [or we could say "a heritability of well over 50%..] depending upon the population studied"

I give here a range of 30-80% because that is the range given in "Genetic foundations of human intelligence", Ian J. Deary, W. Johnson, L. M. Houlihan Hum Genet (2009) 126:215–232 doi:10.1007/s00439-009-0655-4. It should be noted that the 30% is probably an estimate for children, but it's not clear in the text. This paper also gives a "general" estimate for the heritability of g as "well over 50% in adulthood", which seems to be a general estimate for heritability for all humans, though it's not clear where they derive this figure from, it is probably an estimate based on a biased set of data. By that I mean a meta-analysis of studies carried out over the last 100 years or so in mostly US or European countries, but as I say it's not clear. I'm happy to use either the 30-80% range, or the "well over 50%" estimate. At least this source does give a general figure and a set of ranges, which I think is more useful that giving a single figure that can only be applied to one population.

What do you think? Alun (talk) 07:17, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure the low figures on the range are derived from child testing scores, as you mention, which is why I said "in adults" above. I mentioned earlier that I thought this difference should also be mentioned, but slightly later, as it tends to confuse the fact that heritability in adults is generally well above .50, and as Flynn (2001:155-156) said after his explanation of the two main methods of measuring heritability: "This is why most experts on the issue estimate the heritability of intelligence as approximately of .80, or 80 percent." This was also indicated in Neisser et al., where they mention that the genetic factor increases in importance with age (i.e. heritability estimates increase with the age of the group). If there are considerable differences in heritability (e.g. more than a 5 or 10 point difference which would preclude us from using a blanket "high" descriptor) between same-age groups, then of course this needs to be well-researched and adequately explained. I certainly have no problem with that as long as it's factually accurate. But, based on what I've read so far, I'd hesitate to say .30-.80 as a "range", as this may be conflating group comparison with the age-related phenomenon. --Aryaman (talk) 09:46, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

OK, I follow your logic. What do you think about this then?:

"There is a consensus among experts that IQ is partly heritable, though the degree of that heritability remains an area of intense investigation. There is a considerable body of research which has shown that differences in IQ measurements in individual adults of the same population (typically self-identified "white" or "black") often have a large genetic component. IQ studies conducted on both identical and same-sex nonidentical twins indicate a heritability for adults of well over 50% depending upon the population studied"

I hope we're close to agreeing a wording here. Alun (talk) 11:29, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

Well, this is the part where I ask for references. Flynn gives .80, but does not specify whether this result has been gained from "white" subjects only. My impression is that, while twin studies have been conducted on twins belonging to other racial and ethnic groups, the overwhelming majority of twin studies have been conducted on "white" twins. This may be a blind spot in Flynn, I don't know. But I think it's time we start looking at estimates of heritability derived specifically from non-white groups of comparable age, i.e. studies which compare the relevant results. If we're going to say "well over .50", then we need to back that up - especially if it conflicts with Flynn and others. Do you follow me? As far as the rest is concerned, we're moving in the right general direction. --Aryaman (talk) 20:02, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

Outline restructuring

I've made several cosmetic changes to the article to move it towards conforming with the proposed outline above. Some minor content changes, mostly heading titles, were made. Aprock (talk) 20:24, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

I notice you've changed the title of the "1990s debate" section to "The Bell Curve debates". I'm still of the opinion that the original title was better, both because it was consistent with the "1970s debate" title for the preceding section, and because the debates in the 1990s involved more than just The Bell Curve and its commentaries. I know you don't agree with this, though, so I'd like other editors to express their opinion about it. If most other people here agree that the original title was better, it ought to be changed back. --Captain Occam (talk) 00:32, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

I agree with Occam on the grounds that more was discussed in the 90's than Bell Curve, and unless the material relating specifically to Bell Curve is to be moved to its own sub-section, "1990s debate" is a superior title. At the same time, seeing as the higher-level heading is already "History of debate", I'm wondering if "debate" is superfluous in those sub-headings. Also, I'm questioning the propriety of having "Policy debates" and "Viewpoints" listed under the same heading, i.e. "History of debate". Unless they are to be rewritten in a distinctly historical/chronological way, they probably need to be grouped differently. (Mind you, this is a cursory criticism of the current outline. Give me time to mull it over. :) --Aryaman (talk) 00:45, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

Every paragraph in that section relates directly to the debate generated by the publication of The Bell Curve. Aprock (talk) 01:31, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

Made the same observation. The Bell Curve debates is more descriptive.--Ramdrake (talk) 01:41, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

Aprock, we already discussed this here. The Bell Curve was the catalyst that caused this debate, just like Jensen’s 1969 paper in Harvard Educational Review was the catalyst that caused the 1970s debates. But that doesn’t mean either section of the article needs to be named after these catalysts, and it especially doesn’t mean we should do this for one section but not the other. --Captain Occam (talk) 01:46, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

Let's see what the editors want. If most of them opt for The Bell Curve debates, then the title should stay.--Ramdrake (talk) 01:52, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

You know, guys, it can be both. The 1990s Bell Curve debates (no reason to not call it Bell Curve without the addition of more material, and no reason not to add the decade to identify the era). --Nealparr ^{(talk to me)} 10:56, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

What is heritability... (and other OR issues)

... is not a question we should be addressing here. This is an article about the consensus reflected in journal articles, best defined by the wording of the major lit reviews. Specific points brought up by the lit reviews can then be addressed by other sources. There is too much bickering here about personal opinions, when in reality that is total OR.

Let's ask: What are the real controversies? Even Jensen and Rushton say it's not a question of 100-to-0% vs 0-to-100% nature/nature... they define the "strong heriditarian position" as 50-50%.

How are Jensen and Rushton viewed by the general scientific community? and answer honestly. If they're viewed as fringe (or some adjective similar to that... let's not get bogged in semantics again), then that's how they get described here.

Let's ask: are there sources that say race and intelligence are linked? Even the Bell Curve doesn't state that the question has been answered. The controversy is that some people even suggest they could be linked.

Until we start focusing on the big picture problems with this article, we'll go nowhere. T34CH (talk) 18:58, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Well, as has been pointed out before, describing the hereditarian position (Jensen, Rushton, Lynn, Eysenck, Shockley, etc.) as "fringe" is probably a violation of current policy, regardless of how much it offends others. Is the hereditarian position a "popular" one? Absolutely not. Has the heriditarian position had a significant impact on academia. Yes, undeniably so. Is there a mountain of literature criticizing the hereditarian position. Yes, there is. It is our place to decide who is right in this? No, it's not. It's our job to report the findings, report who holds what views, what those views mean, what criticism has been made, etc. It's not our job to beat our readers over the head with how morally despicable the conclusions of the hereditarian position may or may not be. Does that answer your question regarding the "big picture"? Or, perhaps you should enlighten us as to what the "big picture" is? (Though, even suggesting that the "big picture" could be anything other than discussing this issue in a neutral manner bothers me, personally.) --Aryaman (talk) 19:44, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

I agree wholeheartedly, which is why I focused on restructuring instead of minutiae. The one big step that could be made now would be begin development of an "Academic Consensus" section which summarizes our current understanding, and which includes much of what you discuss above. One reason this article is so poor is that there isn't any kind of overall summary, even in the lede. Aprock (talk) 19:04, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Academic consensus

Three cheers for NPOV. But I'm wondering if we can't do one better. How about we put a big red banner on the page that reads:

"WARNING: Before we discuss this topic, we feel required to inform you, gentle reader, that it is our sincerest hope that none of the information presented herein may lead you to draw any conclusion other than the one we intend to spoon feed you. In fact, that you've found your way to this article may indicate you have suppressed racist sentiments. Please turn off your computer and seek professional counseling immediately."

That would help in terms of the "big picture", would it not? :) --Aryaman (talk) 05:37, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

Once again, the problem you have is with the way NPOV policy dictates that articles be written. If that is the battle you want to take up, the place to do so is talk:NPOV. T34CH (talk) 06:18, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

Actually, this section was proposed days ago in the new outline section AND the lead section just above it, and you didn't seem to have a problem with it then. I'm sorry that you've changed your mind. Feel free to suggest alternatives rather than complaining in a sarcastic way. T34CH (talk) 06:23, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

T34CH, this isn't NPOV. Let's look at this sentence from the "academic consensus" section:

"Race and ethnicity are socially defined groups--rather than biological observations--whose members are not homogeneous; races and ethnicities are often defined by affiliation with very large geographical areas (Asian) or common language (Hispanic). For these reasons, discussions of correlations between race and intelligence which extrapolate a genetic causation are fundamentally flawed."

The article presents this statement as fact, not opinion. I don't think the "academic consensus" section is necessary to begin with, since it doesn't provide any information that isn't already provided by the rest of the article, but at the very least we shouldn't be trying to make up readers' minds for them about which theory to believe. This is pretty basic.

I'm tempted to just revert all of your new edits to the article, but I'm near my revert limit for today, and I suppose we might as well discuss whether any of them are worth keeping.

Looking at the overall structure of the article in its current state, it has a pretty blatant balance problem. We've got a large section specifically devoted to criticism of the genetic hypothesis, with nothing equivalent for criticism of the environmental view, and the "criticism of hereditarian positions" section is longer than the explanation of the hereditarian perspective itself. What's more, the "Evidence for genetic factors" section lists almost no actual evidence for this; it's mostly just a general explanation of what the hereditarian hypothesis is.

WP:UNDUE states that we should cover each viewpoint in proportion to the degree of coverage it receives in the scientific community, not that the entire article should be structured around convincing readers to accept the most popular view. If your goal is to convince readers that the hereditarian hypothesis is false, the current state of the article actually works against that goal, because anyone who reads it can see pretty easily that it's essentially nothing more than propaganda. --Captain Occam (talk) 07:10, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

I fully support structuring the article in relation to the prominence of views. That's the spirt and letter of NPOV policy. Articles are not structured this way to convince readers of anything. They are structured this way to report on how views actually are received in the academic community. Balance doesn't mean 'giving views equal validity', and that's expressly written into policy. In a neutral article, views compete on their own merits as demonstrated through reliable sources, and in no way should a minority view be inflated more than it deserves to achieve a false sense of equal validity.

That said, claims of consensus require reliable sources Wikipedia:Rs#Academic_consensus. The source needs to be both reliable, and explicitly state that there is a consensus for us to have the title "Academic consensus". The claim of consensus should also be substantiated with details about the consensus. For lack of a better example, check out how intelligent design demonstrates a consensus by citing the academic bodies and court rulings relative to the topic. Our article here, currently, doesn't give us the details that support that a consensus has been reached. --Nealparr ^{(talk to me)} 11:53, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

I renamed it to "Overview" (mostly as a place holder that you guys can change to whatever is appropriate). --Nealparr ^{(talk to me)} 12:03, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

"I fully support structuring the article in relation to the prominence of views."

So do I, but I think it's kind of obvious that the article goes overboard with this. We've got three sub-sections devoted to criticism of the hereditarian view, and another five devoted to non-hereditarian hypotheses. (Without any criticism presented.) The title "evidence for genetic factors" notwithstanding, how much space does the article actually give to describing the evidence that proponents of the hereditarian view present in support of it? The answer is around two sentences, towards the end of that section. The rest of that section just provides background information about the hereditarian view, including some more criticism that didn't make it into the "criticism" section.

If the article were weighted in proportion to the proportions of these views in academic literature, the evidence for the hereditarian hypothesis would be given around one-half as much space as the evidence for environmental causes. In the article's current state, it's given no more than 5% as much space as the environmental view. This was something of a problem even before T34CH's recent edits, although his edits made it considerably more obvious. In order for the article to be NPOV, this needs to be changed.

And as I said before, trying to make up the reader's mind for them about what to believe (as the sentence I quoted does) is not acceptable under any circumstances. --Captain Occam (talk) 13:13, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

I think I can predict where this discussion is likely to go from here, so I’m going to head it off before it does. Someone is going to claim that the hereditarian hypothesis is “fringe”, and that for this reason it doesn’t deserve any more coverage in the article than something like the opinion that the world is flat. So before anyone claims that, I advise anyone who's thinking of doing so to read the earlier discussion about this here, if they haven't already.

As I said in my last post there (to which no one replied), whether or not this viewpoint is “fringe” is not a matter of semantics. When a peer-reviewed journal is being careful to present this topic in a balanced way, what term is being used for this balance doesn’t even matter; the only thing that matters is that Wikipedia ought to present this topic with a similar type of balance to the one that it receives in the professional literature. --Captain Occam (talk) 13:25, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

I see no problems with T34CH's edits, which have returned the article to a more balanced state, firmly rooted in academic references. It's not quite clear why there has been a recent increase in editing activity for articles related to Rushton and Lynn and their theories. This matter has been discussed several times recently on noticeboards. Mathsci (talk) 13:44, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

Stating that one of the main viewpoints about this is "fundamentally flawed" is not balanced. I don't see how this matter can even be a subject of dispute. It rather explicitly violates WP:NPOV. --Captain Occam (talk) 14:01, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

I'm using the only review articles which we have agreed to use for the purpose of evaluating consensus. They make it very clear that there's no justification at all for causative statements such as, "blacks score lower than whites because of genetic differences." They make the point that such statements are flawed on several points (conceptions of black/white are flawed, environmental issues cause lower scores, tests are biased, genetics are not well enough understood). Thus, I see absolutely no issue with pointing out that the fundamental basis for the statement "blacks score lower than whites because of genetic differences" is flawed reasoning. Fundamentally flawed. We can say it some other way if it really hurts your feelings, but there's no reason to sugar coat reality. T34CH (talk) 15:45, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

(outdent) In the absence of intellectual honesty and integrity, NPOV policy is worthless. NPOV assumes that the editors can take an objective, uninvolved stance regarding their subject matter. This is not a case of pushing a "fringe" view. This is a case of pushing a majority view as the only correct view. Unfortunately, in its effort to neutralize the real "fringe"-pushers, Wikipedia often turns a collective blind eye to this kind of POV-pushing.

If the hereditarian position was as "fringe" as the editors would like to lead readers to believe, one wouldn't find it being discussed in every major review of the issue in such depth; it would simply be ignored. I'd like to quote a passage from a colleague and occasional critic of Jensen who - and please note the intellectual honesty - comments upon this very issue:

The massive, and vituperous, attacks on hereditarian findings clearly signal how seriously the environmental program is challenged by [the] evidence. The hereditarian program is the only one that has generated a theoretical structure that explains, in a consistent (non-ad hoc) fashion, the observed correlations in IQ between relatives (reared apart or together, related by ancestry or not). A review of specific criticism of hereditarian research, with monozygotic twins reared apart (MZA), will show clearly that the critics view these data very seriously. That is, they behave as though, if the data were true, it would be telling. I understand this to mean that 'in their heart of hearts', they recognize that studies of twins reared apart, adoption studies, and classical twin studies are just what their proponents claim they are: 'experiments of nature' in the most fundamental sense of the term 'experiment'. —Thomas J. Bouchard

Another passage, this time from Jensen himself:

There is simply no doubt about it: There is a double standard among journal editors, referees, book review editors, textbook writers, and reviewers of research proposals when it comes to criticizing and evaluating articles that appear to support what the readers may interpret as either 'hereditarian' or 'environmentalist' conclusions. I have had plenty of experience with this, for I have published many articles that range widely on this spectrum. I approve the thorough critical scrutiny to which 'hereditarian' articles are subjected but deplore the fact that many 'environmentalist' articles receive much more lax reviews. There is unquestionably much more editorial bias favoring 'environmentalist' findings and interpretations. For example, I was recently told by a journal editor that one of my articles - which took all of seven months to be reviewed - had to be sent to seven reviewers in order to obtain two reviews of the article itself; the rest were merely diatribes against 'Jensenism'; the editor apologized that they were too insulting to pass on to me. —Arthur Jensen

What we have here is simply an extension of that very same bias. Wikipedia is supposed to rise above such bias and present views in a fair, neutral and objective fashion. This article fails miserably, and to invoke the policy of NPOV as a defense is to make a mockery of the same. --Aryaman (talk) 16:07, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

The issue with that is that those quotes reinforce a marginalization approach to hereditarian coverage. Ours is to reflect academia, not right great wrongs. If we were to make our article different than academia actually does, it would violate a number of Wikipedia policies. --Nealparr ^{(talk to me)} 17:45, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

This space is for suggesting changes to the article, not random quotes with no source and complaints about fundamental wikipedia policies. T34CH (talk) 16:16, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

(1) There's probably a misunderstanding here. Those quotations are probably references to the heritability of IQ in general, rather than race differences. There used to be considerably more controversy surrounding that topic. (2) The section currently says "The majority of intelligence researchers argue that studies which may appear to support a hereditarian hypothesis of intelligence are either flawed and thus inconclusive, or else that they actually support a primarily environmental (<20% genetic) hypothesis", citing a series of review papers from 2005. It would appear to me that what's being expressed in the writing in this section is the opinion that the conclusion that there is no genetic contribution and the conclusion that there's not enough evidence to support a conclusion are actually one and the same conclusion. I believe that may very well be a working assumption of the cited authors (could we provide full citations). From what I've read elsewhere, I'm not sure that that view is actually held by a majority of intelligence researchers. The majority appear to adopt the view that all of the studies (pro and con) are too weak to support either minority conclusion. --Distributivejustice (talk) 19:41, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

Reliably sourcing consensus statements

Regarding my earlier point that consensus statements must be reliably sourced, is in fact a consensus statement from the American Psychological Association. However, it would have to be used in the article something like this: Iq#The view of the American Psychological Association, giving context to the consensus statement and not synthesizing other sources/statements to the consensus statement. --Nealparr ^{(talk to me)} 14:45, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

I think that's very appropriate. It should be possible to lay out the different opinions. --Distributivejustice (talk) 19:55, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

Regarding the nature-nurture debate, there doesn't seem to be an academic consensus among people who publish on the topic. (I assume without any documentation that a random poll of all academics would find support for an entirely environmental source of black-white IQ differences. I likewise assume a poll of the general public would show the same.) I tried to do a literature review for citations supporting a consensus. I found that there were roughly two minority and one majority conclusions about the nature-nurture. The two minority conclusions were that (a) there's definitely no genetic contribute and (b) there's definitely a non-trivial contribute. The majority conclusion was that (c) there's not enough evidence to convincingly accept either (a) or (b). Here are the most commonly cited sources I found regarding academic opinion:

• Loehlin, J.C., Lindzey, G., & Spuhler, J.N. (1975). Race differences in intelligence. San Francisco: Freeman.
• Snyderman, M. & Rothman, S. The IQ Controversy, the Media and Publication(Transaction, New Brunswick, NJ, 1988).
• Neisser, U., Boodoo, G., Bouchard, T.J., Boykin, A.W., Brady, N., Ceci, S.J., Halpern, D.F., Loehlin, J.C., Perloff, R., Sternberg, R.J., & Urbina, S. (1996). Intelligence: Knowns and unknowns. American Psychologist, 51, 77- 101.
• Brody, Nathan (1992), Intelligence. San Diego: Academic Press.
• Gottfredson. (1997). Mainstream science on intelligence: An editorial with 52 signatories, history, and bibliography. Intelligence, 24, 13-23.

I found Earl Hunt's opinion (Intelligence (2009) pp. 1-2) to be the most succinct summary of what appears to be the majority opinion (in the context of a book review of Nisbett 2009):

• Nisbett provides substantial documentation of Black--White environmental differences that probably influence the gap. But then he goes too far. On page 118 he states "Genes account for none of the differences in IQ between Blacks and Whites." In order to show that environment effects account for the entire gap requires showing that the range of environmental effects in the population is wide enough to do so. I can think of studies that could address the issue, but they are wildly impractical and certainly have not been done. I wish that the loud voices speaking about the genetics of the Black--White gap would write "We do not know" on the blackboard at least 500 times.

I seem to recall Nathan Brody saying the same thing in a review of Jensen's work, but I can't find the citation now. --Distributivejustice (talk) 19:31, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

I forgot to include in that list Lohlin's book chapter titled "Group differences in intelligence" in the "Handbook of intelligence" edited by Robert J. Sternberg. His conclusion regarding the cause of black-white differences: "So we are left with the usual conclusion: More research is needed." If you read carefully, he seems to lean towards a gene-environment interaction model as an avenue of future research, but appears to be sticking with the conclusion that the available data is contradictory and weak. --Distributivejustice (talk) 19:53, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

Tags

Now that the outline has been restructured, and chunks of extra information (like the two long lists of names) have been removed, I think we can revisit the question of the NPOV and unbalanced tags. What do folks think? I suggest moving tags to relevant sections now if there are specific problems. As a whole the article looks much better to me (though I still think it should be named after an actual thing rather than a nebulous correlation of two nebulous concepts. T34CH (talk) 18:10, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

I think that the tags should be removed. David.Kane (talk) 21:28, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

I agree with that. Obviously the entire article isn't in dispute. I recommend removing the tags and encouraging editors to tag individual passages or sections they have issue with and then fixing those. --Nealparr ^{(talk to me)} 21:36, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

Overview section and nature/nurture debate size

I'd like to help with the overview section. The content is generally correct, but the reasons stated for the conclusions are not. A few examples from the first paragraph:

• There are important caveats about conclusions made about intelligence from IQ scores, but intelligence rather than IQ is a construct. IQ is a measurement. g is a more precise construct, being mathematically defined. Whether group differences in IQ are also differences in g is thus an important question.
• Racial and ethnic groups are socially defined and not homogeneous, but it's inaccurate to say that they are no biological differences. No one knows if there are biological differences related to intelligence -- that's just begging the nature/nurture question.
• The major criticism of Jensen's hypothesis is that the research supporting his conclusions are flawed and not compelling, not that he simply infers a genetic contribution in the absence of evidence.

I'm not certain about the best approach to fixing this.

One issue to consider is whether the nature/nurture debate should be allowed to consume so much space. The authors of this article appear to have been trying their best to muster support for competing hypotheses. There seems to have been particular emphasis put on providing primary literature references to evidence for an environmental cause for the differences. Yet the existence of many environmental differences doesn't seem to be in dispute. Overall, this seems like a flawed approach to writing about this topic. The details of the debate and why a particular piece of research is considered flawed or not is usually very esoteric. That kind of detail seems out of place here. If these sections were rewritten to put less emphasis on data and more on reasoning and conclusions, it would probably be more readable and accessible. That would also shrink the nature/nurture sections to a reasonable size and give room for other topics.

If those sections were made less dense, then should nature/nurture be the focus on an overview section? It would seem that the focus should then be on providing a broader overview.

Tentatively, I'd suggest that focusing on a few key figures, such as Flynn and Jensen, would help focus the nature/nurture section to a readable form. --Distributivejustice (talk) 20:36, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

You bring up some good points. First it is important to state that most of the current text was written for a completely different formulation of the article. A lot of the text has simply been moved around to conform to our newly agreed upon outline (see above). Quite a bit of work remains to better integrate the paragraphs into their new homes, cut out dead weight, and write new text to bridge wandering lines of reasoning. It is probably the case that a lot of the language came to be as reaction to statements which have now been downgraded in prominence or removed, so keep this in mind while analyzing the current text.

I think you are quite right to suggest that more attention needs to be paid to other issues (such as problems with measuring intelligence and quantifying race). As for your statement that "it's inaccurate to say that they are no biological differences", the sources used in that section support that language. I'm sure we'll be able to find sources which show that skin color and facial topography have a high degree of genetic basis... but that doesn't negate the problem that "race" is difficult to quantify reliably because it is not a well defined construct. T34CH (talk) 20:59, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. Okay, so taking that as an accurate summary of the cited sources, I'd suggest that the summary is simply incomplete. Assuming that what you've summarized is a common enough argument, then it should be encapsulated as being the opinion of the cited authors and then extended with other alternative views. Along those line, I did some more digging and I'd propose the following as a complete-enough discussion of the core nature-nurture debate over the last 30 year: (1) Start with Jensen's argument. (2) Then give Lewontin's response to Jensen. (3) Then give Flynn's responses to both Jensen and Lewontin. It would seem that there are also other parallel threads, like the ones you've summarized currently. As these different threads seem incompatible with one another, I'd suggest not trying to merge them into a single narrative synthesis, but laying them out individually without connecting them together. --Distributivejustice (talk) 21:08, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

That would be a good outline for the history section of the article, but we examined that as a possibility for outlining the whole article and I believe we abandoned the idea. Neisser (1996) is basically the statement of the APA, and Sternberg (2005) is the only other source even suggested so far to be used as a basis for discerning academic consensus. If there's a source we've missed we should work it in, but I think it would be much better for this article to try to fill in the gaps rather than turn it back into a dialogue of opposing viewpoints. T34CH (talk) 21:20, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

In particular, it seems that the Sternberg et al paper supports the summary you gave but the Neisser et al paper gives the alternative and very different argument I've seen elsewhere. --Distributivejustice (talk) 21:16, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

Can you quickly state which summary you're talking about here? I just got lost because I read the two sources as mostly agreeing with each other. T34CH (talk) 21:24, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

Sorry I really wasn't clear :). The overview section of this article seems to summarize Sternberg only. It seems to me that Sternberg's argument is entirely different than what's present in Neisser (hence my objections above about why this argument doesn't match what I've seen before). It seems that those two (Sternberg and Neisser) only agree on the most superficial level. Their reasons are entirely different.

I recognize the Neisser article as being a recap of Lewontin and a little bit of Flynn. There's more and newer material from Flynn. (And more and newer material from Jensen.) The Sternberg article seems to be an entirely different 4th view. I'm not suggesting a necessarily historical article, but rather that the focus should be on these 3 (4?) main arguments which I see repeated in the secondary literature. So, I think I see the distinction between history and dialogue you're suggesting, but I'm not sure that it means that there's only a single dialogue happening. --Distributivejustice (talk) 21:39, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

[outdent] So concrete next steps would be (1) attribute "consensus" views to their authors directly (e.g., Sternberg et al). (2) Focus on the interlaced arguments/views made by at least (a) Jensen, (b) Lewontin and (c) Flynn, using them as exemplars rather than as historical figures. This should be like describing utilitarianism and categorical moral philosophies by referring to Kant and Bentham. --Distributivejustice (talk) 21:45, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

I disagree that the overview only summarizes Sternberg. Neisser et al states:

• "These groups [Chinese and Japanese Americans, Hispanic Americans ("Latinos"), Native Americans ("Indians"), and African Americans ("Blacks")] (we avoid the term "race") are defined and selfdefined by social conventions based on ethnic origin as well as on observable physical characteristics such as skin color. None of them are internally homogeneous. Asian Americans, for example, may have roots in many different cultures: not only China and Japan but also Korea, Laos, Vietnam, the Philippines, India, and Pakistan. Hispanic Americans, who share a common linguistic tradition, actually differ along many cultural dimensions."
• "It is clear, however, that these differences--whatever their origin--are well within the range of effect sizes that can be produced by environmental factors."
• "Because there are many ways to be intelligent, there are also many conceptualizations of intelligence... Standardized intelligence test scores ("IQs"), which reflect a person's standing in relation to his or her age cohort, are based on tests that tap a number of different abilities. Recent studies have found that these scores are also correlated with information processing speed in certain experimental paradigms (choice reaction time, inspection time, evoked brain potentials, etc.), but the meaning of those correlations is far from clear."
• "Because ethnic differences in intelligence reflect complex patterns, no overall generalization about them is appropriate."
• "Explanations based on factors of caste and culture may be appropriate, but so far have little direct empirical support. There is certainly no such support for a genetic interpretation."
• "It is widely agreed that standardized tests do not sample all forms of intelligence."

This seems to completely agree with the first paragraph of the Overview. If you feel something is missing feel free to add it, but as you can see below I think the article is too broad in scope. T34CH (talk) 22:00, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

The overview (this article) and Sternberg are arguing that it's impossible for there to be a genetic cause of race differences in intelligence because (a) the very concept is too imprecise to be meaningfully examined and (b) races are not genetically different enough to allow such an effect. That's entirely different than arguing that the question is intelligible, that the empirical evidence allows for an entirely environmental cause, and that no firm conclusions can be made because of the weakness of the empirical evidence. The difference is in the structure of the arguments. --Distributivejustice (talk) 22:09, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

I think you're misreading the overview. It says:

Intelligence (often approximated using IQ) is not a well defined construct, and IQ tests do not provide definitive measures of intelligence. Race and ethnicity are socially defined groups—rather than biological observations—whose members are not homogeneous; races and ethnicities are often defined by affiliation with very large geographical areas (Asian) or common language (Hispanic). For these reasons, discussions of correlations between race and intelligence which extrapolate a genetic causation are fundamentally flawed.

The first sentence is supported by "Because there are many ways to be intelligent, there are also many conceptualizations of intelligence... Standardized intelligence test scores ("IQs"), which reflect a person's standing in relation to his or her age cohort, are based on tests that tap a number of different abilities. Recent studies have found that these scores are also correlated with information processing speed in certain experimental paradigms (choice reaction time, inspection time, evoked brain potentials, etc.), but the meaning of those correlations is far from clear." and "It is widely agreed that standardized tests do not sample all forms of intelligence.", as well as "Such a summary merely acknowledges that performance levels on different tests are correlated; it is consistent with, but does not prove, the hypothesis that a common factor such as g underlies those correlations. Different specialized abilities might also be correlated for other reasons, such as the effects of education. Thus while the g-based factor hierarchy is the most widely accepted current view of the structure of abilities, some theorists regard it as misleading (Ceci, 1990). Moreover, as noted in Section 1, a wide range of human abilities--including many that seem to have intellectual componentsmare outside the domain of standard psychometric tests." and "Finally, we do not yet know the direction of causation that underlies such correlations. Do high levels of "neural efficiency" promote the development of intelligence, or do more intelligent people simply find faster ways to carry out perceptual tasks? Or both? These questions are still open."

The second sentence is supported by "These groups [Chinese and Japanese Americans, Hispanic Americans ("Latinos"), Native Americans ("Indians"), and African Americans ("Blacks")] (we avoid the term "race") are defined and selfdefined by social conventions based on ethnic origin as well as on observable physical characteristics such as skin color. None of them are internally homogeneous. Asian Americans, for example, may have roots in many different cultures: not only China and Japan but also Korea, Laos, Vietnam, the Philippines, India, and Pakistan. Hispanic Americans, who share a common linguistic tradition, actually differ along many cultural dimensions."

The third sentence follows ipso facto, as well as being supported by "It is clear, however, that these differences--whatever their origin--are well within the range of effect sizes that can be produced by environmental factors." and "Because ethnic differences in intelligence reflect complex patterns, no overall generalization about them is appropriate." and "Explanations based on factors of caste and culture may be appropriate, but so far have little direct empirical support. There is certainly no such support for a genetic interpretation."

Please let me know if I'm missing something here. T34CH (talk) 22:31, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

They are drawing the conclusions they draw for very different reasons than the first two sentences. The third sentence is Sternberg's conclusion, which he draws from the first two. "It is clear, however, that these differences--whatever their origin--are well within the range of effect sizes that can be produced by environmental factors." -- This is referring to the Flynn effect. "Because ethnic differences in intelligence reflect complex patterns, no overall generalization about them is appropriate. -- This is referring to g vs non-g factors in group differences. "Explanations based on factors of caste and culture may be appropriate, but so far have little direct empirical support. There is certainly no such support for a genetic interpretation." -- This is saying there's no scientific answer at present, although caste and culture are directions to look for an answer.

I drafted an outline below. I hope that helps. I'll try to flesh it out further and include Sternberg et al. --Distributivejustice (talk) 22:43, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

Consensus views, by definition, would not be attributed to individual authors, but rather to communities (for example the APA). Neisser's article, by example, would be the view of the APA itself rather than his own, as that was the purpose of the paper and it was published as such. --Nealparr ^{(talk to me)} 21:49, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

Right, yes. More directly -- (a) Sternberg's article isn't a consensus view but rather his own and (b) Neisser's article has a little bit of consensus ("At present, this question has no scientific answer.") and a lot of summarizing Jensen/Lewontin/Flynn. (Wikipedia:Rs#Academic_consensus) --Distributivejustice (talk) 21:55, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

I asked for more suggestions to asses consensus, but none were given and no objection was made to Sternberg. Please feel free to add some sources for this purpose, or suggest a method of assessing consensus. T34CH (talk) 22:02, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

I don't know about Sternberg's article (not familiar with it), but the Neisser article was commissioned by the APA for the purpose of stating the view of the APA, and it was published by the APA as their view. As such, it is not the view of Neisser, Jensen, Lewontin, or Flynn, but the view of the APA as a whole. Attributing it to the authors, or the author's sources, rather than to the APA, greatly diminishes the support the view actually has. The paper is a golden example of how one would reliably source a consensus statement per WP:RS#Academic consensus. --Nealparr ^{(talk to me)} 22:04, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

I'm sorry for being unclear with those names. I think we aren't disagreeing. Neisser is the lead author of the task force. Neither Jensen, Flynn nor Lewtonin are authors of the report. Rather, I'm saying that they are the primary subjects of the portion of the report related to nature/nurture of group differences. Sternberg authored an entirely different review article which is being cite. It seems to me that the overview summarizes Sternberg but not the APA. --Distributivejustice (talk) 22:12, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

I see. I thought you meant that the stuff that is APA you wanted attributed to Neisser et al. versus the APA. Sorry if I got that wrong. --Nealparr ^{(talk to me)} 22:30, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

Focus of article

"I think you are quite right to suggest that more attention needs to be paid to other issues (such as problems with measuring intelligence and quantifying race)." I disagree. Problems with measuring intelligence and quantifying race are extremely well-covered in their respective Wikipedia articles. There is no need to rehash those debate here, beyond proving a brief acknowledgment that there are debates and links to the appropriate parts in Wikipedia where those debates are hashed out in detail. This article would be better if it were shorter and more focused. Or am I the only one who thinks that? David.Kane (talk) 21:33, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

I would agree, if the article were called Hereditarian hypothesis of intelligence. But under the current title I don't think we can split off too much body without running afoul of wp:UNDUE. T34CH (talk) 21:41, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

I certainly agree that the focus is poor. But that's one reason for having a clear Overview section at the beginning of the article which summarizes the current understanding of how race and intelligence relate to each other. Aprock (talk) 22:26, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

David, in my opinion, you're right. I think this article would benefit greatly from letting the main articles deal with the larger controversies, and focusing more on the central issue. See WP:MNA. --Aryaman (talk) 01:27, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

I think this is a good approach as well. I've been including "see also" and "main" links in hopes the overall article could move in that direction. Aprock (talk) 01:55, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

T34CH, can you explain the connection to wp:UNDUE here? Consider race. Obviously, if race is a meaningless concept, then an article on race and intelligence makes little sense. Some people do, indeed, argue that race is a meaningless concept. But that discussion can (and does!) occur in the race article. There is no need (and much harm) to rehashing that here. Instead, we should just reference that debate. Or do you think that the entire debate about the meaningfulness (or not) race that occurs at race needs to be repeated in this article? David.Kane (talk) 01:33, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

"can you explain the connection to wp:UNDUE here": It's simple Dave, "In general, articles should not give minority views as much or as detailed a description as more popular views... In articles specifically about a minority viewpoint, the views may receive more attention and space." If this article is about "Race and intelligence", then the majority of description/attention/space has to be about the majority academic opinions. This is because it is framed as an overview article. If this article is about the "Heritability hypothesis of intelligence," then it is very easy to cut out over half the article as obviously unnecessary (and even a violation of UNDUE), as long as it is made clear that the hypothesis is a minority one and why.

"do you think that the entire debate about the meaningfulness (or not) race that occurs at race needs to be repeated in this article": Uh, no. Never said that. Never will. Show me, however, what section in the article rehashes Social interpretations of race so much that's doing all this harm you mentioned above.T34CH (talk) 02:18, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

Well, I think David has raised a very important issue for discussion, and WP:MNA supports it. David and I both have made mention of this before, but no one seemed to see that it could represent a solution to some of the difficulties with this article. I'd like to see other editors comment on this before rejecting it offhand. --Aryaman (talk) 02:32, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

"there is probably not a good reason to discuss some assumption on a given page, if an assumption is best discussed in depth on some other page." No one has argued with this or dismissed it. This section in particular came about in reference to a statement I made that the article needed to outline some issues specifically not outlined in the text, but are discussed at length by the sources. Nowhere have I said we needed to re-hash some other article. I also don't think you will find discussion in other articles of intelligence researchers failing to quantify race. T34CH (talk) 02:50, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

If there are sections which you feel are duplicates of text elsewhere in Wikipedia, please inform us. T34CH (talk) 02:51, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

I do not think that currently there are duplicate sections. I was reacting to your claim that "more attention needs to be paid to other issues (such as problems with measuring intelligence and quantifying race)." More attention does not need to be paid to these issues in this article. The amount that we currently pay attention to these issues (mostly by referencing other Wikipedia articles) is enough. Do you disagree? How much more attention (a sentence, a paragraph, 5,000 words) do we need to devote to these topics in this article? David.Kane (talk) 14:46, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

Since you're asking, I think the whole tone of the article, from the sections down to the individual sentences, needs to be examined in light of WP:MNA. Take a sentence such as "Self defined black and white United States citizens have been the subjects of the greatest number of studies." Why "self defined"? Is this sentence really the place to stress - yet again - that "race is a social construct"? The article makes mention of this, and the issue is discussed at length at race. Our reader is intelligent enough to make a mental note of this fact, and to understand the simple, everyday language of "Black" and "White" in light of it. No need to beat him/her over the head with it at every turn. Such writing reeks of either paranoia or pedantry, and in this case, both. The article is saturated with this kind of thing. But really, I'd prefer to let other editors comment on this. I think we've expressed our opinions sufficiently. Let's shut up and find out what other editors think. --Aryaman (talk) 03:15, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

In this specific article extra care must be made to ensure that discussions of race match the underlying sources. The issue is that the article is really about what determines intelligence, with all researchers listing various social and environmental factors (including social race) and with a few researchers listing genetic race as a factor. Because both genetic race and social race are significant topics, the article needs to be clear which is being discussed in any given section. Aprock (talk) 03:28, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

If you can't cite an example of a chunk of text we should remove, then we are not even talking about anything. Your example is a fallacy because it refers to a specific type of study: the study of IQs of people who self-identify as black. This is different from studies of IQ in general populations, studies of spacial memory in people identified by the researcher as Inuit, or studies of GPA in people identified by their best friends as mole people. It is a specific type of study, and that is the specific point the sentence is trying to make. I feel you are grasping at straws to assert a point with no actual basis in the existing text. T34CH (talk) 03:49, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

Sorry to post here again, and I'm loathe to make a point, but since when is it not self-identification? As someone who has had the privilege of enjoying close ties to Yupik and Inupiat people, I'd like to state for the record that no one "assumes" their identity for them - no government agency, no social worker, no police officer, and certainly no one administering an IQ test. Perhaps it would surprise you to learn that they're quite conscious of their own identity, and are generally rather articulate in expressing it. Please, be careful with what you're asserting, as it can easily come across in a way I'm assuming you do not intend. As for the rest, if others feel the idea is worth discussing, I'd be happy to bring up numerous examples of where I feel this article could be improved. Thanks, --Aryaman (talk) 04:17, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

Overview outline

Here's an outline. I'll call that my first draft and wait for comments before extending it to other nature/nurture hypotheses or other topics. --Distributivejustice (talk) 23:10, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

• Intelligence and IQ are complex.
  • IQ tests measure an important but not complete subset of intelligence.
  • IQ tests are themselves complex, measuring a variety of constructs, including the general intelligence factor g and other more specific mental abilities.
• Racial groups aren't homogeneous
  • Racial-ethnic groups are self-defined.
  • Groups such as "Asians" and "Hispanics" have complex and varied ancestral and ethnic origins.
• IQ scores vary within and between racial-ethnic groups.
  • The range of variation within each group is greater than the average differences between groups.
  • The "structure" of IQ differences between groups may be more complex than can be captured by simple average differences in overall IQ scores. Several long-standing questions are whether black-white IQ differences are due to differences in g, whether other specific mental abilities vary between groups, and whether IQ differences are the result of factors other than differences in ability (e.g. test bias).
• According to the APA, no one knows the cause of between-group differences in IQ. While various explanation have been proposed, none is generally accepted.
  • Jensen argues that a high heritability of intelligence within groups, combined with a variety of indirect empirical evidence, impose strong constraints on the plausibility of an entirely environmental explanation of black-white differences in IQ, and thus favors a hypothesis that both genetic and environmental factors are the cause. The APA concluded that there's no direct evidence supporting a genetic hypothesis.
  • Lewontin argues that Jensen's argument misses the fact that factors which vary between groups but not within groups, such as the effects of racism, caste and culture, can explain a large difference in average IQ regardless of the within-group heritability of IQ. The APA concluded that factors of caste and culture may be appropriate explanations, but at present there is no scientific answer as to whether the environmental difference between groups meet the criteria established by Lewontin.
  • Flynn rejects Lewontin's solution to Jensen's argument as untenable. Flynn discovered that average IQ scores can improve substantially over time despite the high heritability of IQ. Flynn proposes that a complex interaction between genes and environment is the cause of group differences in IQ, making environmental remediation of these differences possible through environmental intervention. The APA concluded that they cannot exclude the possibility that the environmental factors responsible for the Flynn effect are also responsible for between group differences.

---

At first blush, I would say that this is an overly complex overview, looking more like an article outline than a summary of our current understanding. I certainly think all the details you mention should be included in the article though. Maybe the overview is the proper place, but I'm a bit hesitant to include a he-said/she-said in an overview section. Aprock (talk) 00:25, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

Okay, I think that's a good point. It seems that the text from bullet 1 to bullet 3 is all consensus statement and the lead-in to 4 is also. Then the rest of 4 belongs elsewhere. How does that sound? That would be the first four paragraphs below. --Distributivejustice (talk) 00:56, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

Full prose draft

Intelligence is a complex concept. IQ tests measure an important but not complete subset of intelligence. IQ tests are themselves complex, measuring a variety of constructs, including the general intelligence factor g and other more specific mental abilities (such as spatial reasoning).

Racial groups are not internally homogeneous. Racial-ethnic groups are defined and self-defined based on ancestry and ethnic origins. Groups such as "Asians" and "Hispanics" have complex and varied ancestral and ethnic origins.

IQ scores vary within and between racial-ethnic groups. The average scores of African Americans are conventionally reported to be 15 points below those of Whites. The range of variation within each group is greater than the average differences between groups, resulting in overlapping distribution of overall IQ scores. The "structure" of IQ differences between groups may be more complex than can be captured by simple average differences in overall IQ scores. For example, Chinese and Japanese Americans tend to score higher on tests of spatial ability. Several long-standing questions are whether black-white IQ differences are due to differences in g, whether other specific mental abilities vary between groups, and whether IQ differences are the result of factors other than differences in real ability (e.g. test bias).

According to an APA consensus statement, no one knows the cause of between-group differences in IQ. While various explanation have been proposed, none is generally accepted. IQ tests do not appear to appear to be biased against African Americans, and simple models in which socieoeconomic differences directly cause IQ differences do not work.

Jensen argued that a high heritability of intelligence within groups, combined with a variety of indirect empirical evidence, impose strong constraints on the plausibility of an entirely environmental explanation of black-white differences in IQ, and thus Jensen favored a hypothesis that both genetic and environmental factors are the cause. The APA consensus statement concluded that there's no direct evidence supporting a genetic hypothesis.

Lewontin argued that Jensen's argument misses the fact that factors which vary between groups but not within groups, such as the effects of racism, caste and culture, can explain a large difference in average IQ regardless of the within-group heritability of IQ. The APA concluded that factors of caste and culture may be appropriate explanations, but there is no scientific answer as to whether the environmental difference between groups meet the criteria established by Lewontin.

Flynn rejected Lewontin's solution to Jensen's argument as untenable. Flynn discovered that average IQ scores can improve substantially over a few decades despite the high heritability of IQ. Flynn proposed that a complex interaction between genes and environment is the cause of group differences in IQ, making environmental remediation of these differences possible through environmental intervention. The APA concluded that they cannot exclude the possibility that the environmental factors responsible for the Flynn effect are also responsible for between group differences.

---

here's a full prose implementation of that outline. --Distributivejustice (talk) 00:35, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

This looks pretty good to me; it's definitely better than the outline T34CH came up with. As you pointed out from your literature review, the consensus among researchers is that there is not enough evidence to conclude one way or another about whether genetics contribute to the IQ difference, so any "outline" or statement of "academic consensus" in the article should reflect that consensus.

Something I wonder, though, is whether having an "outline" that's separate from the lead section is necessary at all. The lead section is itself an outline, and having both of them seems like it might be redundant. I don't have a strong opinion about this, though. Do the other editors here think that having both a lead section and an outline is necessary? --Captain Occam (talk) 06:27, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

I object to some of this outline. For example, the APA statement does say that an environmental explanation is entirely possible, but that it hasn't been found at this point. It also says that whatever little evidence there is does not support the genetic hypothesis. That's a far cry from saying that there isn't enough evidence to conclude one way or another. Definitely, T34CH's outline is much closer to waht the consensus references say.--Ramdrake (talk) 06:51, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

I share Ramdrake's concern and appreciation of T34CH's outline. Slrubenstein | Talk 06:59, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

"It also says that whatever little evidence there is does not support the genetic hypothesis. That's a far cry from saying that there isn't enough evidence to conclude one way or another."

As I understand this, Distributivejustice's conclusion that this is the consensus was not based only on the APA statement, but also on the literature review he conducted which was discussed earlier. --Captain Occam (talk) 07:16, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

I opened a section on what the report says below. --Distributivejustice (talk) 08:52, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

Reading the prose, I have to say that it is exactly the sort of thing to avoid in an overview. It comes across as a mish-mash of facts and numbers without being a clear summary. What might be the main sentence of the overview appears in paragraph four, and I'm not sure that it actually represents current academic work. Aprock (talk) 08:27, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

Is the aim of the overview (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_and_intelligence#Overview) to present a primer to bring readers up to speed on background or to summarize the rest of the article? --Distributivejustice (talk) 08:52, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

No. It is to give an overview of our current understanding of the relationship between race and intelligence. Simply said, what are the current conclusions. Aprock (talk) 08:57, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

This is an issue I was starting to wonder about... the overview should not take the place of the lead. We could expand the lead a bit, but "overview" was just someone's rephrasing of "academic consensus". Maybe we need a better section title. T34CH (talk) 17:58, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

more discussion of outline

I appreciate the thoughtful work that everyone here has put into this. I have an alternative view. I hope people will give it some thought. I am not by the way rejecting out of hand earlier proposals, but if we want to work towards a consensus I hope this will be considered. Note: I am deliberately vague in some areas because other proposals cover some areas so nicely -perhaps a compromisxe version would combine parts of this with parts of earlier proposals:

• race and IQ are complex
  • one reason is that race is studied principally by anthropologists and sociologists, and IQ is studied principally by psychologists. Researchers in different disciplines may speak past one another, or misunderstsand one another
  • Another reason is that this debate rages most strongly in the US, and much of the data used comes from the US. Some notable attempts to internationalize or universalize the debate have been controversial
  • a third reason is that measurements or models for variation within groups are sometimes used in discussions of variations between groups
• Race
  • The mainstream view among anthropologists and sociologists is that race is a social construction
    • on IQ tests and experiments, race is usually self-defined
    • sociologists and anthropologists have discussed a range of sociological and historical forces shaping how people identify the race of others and ultimately themselves
    • the social processes through which races have been constructed means that they are often defined differently in different countries
    • and that they are heterogeneous
  • among sociologists and anthropologists, a fringe view view of races identifies them with populations
  • in the general public, race is quite often confused with population
• IQ scores

well, here I would largely defer to the work others have done above. Slrubenstein | Talk 06:55, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

First question: is this a suggestion for an article outline or an overview section outline? Second: I don't feel qualified to make an assessment without reading further. Can you suggest some citations? --Distributivejustice (talk) 07:39, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

what's nature-nurture consensus?

There was a question above regarding what the APA 1996 report said on the nature-nurture question and race. I thought it best to open a new section on that.

This is the relevant text from the conclusions section (literally their final word on the topic) from Neisser et al: "Explanations based on factors of caste and culture may be appropriate, but so far have little direct empirical support. There is certainly no such support for a genetic interpretation. At present, no one knows what causes this differential."

Their other formulation of this conclusion was that "In short, no adequate explanation of the differential between the IQ means of Blacks and Whites is presently available."

Earlier in the text they wrote: "If group differences in test performance do not result from the simple forms of bias reviewed above, what is responsible for them? The fact is that we do not know. Various explanations have been proposed, but none is generally accepted."

That makes their conclusion pretty clear. If anything they are hinting towards preferring Flynn's view, which is the same thing you can sort-of read between the lines in Loehlin 2000, but neither are ready to affirm that hypothesis.

Indeed, the same conclusion was stated in Loehlin 2000: "So we are left with the usual conclusion: More research is needed." and Gottfredson's article: "There is no definitive answer to why IQ bell curves differ across racial-ethnic groups." and my favorite for style from Hunt 2009: "I wish that the loud voices speaking about the genetics of the Black--White gap would write "We do not know" on the blackboard at least 500 times." [emphasis added in all above]

I've read other authors claim affirmatively that there's definitely no genetic contribution and that there definitely is a genetic contribution, but none were claiming to speak for a consensus. --Distributivejustice (talk) 07:13, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

This set of quotes seems a bit selective to me. For example, a more complete quote of one of your selections (with your selection bolded):

Several culturally based explanations of the Black/ White IQ differential have been proposed; some are plausible, but so far none has been conclusively supported. There is even less empirical support for a genetic interpretation. In short, no adequate explanation of the differential between the IQ means of Blacks and Whites is presently available.

So yes, no adequate explanation has surfaced. But of the explanations that were available then, the environmental ones had more empirical support. The academic consensus then, and I believe the academic consensus now, is well represented by those three sentences. At the fine grain data level, there is a lot more nuance, but at a high level almost all sources I've read conform to this general view. The empirical support for plausible environmental explanations is generally better than for plausible genetic explanations. Aprock (talk) 08:56, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

Ah. You have to look at what they are referring to specifically as the plausible explanation -- the Flynn effect. They are saying that this is an explanation for which no contrary data was presently available. It also happened to be the newest explanation and one for which there was also no affirmative evidence. That is why they ultimately conclude more generally that there is no answer. --Distributivejustice (talk) 09:00, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

Two related things worth noting. (1) The other multi-author survey (published by Gottfredson and quoted above) says the same thing ("There is no definitive answer"). (2) Flynn has a recent book: "What Is Intelligence?: Beyond the Flynn Effect", which fleshes the new material since 1996. --Distributivejustice (talk) 09:04, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

[interjecting here to correct myself] Actually, to be more precise the conclusion is that the Flynn effect makes an environmental explanation plausible (unstated: as a work around to Jensen's argument). The one or more environmental factors aren't known (nor is the cause of the Flynn effect itself), but they suggest that caste and/or culture could fit that bill. --Distributivejustice (talk) 09:17, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

[Another interjection] In a parallel manner, they also say that genetic explanations are plausible depending on the answer to the question: "How different are the relevant life experiences of Whites and Blacks in the United States today?" They answer: "At present, this question has no scientific answer." -- The question is a rephrasing of Lewontin's argument. That squares with my initial impression on reading Neisser that it was mostly a restatement of the Jensen/Lewontin/Flynn narrative. --Distributivejustice (talk) 09:53, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

Why don't we just get rid of the "overview" section entirely, at least for now? As I said before, at present it doesn't add anything to the article that isn't already better-explained by other parts of it, particularly the lead section, which is itself an overview also. Aprock, you and I spent quite a while coming up with an accurate summary of the consensus to put in the lead section, and the explanation in the "overview" is both redundant to this and appears to contradict it.

This isn't to say we ought to never have a section of the article along these lines, if Distributivejustice can come up with a new version of it that's acceptable. But as for what we currently have, I think the article is better off without it than with it. --Captain Occam (talk) 09:12, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

[outdent] Above I asked whether the overview was a background primer. Aprock said: No. It is to give an overview of our current understanding of the relationship between race and intelligence. Simply said, what are the current conclusions.

So then I would agree that we only need one such summary, above the TOC. --Distributivejustice (talk) 09:20, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

Obviously there's no consensus to remove it yet, Captain, so stop deleting it. A few hours and a two editors chiming in does not a consensus make. --Nealparr ^{(talk to me)} 11:26, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

Let me reiterate that point because it's a recurring problem on this article. You said why don't we get rid of it at 09:12. Exactly one person responded at 09:20. You go ahead and delete it, without waiting to see what anyone else thinks, despite ongoing multiple conversations occuring on the talk page about the very section. There is no hurry. There is no deadline. There is no reason not to wait for support on contentious edits (like removing an entire section). We all likely live in multiple time zones and have different schedules. This is the kind of editing behavior that leads to edit wars. --Nealparr ^{(talk to me)} 11:49, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

My removing of it wasn’t just based on that one exchange with Distributivejustice. More than anything, it’s based on the fact that the addition of this section seems to have been an erroneous edit to begin with, and the exchanges on the relevant discussion pages support that conclusion. T34CH added it to the article yesterday without any prior consensus or discussion, and it wasn't even mentioned on the talk page until Varoon Arya brought up the problems with it. VA tried to talk to T34CH about these problems on his userpage, and T34CH replied with a flippant response that did not even attempt to address VA's concerns. The most that can be said for T34CH's decision to add this section is that he's failed to justify it, and his utter indifference about whether it violates NPOV (when VA was carefully pointing this out) suggests that he may just be trying to push a POV without regard for Wikipedia's policy.

It bothers me that this edit has been allowed to remain for as long as it has. Over the past day, Distributivejustice has explained how it does not reflect the academic consensus on this topic; VA has explained how it violates NPOV; I've explained how it's redundant with the lead section, which it contradicts, and none of our objections to it have been answered in any substantial way. Should an edit that was made without discussion or consensus, and is this clearly erroneous, be allowed to remain in the article for over a day just because not enough users have weighed in on this fact yet? --Captain Occam (talk) 12:09, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

The Overview (formerly "Academic consensus") was part of the restructering outline (above) that was proposed and generally accepted several days ago. It's been mentioned that with the restructuring, several passages of text may seem disjointed or out of place and that they'll need to be reworded. I support an overview/consensus section. I'm not convinced that the text of our current overview is proper, but it's been repeatedly stated that the article is in flux because of the restructuring and that now is the time to discuss changes to the text. I agree. Now is not the time to off-hand remove sections that were agreed to earlier, but rather take the time to patiently discuss what the text of that section will say. If consensus builds to remove it, that's another matter, but the prior consensus was that some sort of academic overview belongs in the article, and belongs at the top. If you disagree, make the case for removing it, as the case was made to restructure the article according to the proposed outline from several days ago. Most importantly, though, WP:AGF and give editors time to respond to your complaints. It creates a better editing environment. --Nealparr ^{(talk to me)} 12:27, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

(reset indent) For the record: I support T34CH's summary over DistributiveJustice's. I strongly disagree with DJ's interpretation that the APA's statement reference to plausible environmental explanations limits itself to the Flynn effect. I believe in this respect, DJ is overinterpreting.--Ramdrake (talk) 12:31, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

@DJ, If you have a citation which describes genetic explanations for the racial gap as having more empirical support than the environmental explanations, by all means share it. Regarding the overview, The article is about many things, not just the academic consensus. Replacing the lede with such a summary would probably be considered undue weight. Aprock (talk) 14:35, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

Overall balance

In addition to making the article’s “outline” more accurately reflect the consensus among researchers, as Distributivejustice is suggesting, I think the overall balance of the article ought to be improved. As per WP:UNDUE we should be providing more space to the environmental viewpoint than we do to the hereditarian one, but that doesn’t mean we should prevent environmental perspectives completely uncritically, particularly when there are well-known criticisms of some of these positions which aren’t currently mentioned at all. Similarly, the “criticisms of hereditarian positions” shouldn’t completely overwhelm the evidence presented for genetic factors, of which the article (the title of this section notwithstanding) presents almost none.

In addition to the replacing T34CH’s outline with the new one proposed by Distributivejustice, I’d like to propose a couple of other changes. First, I’d like the article to include some of the criticisms of environmental hypotheses, which for the most part are currently missing. And second, I’d like the “evidence for genetic factors” to actually include some of the evidence that readers would expect from the title of the section for it to contain. I might base this on Legalleft’s proposed edit here, although since his explanation of this is longer than what’s necessary for the article, I’ll definitely need to summarize.

Keep in mind, I’m not going to change the general proportions that these sections have to one another, which are about what they should be. The goal here is just to provide an explanation of what the evidence is both for and against each viewpoint, which is definitely appropriate given what the academic consensus is on this topic (as Distributivejustice pointed out), which is that the evidence is not strong enough one way or the other to determine with certainty that either hypothesis is correct. --Captain Occam (talk) 07:12, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

The key problem with the article seems to be that the important details are buried among many unimportant ones. --Distributivejustice (talk) 07:53, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

I agree that what you mentioned is a problem also. What would you suggest doing to fix it? --Captain Occam (talk) 08:04, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

One key suggestion comes to mind -- mostly kill the material with primary literature citations. If the only available citation is to the primary research result, then it's probably not a well supported conclusion. The emphasis should be on material that you find in multiple reviews. Thus, stick to the canonical examples. I find that book reviews (e.g. Hunt 2009 doi:10.1016/j.intell.2009.05.004) are a good source, probably because they are at the top of multiple of levels of filtering (the info passed from the primary literature, then into a book, and then into a review of that book). --Distributivejustice (talk) 08:24, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

That idea sounds like it could work, but I think it needs to be weighed against the balance point that I made.

For example, the “racial discrimination in education” section currently cites two primary literature papers about structural equation models that were used to determine whether the development of children in any ethnic group was affected by discrimination. These studies (and others like them) were considered important enough to be included in Jensen’s and Rushton’s 2005 overview of the research on this topic, and they’re also talked about in Jensen’s book The g Factor, but I’m not aware of whether they’ve made their way into any book reviews on this topic. Even if they haven’t, though, this is a pretty significant criticism of the theory that IQ differences are caused by discrimination in education, so it seems like it would be unbalanced to talk about this theory without mentioning the most important criticism of it.

In any case, you’re welcome to try cleaning up the article via the route you’ve suggested, as long as you keep the balance issue in mind also. I don’t read book reviews on this topic as often as you apparently do, so if you want to try this it’s probably best for you to do it rather than me. --Captain Occam (talk) 08:46, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

Sure, it sounds as if there are multiple reviews describing the results you mentioned. Re: book reviews -- I was just suggesting that they are a good way to find the absolutely most critical concepts. --Distributivejustice (talk) 08:56, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

Nisbett (2005); Dickens (2005); Fryer & Levitt (2006)

Under the heading "Evidence for environmental influence" are three paragraphs presenting the findings of three pieces of literature: Nisbett (2005), Dickens (2005) and Fryer & Levitt (2006). While I do not doubt the importance of their findings and their relevance to this topic, I'm curious to know why they have been placed under this heading. A reader would expect to find what this heading indicates, i.e. "evidence for environmental influence". Instead, what we have are three studies focused on attempting to disprove the hereditarian position. Disproving the hereditarian position is not the same as providing evidence for environmentalism. It would seem these studies are being misused, and that, if anywhere, they should be used as criticism of the hereditarian position. If they do provide positive evidence for environmentalism, then perhaps we should be looking for those portions of the studies and including them here. Am I alone in perceiving this as a problem? --Aryaman

Agreed. David.Kane (talk) 13:42, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

If the content refers to the references they should stay. Where the reference occurs is of little import. That it's being cited is. Aprock (talk) 15:03, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

I'm not quite sure I understand what you mean, Aprock. This isn't about removing specific references. It's about there being a sizable section under the heading "Evidence for environmental influence" which does not provide evidence for environmental influence. While it may be good criticism of the hereditarian position, as it's being presented now, it's not what the article says it is. I'm not saying the material should be removed from the article entirely. I'm saying this content under this heading is misplaced. Something needs to be done here. Seeing as T32CH has managed to get Occam blocked for 72 hours on a ridiculous 3RR "violation", I'm less than willing to undertake any significant changes to the article myself without first consulting everyone else. Provided other editors can see the problem and agree, we can either re-title it, move it to a more fitting section or simply remove it for now until it can be incorporated in a more accurate way. If I'm not understanding your point, please do explain. --Aryaman (talk) 16:32, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

I see what you're saying. I had read the talk comment as being about the references, not the article content. Too early for me I guess. I believe this content is there because the order of environment and genetics was reversed. I certainly think that cleaning up the opening to that section should be done to reflect the current structure of the article. Aprock (talk) 16:58, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

Trying to explain the situation, this paragraph dates back to a time where anything that was critical of the hereditarian position was considered an argument for the environmental position (an either/or situation, if you will). As long as the section isn't modified without consensus beyond positioning and titling, I have no objection to its being moved and appropriately retitled.--Ramdrake (talk) 16:37, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

I figured that's what had happened, and that it was probably simply being overlooked. Seeing as this material is really directed at demonstrating a lack of evidence for the hereditarian position, my proposal for now would be to move these three paragraphs down to the criticism section and either giving all three one all-encompassing title, or perhaps giving each one a title of its own. Rather than simply coming up with titles, however (to avoid WP:SYNTH or WP:OR), I would prefer if we could show that, whatever title(s) they get, the sources are really making a pointed attack on a specific aspect of the hereditarian position. If not, or if they are making an attack on several points summarily, then I would favor putting them all under one general heading. Comments? --Aryaman (talk) 16:55, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

No objection, as long as the content is preserved until we get around to discussing it specifically.--Ramdrake (talk) 17:07, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

I've moved the content in question. Others can change the (now provisional) title as necessary. Also, I made minor changes to the order, as I think substantial criticism should be presented prior to any tangential criticism. Unless others object, I shall consider this thread concluded. Thanks to all the participating editors. --Aryaman (talk) 17:25, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

Just did that. I want wo stress that I'm not married to the new title, but thought it was marginally more to the point than the original one. Please feel free to change to a more appropriate one if found.--Ramdrake (talk) 17:27, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

Overview section inaccurate

Restarting from above. It is clear to me that the overview section is an inaccurate summary of Neisser et al. Instead it seems to merely summarize Sternberg. The text of Neisser is quite dense and is making a complex argument. Please reread carefully. They make multiple, related conclusions about nature-nurture, and the context matters for what those conclusions mean. I had to read quite a few other reviews to figure it out. -Distributivejustice (talk) 18:07, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

to summarize Neisser on nature-nuture:

• no one knows the cause of group differences
• some kind of environmental explanation is plausible becuase we know that the Flynn effect exists
• good candidates for a specific environmental cause are caste and culture
• the plausibility of a genetic cause hinges on the answer to the between group envirnment question, to which there is no answer
• there is no direct evidence for a genetic cause

the key thong to notice is that the Flynn effect isn't itself a cause but rather a model for resolving environmental causes in general with high heritability --Distributivejustice (talk) 18:17, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for sharing your opinion, but I respectfully disagree with it. From where I say, your overview is less accurate than T34CH's.--Ramdrake (talk) 18:19, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

Could you support your alternative reading here? The text is really quite complicated, and these are critical distinctions to understanding their consensus. --Distributivejustice (talk) 18:25, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

Though I can't comment on the accuracy of this as a summary of Neisser, I would say that I find it to be a good overall summary. It also accords well with the passage I quoted some time ago from Snyderman & Rothman. (Why does it not surprise me to find that Wikipedia has that article? lol.) --Aryaman

[outdent] to clarify my aim relative to the article -- the current overview isn't a summary of Neisser et al who were making quite different arguments and conclusions (which I'm inclined to believe that I have accurately summarized). That's the key error. --Distributivejustice (talk) 18:47, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

Ah, sorry for misunderstanding. In that case, this should be relatively straightforward. Just provide citations for those points (meaning page numbers), and we should be able to move on. If it's disputed, you could provide direct quotes on the talk to clear up any doubts. --Aryaman (talk) 18:49, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

Summary of Neisser et al

I outline below the 2 conclusions and 3 additional findings in Neisser et al related to the cause of group differences in test score performance.

Start in section 5 "Interpreting Group Differences"

The introduction section is a summary of what is to following (there are no closing summaries of each section). The introduction is just one paragraph and states their two main conclusion.

• Main Conclusion 1: we do not know what causes test performance differences despite a variety of hypotheses:

"""If group differences in test performance do not result from the simple forms of bias reviewed above, what is respon- sible for them? The fact is that we do not know. Various explanations have been proposed, but none is generally accepted.""" (page 94)

• Main Conclusion 2: The Flynn effect demonstrates that there must be some (yet unidentified) environmental effect powerful enough to produce difference in test scores of the needed magnitude to explain the Black/White differential, but it's not known what those factors are:

"""It is clear, however, that these differences-- whatever their origin--are well within the range of effect sizes that can be produced by environmental factors. The Black/White differential amounts to one standard devia- tion or less, and we know that environmental factors have recently raised mean test scores in many populations by at least that much (Flynn, 1987: see Section 4). To be sure, the "Flynn effect" is itself poorly understood: it may reflect generational changes in culture, improved nutri- tion, or other factors as yet unknown. Whatever may be responsible for it, we cannot exclude the possibility that the same factors play a role in contemporary group differences. """ (page 94)

Those are their two key conclusions, stated directly in the introduction.

Now consider section 6 "Summary and Conclusions"

They summarize 5 points here, 2 of which are their main conclusions:

• Finding 3: No test bias:

"""The cause of that differential is not known; it is apparently not due to any simple form of bias in the content or administration of the tests themselves.""" (page 97)

• Main Conclusion 2 restated:

""" The Flynn effect shows that environmental factors can pro- duce differences of at least this magnitude, but that effect is mysterious in its own right.""" (page 97)

• Finding 4: On the evidence for specific environmental causes:

"""Several culturally-based explanations of the Black/White IQ differential have been proposed; some are plausible, but so far none has been conclusively supported.""" (page 97)

• Finding 5: On the evidence for genetic causes: """There is even less empirical sup- port for a genetic interpretation.""" (page 97)

• Main conclusion 1:

"""In short, no adequate explanation of the differential between the IQ means of Blacks and Whites is presently available. """ (page 97)

They close section 6 with a list of open questions, in which they restate main conclusion 1 and 2 and highlight findings 3,4,5:

Main conclusion 2 (the Flynn effect):

"""Mean scores on intelligence tests are rising steadily. They have gone up a full standard deviation in the last 50 years or so, and the rate of gain may be increasing. No one is sure why these gains are happening or what they mean. """ (page 97)

Finding 3:

"""The differential between the mean intelligence test scores of Blacks and Whites (about one standard devia- tion, although it may be diminishing) does not result from any obvious biases in test construction and administra- tion, nor does it simply reflect differences in socioeco- nomic status.""" (page 97)

Finding 4: """Explanations based on factors of caste and culture may be appropriate, but so far have little direct empirical support.""" (page 97)

Finding 5: """There is certainly no such support for a genetic interpretation.""" (page 97)

Main conclusion 1: """At present, no one knows what causes this differential. """ (page 97)

--Distributivejustice (talk) 19:40, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

Nice work, Distributivejustice. :) --Aryaman (talk) 19:45, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

Nice work too, but I don't read your Main Conclusion 2 the same way you do (i.e. I don't read in it the emphasis you seem to read in order to claim that it is a main conclusion).--Ramdrake (talk) 19:59, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

It might be worth while to take the following into consideration: Never a Dull Moment (Neisser, 1997). --Aryaman (talk) 20:18, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

I commend you on your work, but you seem to have missed an entire page of Summary and Conclusions. Specifically see the four paragraphs beginning with "Like every trait..." followed by the three paragraphs starting with "One of the most..." (page 96). Because it is probably the most relevant quote, it might also be worthwhile to just include all of point (6) instead of slicing it up:

The differential between the mean intelligence test scores of Blacks and Whites (about one standard deviation, although it may be diminishing) does not result from any obvious biases in test construction and administration, nor does it simply reflect differences in socio-economic status. Explanations based on factors of caste and culture may be appropriate, but so far have little direct empirical support. There is certainly no such support for a genetic interpretation. At present, no one knows what causes this differential.

Aprock (talk) 20:50, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

Oh, yes, I definitely skipped several related sections, such as within-group heritability and mean test score differences. I just wanted to emphasize the points relevant to showing that the current overview section doesn't match what Neisser et al wrote. They made a very different argument than what's currently written in that section of the article. --Distributivejustice (talk) 21:59, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for clarifying that. I agree that the overview needs a lot of work. In fact, I would even suggest that you go ahead and actively improve it. I'd suggest keeping it at a high level and well organized, but beyond that, I don't think any of the basic issues you raised should be categorically excluded. Aprock (talk) 22:20, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

I just worked through the "Summary and Conclusions" section and have myself summarized the first 12 paragraphs for quick reference. The remaining part of the conclusion is itself numbered, so I felt there was no need to summarize its content - really, the 7 points offered in the text summarize the 12 paragraphs which precede them. My summary of the first 12 paragraphs follows. Please note that each paragraph has been summarized as one sentence:

• §1. Psychometric testing, though one of the most fruitful approaches to studying intelligence, has yet to produce answers to many questions regarding intelligence. (pg. 95)
• §2. Psychometricians have devised ways to measure the distinct yet intercorrelated abilities believed to play an important role in the development of intelligence, though the correlations between those abilities remains unclear. (pg. 95-96)
• §3. Although intelligence test scores correlate moderately well with educational measures, and thus measure important skills, educational achievement is not primarily determined by intelligence. (pg. 96)
• §4. Intelligence test scores also correlate significantly with adult occupational status and modestly with undesirable and antisocial behavior. (pg. 96)
• §5. While both genetic and environmental variables are involved in the manifestation of intelligence, the role of genetics increases in importance with age. (pg. 96)
• §6. Why this happens in not yet understood, and neither is the environmental contribution to this increase. (pg. 96)
• §7. One important environmental factor is formal education, which positively affects intelligence, though the positive impact of intervention programs usually fade at their conclusion. (pg. 96)
• §8. Although not yet fully understood, it is clear that some environmental factors which negatively affect health can also have negative affects on the development of intelligence. (pg. 96)
• §9. The "Flynn effect", which refers to the striking worldwide mean IQ increase of 15+ points over the last 50 years, may be the result of environmental factors such as improved nutrition, cultural changes, improvement in the administration of tests, changes in educational practices or some other hitherto unrecognized factor. (pg. 96)
• §10. Although sex differences in overall intelligence are minimal, there are substantial differences in the distribution of specific abilities between the sexes, which may be caused by a combination of factors such as hormone levels and specific social environment. (pg. 96)
• §11. As the measured differences in intelligence between various ethnic groups is the result of complex patterns, broad generalizations should be avoided, though intelligence test scores in some minority populations are reasonably good indicators of educational achievement levels in later life. (pg. 96-97)
• §12. The long-standing 15+/- point difference between the intelligence test scores of African Americans and White Americans, though it may have narrowed somewhat in recent years, remains unaccounted for despite proposed explanations claiming bias, differences in culture or socio-economic status, or genetics as the underlying cause. (pg. 97)

I don't know if that will help resolve this minor dispute, but I think §5-§12 (with the exception of §10) should be summarized in this way. --Aryaman (talk) 21:25, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

I appreciate your summary VA, I think it's very clear and well done. Aprock (talk) 21:47, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, Aprock. If you or Distributive Justice would like to use any part of that in paragraph form to improve the "Overview" section, I think the article would benefit greatly. I think Neisser et al. is giving a very good overview of what's known and what remains unknown, and seems to be about as non-partisan as one can hope for. I have several reservations about the current "Overview", as I feel that it does not accurately reflect the current state of the research, and is more concerned with partisan preempting of the hereditarian position rather than simply stating which issues are involved. I hope these issues can be resolved in an atmosphere of collegiality. Thanks, --Aryaman (talk) 01:12, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

"Overview" proposal text

Editors have voiced several concerns regarding to current "Overview" section, myself included. In light of the immediately preceding discussion, I would like to propose a new text for this section, based upon the summary found in Neisser et al. (1996).

Psychometric testing, despite being one of the most fruitful approaches to studying intelligence, has yet to produce answers to many questions regarding intelligence. Though psychometricians have devised ways to measure the distinct yet intercorrelated abilities believed to play an important role in the development of intelligence, the correlations between those abilities remains unclear. As intelligence test scores correlate moderately well with educational measures, it is apparent that such tests measure important skills. However, educational achievement is not primarily determined by intelligence, though intelligence test scores do correlate significantly with occupational status later in life.

While both genetic and environmental variables are involved in the manifestation of intelligence, the role of genetics has been shown to increase in importance with age. Why this happens in not yet understood, and the question as to what role the environment plays in this increase remains unanswered. Nonetheless, there are several important environmental factors which are known to affect the development of intelligence, such as formal education and general health. The much-discussed "Flynn effect", which refers to the striking worldwide mean IQ increase of 15+ points over the last 50 years, may be the result of similar environmental factors such as improved nutrition, cultural changes, improvement in the administration of tests, changes in educational practices or some other hitherto unrecognized factor.

As the measured differences in intelligence between various ethnic groups is the result of complex patterns, any conclusions which require broad generalizations run the risk of oversimplifying the issue as well as misrepresenting the available data. At the same time, intelligence test scores in some minority populations are reasonably good indicators of educational achievement levels in later life. The long-standing 15+/- point difference between the intelligence test scores of African Americans and White Americans, though it may have narrowed somewhat in recent years, remains unaccounted for despite proposed explanations claiming systematic bias, differences in culture or socio-economic status, or genetics as the underlying cause.

I feel that this gives a solid and balanced summary of Neisser's findings, and could serve as a very good overview of the issues involved. Please comment or make suggestions for change below. --Aryaman (talk) 02:20, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

Major issue: this totally ignores the issue of "race" in the "race and intelligence" debate. Many have pointed to the fact that causation of a biological/psychometric phenomenon (the IQ gap) by a social construct (race) is not possible and have thus completely rejected the "race and intelligence" studies. That part would come from anthropologists, typically. The review by Lieberman (an anthropologist) [12] and/or the one by Sternberg (a psychometrician) [13] would be adequate. Also, here are some links to the AAA's statement on race and intelligence [14] and the AAA's statement on race [15]. I believe once all these viewpoints become integrated in the overview, we'll have a much better rounded overview.--Ramdrake (talk) 07:52, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

"Totally ignores"? The whole of the third paragraph deals with it. As for incorporating other "official" statements, I think the one on "Biological Aspects of Race" from the AAPA is a bit more on-topic, even than the AAA statement on "Race and Intelligence". The latter is a minute (3 sentence) social policy piece pleading to "the academy, our political leaders and our communities" to reject the notion of race. Fine, but I'm more interested in what the experts think, not in how the AAA in its role as a pseudo-political instrument wants to direct social policy. The AAPA piece has substantially more "meat" to it, though I think we have to ask whether this article is going to benefit from its inclusion. The question as to whether or not the concept of "race" in reference to intelligence is a valid one which can be substantiated by data is one best left answered by the people who measure intelligence. The opinion of an anthropologist is going to be dependent upon the data delivered by fields such as behavioral genetics, not vice versa. That's the key point. Anyway, if we look at the AAPA statement, approximately 3 of their 11 points might be relevant to this discussion. I list them below:

§2. "Biological difference between human beings reflect both hereditary factors and the influence of natural and social environments. In most cases, these differences are due to the interaction of both. The degree to which environment or heredity affects any particular traits varies greatly." (pg. 714)

§10. "There is no necessary concordance between biological characteristics and culturally defined groups. On every continent, there are diverse populations that differ in language, economy, and culture. There is no national, religious, linguistic or cultural group or economic class that constitutes a race. However, human beings who speak the same language and share the same culture frequently select each other as mates, with the result that there is often some degree of correspondence between the distribution of physical traits on the one hand and that of linguistic and cultural traits on the other. But there is no causal linkage between these physical and behavioral traits, and therefore it is not justifiable to attribute cultural characteristics to genetic inheritances." (pg. 715)

§11. "Physical, cultural and social environments influence the behavioral differences among among individuals in society. Although heredity influences the behavioral variability of individuals within a given population, it does not affect the ability of any such population to function in a given social setting. The genetic capacity for intellectual development is one of the biological traits of our species essential for its survival. The genetic capacity is known to differ among individuals. The people of the world today appear to possess equal biological potential for assimilating any human culture. Racist political doctrines find no foundation in scientific knowledge concerning modern or past human populations." (pg. 715)

§2 tells us pretty much the same thing as what we learned from Neisser et al.

§10 is perhaps tangentially relevant, but really addresses the question as to any "racial" basis for elements of culture (language, economy, political structure, etc.) which, of course, there is none (the AAPA is simply stating the obvious here, as no one is arguing that such things could have a basis in biology). At the same time, it's trying to avoid saying that the common conception of "race" does, to some degree, correspond with the observed physical variation found in human populations - which is commonly accepted - but doesn't quite want to say it, as that's too close for comfort to sounding like there actually are some biological distinctions between "races" - which there are, though the whole point here is to de-emphasize them to the point of meaninglessness. Fair enough. I can see what the AAPA is trying to accomplish, and as a social policy, I can recognize its value.

§11 is the closest this statement comes to our topic. Interestingly, it describes intelligence as "one of the biological traits of our species". Did they screw up a little here? I'm not going to harp on it. Notice that they simply skirt the issue, though, without getting right down to it. But really, what should we expect from anthropologists? They've taken the "right" overall position, which is a vast improvement over the "science" of the late 19th century, and I suppose they are to be commended on that point.

Can the overview be improved through the inclusion of this kind of material? I highly doubt it. But I submit this to the discussion of the other editors. --Aryaman (talk) 13:29, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

Please remember that the nominal subject of this article is Race and Intelligence. While psychometricians are admittedly experts on questions of intelligence, anthropologists are the acknowledged experts on questions of race. It wouldn't do to let psychometricians define what a race is. Also, I would like to caution you again about second-guessing what expert are trying to say or not to say, just as you did for your interpretation of paragraph 10 of the AAPA statement.--Ramdrake (talk) 14:38, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

Ramdrake, I'm not doubting that anthropologists are the experts on race. I am doubting, however, whether they are to be consulted as to the role of race in matters pertaining to the measurement of intelligence. I have no problem with referring to their position if we're going to make a broad statement regarding race - though we have to wonder if doing so is really in the interest of the article. But to pull in a statement such as that made in §11 - which deals specifically with race and intelligence - is not only of questionable propriety but also of questionable value, seeing as it provides a less-differentiated view than that of Neisser et al. ("The genetic capacity for intellectual development is one of the biological traits of our species essential for its survival." - not a statement I think we want introduced to the overview, do you?)

As far as my "second guessing" goes - thanks for your well-intentioned concern, but it's my opinion on the value of that material. Other editors can see that, and I'm not distorting the text. The fact that I view it critically and within the sociopolitical climate in which it was conceived and composed does not make it necessary for you to "caution" me. I'm fully capable of keeping my opinion out of the article itself. And again, I don't see how including anything from either the AAA or the AAPA is going to give us a better introduction to the reigning consensus than we could already have from Neisser. Thanks, --Aryaman (talk) 14:53, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

As I said, this article is entitled "Race and intelligence". If we skip the opinion of the race experts (the anthropologists) on this subject, we are presenting a one-sided view of the subject. I cannot agree to such a slanted presentation, and I believe you'll find that several other editors will share my position. As is, I oppose your version of the overview as incomplete and somewhat slanted.--Ramdrake (talk) 15:00, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

I'm not consciously trying to slant this one way or the other. If you can find a way to work in the AAPA's statements regarding race and intelligence, then by all means, please do so. But I think you'll find that, rather than improving things, it will make things less clear. Read exactly what it says in §11. "The genetic capacity for intellectual development is one of the biological traits of our species essential for its survival. The genetic capacity is known to differ among individuals." Though I think there's a little too much "genetic capacity" and "biological trait" in that statement, I can see it being reflected in Neisser. Then they follow up with "The people of the world today appear to possess equal biological potential for assimilating any human culture." Well, that's fine too, I guess, as no one but the racists would disagree. (Though, what's with the "appear to possess"? Is the AAPA saying there is any shred of doubt concerning this?) But why aren't they saying "the people of the world possess equal biological potential for intellectual development" or "there are no biological or genetic reasons which can account for differences in intelligence between racial or ethnic groups" or "biology plays no role in the differences in intelligence between racial or ethnic groups"? That's what we'd like them to say. But that would not quite reflect the current consensus based upon psychometric studies, and I can only assume the folks at the AAPA knew their material well enough to avoid making such a statement. Does it bother you to describe this statement as more of a political instrument than a useful piece of academic literature? I'm sorry, but I can't help viewing it this way. Regardless, as I said, I'm not trying to slant this at all. You are of course invited to make suggestions or emendations which could prevent this turning into another "I don't like your version, so let's just keep what we have". Several editors have voiced concern with the current version, and all are invited to help in resolving the issue. Thanks, --Aryaman (talk) 15:19, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

At a fundamental level, I think it is important to mention that (nearly?) all of the psychometric studies have not been done with respect to genetic race. Aprock (talk) 20:25, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

I note that Aryaman seems really to misunderstand science. She wonder's why the AAPA uses the word "appears" and I wonder if she thinks that means that anthropologists are divided, some believing that many group inequalities in intelligence are caused by genetics. Aryaman, the reason any scientist will use words like "appears" is because science does not deal with absolutes. Even so-called laws (e.g. entropy) are probabalistic statements. Even if all the scientific evidence up to now suggested that atomic particles like neutrons are indivisible and the smallest forms of matter that can exist, a good scientst would say this appears to be so because more data can always lead to a new model. Even if this "fact" sustains all challenges for a hundred years, good scientists will continue to use the word "appear" because science just does not deal with absolute truths. You may wish it to, but my advice is try some religions instead. Then again, you have just made it plain that you do not have a good-faith view owards science. As you say "Does it bother you to describe this statement as more of a political instrument than a useful piece of academic literature? I'm sorry, but I can't help viewing it this way." Well, okay, if this is your bias I think we can all agree that you simply should not be allowed any role in editing the content of this article with regard to what scientists think. Parhaps there is some article here on a topic you do know about, why not edit that one? Slrubenstein | Talk 13:25, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

I really am laughing out loud right now. :) Thanks for providing the sometimes painfully needed comic relief around here, Slrubenstein! --Aryaman (talk) 20:07, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

T34CH

I've requested that you please discuss your rather significant changes as per WP:BRD. Instead of discussing, you reverted me and decide to go ahead with your edits. There are ongoing discussions regarding nearly every aspect of this article, and being disruptive is not very helpful. Everyone let you get away with the huge 30+ edit streak of October 17th, but really, the same rules apply to you as to everyone else. Please discuss the changes you want to make beforehand. Thanks, --Aryaman (talk) 20:52, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, like I said I wasn't done yet. Now which changes did you have a problem with? T34CH (talk) 20:55, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

I didn't know the world stopped for you, T34CH. As you've mentioned in earlier discussions ("When I get a chance I'm going to work on a rewrite of the whole article, and hopefully get consensus to rename it to someting more meaningful and discriptive"[16]), your involvement in this article is of a rather subversive nature. I don't think giving free reign to someone who is admittedly aiming to override consensus is a wise course of action given this article's history.

What don't I like about your recent edits? Your POV is obvious, your language is unclear, and your omissions are embarassing.[17] I'm all for improving this article, but I'd like to see more editors involved. I won't revert you again, as I know how eager you are to get other editors blocked, but I certainly wouldn't complain if another editor took it upon themselves to do the same. --Aryaman (talk) 21:30, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

You know, you have a strange habit of avoiding specifics. It's a little sad that it took you almost an hour to come up with nothing. If you have problem with something, say it. If you can't point to something (and let's not start with the type of fallacies you tried to pull off above but got called out for by other editors), then stop hampering genuine efforts to improve the article. T34CH (talk) 21:34, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

An hour? Are you looking at some clock somewhere? LOL. Like I said, T34CH, the world doesn't stop for you. Well, rather than sit here spelling it out, I suppose you won't object to my directly editing the article in the same spirit. --Aryaman (talk) 22:10, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

I fail to see a difference in tone from this edit. If you can't explain what you don't like about my edits at least explain what you like better about yours. T34CH (talk) 22:55, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

That, dear T34CH, is the very reason why I think you should keep from editing this article as much as possible. You simply don't see the difference. But, trust me: It's there, in a very big way. Am I being too harsh? Perhaps. Perhaps you mean to say that you don't see that big of a difference in POV. Assuming that you understand yourself to be neutral, then I take that as a compliment. I'm not here to push a POV. I'm here to try and make sure that no one pushes a POV, and that positive, constructive and informative changes are made. My last edit to this article is, I believe, solid proof that I have no "ulterior motives" in participating here. I could easily edit this whole article in the same manner, but it is necessary to get consensus first, or else everything devolves into needless reverts, bickering, etc. For example, I would delete the whole second paragraph of the lead, as the current first paragraph makes it entirely redundant and superfluous. But just image what would happen if I did that. ANI complaint, RfC and possibly the threat of a topic block thrown in for good measure. Thanks, but no thanks. --Aryaman (talk) 23:08, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

I see this is difficult for you. Let's start from the easiest method. Take the one dif that bothers you the most and explain in excruciating detail what's wrong with it. T34CH (talk) 02:19, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

Lede and overview

Some time ago Slrubenstein asked me to comment here. I have been following what has been going on here and on noticeboards.

• At the moment I find the lede poorly written and unhelpful.
• The overview on the other hand explains fairly well some of the problems/misconceptions in the popular debate in the US, although it is a little shakey on historical context.

In particular the overview highlights (a) problems in the use of intelligence tests as a measure of intelligence (b) problems with the use of the term race, clarified now as a social and cultural construct by anthropologists and sociologists in academia. Historically intelligence tests have been carried out on population groups (the correct neutral term to use, particularly in the lede) and the results interpreted. What is not made clear in the lede is the significant change in the academic approach to both race and intelligence in the century or so since measurements were first made and interpreted. I feel the lede has to be written to be far closer to the 2 caveats on the terms "intelligence" and "race" in the overview and should avoid the use of terms like "racial and ethnic groups", which have not been properly justified by academic references. It should make clear that psychologists like Lynn and Rushton have been heavily criticized for their misuse of statistics in academic journals: their fringe viewpoint should not be given undue weight. It should also make clear that the so-called "ongoing debate" is largely in the US and not elsewhere. Wikipedia is an international online encyclopedia, supposedly based on academic journals and books. It is not a place for US citizens to engage in unscientific navel-gazing.

In summary:

• The lede needs to be completely rewritten: Aryaman has not done a good job in summarising the issues; nor has he exercised care with terminology.

• The overview should be slightly rejigged to provide a more careful historical context for the multiple issues discussed in the article.

Mathsci (talk) 14:06, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

I've had a go at the lede. Not sure if it helped any. Feedback most welcome.--Ramdrake (talk) 14:28, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. I think these changes solved many of the problems with the lede. The cautious tone of the current lede is quite appropriate. I made a small change, substituting "population groups" for "racial and ethnic groups". Mathsci (talk) 17:45, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

It's looking better now. I wonder what we can do with the "overview" vs. the "lead". The lead is supposed to be the overview, but we had tried having a section on "academic consensus" which was then objected to and transformed. Aprock, are you still thinking that these should be different sections, or should we just merge them? Distributivejustice, I think that the section you had mentioned about the different POV's would go well in place of the overview, if the current overview is merged into the lead. Not an in-depth examination of them, but a quick "overview" that later sections could refer to for context (again with the caveat that I think we really need to avoid a long list of supporters' names under each POV). T34CH (talk) 19:31, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

Mediation, anyone?

Seeing as the task of improving the article seems to get bogged down with personal conflicts on either side, I'd like to suggest submitting this dispute to informal mediation. I believe that a neutral third party may be helpful in attaining a properly balanced article. However, I would suggest a mediator who is himself versed in the sciences to help us resolve this dispute.--Ramdrake (talk) 14:10, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

Actually, I would be willing to leave this article alone for good if the entire batch of currently involved editors were to agree to the same thing, particularly T34CH, Ramdrake, Slrubenstein, Alun and Mathsci. (Though, Alun does appear to be editing in good faith.) No need for "mediation". This article is being systematically manipulated by a group of editors with a very long history of cooperation on related subjects, all of them take the same POV on these matters, and most of them use the very same tactics when it comes to disrupting another editors' work, best typified by Ramdrake's "BRD" approach, i.e. revert first, demand discussion, wear down your "opponent" on the talk page by refusing to see any merit in the point s/he is making, and if s/he rears up, report it to the noticeboards. That is the central problem which has dogged this article from the beginning, and will continue to dog it as long as they are involved. Now, I can surmise easily enough that the reactions would be: (1) "Of course we take the same POV - we're reporting what the mainstream, credible sources say. You, on the other hand, are distorting everything, trying to push fringe material, and generally inept enough to deserve a topic ban"; (2) "WP:BRD is part of Wikipedia policy. If you don't like it, go edit some blog somewhere"; (3) "We've all heard the 'cabal' theory before - utter nonsense. The fact that we edit the same articles, share the same views, call each other in for support in arguments, fabricate consensus, share our email addresses for off-wiki discussion, and collectively hound anyone who stands in our way does not make us a "cabal". How ridiculous!" So, spare me the rejoinders. As for myself, I see no light at the end of this particular tunnel. I don't care enough about Wikipedia to do what would be necessary to clean this up, nor do I have the clout. I admire users such as Captain Occam for having the determination to stick up to the lot of you, even in the face of multiple blocks and hoots of ridicule. If you really want to get a mediator, then get dab involved. We have had our conflicts over things in the past, but I have to hand it to him: that man knows how to build an encyclopedia. He upholds policy at every turn, is brutally honest in his evaluations, is open to justified criticism, can admit when he makes a mistake, and is possibly one of the best, most productive editors in the whole project. Otherwise, my advice to the rest of you is to watch out for the cherry-picked "mediator". --Aryaman (talk) 20:51, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

So I take it you decline mediation?--Ramdrake (talk) 20:57, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

Varoon Arya (talk · contribs), what you have written is unexpected and perplexing. Please stick to content rather than spouting conspiracy theories about other editors. You do not seem to be assuming good faith at the moment. Mathsci (talk) 00:04, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

Proper way to object to edits without getting in an edit war?

I object to at least one of the edits made in the last day. I changed it. That change was reverted back. I do not want to get in an edit war, but I believe that T34CH (talk) is changing this article in a manner that does not reflect consensus. Specifically, I object to this clause in the lede: "emerging consensus that "races" as they are commonly understood are a social rather than a biological category." There is no such "emerging consensus", as the Wikipedia article on race makes fairly clear. I think that this sentence should be removed and/or replace with what was there before. Should I just edit it back? David.Kane (talk) 19:36, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

Actually, that was one of my edits. Please let me quote verbatim from the introduction of Race (classification of human beings):

The academic consensus is that, while racial categories may be marked by sets of common phenotypic or genotypic traits, the popular idea of "race" is a social construct without base in scientific fact.[7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14]

I'd say this is pretty much in line with what I wrote... wouldn't you say?--Ramdrake (talk) 19:43, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

This is a highly dubious statement. Note e.g. that the concept of race, while problematic, is also used for animals. Further, these concepts have a very clear foundation in (biological) science. While I have often heard the position "there is no such thing as race" (in many variations and guises), it has invariably been from people motivated or influenced by an ideological agenda, rather than scientific reasoning. In analogy, consider someone claiming that terms like "large", "small" "medium" should be disallowed because they have a number of problems associated with them (consider e.g. that there are contexts where a specific insect is consider large, and others where an elephant is considered small), while over-looking the fact that they are immensly useful terms which few scientists would hesitate to use in a text where their meaning was sufficiently clear from context. (This notwithstanding that scientists prefer actual numbers.) A good scientist would be cautious not to make categorical black/white/yellow/... statements, to respect that individual variations are larger than racial variations in many cases, to beware of drawing distinct borders where reality has a fuzzy and inconsistent border, etc. To actually deny the existence of race, that he would not do.

88.77.186.196 (talk) 00:25, 22 October 2009 (UTC)