Talk:Race and intelligence

This is ridiculous

"A number of scientists, supported by the American Anthropological Association,[2] reject any genetic contribution to the black-white gap, or to any difference amongst races."

These are often the same "researchers" that have hidden political motives. Often times people of this view point say the same about longevity and disease, that they are both only influenced by environmental factors and no genetic evidence is present. There are thousands of peer reviewed medical journals showing that when environment is taken into consideration there are persisting inequalities between races in longevity, general health and intelligence. The worst thing one can do is pretend too different things are equal. 108.32.119.145 (talk) 12:52, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

Blacks have lowest IQ?

No suggestions to improve article; see WP:TPG and WP:NOTFORUM. Johnuniq (talk) 01:25, 30 October 2011 (UTC)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
This study [1] indicates that Sub-saharan African black people have the lowest IQ of all the worlds races. Is this true? Pass a Method talk 18:14, 24 October 2011 (UTC) The short answer is no. The long answer is hopefully to be found in the article.·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 18:20, 24 October 2011 (UTC) This is a talk page for discussions on improving the article, not for answering questions on the subject. I suggest you read the article for yourself, and then decide whether you think the study you link to (by Rushton and Jensen, two highly-controversial figures) is meaningful. Of course, you'll have also to decide whether you think that 'race' is anything more than a social construct, and whether 'IQ' is actually an objective measure of intelligence. If you want simple yes-or-no answers, this topic isn't a good place to find them. (And yes, the answer is 'no' if the question has any meaning in the first place, which is highly doubtful) AndyTheGrump (talk) 18:23, 24 October 2011 (UTC) Hmm. Race is a social construct. Odd considering the basic biological principles of natural selection and geographic isolation. Suggest you read http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allopatric_speciation to get a basic idea. 80.1.163.50 (talk) 21:16, 26 October 2011 (UTC) Suggest you read it yourself. "Allopatric speciation may occur when a species is subdivided into two genetically isolated populations". This clearly hasn't happened for Homo sapiens. Last time I looked into the matter, we seemed to be putting a great deal of effort into curing genetic isolation in the conventional manner. Yes, there is a great deal of genetic diversity, but the divisions we apply to such diversity ('races') are arbitrary social constructs - self-evidently, since nobody can agree on how many there are, and who belongs in which. AndyTheGrump (talk) 21:53, 26 October 2011 (UTC) Yes, it is undisputed that blacks have the lowest IQ. (on average) Sorry about the obfuscator bots. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.116.185.96 (talk) 06:34, 28 October 2011 (UTC) It is disputed, on the grounds that neither 'blacks' nor 'IQ' have any real meaning. Sorry about the misrepresentation. AndyTheGrump (talk) 18:30, 28 October 2011 (UTC) "Blacks" means people with sub saharan african ancestry, verified by a high degree of interobserver correlation, "IQ" means the result of a test thought to indicate overall mental ability, and supported by mainstream psychology. There can be no question that these terms have meaning. Any attempt to suggest otherwise suggests a kind of Orwellian detachment from reality. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 195.191.66.227 (talk) 11:12, 29 October 2011 (UTC) The consensus is that there are group differences in intelligence. The controversy is whether genetics has something to do with these differences. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.92.20.49 (talk) 18:32, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

Last ¶ of lede

Made more general, comprehensive, able to have easily sourceable support added. The first alternative should have genetic, heritable factors combined with cultural/epigenetic ones, but leaving that for the editors supplying such support. 72.228.177.92 (talk) 17:28, 17 November 2011 (UTC)

My comment on the fracas here, suggestion for resolution. That there are effective group differences is far beyond dispute. Suggest you just cull everything that goes beyond reporting those objective facts. A really unfortunate complication is that some academics who have made a career on the topic are in fact racists. Nonetheless, the phenomenon in question is so heavily documented that it would be easy to redact their contributions to a small mention instead of a pervasive viewpoint. My position on the topic in the "Form" section of my POV page. Lycurgus (talk) 08:35, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

An error

It is said that "Murray in a 2006 study agree with Dickens and Flynn that there has been a narrowing of the gap", (Ref.: "Evidence from the Children of the 1979 Cohort of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, 2006) The opposite, Muray reversed that statement: "Data for three Peabody achievement tests and for the Peabody picture vocabulary test administered to children of women in the 1979 cohort of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth show that the black-white difference did not diminish for this sample of children born from the mid 1970s through the mid 1990s. This finding persists after entering covariates for the child's age and family background variables. It is robust across alternative samples and specifications of the model. The analysis supplements other evidence that shows no narrowing of the black-white difference in academic achievement tests since the late 1980s and is inconsistent with recent evidence that narrowing occurred in IQ standardizations during the same period. A hypothesis for reconciling this inconsistency is proposed." You should edit this modification. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.147.18.253 (talk) 04:30, 22 November 2011 (UTC)

U.S. bias?

In the first section, only U.S. data is spoken of—the American Anthropological Association, the American Psychological Association, experiments performed in the United States, et cetera. Perhaps there might be data available which isn't limited to the U.S. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Samilo78 (talk • contribs) 23:57, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

I recall making a similar comment myself many months ago. I have now decided that the reality is that this is primarily a US topic, because of that country's historical separation of races. Few other advanced countries with the ability to do so would have had the motivation to study this subject with such intensity. HiLo48 (talk) 00:12, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

Tags and problems with the article

The recent removal of the tags brings to fore the issue of the stagnant state of this article. While some sporadic work has been done on this article, the nature and quality of the change has generally been hampered by both burnout from previous editors, a lack of new editors with interest and perspective, and habitual interruption by editors interested in promoting their favored POV. In truth, what may be the best approach would be to dump most of the article, and simply summarize one of the many current secondary overview sources on the matter, instead of presenting a comprehensive rehash of the historic debate, complete with extensive arguments from those arguing against the mainstream. I've replaced the tags, and invite other editors to work towards such a goal, though I expect significant work will again be met with stiff resistance from those who chaffe at the idea that IQ has not been shown to be a racial trait. aprock (talk) 17:47, 12 December 2011 (UTC)

I'll add that if anyone feels like addressing specific section tags through edits, or removing specific section tags because they've been resolved, as opposed to stale, I fully support that sort of bold editing. Likewise improving then removing is also welcome. I'll try to make some time later in the week to do some research on specific sources and sections to help in this regard myself. aprock (talk) 18:13, 12 December 2011 (UTC)

you're absolutely right about anticipated resistance. the only way forward is to bring the matter of undue weight given to fringe theories to the fringe theories noticeboard.-- mustihussain  23:24, 12 December 2011 (UTC)

collapsing per WP:TPG and WP:NOTFORUM. aprock (talk) 17:42, 13 December 2011 (UTC)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
If you mean me as someone you can expect "stiff resistance" from, I won't oppose edits that improve the article's neutrality. For example this edit was fine, though I don't agree with the justification in the edit summary. Psychology, Public Policy and Law is a journal published by the APA so it satisfies WP:RS. But the paragraph removed still violated NPOV because it's unbalanced to include Jensen and Rushton's arguments without including the counter-argument from someone like Nisbett. So you won't see me going against edits like that. The article certainly could still use improvement, but we need to not go about the changes haphazardly. In the past it's sometimes happened that editors were rushing forward with large changes while not participating in the discussion about those changes on the talk page. Working towards consensus is very difficult when people aren't willing to discuss their edits.Boothello (talk) 01:08, 13 December 2011 (UTC) ...And now we have an example already of someone trying to make a highly visible change without discussion. Hipocrite has moved the link to scientific racism up to before the beginning of the lead, suggesting that this "see also" link is more centrally important than the link to History of the race and intelligence controversy, Heritability of IQ, or Flynn effect. It's unreasonable to say that the scientific racism article is more important to this article than any of those others. To single out the scientific racism article as deserving this special place, you'd need to demonstrate that it deserves it more than any of the other sub-articles in the R&I topic area which could also be linked there. I don't think it does, so I'm reverting this change until consensus can be established.Boothello (talk) 05:28, 13 December 2011 (UTC) sigh aprock (talk) 05:31, 13 December 2011 (UTC) What do you want me to do? Some edits aren't helpful and that's why we need discussion. When Miradre was involved, you and Maunus did an excellent job stopping him from messing up the article in a hereditarian direction. But sometimes edits are unbalanced in the opposite direction too.Boothello (talk) 06:11, 13 December 2011 (UTC) Make constructive edits that improve the article instead of acting as a gatekeeper, requiring your consent before changes get made. aprock (talk) 08:34, 13 December 2011 (UTC) Aprock, what is the "mainstream" here? Mainstream among whom? Not based on your own opinion, but reliable sources. FYI, IQ has been shown to be a racial trait beyond any reasonable doubt. The debate is about causes.--Victor Chmara (talk) 12:15, 13 December 2011 (UTC) That is not an accurate representation of mainstream scholarship, which notes that IQ is weakly correlated with race, but then notes that race may not even exist, and then that the correlation may just be autocorrelation. Hipocrite (talk) 12:23, 13 December 2011 (UTC) Could you cite this "mainstream scholarship"? Races obviously exist as socially recognized categories. Whether or not these races correspond to some predefined taxonomic scheme is irrelevant.--Victor Chmara (talk) 12:58, 13 December 2011 (UTC) [2]. Hipocrite (talk) 13:40, 13 December 2011 (UTC) If there is no such thing as race, then by definition there can be no racism, scientific or otherwise. You can't have a meaningful conversation about something that does not exist. Perhaps the article should be re-named "arbitrary social categories and intelligence"? Asteuartw (talk) 14:42, 13 December 2011 (UTC) Read the linked statement to understand how race is a social construct. Hipocrite (talk) 14:49, 13 December 2011 (UTC) So what? Atoms, genes, and gravity are also social constructs. That does not mean that they are useless in science. Races in America are social constructs based on genetic differences[3]. There are racial differences in IQ, and there is no consensus on what causes them[4][5]][6].--Victor Chmara (talk) 15:57, 13 December 2011 (UTC) No, Atoms, genes and gravity exist. Please don't use cherry-picked primary sources when the secondary sources disagree. Hipocrite (talk) 15:59, 13 December 2011 (UTC) Sorry, but you would have flunked your philosophy of science class. Atoms, genes, and gravity are human constructs, not things that exist in nature. They are theoretical entities constructed on the basis of observations, just like race. The definitions of each have varied widely across time. Naive realism is incompatible with modern science. My sources above are not cherry-picked. Two of them are consensus statements by intelligence researchers, one is a large meta-analysis of racial/ethnic differences in cognitive ability, one is a study showing that self-identified race corresponds to distinct genetic clusters, a routine finding in population genetics. You will not find a single reliable data-based source that claims that there are no racial differences in IQ. The cultural anthropologists that you draw on may disagree with me, but they have no expertise in psychological measurement and their pronouncements are not based on data. So, when we're talking about what's mainstream in race and intelligence, it matters whom you ask, e.g. intelligence researchers or cultural anthropologists.--Victor Chmara (talk) 16:41, 13 December 2011 (UTC) The idea that an editor who is not aware of the mainstream position is going to act as gatekeeper is nothing less than baffling. This is quickly rising to the level of disruption. aprock (talk) 15:40, 13 December 2011 (UTC) Going to act as a gatekeeper?? What the hell are you talking about? Tell me, using reliable sources, what the mainstream view is. The Mainstream Science statement and the APA report, for example, say that the cause of the black-white gap is unknown. Is that the mainstream view?--Victor Chmara (talk) 16:07, 13 December 2011 (UTC) No, it doesn't. The statement says "Given what we know about the capacity of normal humans to achieve and function within any culture, we conclude that present-day inequalities between so-called "racial" groups are not consequences of their biological inheritance but products of historical and contemporary social, economic, educational, and political circumstances." You know, the conclusion, where they state their conclusions. Hipocrite (talk) 16:16, 13 December 2011 (UTC) I'm not talking about the AAA statement. Please read more carefully.--Victor Chmara (talk) 16:43, 13 December 2011 (UTC) At this point I'm going to bow out of the discussions and restate the invitations that I made above. To any editor who is concerned about the article, especially those who are going to actively examine each and every edit, please be bold and make the changes you think are needed. aprock (talk) 16:26, 13 December 2011 (UTC) Why is it that whenever someone claims that the environmental determinist story is the mainstream position, and I ask them for sources for that view, none are ever forthcoming?--Victor Chmara (talk) 16:48, 13 December 2011 (UTC) Perhaps because these references were given to you a dozen times and you still keep denying they exist. Your interpretation of the APA report'/ concludion, for example, while they do state that we still don't know all the causes of the IQ gap, do state that the existing evidence for a hereditarian cause is currently weaker, less than that for environmental causes. --Ramdrake (talk) 21:05, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

Use of xxxers as reliable sources

It is not appropriate to use xxxers such as Murry, Ruston and Jensen as uncontroversially reliable sources. Specifically, this includes text sourced only to xxxers, with no caveat that they are a tiny minority. This must not continue - individuals editing who are followers of xxxers should not be reverting the fringe beliefs of their leaders into this article. Hipocrite (talk) 17:50, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

I will point out that this exact issue is clearly delineated in the Arbitration findings of fact 1.1.iii: (iii) incessant over-emphasis on certain controversial sources. [7]. Disruptive editing over this issue is certainly subject to discretionary sanctions. This of course applies to all editors large and small. These researchers are widely recognized as controversial, and the weight given to them in the article is currently undue. Constructive suggestions on how to source content to superior sources, or otherwise address the weight given to them, would be greatly helpful. aprock (talk) 17:57, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

Victor keeps telling me to discuss on the talk page - but he's not discussing, just reverting. What am I to do? Hipocrite (talk) 18:42, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

When faced with the sort of disruption that Victor is engaging in I think the next obvious step is to note why you think the changes you made were warranted on the talk page. I personally haven't looked at any of the changes yet, but if you're making changes in an effort to address 1.1.iii, then I think you're more likely to find general support on the talk page than gatekeeping. aprock (talk) 18:47, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

I believe I am. I would appreciate further review of my edits. Thanks. Hipocrite (talk) 18:52, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

Hipocrite, if you going to make a major change to the article, propose it on the talk page first, giving your reasons.--Victor Chmara (talk) 18:59, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

No. Review WP:BOLD. Please address the issue, which is the massive overweight given to Jensen and Rushton, and what can be done to lessen it. You must acknowledge they are a minority of researchers, correct? Hipocrite (talk) 19:00, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

Jensen and Rushton are major participants in the scientific debate. Jensen is by far the most famous and influential scientist to have researched the topic. Much of the anti-hereditarian research has been conducted explicitly to address the views of Jensen, Rushton, Murray, and other hereditarians. James Flynn, for example, has cited Jensen as a major inspiration in his career. Much of Nisbett's research directly addresses Jensen and Rushton's. The views of Jensen, Rushton et al. should be discussed in the article to the extent that they are present in reliable sources.--Victor Chmara (talk) 19:12, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

We do not merely count articles - instead, we weigh in proportion to the prominence of each viewpoint. Jensen, Rushton, Murray et al's viewpoints are not prominent - they are discarded as fringe by the vast majority of research - of this you are aware. They, themselves are prominent, mostly for being discarded as scientific racists. They cannot continue to take up the majority of the article. Hipocrite (talk) 20:06, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

The APA

The APA statement includes "There is not much direct evidence on this point, but what little there is fails to support the genetic hypothesis." Victor has removed this from the article multiple times. I don't think it's appropriate to remove this from the article and would like to understand why he is removing it. Why are you removing it? Hipocrite (talk) 18:57, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

The APA report concludes that the cause(s) of the gap are presently unknown. You misrepresented[8] the report by writing that the APA agrees with Nisbett that genetic contributions are nil. Moreover, could you quote Flynn to the effect that genes don't contribute to the gap at all ("nil")?--Victor Chmara (talk) 19:03, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

My most recent revision does not include Flynn as saying anything - only you did that, and then promptly questioned yourself. Hipocrite (talk) 19:06, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

I directly quoted the APA. How does my direct quote misrepresent them? I conclude that I don't know what I'll be having for lunch, but I will DEFINITELY not be having steak. Will I be having steak for lunch? You'd argue we don't know. Hipocrite (talk) 19:07, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

The article currently reads "Scientists, supported by the American Anthropological Association[116] argue that the genetic contribution to the gaps (not to individual IQ) is nil", citing Flynn (a whole book, no page number) as one of the sources. Again, what does Flynn actually say?

Yes, a direct quote misrepresents a source if it is taken out of context. It is a misrepresentation to say that the APA report agrees with Nisbett. It clearly doesn't.--Victor Chmara (talk) 19:17, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

Article does not currently say that. I didn't include the citation to Flynn - it predates me. I'll certainly figure out who added it and ask them. Hipocrite (talk) 19:19, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

Victor has again provided specific attribution to Nisbett. This is not appropriate, as he is additionally supported by the AAA statement. Please carefully review WP:ITA. Hipocrite (talk) 19:46, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

The hypothesis that genes contribute to racial IQ gaps is not "fringe science". It is treated as a credible theory in reliable mainstream sources -- in, for example, Earl Hunt's "Human Intelligence", a textbook published this year by the noted fringe publisher Cambridge University Press. A large survey of behavioral scientists in the 1980s indicated that hereditarianism was the mainstream view among scientists, while the strong environmentalist view was supported by relatively few people. You cannot say that Nisbett's specific views are the same as those of unnamed other scientists.--Victor Chmara (talk) 21:00, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

This has nothing to do with this section. Please try to keep up, or at least stop reverting. We are discussing your constant reversion of "Scientists" to "Richard Nisbett," even though Richard Nisbett is agreed with by the major professional organization the American Anthropological Association, making specific attribution there inappropriate. Hipocrite (talk) 21:05, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

I am not reverting. I am correcting errors based on discussion. You claimed that WP:ITA is relevant here, while it clearly isn't. Nisbett and the AAA statement are different entities. When you cite Nisbett and the AAA statement, you mention them, not any weasel words. Now, labels such as hereditarian and environmentalist are potentially useful here, but they should be used evenhandedly.--Victor Chmara (talk) 21:17, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

I assume given that I found a series of other individuals commenting that there is no genetic basis for race that you're comfortable with the sentence as it currently stands? Hipocrite (talk) 13:51, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

Protected

This page has been fully protected three days per the result of WP:AN3#User:Victor Chmara reported by User:Hipocrite (Result: Protected). The long-term edit warring on this page may possibly need to be addressed by more stringent measures, like a permanent WP:1RR restriction. EdJohnston (talk) 04:54, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

Regression toward the mean section

The Regression toward the mean section is massively overweighted towards the minority views of Rushton and Jensen. Rushton is not a reliable source with respect to genetics, generally - he is discarded as fringe by multiple reliable sources. Jensen alone is merely a pariah of the field. There is no reason to have merely one sentence by Nisbett that cherry picks what he actually says surrounded by multiple comments by Jensen and Rushton. Unless someone can rewrite this section to be appropriately weighted, I suggest we remove it in it's entirety. Hipocrite (talk) 13:57, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

I agree about the undue nature of the section. The topic and conclusions are really only promulgated by Rushton and Jensen, and there is no evidence that the field as a whole considers the topic in any way relevant. This specific topic rates quite low in the realm of things that should be covered, and yet receives coverage in this and other articles, like Heritability of IQ. Nisbett's summary of the topic is even more evidence that it doesn't merit coverage here. Previous versions of this content [9] have been an utter mess of synthesis and original research, in no small part because there is little academic work of note on the topic. In truth, the section is just another indirect statistical argument for the hereditarian viewpoint. I fully support removing it from this article and Heritability of IQ as undue unless robust independent secondary sources can be found which weight the topic as prominently. aprock (talk) 17:18, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

I'll also add that the previous RfC on the topic [10], is also pretty clear that the content doesn't merit inclusion, though some of the content might make sense in the Heritability article. aprock (talk) 17:20, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

Way too much of the article takes this back and forth approach, tit for tat, argument by argument, usually constructed something like this: "the hereditarians say X. Nisbett says X-not." Of course that approach lends too much weight to the views-the framework of the article is too much built around their views while everything else is reduced to a rebuttal. (Note how many footnotes point to Nisbett's appendix! It's a full 300 page book on the topic, so why is it just where he rebuts the Bell Curve in the appendix that he's given the most attention here-16 footnotes?)

This claim, btw, it's not just coming Jensen/Rushton, but Eysenck and Murray/Herrnstein - along with many other hereditarians - they also make this argument. By the same token, it's not just Nisbett challenging it, but many others accuse of them committing the regression to the mean fallacy, that the statistic simply predicts outcomes and does not identify any particular causation. Jensen's more consistently a reliable source for these views, while a lot of Rushton's more "out-there" work is way out at the fringes of the fringe. But Jensen is not the mainstream position in the race/intelligence issue. He's the most dominant figure in one area, a subset of the larger issue, this "the racial gap in IQ is caused by genetics" part. Since it is one of (dozen?-need to look it up) items of evidence he cites in supporting the hereditarian hypothesis, that might be a better way to handle it. One section should here should be devoted to describing the hereditarian hypothesis and the evidence cited for it. It looms too large now.

How I see the topic handled in sources overall is that they identify there is an IQ gap, that to varying degrees this troubles policy makers of one kind or another, and social and educational policy makers have for some time worked to close it. Now and then researchers have advanced various theories about what causes the gap, and the hereditarian hypothesis is just one of them. The environmental hypothesis isn't really one. Instead there are many hypotheses - such as nutrition, unequal access to education, socio-economic disparity, race prejudice, family environment etc - lots of hypotheses involving a whole host of different causes that can be categorized as environmental. And they get a lot more attention, with policy makers anyway. So maybe if the over-all outline were firmed up better here, then the undue weight problem might be resolved. Professor marginalia (talk) 18:00, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

Yes, the whole back and forth aspect is largely contrived by those who would establish the genetic causes as having parity with environmental causes. In fact, the broad organization of the article isn't so much of a tit-for-tat as, present all the arguments and research of hereditarian researchers, and present little to none of the broader community of science. Most of the mainstream work is done in the context of achievement gap, but none of that work is presented here. This is in no small part due to proponents of hereditarian researchers framing not just the structure of the article, but of the topic in general. Discussing IQ in a vacuum is essentially playing up specific achievement differences and ignoring others. You even see this more starkly on Ashkenazi Jewish intelligence where it's not really IQ that is discussed, but verbal IQ. aprock (talk) 18:12, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

I think the most basic issue with the article is how it's divided up into hereditarian vs. environmental arguments. As Professor Marginalia said, the environmental hypothesis is really many different hypotheses. Not all hereditarians agree with one another either - for example Murray and Herrnstein take a different perspective about some things than Jensen and Rushton. And there are people like Earl Hunt who disagree with some parts of both positions.

I think by dividing most of the article into "potential environmental causes" vs. "genetic arguments" we're oversimplifying the issue. In addition it seems like an original research problem. For example who gets to decide that racial admixture studies are a "genetic argument"? Studies such as Witty and Jenkins are often discussed as evidence that ancestry doesn't affect IQ, so this is as much an environmental argument as a genetic one. I suggest combining the "potential environmental causes" and "genetic arguments" sections into one section with a neutral title such as "debate overview". We can work on improving neutrality of individual topics as well.Boothello (talk) 21:21, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

"Who gets to say?" Ok, we don't write the article to describe study after study done in primary research, so your question shouldn't apply anyway. The article should be based on secondary sources, and the broader the better. As in textbooks, so long as they're fairly current. The hypothesis that the IQ gap is determined mostly by genetics is tested with racial admixture studies. The "who decided" this, the "who decided" which hypothesis a study pertains to, will usually be given in the study itself. But more importantly, we look at what the secondary sources "decided". And your example is a strange one to me. What else but a genetic connection would an "racial admixture study" seek to assess in this context? Scientists don't conduct "racial admixture studies" to ask questions like whether test prep or vitamin supplements improve IQ scores. Professor marginalia (talk) 22:37, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

The "racial admixture studies" section is mostly based on a chapter by John C. Loehlin in the Handbook of Intelligence, a secondary source. Loehlin says the results of the Witty and Jenkins study do not appear to be genetic, because the study shows that high-IQ black people don't have an above-average degree of european ancestry. So this is a racial admixture study that argues for an environmental cause of the IQ gap and not a genetic one. But Loehlin says there are other racial admixture studies that suggest a genetic difference, and that none of the studies are conclusive. His eventual conclusion is just that more research is needed before the question can be answered for sure. This is a reason why it's a bad idea to label this as either a "genetic argument" or an "environmental argument". Loehlin says there are racial admixture studies that argue for both conclusions, and he doesn't take a strong stand in either direction about which is correct.Boothello (talk) 23:16, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

That is absolutely false. It couldn't be more clear. Quote: "The basic idea is simple: Individuals, all considered African Americans, vary widely in the proportion of their genes that came from European ancestors. If (a) there is an appreciable difference between Europeans and Africans in the frequencies of genes influencing intelligence, favoring Europeans and if (b) the genes affecting intelligence act in a straightforward fashion and if (c) the genes derived from African and European ancestors are reasonably representative of their ancestral gene pools, then African Americans who have more genes derived from European ancestors will score higher on measures of intelligence than African Americans who have fewer genes derived from European ancestors." This racial admixture test is a test of genetic cause, not environment. Professor marginalia (talk) 23:36, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

Adding, the way you have framed the conclusion above, as if "racial admixture" studies are used to judge environmental hypotheses, is an example of the problems with how this article is put together, as if the topic itself were reducible to this. It's casting every study, every aspect of this issue, into a falsely dichotomous either/or between "genes" and "not genes". Professor marginalia (talk) 23:50, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

Okay, I see where we're disagreeing. You're right that Loehlin says racial admixture studies are a test of the genetic hypothesis. But saying they're a test of the genetic hypothesis isn't the same as saying they're an argument in favor of it. When a hypothesis is tested, the results can be either consistent with the hypothesis or inconsistent with it. And if the results of the test are inconsistent with the hypothesis, that's an argument against the hypothesis, not in favor of it. I'd be fine with calling racial admixture studies a test of the genetic hypothesis, but not with calling them an argument in favor of it. According to Loehlin, even though they're a test of the genetic hypothesis, the results don't clearly argue in favor of either the genetic or the environmental hypothesis.

Your second point is basically what I was saying. I don't think the whole topic should be reduced to "genetic arguments" vs. "environmental arguments" because it's far more nuanced than that. That's why I'd like to do away with those labels.Boothello (talk) 00:02, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

The only time I mentioned "argument in favor of" that I recall here was in connection with the "regression to the mean" and it very clearly is one of this dozen-ish bits of evidence Jensen and Rushton cite as "arguments in favor of" genetic causes of the IQ gap. They are very structured in putting the argument together, in fact. And the regression to the mean has no relevance outside a hypothesis, and I don't know that anybody else citing it for another one. All I recall seeing are objections to it because it's a statistic that can't imply or identify causation of any kind. Professor marginalia (talk) 00:15, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

Sorry, I don't follow. I'm just saying the article currently labels racial admixture studies as a "genetic argument", and it shouldn't. And that's because: even though secondary sources consider these studies a test of the genetic hypothesis, they don't consider it an argument in favor of that hypothesis, so calling it a "genetic argument" doesn't match what secondary sources say. Several other sections that are currently labeled as either possible environmental effects or genetic arguments have the same issue. Many of these aren't clearly categorized as one or the other by secondary sources. When I'm objecting to things being called arguments in favor of the genetic hypothesis, my disagreement isn't with you, it's with the article's current structure.

I'm proposing both of these sections should be combined into one section titled something like "debate overview". The article currently presents a false dichotomy between studies that argue for "genes" and studies that argue for "not genes", and my proposal would fix that. You just said above that this false dichotomy is a problem, and I agree. Do you not think my proposal to fix this is is a good idea?Boothello (talk) 01:09, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

Racial admixture studies are used in arguing genetic causes. Like Witty/Jencks, racial admixture studies can also be used arguing against genetic causes-if the study shows no effect. They are not used to argue for any environmental causes. But just as you don't consider studies about stereotype threat to argue about nutritional causes, you don't use racial admixture studies to argue for or against nutritional, stereotype threat or other environmental causes. There are lots of causes proposed-genetics is one of them. Racial admixture studies, regression to the mean, etc--they are not *causes*. They are evidence used to show genetic cause. Professor marginalia (talk) 01:23, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

You know, it's been a long time since I've looked at the article and I am shocked how bad the problem is. In terms of sheer space alone the content given over to discussing the arguments for genetic cause is so dominant everything else is reduced in scale such that it almost seems like they're just odds and ends, the "off-off-off Broadway" bits. Rushton alone is mentioned in the text, by name, an unbelievable 28 times...which is more than Nisbett and Flynn combined. Jensen is mentioned 32 times by name. And nobody else comes even remotely close. And most of the time it's like the work by "everybody else" takes a back seat as the spotlight's put on what they've said about the work of Jensen and Rushton. It needs so much work. Sigh. Professor marginalia (talk) 00:54, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

The poor shape is largely due to the editing of Miradre who was temporarily topic banned under WP:ARBR&I. That no one stepped up to address the problematic edits speaks to the fatigue that editors have been having. aprock (talk) 05:47, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

I know what you mean. The dispute's almost as old as wikipedia, and the climate here can be like editing in quicksand. It's a battlefield. The futility of it all wears after awhile, and uninvested editors can only take so much before the eyes blur, tinnitus sets in, the nausea triggered even coming here, and a weariness that turns editors old before their time. While the freshly recruited SPA keep popping up here like they're dispensed from a vending machine. Professor marginalia (talk) 06:33, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

Suggestions to lessen the round-and-round to nowhere

Reading thru the talk page, a few ideas popped into my brain that might help cut down on the unproductive "noise" traded back and forth.

1. Take more care tossing the term "fringe". Not everyone or everything published in the so-called "hereditarian" camp can be dismissed so easily.
2. Take more care to stick to what sources say. When a source makes a claim about IQ, or race, or genes--that doesn't mean we are free to use those claims like bridges to construct another claim about IQ, or race, or genes. Gene differences do not mean race differences. Genetic correlations with IQ in individuals do not suffice in making claims about genetic causes behind the racial IQ gap. Similarly, lack of a genetic basis for race does not mean genes cannot explain the racial IQ gap. If a statement says that the evidence is inconclusive about X, Y or Z that does not mean that the statement can be elastically applied to A, B or C.
3. Take care-there are no shortcuts to NPOV. It is important to put claims and studies in their rightful, proper context, with weight given them. We can't do this by simply, and lazily, editorializing via qualifiers of the claims and studies. And the incessant back-and-forthing every single hypothesis, study, and finding in this silly ping-pong of yea-sayers and naysayers is not NPOV. It's insane.
4. And stop already with the reverts if you've no other reason to offer than "no consensus for this change". A revert is not meant to be a VETO! There are no "consensus first" cops on wikipedia. If you revert, have a valid justification besides "didn't get approval first". OK? It's ridiculous that editors spend hours of their lives thrashing over the impropriety of some process instead of the quality of an edit itself. Professor marginalia (talk) 06:09, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

These are good suggestions. I've thought for a while that the article is in bad shape, but nobody's made a devoted and concerted effort to improve it. It was such a big task I just never knew where to start (I'm guessing others felt the same). Instead there were a lot of halfhearted attempts to fix the article with editorials and qualifiers as referenced in your point #3, which IMO just made things worse and led to edit wars. I'll likely soon be forced to take a break from this article, but it'd be great if you can make it more balanced and stable. I hope Maunus and Victor Chmara continue to stick around too, because they both know a lot about this topic and can help a lot with improving the article. Maybe whenever I come back the article will be in better shape than when I left it.Boothello (talk) 08:25, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

Caste-like minorities

How much of this is supported by fact if there doesn't really seem to be conclusive data according to the referenced material? I don't know for all minorities but have read several reports mentioning that for example the Flemish in Belgium at the present time have an IQ a bit over 100 (some mention 105-108) and the Wallonian part slightly under 100. In the beginning of the 1900's the situation might have been reversed though when oppression was worse than today. Any thoughts? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.101.67.45 (talk) 18:55, 23 December 2011 (UTC)

Caste-like minorities

How much of this is supported by fact if there doesn't really seem to be conclusive data according to the referenced material? I don't know for all minorities but have read several reports mentioning that for example the Flemish in Belgium at the present time have an IQ a bit over 100 (some mention 105-108) and the Wallonian part slightly under 100. It has also been the richer part with less unemployment etc. for quite some time. In the beginning of the 1900's the situation might have been reversed though when oppression was worse than today and the elite was mainly French speaking. Any thoughts? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.101.67.45 (talk) 18:57, 23 December 2011 (UTC)

Race

WP:NOTAFORUM
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
What's a race anyway? One thing abundantly clear is that some types of people are brighter than others, and the genetic basis is plain obvious. Roma gypsies for example. While hostile statements about broad groups is not fashionable, the fact is that Roma gypsies tend to have low intelligence and engage in criminal behaviour. If there's no genetic basis for this then there's no genetic basis for Roma gypsies as a distinct group - it's who they are. 89.176.34.187 (talk) 23:44, 23 December 2011 (UTC)

Suggested Solution To Article Structure To Accomodate Disputes

Some critical observations about this article followed by a suggested solution drawn from the Introduction section.

OBSERVATIONS
1) The quality of this article has declined over the past five years to the point where, aside from perhaps the introductory section, it is all but meaningless. It certainly informs the reader about one thing: that there is confusion among editors. But it does not inform the reader as to the state and reasons for the dispute over the correlation between race and intelligence test results. This debate is old, and murray and pinker and others have certainly popularized the debate, so without the historical context of this debate and a section that denotes the political consequences of any discussion is either accidentally or intentionally misleading. (The need for race neutrality in government, and the fear of consequences of abandoning race neutrality in policy.)

2) The article does not state that intelligence as used in testing -- general intelligence or (g) -- is an empirical concept that measures the rate at which individuals are able to incorporate and utilize patterns of increasingly abstract relations into their memories. Furthermore, it is factually inaccurate to state that there is no agreed upon definition for intelligence. This is a confusion in terms. There is an entirely agreed upon definition for (g) general intelligence in the intelligence testing community. And it is that quantitative expression that is argued to be correlated with race. Not "intelligence" in the broader colloquial sense, by which humans mean "ability to act successfully and advantageously as a member of society". There may be other faculties that are commonly bundled under the category of 'intelligence' which are normative - used on casual conversation, but by definition a scientific concept is not normative - it just is either arithmetically correlative or not, or argumentatively causally related or not based upon the empirical measures. (And I won't get into apodeictically certain arguments here). And IQ, which is an expression of general intelligence is a scientific not normative concept.

3) There is a frequent and extremely unscientific concept of normative or 'general' opinion used in this article that confuses popular opinion, or even the opinion of 'public intellectuals' (ie: people who write or communicate for a living for the purpose of persuasion) with empirical evidence. Using opinions, studies and data from unrelated fields is simply unscientific - an attempt to mislead the reader. It does not matter what the anthropological (soft science) community says about a scientific (empirical) concept that is outside of their field. It is worth noting that political bodies are quoted in the introduction, but no body that manages, or conducts testing is quoted, despite the fact that there is a vast and highly empirical body of work on the subject that can be found by spending little more than twenty minutes on Amazon. (The American Psychological groups are not exactly free from political coercion.) Work outside the field of psychometrics is always questionable. For example, the brilliant evolutionary biologist Stephen J Gould wrote a popular book on intelligence (The Mismeasure of Man) which despite his otherwise valuable career-making insight into the existence of punctuated equilibrium of evolution, his book on measurement of races turns out to be entirely false. But in general, while normative usage can determine moral content or linguistic meaning, (contractual concepts) widespread opinion on scientific matters (true/false concepts) is in fact, generally relegated to the expressed ideas of a small number of experts. (See Kunh on the Structure Of Scientific Revolutions.) ie: popular opinion is meaningless. See the climate debate for example, or any debate over the impact of monetary policy.

4) As someone who is familiar with the vast literature on intelligence testing, as well as the methods involved, I can find no dispute in the field of intelligence testing, over the correlation between race and intelligence. (Although they tend to avoid talking about the subject.) All disputes come from unrelated or marginally related fields. There is no dispute in the empirical testing end of the field over whether there is a correlation or not. There is plenty of conjecture over whether race is a meaningful concept, and whether (g) is a sufficiently valuable means of testing "demonstrated practical intelligence in life". There is no dispute over whether intelligence is inherited, only over the ratio between heritability and environment in determining intelligence. Furthermore the article does not reference either the meaning of (g) or of intelligence testing, or the organizations and methods by which intelligence tests are gathered. It reads like a collection of newspaper clippings from popular press about the popular disputes over intelligence.

For example, abstract intelligence tends to benefit the individual by advancing him above his group. Empathy tends to be used to understand and develop consensus (usually downward - conservative). Verbal skill is largely a function of enabling persuasion which is necessary to get people to allocate their resources, time and energy (Habermas) (which is usually upward - progressive). All three are valuable skills. In this era of industrialization which has led to the disintegration of the family unit as the primary economic, and the rise of the individual as the primary economic entity, analytical skills are held at a higher premium than they were in our past. However, there are times in history where consensus and persuasion are more useful and important strategies (during systemic external pressures.)

5) Even outside the field of intelligence testing is is apparent that Empathy (which helps us understand others and therefor helps us adopt norms), Verbal reasoning which helps us articulate increasingly subtle ideas, and Spatial reasoning which allows us to create and compare abstractions - as well as forecast in time, are present in people to different degrees. (They are present in different races to different degrees. ie:The relative weakness of verbal and relative strength of spatial reasoning in asians, the strength of ashkinazim in verbal, the strength of spatial/verbal in northern (caucasian/germanic) europeans, the weakness of verbal and spatial in sub saharans, the weakness of verbal in the south asian pacific islander distribution, and the extraordinary weakness of verbal in amerindians. Even so, these strengths and weaknesses describe different distributions, not absolutes. Furthermore Empathy is generally higher in females and can be increased or decreased in both genders by the introduction of hormones (drugs), and the male development process significantly hinders their emotional development (for evolutionary reasons that are as yet subject to various means of conjecture.)

6) I would argue that NOT stating these different facets of the argument is by definition either a demonstration of confusion by the authors, or an attempt to politicize or mislead the reader. SO:

SUGGESTION:
Organization: I suggest that this article be broken into four sections outlining the four different positions as is suggested by the introduction:

a) Differences in measurable intelligence (g) reflect a real difference in average group intelligence, which is caused by a combination of environmental factors and heritable differences in brain function.
b) Differences in average cognitive ability (g) between races exist and are caused entirely by social and/or environmental factors.
c) Differences in average cognitive ability (g) between races do not exist, and that the differences in average test scores are the result of inappropriate use of the tests themselves.
d) Either or both of the concepts of race and general intelligence are poorly constructed and therefore any comparisons between races are meaningless.

DEFINITIONS:
Explain and link to Multiple Intelligences - so that the reader understands that there are different concepts of intelligence.
Explain and link to Intelligence Quotient (IQ) - so that the reader understands that IQ is a statistical aggregate with a long history.
Explain and link to (g) Factor (General Intelligence) - so that the reader understands that (g) is a sort of catch-all but with specific meaning.
Explain and link to Race (classification of humans) -- so that the reader understands 'Race'. Which, by the way, is a reasonably well written article, and treats the subject better than this article.
Explain and link to Identity (social science) -- which is why race has meaning in society - because people use it for decision making (environment).
Explain and link to Signaling_(economics) -- which is the economic reinforcement for race - because people within races have different signals (environment).

SUMMARY It is not possible to convey a neutral point of view across four dimensions of an argument over what is effectively a matter of metaphysical value judgements at present - because a neutral point of view requires value judgements that summarize the different positions in relation to one another, and thus advance or demean an argument. And this argument is too politically charged for anyone to abandon his preferred position.

This approach would allow the reader to choose his bias or at least understand the four positions. This would be more satisfactory (more neutral) given that the reasons for the correlation between race and intelligence (g) remains an open question, and the subject is highly politicized. Each case could be made under each general section.

GRAPHIC REPRESENTATION
This graph could be used to show the positions of the different researchers on the matter.

Add caption here

CLOSING The only NPOV is to give voice to all four dimensions of the argument. What is not a NPOV is to rely on confused definitions of intelligence, or questionable sources while ignoring the empirical sources, and the political consequences, and the social consequences, that give rise to the dispute.

I have no problem drafting this if anyone would support the effort. The community has all but abandoned this page and written it's own sections rather than refer to this page due to the degradation of the content over the past few years.

Thanks for your time. 99.224.27.14 (talk) 16:29, 29 December 2011 (UTC)

Thank you for your input: but we do not base articles on the unsourced assertions of a single contributor. AndyTheGrump (talk) 16:34, 29 December 2011 (UTC)

I am not advocating anything other than a recommended change to the structure of the body of the article to reflect what is clearly a disorganized and ill managed page that reflects a history of competing interests and does not suit them. Instead, I am arguing that the summary section of the article adequately illustrates the state of the discourse, yet the remainder of the article is a complete mess. So, Andy, I don't think your objection is relevant. Curtd59 If the introduction suits the article, clearly structuring the article to reflect the arguments positioned in the introduction is a solution to the inadequacy of the body of the article.

99.224.27.14, your suggestions seem excellent. Of course you do not need sources to suggest article structure, although saying this it is clear you have drawn upon your comprehensive knowledge of the field to make this suggestion. Why not be bold and do some editing and see how it pans out? 스토킹 (talk) 17:48, 31 December 2011 (UTC)