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/Talk Archive 2006-06-20

/Talk Archive 2006-09-18

Brain Size Gene

The portion on brain size genes is completely unsupported by contemporary science, and the cited sources have little to do with the proposed claims.

The source for these claims come from “Gene Epression/scienceblogs” and deal with “Blood of the British” and “Nerd/Geek/Dork - my breakdown.”

None of this has much to do science, let alone “brain size genes." I have removed this portion from the article. If you continue to cite bogus sources I will see that this article is removed.

The referenced source. http://www.scienceblogs.com/gnxp/

New study

Boy, I'm not sure if I want to wade into this article, judging from the general level of vitriol, but I thought I'd at least post this: "Men are more intelligent than women, claims new study" (from the 14 September 2006 Daily Mail) British-born researcher John Philippe Rushton, who previously created a furore by suggesting intelligence is influenced by race, says the finding could explain why so few women make it to the top in the workplace...He claims the 'glass ceiling' phenomenon is probably due to inferior intelligence, rather than discrimination or lack of opportunity. I've not found the actual study yet, and from the news item I can readily come up with major criticisms, but it was deemed newsworthy and is probably Misplaced Pages-worthy... -- Scientizzle 05:12, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

Well, that only goes to show how much of a bigot the man is. (stricken by author of comment)--Ramdrake 11:15, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

This seems to be the reference: Jackson, D. N., & Rushton, J. P. (2006). Males have greater g: Sex differences in general mental ability from 100,000 17- to 18-year-olds on the Scholastic Assessment Test. Intelligence, 34, 479-486. Pete.Hurd 15:09, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

And this is in contradiction with how many studies that find no difference or only negligible ones?--Ramdrake 15:18, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

In fairness, he does seem/claim to provide an explanation for this. Havn't read the paper yet, it's sitting in my printer tray. Pete.Hurd 15:21, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

Well, he does also provide a nice, logical explanation for why "Blacks have lower intelligence". Doesn't mean he's right. Let us know when you've read the paper.  :) --Ramdrake 15:25, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.intell.2006.03.005 --Rikurzhen 16:43, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

Boy, after reading the abstract... there's an awful lot of easy pickings to tear this study to shreds. My institution doesn't subscribe to the journal, so I can't pick it up now, but I hope to in the future. Is it time to add an "Intelligence and gender" section to this article? -- Scientizzle 19:02, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

Actually, there is already an article on Sex and intelligence.--Ramdrake 19:15, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, I know, but I meant as a subsection in this article to discuss his latest work. Sex and intelligence hasn't been updated since this study came out, so it could probably use some of the new info. -- Scientizzle 19:26, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

I go to the University of Western Ontario, and the study is already being torn to shred by the head of the department of psychology. In the campus newspaper the head of the department says something like "I've given up trying to argue with him...he seems to like subjecting himself to ridicule"...the article points out that to prove intelligence he uses SAT scores which have been known to be systemically bias for decades Dowew 21:27, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

Well if he said in the campus newspaper you should be smart enough to know he's probably saying it for political reasons. What better way to score points with the female students than to ridicule Rushton. Rushton's scholarship is actually superior to 99% of academics, it's jus that he's held to a much higher standard because he has the courage to research controversial issues. Rushton could be completely wrong, but he's outstanding in his scholarship, integrity, and originality. 134.117.83.241 01:35, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

And btw, SAT scores may actually be less biased than standard IQ tests, in that the Flynn Effect for SAT scores is much less than IQ suggesting the measurement is more stable. 134.117.83.241 01:38, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

I'm glad to hear you have such a high opinion of Rushton compared to 99% of academics, 134.117.83.241, but I don't think your singular character assessment brings forth NPOV. If you could put aside your obvious admiration for the man, and help us improve the article bit by bit, I would greatly appreciate the help. In particular, please let us know where you think POV is being pushed the other way, so we can edit to appropriately address your concerns. Thanks! --JereKrischel 06:55, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

134.117.83.241, do you honestly think I pick up chicks by badmouting a douche like Rushton ? I suggest in future that if you want to argue a point of prejudice you sign in with a username. The quote I am refereing to is "I have given up debating him and just marvel at the longevity and consistency of his willful ingorance" which was said by Prof Bob Bailey director of environmental research at western. This quote is taken from the UWO Gazette from Friday Sept 15 vol 100 issue 10. I will scan in the entire article and see if I can post the jpg somewhere...unfortunatly the Gazette website does not have an up to date digital archive. Dowew 21:12, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

Edits and reverts

Would Users Minorcorrections and Liketoread please discuss their edits on the talk page rather than just reverting to their own version? These edits were reverted by the regular editors of this page for a reason (I presume it has something to do with POV). Thanks!--Ramdrake 17:56, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

I have been asked this question in the edit summary. Since I didn't think to reply directly in the edit summary, here is my reply here:

Q:Ramdrake if you were interested in making this article better why have tags been on for months.

A:Because I sincerely think these edits do not improve this article but rather just make it biased and POV.--Ramdrake 23:54, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

But you've done nothing to improve the article for months so obvioulsy couldn't care less about it, as long as nothing that defends Rushton's scholarship or character is added. The article as it stands is nothing put a series of quotes and half the article isn't even about Rushton but about broader disputes over race. Many of the quotes are not even about Rushton or his theory but about race in general, and Rushton's ideas and methods are attacked without showing his side of the story. Also, what's with ridiculous terms like continent African ancestry group. Just call them Blacks, Whites, and North East Asians, since these are the primary goups Rushton studies. If you want to use broader labels say Caucasian and East Asian. 134.117.83.241 01:48, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

You have every right to have Rushton as your personal hero, but to say things like anthropologists agree with his view of the "evolution" of races is pushing it a bit, not to mention totally unreferenced. If you want to add stuff, I strongly suggest you please do two things: 1) reference every affirmation that's not totally obvious. 2) Discuss any and all major changes before making them, otherwise you run the risk of being systematically reverted. Regards,Ramdrake 02:00, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

Rushton's not my personal hero I just respect academics who are not afraid to say what they really believe publicly since so many are dishonest about their true views. And I'm not the one who added the changes you describe but since I support those changes, let me make it clear that the splitting off sequence Rushton draws on is not controversial. It's broadly accepted that modern humans evolved in Africa and that the split between Europeans and North East Asians is relatively recent. I'm shocked that anyone here would even require a citation for something so basic but I'll do my best to add one. 134.117.83.241 02:10, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

Please, 134.117.83.241 (who apparently is located in Ontario, where Rushton is a professor), the "split" Rushton describes is very peculiar to his own beliefs - anthropologists do not assert that any "splitting" arbitrarily stopped evolution in its tracks - Rushton uses the splits to describe a linear evolution, when in fact (notwithstanding the high degree of mixture we all have), if anything, the "splits" only divide us into distant cousins, not earlier and later evolved life forms. I'm glad that you respect Rushton, but trying to serve as an apologist for his racialist beliefs is POV pushing. Let's work together to improve the article, and address your concerns one at a time. What would you like to address first? --JereKrischel 06:45, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

JereKrischel you've misunderstood Rushton's theory. Nowhere does Rushton suggest that splitting stopped evolution in its tracks. What an absurd statement that reveals a total misunderstanding of evolutionary biology. I'm very concerned that you don't have the understanding to be editing science related articles. Liketoread 18:10, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

Please, WP:NPA. I think JK has demonstrated an understanding of the issue more than sufficient to speak to this issue. You, on the other hand, by stubbornly reverting to your version, seem to be demonstrating a lack of flexibility. Please remember that WP can only advance through the cooperation of its editors. I don't think it is unreasonable to ask that changes be discussed here fully before being implemented on the article page.--Ramdrake 18:43, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

No I assure you from JereKrishel's comments he has no understanding of evolutionary biology, and if you think he does then you have no understanding of evolutionary biology. Of course human populations are cousins, and this is true of all life on Earth, and has nothing to do with the subtle point Rushton's making. And you are demonstrating a lack of flexibility with your kneejerk reverts that prevent progress to be made to an article that's been tagged. If you really were interested in being flexible, instead of reverting back to a version that's been tagged as POV, you would fix problems with the changes that you object to. I have not seen any attempts from you or JereKrischel to make the article more neutral or to improve the quality in any way, despite the fact that you both watch it like a hawk. But if other people want to come in and improve the quality of the article, you two have not earned the right to stop them. Liketoread 19:03, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

Please, Liketoread, I'm sure we can work together to make this a better article. Your edits are POV pushing, and as Ramdrake has pointed out, other editors are respectfully disagreeing with you and asking you to address one issue at a time with us. This is a consensus driven endeavor, and I know that we can work together to find that consensus. Please, pick one particular issue you have a difficulty with, and let's focus on that, come up with a viable compromise, and then implement it. Thanks! --JereKrischel 19:45, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

The primary issue I have a problem with is that the article is very POV in that it makes plenty of room for all of Rushton's critics including people who are not even criticising Rushton at all, but the concept of race in general; but you revert new editors who are trying to add comments by Peter Knudson which show that prior to researching controversial issues, Rushton was seen as highly competent. In addition, you quote a criticism of Rushton applying r/k within a species within the social class theory section, but revert data Rushton cites showing that such criticism is misguided. Also, in the race section the article implies that Rushton thinks there are only 3 races, when from the outset Rushton has acknowledged the existence of other races outside the big 3. Also, I agree with the poster that we should use simple terms to describe the genetic clusters like North East Asians, Caucasians, and Blacks. In short the article is very poorly done and I would hope that you would not discourage the efforts of new editors with kneejerk reverts especially since unlike you and Ramdrake, these new editors appear to have read Rushton's book. Liketoread 18:05, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

To start with, several of your key additions aren't cited. Second, the racial terminology has already been discussed at length here, and the current terminology was the consensus of many editors, not just JK and myself. For the r/K hypothesis, several issues are left out, among which the fact that the proponents of the hypothesis have stated that their model is not meant to be applied within species, so your quote from Rushton in his self-defense doesn't hold too well. Another thing is also the Peter Knudson quip, which says nowhere that Rushton was seen as highly competent until he started researching controversial issues. Without this context, it is but only quote-mining. And although Rushton has acknowledged the existence of other races, he still pools everyone from around the world as just 3 races. I could go on, but I guess you get the gist of it. If you want to bring up your changes one at a time, we can discuss them calmly. As they are, they do not help the article, nor its POV balance. In short, the edits were such that it was better to revert them than to try to fix them (which happens often enough). You can bring all the points and proposals up on the talk page and we can discuss them one by one.--Ramdrake 19:28, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

Liketoread, I understand your concern about POV. Can you be specific with just one example to start with? That is to say, quote a small section you feel is POV, explain why you believe it to be so, and propose an alternative for us?

In response to your "Asian/Black/White" terminology, I'll briefly recap the previous discussion. Rushton uses "Mongoloid/Caucasoid/Negroid" in his writings. Someone came in and wanted to change that because the terms were "obsolete", and Rushton has in recent writings used both his old terms, and newer terms. The best practice for groups was found on the NLM site, and it was decided if we didn't want to use the "obsolete" terms, we could use the best practice terms asserted by NLM.

If you'd like to blanket change back to "Mongoloids/Caucasoid/Negroid", I wouldn't have a problem with it, since they are the terms Rushton historically has used. However, interpreting his "oids" into Black/White/East Asian is an unacceptable gloss I think. The only reasonable alternative to the "oids" is the NLM best practices, IMHO. --JereKrischel 21:03, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

For the record, I wouldn't oppose the "oids" terminology either.--Ramdrake 21:14, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

For the record, the terms Rushton historically used (i.e. back when he first started) were Orientals, Whites, and Blacks. Those are the terms he used in the table we present, and those are the terms he used in his original 1989 paper. When Oriental became politically incorrect, he switched to East Asians, Whites, and Blacks. The fact that you two think Rushton primarily uses the oid termonology tells me you have not read much of his work, and really shouldn't be editing his article. And Rushton never embraced all of humankind in his theory and the constant attempts to imply that Rushton only recognizes three races are simply bad faith attempts to discredit him. Rushton has said many times that he is focused on the 3 main races although races OUTSIDE the big 3 as well as divisions within each race may also be of interest. Liketoread 16:44, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

If you take a look at this , you will find that Rushton indeed uses the "oids" terms, although he has also used the words you mentioned as well. And unfortunately, this overinclusion criticism has indeed been leveled at him. (I'm trying to find a suitable quote). I may not be an expert on Rushton, but I am familiar enough with his writings to edit this article, contrary to your implications.--Ramdrake 17:34, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

Oids are not his primary termonology and the fact that you two keeping pushing it reveals your bad faith efforts to discredit this man that have been bothering me since I discovered this article. It's obvious that the two of you lack the knowledge and neutrality to edit this article in a productive way. And if you find a quote of someone of note calling Rushton too inclusive than I suppose you can include it (although the article needs far less quotes, not more) but it is a lie for the article istelf to claim that Rushton only recognizes 3 races. It's a gross misrepresentation of his work, and it's deliberate bad faith editing. Liketoread 17:48, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

Please also stop the personal attacks.--Ramdrake 19:22, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

Oids are his primary terminology - please read his 'Race, Evolution, and Behavior' - http://www.charlesdarwinresearch.org/Race_Evolution_Behavior.pdf, page 9. He considers them the "scientific terms". Also his work "Rushton, J. P. (1988). Mongoloids, Caucasoids, and Negroids in evolutionary perspective: A commentary on Lynn. Mensa Research Journal, Number 24, 30-32.". Many other of his articles also use this terminology: http://www.charlesdarwinresearch.org/JPRvitae.htm

You can also look at his 'Race, Evolution, and Behavior' paper for clear evidence that he does grossly simplify the world into Mongoloid/Caucasoid/Negroid. Although he puts in small disclaimers here and there, all of his data is put into those three buckets, in ways that have been harshly criticized by folk such as Lieberman - http://www.ssc.uwo.ca/psychology/faculty/rushtonpdfs/Lieberman2001CA.pdf

In regards to "including 3 races" compared to "rather than the 3 races", the note is important - one of the primary critiques of Rushton is that he inappropriately categorizes people in ways that aren't backed up by genetic studies, such as those done by Cavalli-Sforza. --JereKrischel 19:02, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

On page 43 of the online version of his book he writes: Yes, to a certain extent all the races blend into each other. That is true in any biological classification system. However, most people can be clearly identified with one race or another. In both everyday life and evolutionary biology, a "Black" is anyone most of whose ancestors were born in sub-Saharan Africa. A "White" is anyone most of whose ancestors were born in Europe. And an "Oriental" is anyone most of whose ancestors were born in East Asia. Modern DNA studies give pretty much the same results. I think these are the terms we should use because they're nice and simple, easy to understand, plus they're the same terms he uses in his chart which we cite, and so as to avoid confusion we should use those terms too.__Minorcorrections 23:33, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

So are proposing moving all the language to "White/Black/Oriental" as per his chart? --JereKrischel 09:06, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

JereKrischel, I believe your assertion about Rushton putting all the data he finds into one of his 3 buckets is incorrect. In fact, he excludes a lot of data that can't be classified as either Oriental, White or Black. Here's a quote from his review on brain size: Among the problems we encountered in conducting our review were the following; (1) What groups should be included in a racial category?...We decided to (1) focus primarily on East Asians, Europeans, and Africans, so we excluded Amerindians, Australian Aboriginees, and East Indians]. __Minorcorrections 00:17, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

I think, Minorcorrections, the problem is that his r/k-theory, based on his assertion of "splits" between Negroids, Caucasoids, and Mongoloids as a reason for a "tri-level hierarchy", is nullified by the exclusion of other racial groups that have different "split" dates. Not to argue for or against his theory (since that's really not the point of discussing the article), but not only are exclusions important, but blends are as well - and AFAIK, none of his "research" (mostly re-hashing data from previous studies, in some highly criticized ways) actually mapped his data to actual genetics. So that being said, even though he has rationalized his exclusions and glosses, I don't think that mitigates his POV regarding the "tri-level hierarchy" he is so (in)famous for. --JereKrischel 09:06, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

If anything, Rushton should be criticised for not being inclusive enough. Here Rushton describes a peer review of his cranial capacity data: The reviewer also re-examined the International Labour Office data presented by Rushton (1994). He/she added to the analyses samples from North and South India that had been explicitly excluded by Rushton (1994, pp. 288-289, along with Latin American, North African, and Southeast Asian samples, so as to produce the "clearest" test of the racial gradient) and thereby reduced the White/Black difference to non-significance].__Minorcorrections 00:26, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure what you mean about Rushton categorizing people in ways that are not backed by Cavalli-Sforza. In fact Sforza recognizes the same categories that Rushton does, and has even used the oid termonology, and is equally uncertain about the classification of South East Asians. On page 120 of The Great Human Diasporas Cavalli-Sforza writes: In the tree the Southeast Asians tend to fall with those of Australia and New Guinea. This position is not absolutely certain, because slightly different approaches indicate that the Southeast Asians ought to be grouped with the Mongoloids who live farther north rather than with the inhabitants of Oceania. There are genetic variations among the peoples of South East Asia that the information gathered to date does not adequately explain. Certain groups, such as the Vietnamese and some Cambodians, are more Mongoloid in type and nearer to the Chinese or Japanese; others such as the Malaysians and the "negritos" in particular, look more like the people of Oceania.__Minorcorrections 00:45, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

Cavalli-Sforza's usage of terms to describe his data is a map of social categories to genetics is descriptive, not prescriptive. Cavalli-Sforza himself has written, "The classification into races has proved to be a futile exercise"; that his research is "expected to undermine the popular belief that there are clearly defined races, to contribute to the elimination of racism"; and that "The idea of race in the human species serves no purpose." --JereKrischel 09:06, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

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