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	I have removed a paragraph as being inaccurate. My understanding of the literature is that a small group following Jensen has pushed for a partly genetic explanation of the racial IQ gap. Various scientists have criticized their work. It is unacceptable to describe two camps opposed to each other actively doing research into race and intelligence. Richard Nisbett has written a popular book on the subject- a DIY guide for parents brining up children- but can't be described as a researcher in race and intelligence. Stephen J. Gould is dead. Richard Lewontin does research on ecology as far as I know. These biologists were critics. Please could wikipedians not write about the world as they would like people to see it, but with a little accuracy? If the debate started in the late sixties as the result of a not very good paper of Jensen, we say so. If it sparked a reaction, we say so. If there are only 30 researchers in the world actively involved in research on this, or less possibly, we say so, etc, etc. But no need to give a completely misleading picture of what's going on. The quote from Nisbett was completely out of context - he makes no statement about the need to do resaecrh in this area, and there is very little (none?) that is government-funded. ] (])-		I have removed a paragraph as being inaccurate. My understanding of the literature is that a small group following Jensen has pushed for a partly genetic explanation of the racial IQ gap. Various scientists have criticized their work. It is unacceptable to describe two camps opposed to each other actively doing research into race and intelligence. Richard Nisbett has written a popular book on the subject- a DIY guide for parents brining up children- but can't be described as a researcher in race and intelligence. Stephen J. Gould is dead. Richard Lewontin does research on ecology as far as I know. These biologists were critics. Please could wikipedians not write about the world as they would like people to see it, but with a little accuracy? If the debate started in the late sixties as the result of a not very good paper of Jensen, we say so. If it sparked a reaction, we say so. If there are only 30 researchers in the world actively involved in research on this, or less possibly, we say so, etc, etc. But no need to give a completely misleading picture of what's going on. The quote from Nisbett was completely out of context - he makes no statement about the need to do resaecrh in this area, and there is very little (none?) that is government-funded. ] (])-
	:I note that Occam is claiming of some kind of consensus for what I see as BLP violations - inaccurately describing Lewontin and Nisbett as researchers as in race & intelligence. I assume, if he commnts, he will deliver one of his long lectures on consensus. ~~Howvere~~, there is strong evidence now of ] by a small group of users. The paragraph I removed was an example of a non neutrally written contribution which was factually completely misleading. ] (]) 04:15, 25 May 2010 (UTC)		:I note that Occam is claiming of some kind of consensus for what I see as BLP violations - inaccurately describing Lewontin and Nisbett as researchers as in race & intelligence. I assume, if he commnts, he will deliver one of his long lectures on consensus. However, there is strong evidence now of ] by a small group of users. The paragraph I removed was an example of a non neutrally written contribution which was factually completely misleading. ] (]) 04:15, 25 May 2010 (UTC)
			::I'm still waiting for Captain Occam to comment about this material and the BLP violations. ] (]) 04:23, 25 May 2010 (UTC)

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view · edit FAQ Is there really a scientific consensus that there is no evidence for a genetic link between race and intelligence? Yes, and for a number of reasons. Primarily:

No evidence for such a connection has ever been published. A statement signed by 143 senior human population geneticists states categorically that genetics research in no way supports the view that "recent natural selection has led to worldwide differences in I.Q. test results". (See this, this, and this for context.)
As understanding of the human genome and the science of population genetics advances, it has become increasingly clear that race is not a biologically meaningful way to categorize human population groups. See for example this statement by the American Association of Physical Anthropologists.
Even if we take ancestral population groups to be proxies for race, most subject-matter experts agree that cognitive differences between such such groups are unlikely to exist. A group of prominent geneticists explain why here.
Extensive evidence has been published which indicates that observed differences in IQ test performance between racial groups are environmental in origin. A group of leading psychologists summarizes some of these findings here.
Most researchers view the idea of a genetic connection between race and intelligence as scientifically obsolete. See e.g. this statement by the editorial board of Nature.

Isn't it true that different races have different average IQ test scores? On average and in certain contexts, yes, though these differences have fluctuated and in many cases steadily decreased over time. Crucially, the existence of such average differences today does not mean what racialists have asserted that it means (i.e. that races can be ranked according to their genetic predisposition for intelligence). Most IQ test data comes from North America and Europe, where non-White individuals represent ethnic minorities and often carry systemic burdens which are known to affect test performance. Studies which purport to compare the IQ averages of various nations are considered methodologically dubious and extremely unreliable. Further, important discoveries in the past several decades, such as the Flynn effect and the steady narrowing of the gap between low-scoring and high-scoring groups, as well as the ways in which disparities such as access to prenatal care and early childhood education affect IQ, have led to an understanding that environmental factors are sufficient to account for observed between-group differences. And isn't IQ a measure of intelligence? Not exactly. IQ tests are designed to measure intelligence, but it is widely acknowledged that they measure only a very limited range of an individual's cognitive capacity. They do not measure mental adaptability or creativity, for example. You can read more about the limitations of IQ measurements here. These caveats need to be kept in mind when extrapolating from IQ measurements to statements about intelligence. But even if we were to take IQ to be a measure of intelligence, there would still be no good reason to assert a genetic link between race and intelligence (for all the reasons stated elsewhere in this FAQ). Isn't there research showing that there are genetic differences between races? Yes and no. A geneticist could analyze a DNA sample and then in many cases make an accurate statement about that person's race, but no single gene or group of genes has ever been found that defines a person's race. Such variations make up a minute fraction of the total genome, less even than the amount of genetic material that varies from one individual to the next. It's also important to keep in mind that racial classifications are socially constructed, in the sense that how a person is classified racially depends on perceptions, racial definitions, and customs in their society and can often change when they travel to a different country or when social conventions change over time (see here for more details). So how can different races look different, without having different genes? They do have some different genes, but the genes that vary between any two given races will not necessarily vary between two other races. Race is defined phenotypically, not genotypically, which means it's defined by observable traits. When a geneticist looks at the genetic differences between two races, there are differences in the genes that regulate those traits, and that's it. So comparing Africans to Europeans will show differences in genes that regulate skin color, hair texture, nose and lip shape, and other observable traits. But the rest of the genetic code will be essentially the same. In fact, there is much less genetic material that regulates the traits used to define the races than there is that regulates traits that vary from person to person. In other words, if you compare the genomes of two individuals within the same race, the results will likely differ more from each other than a comparison of the average genomes of two races. If you've ever heard people saying that the races "are more alike than two random people" or words to that effect, this is what they were referring to. Why do people insist that race is "biologically meaningless"? Mostly because it is. As explained in the answer to the previous question, race isn't defined by genetics. Race is nothing but an arbitrary list of traits, because race is defined by observable features. The list isn't even consistent from one comparison to another. We distinguish between African and European people on the basis of skin color, but what about Middle Eastern, Asian, and Native American people? They all have more or less the same skin color. We distinguish African and Asian people from European people by the shape of some of their facial features, but what about Native American and Middle Eastern people? They have the same features as the European people, or close enough to engender confusion when skin color is not discernible. Australian Aborigines share numerous traits with African people and are frequently considered "Black" along with them, yet they are descended from an ancestral Asian population and have been a distinct cultural and ethnic group for fifty thousand years. These standards of division are arbitrary and capricious; the one drop rule shows that visible differences were not even respected at the time they were still in use. But IQ is at least somewhat heritable. Doesn't that mean that observed differences in IQ test performance between ancestral population groups must have a genetic component? This is a common misconception, sometimes termed the "hereditarian fallacy". In fact, the heritability of differences between individuals and families within a given population group tells us nothing about the heritability of differences between population groups. As geneticist and neuroscientist Kevin Mitchell explains:

We need to get away from thinking about intelligence as if it were a trait like milk yield in a herd of cattle, controlled by a small, persistent and dedicated bunch of genetic variants that can be selectively bred into animals from one generation to the next. It is quite the opposite – thousands of variants affect intelligence, they are constantly changing, and they affect other traits. It is not impossible for natural selection to produce populations with differences in intelligence, but these factors make it highly unlikely.
To end up with systematic genetic differences in intelligence between large, ancient populations, the selective forces driving those differences would need to have been enormous. What’s more, those forces would have to have acted across entire continents, with wildly different environments, and have been persistent over tens of thousands of years of tremendous cultural change. Such a scenario is not just speculative – I would argue it is inherently and deeply implausible.
The bottom line is this. While genetic variation may help to explain why one person is more intelligent than another, there are unlikely to be stable and systematic genetic differences that make one population more intelligent than the next.

What about all the psychometricians who claim there's a genetic link? The short answer is: they're not geneticists. The longer answer is that there remains a well-documented problem of scientific racism, which has infiltrated psychometry (see e.g. and ). Psychometry is a field where people who advocate scientific racism can push racist ideas without being constantly contradicted by the very work they're doing. And when their data did contradict their racist views, many prominent advocates of scientific racism simply falsified their work or came up with creative ways to explain away the problems. See such figures as Cyril Burt, J. Phillipe Rushton, Richard Lynn, and Hans Eysenck, who are best known in the scientific community today for the poor methodological quality of their work, their strong advocacy for a genetic link between race and intelligence, and in some cases getting away with blatant fraud for many years. Isn't it a conspiracy theory to claim that psychometricians do this? No. It is a well-documented fact that there is an organized group of psychometricians pushing for mainstream acceptance of racist, unscientific claims. See this, this and this, as well as our article on scientific racism for more information. Isn't this just political correctness? No, it's science. As a group of scholars including biological anthropologists Agustín Fuentes of Princeton and Jonathan M. Marks of the University of North Carolina explain: "while it is true that most researchers in the area of human genetics and human biological diversity no longer allocate significant resources and time to the race/IQ discussion, and that moral concerns may play an important role in these decisions, an equally fundamental reason why researchers do not engage with the thesis is that empirical evidence shows that the whole idea itself is unintelligible and wrong-headed". These authors compare proponents of a genetic link between race and IQ to creationists, vaccine skeptics, and climate change deniers. At the same time, researchers who choose to pursue this line of inquiry have in no way been hindered from doing so, as is made clear by this article: . It's just that all the evidence they find points to environmental rather than genetic causes for observed differences in average IQ-test performance between racial groups. What about the surveys which say that most "intelligence experts" believe in some degree of genetic linkage between race and IQ?

These surveys are almost invariably conducted by advocates of scientific racism, and respondents to these surveys are also almost exclusively members of groups that promote scientific racism. In short, they are not representative samples of mainstream scientific opinion.
These surveys tend to have very low participation rates, and often consist of fewer than 100 respondents.
Many of the surveys suffer from methodological flaws, such as using leading questions. This leads to an increase in responses from those who agree, and a decrease from those who disagree.
Generally speaking, the better the methodology of the survey, the lower agreement it shows with the claim of a genetic link between race and intelligence.
Even the most poorly structured surveys, conducted among members of groups that are dominated by advocates for scientific racism, show much doubt and difference of opinion among respondents.
The vast majority of respondents have absolutely no qualifications to speak on genetics.

Is there really no evidence at all for a genetic link between race and intelligence? No evidence for such a link has ever been presented in the scientific community. Much data has been claimed to be evidence by advocates of scientific racism, but each of these claims has been universally rejected by geneticists. Statistical arguments claiming to detect the signal of such a difference in polygenic scores have been refuted as fundamentally methodologically flawed (see e.g. ), and neither genetics nor neuroscience are anywhere near the point where a mechanistic explanation could even be meaningfully proposed (see e.g. ). This is why the question of a genetic link between race and intelligence is largely considered pseudoscience; it is assumed to exist primarily by advocates of scientific racism, and in these cases the belief is based on nothing but preconceived notions about race. What is the current state of the science on a link between intelligence and race? Please see the article itself for an outline of the scientific consensus. What is the basis for Misplaced Pages's consensus on how to treat the material? Misplaced Pages editors have considered this topic in detail and over an extended period. In short, mainstream science treats the claim that genetics explains the observable differences in IQ between races as a fringe theory, so we use our own guidelines on how to treat such material when editing our articles on the subject. Please refer to the following past discussions:

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Preliminary Review of Significance and Policy Relevence (revised) Section

General notes:

The entire section is problematic because it is not clear that there are any racial difference in intelligence. Certainly there are difference in intelligence outcomes for various racial and ethnic groups, but so far there has been no direct evidence that racial intelligence is different for any given group. If there is no racial difference in intelligence, there is no significance of racial intelligence.
It's not clear what this section is supposed to be about. Is it about the difference in outcomes, or the inate racial difference (which is not an estabished relationship)? If it's about the former, refferring to the appropriate intelligence articles seems appropriate, if it's about the later, this sounds very much like WP:SYNTH and WP:OR, taking a minority conclusion and using it as the basis for an entire section.
The section relies heavily on primary sources. This in itself is problematic as WP should generally use secondary and tertiary source, see WP:Primary. A broad topic like this should probably rest more firmly on secondary sources.

Within Societies: The first half of this section deals primarily with the effects of intelligence independent of race. Accordingly, there should be reference to http://en.wikipedia.org/Intelligence_quotient#Positive_correlations_with_IQ. In fact, things could certainly be improved by a better presentation of how IQ alone is significant somewhere in the appropriate intelligence articles. One thing which isn't clear from the second paragraph is that all of the data are correlational data, and do not determine the direction of causailty.

Between Nations: This entire section should be deleted. The article is about Race and Intelligence, not Race and Nations.

High Achieving Minorities: Again, we have a discussion which fails to highlight that we are dealing with a correlational phenomenon. In fact, with respect to Jewish outcomes, another very popular explanation is that of Talmudic reasoning/culture. Given the general consensus that environmental factors play a large role in shaping IQ, it needs to be made clear that there is no direct evidence that the correlation is causal in the direction that IQ is a function of race.

(Jumping in): I read somewhere that the names of numbers may be a factor in higher Korean scores on math tests. Korean has no irregular number names: twelve (12) is ten-two (at least in the Sino-Korean numbering system used when doing arithmetic. --Uncle Ed (talk) 17:22, 19 May 2010 (UTC)

Addressing the IQ gap: This also seems to be a section which is essentially independent of race. It's good to see that it links to the appropriate article. The rest of the section doesn't seem to be discussing how to address the IQ gap, but is rather a he said/she said about research into race and intelligence. It's not clear where that content belongs, or how encyclopedic it is.

In sum, the rationalle for this section is weak, the content of this section is confused and tends to rest on correlative results, with an over-emphasis sourcing primary source, and nearly all of the reasonable topics here can be handled by summarizing and linking to the appropriate articles. A.Prock (talk) 15:30, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

As I have stated above I agree that more secondary sources are needed and much more clarity about what is in fact the topic of the section. I also agree with Aprock that it tacitly assumes that race exists as a biological concept and that the iq gap is based in it.·Maunus·ƛ· 15:47, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

We can discuss this shortly, but I'd prefer to first finish discussing the changes that Maunus is proposing to the rest of the article. Or we can discuss this first and then discuss the rest of his changes, but it tends to get confusing when we've got two large and currently active discussions on the talk page about separate parts of the article. --Captain Occam (talk) 16:56, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

I hope we can separate two things:

the observation that various "races" (or members of various ethnic groups, or citizens of various countries) get statistically significant different scores on intelligence tests
theories about why they wind up with different scores

I'm well aware that there are people who are dead set on believing (or denying!) that the differences are real (e.g., that people with different skin color are born with different intelligence potential like the alpha beta gamma system in Brave New World)

I'm not sure whether enough research has been done on racial, ethnic, or national differences in child-rearing practices, early childhood education or cultural expectations.

All I know for sure is that when I, as a private tutor, have been able to convince a child that I believe in him, I have always been able to teach him multiple years of grade school math in less than one calendar year. (No, I'm not going to introduce my original research here. :-)

I'm hoping that we can write fairly and without bias about all the theories on the subject of how intelligence is manifested, with attention to the nature-nurture dispute, and also that we will describe studies which have actually compared these theories with reality. --Uncle Ed (talk) 17:00, 16 May 2010 (UTC)

I’ll probably be writing a new draft of this section sometime soon, so I figured I should respond to these comments first.

Aprock, a lot of your objections go against things that you yourself agreed on during mediation. Going with the most obvious one, in your first sentence, you say “it is not clear that there are any racial difference in intelligence.” One of the things you agreed on, along with the rest of us, is that the article should take the same general perspective that the APA report does. Well, the APA report states that there is a difference of around 1.1 standard deviation between the average IQ of blacks and of whites, that IQ affects several social and economic factors, and that its predictive validity in these area is the same for blacks and for whites. While the APA report doesn’t go into detail about specifically how the IQ gap between blacks and whites would be reflected in these social factors, as long as we’re basing this article on the APA report we can’t assume that there’s no IQ gap at all, or that IQ does not measure anything that’s socially or economically relevant.

As has been pointed out to you before, the APA is saying more than just that IQ correlates with these social outcomes. It is saying that IQ influences them (and that is the word they use), so if this is what the source material says, we shouldn’t be second-guessing it. I should also point out that national IQs are something of a sub-topic of the race and intelligence debate, particularly when it comes to countries in sub-Saharan Africa. The article already presents information about the doubts that have been raised over the reliability of scores from this region, so it already discusses IQ and nations in another context. In the interest of balance it needs to also present the other side of this dispute, which is that national IQs (even in this region) are still good predictors of several social and economic variables.

Maunus, I hope the comment from Uncle Ed is sufficient to address your own point. This section of the article isn’t presenting any perspective about whether the difference in average IQ between races is caused entirely by environmental factors, or whether genetics play a role also. But the APA report points out that differences in IQ have certain social and economic effects, and this is the case regardless of whether these differences exist for genetic or environmental reasons. When we extend the same principle from the IQs of individuals to the average IQs of races, it becomes statistically inevitable that differences in average IQs between races will have social and economic effects also, regardless of whether those differences in average IQ are genetic or environmental.

If there are any specific aspects of this section that you think need to be re-worded, in addition to the ones that you’ve pointed out already, then you’re welcome to do so. But in terms of overall content, I don’t think there’s anything in this section that disagrees significantly with the position taken by the APA. --Captain Occam (talk) 15:43, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

Hey, Captain, I wonder if any of the difficulty choosing how to present this material in the article is due to unspoken assumptions or agendas. For example, socialists generally advocate policies that stop skill, ability, or merit from being a factor in what economic resources a person gets. But (in my experience) they don't always make this goal explicit.

The upshot for our article would be choosing how to describe advocacy about intelligence. If one group seems less intelligent (based purely on test scores) or even if that group demonstrates less intelligence / skill, there would naturally be a dispute over how this affects income. Free market advocates would want the legal right to set pay rates based on presumed or demonstrated levels of work effectiveness, for example teachers whose students make significantly more progress should get merit pay. Others (and I guess these would be chiefly socialists, although they might resist the label) would reject any merit pay scheme for teachers.

So then, if large groups of people in general seem to have lower intelligence and if these correlates with less desirable job performance, the question is whether employers ought to have the legal right to set pay rates accordingly. Opponents presumably would call this discrimination, on the grounds that any correlation between benefits and a factor such as race necessarily reflects some sort of bias.

Another response to disparities of course is simply to claim that the tests are biased.

I guess what I'm bringing up is the aspect of interest (in the sense that only judges who are "disinterested" in a case may issue a ruling on it). We may need to describe the interests of those who make various claims.

While I'm at at, I'm not sure that the issue of imputing genetic causes to social phenomena has been described clearly enough. Although I'm not an expert, it seems to me that when a scientist or researcher say a certain percent of some psychological or behavioral thing is "due to genetics" it is generally based on subtracting all the known causes from 100% and assuming that the balance has to be genetic. That is, it's often not based on discovering a specific genetic cause but rather using the process of elimination, i.e., assuming that the unknown causes must be genetic. If this is so, it should be made explicit. --Uncle Ed (talk) 17:19, 19 May 2010 (UTC)

Ed, you need to understand the difference between genes and inheritance. Genes are bits of code that play a critical role in the production of polypeptides, essential for the making of enzymes that regulate bodily function (including growth). When a scientist says something is due to genetics, it is usually when it is very easy to identify the gene, usually, but not always, when a mutation causes a particular congenital birth defect, and it is easy to find the mutation. But scientists do not need to identify a genetic cause to measure the degree to which something is inherited. Scientists take identical twins (who are genetically identical) and then look for the variance in some behavior; obviously they need a large number of twins. From this they can infer the degree of heritability. Perhaps this is what you meant, but this is not quite the same thing as "process of elimination" and if the scientists do not know they precise genetic mechanism (which is often the case since most biological processes depend on many enzymes and many genes are therefore involved) they don't make the claim.

While I am at it, do you actually have any verifiable sources about this "agenda" stuff or is this your typical bullshit? Please, I beg you, go out and do research on a topic you want to learn more about, and then edit an article, and when you do please keep our policies in mind. Raising a red herring is not constructive, and if it is not a red herring why don't you do us a favor and provide the sources you are relying on? If you do not have any sources, you are just inviting us to violate NOR. That is not constructive is it? Slrubenstein | Talk 17:41, 19 May 2010 (UTC)

Sorry if I've hardly done anything being raising a red herring. It was not my intent to divert attention from the task of constructing this article in accordance with our policies. If that was the effect, then I guess I am in the wrong.

A lot of science is contaminated with bias, especially when findings have a bearing on public policy, as in the social sciences. Sometimes politicians or other interested parties latch on to a single study (e.g., as the "latest" and therefore best) and dismiss all others. Even researchers themselves have been accused of personal faults in attempt to divert attention from what they've actually found (Bell Curve authors, Jensen, etc.)

I was of course aware of the difference between discovering an actual genetic cause (like, surprise! White people tend to have white babies, but if one parent is black the babies come out kind of brownish) - and the process of estimating heritability. I didn't mean to suggest that other contributors here were unaware of it, but was hoping that in each case where attribution of heritability was made that we would be sure to indicate the reasoning process by which that estimation was made. I was also hoping that we would take pains to make that distinction which you thought I myself was unaware of, between heritability calculations and actual assignment of genetic causes. I daresay a lot of difficulty describing the disputes over race and intelligence stem from science writers and other journalists blurring that distinction.

I don't always have sources at hand, but perhaps if you're willing to do a bit of WP:TEAMWORK you might help me re-discover I source I'm relying on but have forgotten. In the field of intelligence research, just as in the field of studying homosexual desire / behavior, claims have been made about some people being "born that way" (smart, gay, "born leader", "inherited all that musical talent from his father"). I do hope we can work together to describe all this in accordance with WP:NPOV and any other relevant policy. --Uncle Ed (talk) 18:25, 19 May 2010 (UTC)

Ed, you misunderstand NPOV. NPOV does not mean that we have to provide a balance of editors point of view, it means we provide all significant views from reliable sources. So your own views on intelligence or genetics (like mine) are utterly irrelevant to this article. Whenever you find an actual reliable source for a significant view that is missing from this article, by all mans come back and make an actual contribution. Slrubenstein | Talk 20:45, 19 May 2010 (UTC)

@Occam. Please, for the umpteenth time, stick to content issues and refrain from the claims of false consensus.

I specifically noted that it's not clear what the section is supposed to be about. Is it about outcomes, or innate racial differences in intelligence, or something else. Please clarify this.
WRT intelligence influencing outcomes, there is no question about that. That can be entirely handled by referring the the appropriate wiki article.
WRT nations, nations are racially heterogeneous, and so are not any measure of racial intelligence. The issue of sub-saharan blacks can be addressed directly if need be. Again, there are other articles on wikipedia which you can refer to.
Your explanations still confuse correlation and causation, which I think may be the primary problem here.

As far as I can tell, this section is entirely unnecessary. Your explanations have not clarified in any way why the appropriate wiki articles can't be summarized and linked to. A.Prock (talk) 01:23, 20 May 2010 (UTC)

The correlation vs. causation thing has been explained to you multiple times already. If the source material describes there as being a causal link between intelligence and these social outcomes, then it isn’t our job to second-guess that. However, we can also include some sources which dispute the direction of the causal link, as my proposed revision does.

What this section is about is the real-world effects associated with the IQ gap. This includes social and economic factors which correlate with IQ, and are distributed unequally between races in the same way that IQ is; and it also includes a discussion about how various researchers and policy-makers think these differences should be dealt with. The latter part of the section, the “policy relevance” part, was added specifically because Maunus and Slrubenstein were requsting that it be included. I don’t have a strong opinion about whether it be part of this section or not, so if you object to it, your disagreement is with Maunus and Slrubenstein rather than with me.

There are two other things you should keep in mind about this. One is the level of support this section has received during the five months that it’s been discussed. Users who have expressed approval of including it are me, DJ, Varoon Arya, David.Kane, Mikemikev, and Bpesta22. Maunus and Slrubenstein had specific changes that they wanted made to this section before they could approve of it, but all of their suggestions have been followed now; at this point the only editors participating in this talk page who unequivocally disagree with including this section are you and Ramdrake. That isn’t a reason to ignore any suggested changes that you and Ramdrake think should be made to it, of course, but it means that I don’t think you can justifiably claim that there’s no reason to add this section at all.

And the other thing you should keep in mind is the changes that Uncle Ed would like to have made to this section, which are fairly different from some of the changes you’ve been wanting. I can’t give your opinion about this any more weight than his, and it may end up being the case that it won’t be possible to come up with a version of this section that satisfies both you and him. If that’s what ends up happening, the solution isn’t to leave the section out entirely, since Uncle Ed obviously isn’t arguing for that—doing that would only be giving you exactly what you’re asking for while giving him nothing. The appropriate solution in that case would just be to add this section to the article in state that’s at least tolerable to both you and him, and then let you and him work out your disputes over it without me having to act as an intermediary. --Captain Occam (talk) 02:01, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

If you could please address my points, we might be able to move forward. Talking around them isn't very productive. Your continued pushing of false consensus is immaterial as well. One more time:

Is this section about outcomes or about innate racial difference in IQ?
Why should information about racially heterogeneous groups be included?
I'm not at all worried about reliable secondary sources confusing causation and correlation. I'm worried about you doing so.

A.Prock (talk) 18:15, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

I agree entirely with AProck that there is no place in this article for a discussion of racially heterogeneous groups like nations. "Significance" is altogether vague - "significance" is actually a requirement for inclusion of a view in an article so presumably all of our articles are about significant things.

Now, I could see a section on policy implications if these could be documented without violating NOR. So my question: does anyone have a reliable source stating that a specific local, state, or in the case of the US Federal law or policy was changed or created based on any of this research? I happen not to know of any but if there are clear cases I think it would be wirth discussing their possible includion in this article. Slrubenstein | Talk 19:05, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

Aprock, I think I’ve addressed your points about this already, but I’ll address them again:

The section is about outcomes. And the existence of these outcomes has nothing to do with whether the IQ gap between races is innate or acquired, because the correlation between IQ and these social factors is the same whether an IQ difference exists for genetic or environmental reasons.
The reason the “between nations” section is included is because the source literature discussing it specifically makes the connection between national IQs and racial IQs. For that reason, I don’t think including this is synth. However, if several users think this section still isn’t relevant enough to be included, then it doesn’t have to be. If that’s the case, the one thing I would ask is that some of the information about the correlation between national IQs and these social factors to be added to the section discussing IQ differences outside the United States, since that section currently presents nothing but criticism of the idea that these scores are valid, and in the interest of balance we should provide the counter-argument to this idea also.
As long as this section is properly sourced, whether I’m personally making a mistake in this area won’t affect the actual content of the section. Let’s keep focused on the content, not the contributor.

Slrubenstein: there are several sources which discuss effort to diminish the gap between races in academic achievement by improving school conditions. If there are other examples of public policies that have been influenced by race and intelligence, I’m not aware of them, but if you have any suggestions about this you’re welcome to make them.

At this point, it seems like there’s enough disagreement with the “between nations” section that it would probably be best to leave that section out. However, if I do this I think information about the correlation between national IQs and these social factors ought to be included in the “IQ differences outside of the USA” section. Would that be an acceptable compromise? --Captain Occam (talk) 01:06, 22 May 2010 (UTC)

If this is about outcomes, the appropriate way to handle this is to refer to the appropriate articles about IQ. Using sources about race and intelligence which cite Lynn's IQ of nations is fine, but including information about correlation between national IQs and social factors doesn't make sense for an article about race and intelligence. Suggesting this is appropriate for this article is a perfect example of using correlation to advance causality. A.Prock (talk) 04:16, 22 May 2010 (UTC)

Aprock, there’s something important here that you seem to be missing. The material that you’re saying it’s inappropriate to include is material that’s discussed heavily by the source material—the source material about race and intelligence. And I’m including Lynn’s writings here. Lynn claims that racial IQs in various countries do not just correlate with these social factor; he claims that racial IQs are causing them, while other authors claim that the causal link points in the opposite direction, or that it’s some of both.

It’s our job as Misplaced Pages editors to accurately represent the debates that exist in the source literature about race and intelligence, and these topics are part of this debate. They also don’t appear in the source literature about any other topic. While the IQ article discusses social factors which correlate with IQ, it does not discuss how these factors are distributed unequally between races in the same way that IQ is. Therefore this topic needs to be included, and it can’t go in any article other than this one. --Captain Occam (talk) 07:20, 22 May 2010 (UTC)

It's our job ... yes, but without giving UNDUE weight to particular views. Not all of Lynn's views have equal weight. I think that his views on the IQs of diferent nations are for the most part considered fringe, and there is not much debate about them because people consider them so fringe (when there is debate about how absurd the figures are, that is on a whole other level than debates about how to interpret the data. This article should focus on debates about how to interpret the data. We should cover debates over the quality of the data only when a significant number of scholars think that the data has quality. I am not convinced that is the case with this data). Slrubenstein | Talk 10:42, 22 May 2010 (UTC)

A lot of Richard Lynn's work is suspect. Some of the raw data might be correct, but academics have consistently criticized his selective use of data, his misuse of statistics and his flawed methodology. This has always been the case, starting with his work on intelligence and gender (according to Mackintosh he based his finding on one test, known to be biased against women), then dysgenics and finally global aspects of race and intelligence. I don't see how we can pick and choose what's correct and what's not. In fact, I can't see, if we're writing an encyclopedia, why we're even trying. If some expert has not made this precise in the literature, all we can do is repeat what critics have said about Lynn's work and that's about it. If they say it's flawed, wikipedia can't write about it as if it were definitive or possibly correct after suitable qualification. That is WP:OR. Mathsci (talk) 12:23, 22 May 2010 (UTC)

I think it’s important to separate those of Lynn’s views that are fringe from those of his views that are held by a lot of other scholars. That national IQs correlate with other societal factors such as income is not such an uncommon view, as can be seen from some of the other sources that the section I’m proposing uses while discussing this. Generally, other researchers who write about this agree with Lynn that this correlation exists, but disagree with him about national IQs being primarily the result of genetic factors in their populations, as well as directly causing all of these social factors; they tend to think that the relationship between these factors and IQ is more complex.

If you’re concerned about balance here, though, what do you think of the compromise I suggested, of leaving out the “between nations” part of the section I’m proposing and instead putting this information in the “IQ differences outside of the USA” section? At the moment, this section provides nothing but criticism of IQ scores outside the USA, without mentioning the view (which is not such an uncommon view) that national IQs still correlate with these social factors. If you think the content I’m proposing is biased in favor of the idea that Lynn’s views are accurate, the “IQ differences outside of the USA” section is currently biased in the opposite direction, so perhaps the best solution is to put all of this information in a single section. What do you think of that idea? --Captain Occam (talk) 11:53, 22 May 2010 (UTC)

If you'd like to improve the material in the IQ article about outcomes, that's fine. Outcomes as a function of IQ has nothing to do with race though, so including that information here is inappropriate. And by all means, cite the appropriate publications when developing any new content about IQ. A.Prock (talk) 14:45, 22 May 2010 (UTC)

Aprock, are you deliberately ignoring what I’m saying here?

“Outcomes as a function of IQ has nothing to do with race though, so including that information here is inappropriate.”

The source literature is specifically discussing outcomes as a function of the racial IQ gap. The previous time we discussed this section, I spent quite a while demonstrating this to you, and telling you specifically which papers talk about it. And that’s why this information is relevant here.

Really, I’m making every effort to listen to your complaints and make this section into something you would find acceptable. But if you keep repeating yourself while completely ignoring what I’ve said in response, that’s not going to be possible for me. There is enough support for this section that it can probably be added to the article even without your approval, so the only effect it’s likely to have if you keep stonewalling like this is to prevent me from being able to make this section as satisfactory as possible to you.

Does anyone else (other than Mathsci) want to try explaining this to Aprock? David.Kane or Slrubenstein, maybe? --Captain Occam (talk) 22:18, 22 May 2010 (UTC)

I'm not ignoring what you're saying. You're not understanding what I'm saying. If the source is attributing the cause of the outcome to IQ, then that information isn't relevant here. There are plenty of other articles which discuss the significance of IQ, and summarizing/linking to them is the best way to handle this. I've read the sources you pointed me to, and none of them make the claim that you are making here. And please, for the umpteenth time, stop pushing false consensus. A.Prock (talk) 23:14, 22 May 2010 (UTC)

If you’ve read all of the sources that I asked you to read, then you’ll be aware that the source literature used by this section is specifically discussing outcomes of the racial IQ gap. I’ve certainly demonstrated this as well as it’s possible to demonstrate it during our prior discussion about it. You asked me what sources discuss outcomes as a function of difference in average IQ between races, and I listed around nine of them; then you asked me what single source described this in greatest depth, and I answered Jensen and Nyborg’s paper. I then asked whether after reading the paper itself (not the abstract) you could find any problems with it as a source for this, and you never responded.

Can you please explain, specifically, how information about outcomes of the racial IQ gap is not relevant to an article about race and intelligence? --Captain Occam (talk) 23:36, 22 May 2010 (UTC)

All the sources I read indicated, some through statistical study, that the outcomes could be seen as independent of race. That is, there was no racism, or more racism against less intelligent races. It was possible that all variation in outcomes was due entirely to intelligence, and not to race. If you have specific papers you'd like to quote which show that the outcomes were not due to intelligence alone, but rather the interplay of race and intelligence, then by all means quote them here. A.Prock (talk) 23:44, 22 May 2010 (UTC)

“All the sources I read indicated, some through statistical study, that the outcomes could be seen as independent of race. That is, there was no racism, or more racism against less intelligent races. It was possible that all variation in outcomes was due entirely to intelligence, and not to race.”

If what you mean is that the papers were saying that race itself wasn’t influencing the outcomes, that’s correct. However, the papers were still discussing the outcomes specifically in the context of race. They were describing how because IQ influences these outcomes, and IQ is also distributed unequally between races, this results in these outcomes being distributed unequally between races also.

You don’t seem to disagree with me about the these papers specifically describing the outcome not only of IQ, but also of the unequal distribution of IQ among races. But for some reason, you think that in an article about the distribution of IQ among races, information about the outcome of that distribution is not relevant. Can you explain in more detail why you think this information is not relevant to an article about race and IQ, if it’s not only about the outcomes of IQ, but the outcomes of the racial IQ gap? --Captain Occam (talk) 00:11, 23 May 2010 (UTC)

It's not my place to explain why it's not relevant. It's up to you to explain why it is. You yourself say the articles say that race wasn't influencing outcomes. It seems you are conflating two things: A) Unequal IQ distribution between races, and B) Unequal outcome distribution due to IQ. It is certainly reasonable to include information about A. Just because a paper also discusses B does not mean that it is directly relevant to the article. That said, that information is well covered in other wiki articles, and summarizing/linking to said articles only make sense. I honestly don't understand why you find that so problematic. A.Prock (talk) 00:20, 23 May 2010 (UTC)

First of all, you need to remember that the papers are not only discussing unequal outcomes due to IQ. They are discussing unequal outcomes due to the racial IQ gap, and that’s how they describe them. I think you’re aware of this, but you keep referring to these papers as only discussing “unequal outcomes due to IQ”. There are other Misplaced Pages articles which discuss unequal outcomes due to IQ, but there are not other articles which discuss unequal outcomes due to the racial IQ gap, which is what these papers are discussing.

As for why this is relevant, it’s completely standard for an article about a certain phenomenon to cover effects of the phenomenon that are described in the source literature. A few examples of this are that the article about the Aral Sea describes not only how the Aral Sea has shrunk over time, but also how this shrinkage has affected the people living in that area; and (more relevant to the topic of psychology) the article about Major depressive disorder includes information about the sociocultural effects of depression. The exact same principle applies here also. When we’re describing something in a Misplaced Pages article, we need to do more than just describe the thing itself; we also need to describe how that thing is relevant to people’s lives and to society.

Can you agree with that? If not, you need to explain how outcomes of the racial IQ gap are any less relevant to be discussed here than outcomes of the Aral Sea’s shrinkage are to be discussed in the Aral Sea article, or than outcomes of depression are to be discussed in the Major depressive disorder article. --Captain Occam (talk) 01:05, 23 May 2010 (UTC)

It's well established that different races test differently on IQ tests. All of the sources I've read indicate that much if not of the outcome difference can be attributed to intelligence alone. Even you agree with that. I haven't said that the outcome difference shouldn't be discussed. In fact, I've said it should be discussed, primarily by summarizing/linking to the relevant wikipedia articles. You still haven't explained why you find that so problematic. If you have specific quotes from specific secondary sources that you'd like to discuss, I'd be happy to discuss them. Without sourcing from reliable secondary sources, there's not much point in continuing this discussion. Remember, wikipedia rests on a firm foundation of reliable secondary sources. So far, you've presented no such source. A.Prock (talk) 01:39, 23 May 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps I’m not properly understanding what it is that you’re suggesting here. The section that I’m proposing already links to Intelligence and public policy, and I can also link it to Intelligence_quotient#Positive_correlations_with_IQ. The Intelligence and Public Policy article discusses outcomes with regard to race also, and I’m fine with adding summarizing that content in this section also.

Is that all you’re suggesting? You gave me the impression that you were expecting me to make more changes to this section than just this, but if this is all you’re requesting, I don’t have a problem with following your suggestion. --Captain Occam (talk) 02:28, 23 May 2010 (UTC)

I've been very clear. The best way to handle this content is to summarize and link to the appropriate wiki articles. A.Prock (talk) 02:55, 23 May 2010 (UTC)

Yes, and I’ve explained in what way I intend to modify this section in order to do that. Are we agreed about this? I’d like to make sure you approve of the way I’m intending to modify this section based on your suggestion. --Captain Occam (talk) 03:49, 23 May 2010 (UTC)

I will certainly review the section as I did previously. A.Prock (talk) 14:28, 23 May 2010 (UTC)

=> A consistent problem with this article is that, even when secondary sources are available, editors are trying to edit as if somehow they are capable of interpreting primary soures themselves and of evaluating the scientists that write them. The secondary sources that discuss the primary sources are in a wide range of disciplines: psychology, sociology, political science, statistics, history, anthropology, education, biology, genetics, etc. No single wikipedian has mastery of all those subjects: that is exactly why we use secondary sources and do not allow WP:SYNTH essays in articles. I think Aprock has the right idea about summarising and referring to other WP articles. Mathsci (talk) 07:56, 23 May 2010 (UTC)

The raw data is primary. All of the sources Occam used are secondary. I think this section is ready to be implemented. mikemikev (talk) 09:07, 23 May 2010 (UTC)

I think we all agree on the importance of secondary sources. I do not think this is the contentious issue here. I still believe that the only value of this section is if research specifically on race and intelligence has influenced social policy somewhere, or has had a notable impact on discussions about social policy. No, does anyone have reliable secondary sources on that? So far, I have not seen them. But I'd be thrilled if someone could povide some. Slrubenstein | Talk 10:26, 23 May 2010 (UTC)

At Aprock’s suggestion, when I add this section to the article I’m intending to summarize and link to the Intelligence and public policy article, which has several portions which specifically discuss how race and IQ have affected public policy. If you look at the sources for that article, you can see that there are several of them which discuss how one of the goals of the No Child Left Behind Act has been to eliminate the racial achievement gap, and also how racial disparities in IQ test results have resulted in laws against using IQ tests as part of the process for selecting potential employees. (Although other, more specific types of cognitive tests are allowed, as long as it can be demonstrated that they’re relevant to job performance.) Would you approve of this section including information about these topics? --Captain Occam (talk) 11:11, 23 May 2010 (UTC)

It looks to me like we’re finally mostly agreed about what this section should contain. When I add it to the article, I’ll incorporate all of the suggestions that I’ve received about it, including the recent ones from Victor Chmara, Aprock and Slrubenstein. (And this includes putting the information about correlates with IQ between nations in the “IQ differences outside the USA” section rather than this one.)

We’ve been discussing this proposed section for around a month, and it’s more like two months if you include the amount of time we spent discussing it during mediation. I know I could post another draft of it, and receive some more critiques about it; and we could continue this same process for another two months, or longer, until we’re arguing over things like its word choice and sentence structure. But there needs to eventually come a point when we decide that there’s enough agreement over this section that it can be added. It doesn’t have to be perfect before we can add it—the rest of the article isn’t perfect either—and it can continue to be tweaked after it’s been added, just like every other part of the article.

I think we’re at that point now with this section. If anyone has any objections to my conclusion about this, please let me know. --Captain Occam (talk) 01:05, 25 May 2010 (UTC)

If it looks anything like the version you are developing on your sub page, there are still a lot of problems with it. A.Prock (talk) 02:05, 25 May 2010 (UTC)

No, that version is out-of-date now, since it doesn’t incorporate any of the recent suggestions I’ve received from you and Slrubenstein. What I’m intending to add to the article will be quite a bit different from this. --Captain Occam (talk) 02:26, 25 May 2010 (UTC)

Doll study

Just curious what this has to do with Intelligence, and why it's in this article / why it's in the policy relevance section. It seems left field. -Bpesta22 (talk) 03:49, 17 May 2010 (UTC)

Two cents (all I'll spend; I'm exhausted just watching). Discussion of this well-known line of study is in the wrong section (policy) but it is relevant to the article in demonstrating (1) previous social influence by others on individual subjects based on their perceived race (environment v. heredity); (2) the potential unreliability of "race" as a precise biological characteristic; and (3) the frontiers between the fields of psychometrics and sociology (perhaps). Steveozone (talk) 04:14, 17 May 2010 (UTC)

Bpesta: An anonymous IP just added the information about that study a few hours ago. I'm doubtful about whether it belongs there, but I haven't bothered removing it because I'll hopefully be rewriting that section soon anyway. --Captain Occam (talk) 04:32, 17 May 2010 (UTC)

The section may need fixing; how about the part about the relevance to the article? Steveozone (talk) 04:45, 17 May 2010 (UTC)

I don’t think this new content presents any information that isn’t already discussed by other parts of the article. The idea that discrimination or preconceptions about races could influence IQ scores is already discussed by the “stereotype threat” and “caste-like minorities” sections, and the questions about Jensen’s and Rushton’s motives will be in the revision to this section that I’m intending to make. Even though this information is cited to sources that the article doesn’t use elsewhere, in terms of content I think it’s redundant, and we can’t expect to cite every source that exists for a given viewpoint about this topic. --Captain Occam (talk) 04:56, 17 May 2010 (UTC)

Huh. New sources are usually good, I thought. Perhaps per my points above, #2 and #3? I'm not tracking the implicit assumption "about races" being subject to "preconceptions," and I'm wondering what is it about "races" that is conceived before what? Steveozone (talk) 05:29, 17 May 2010 (UTC)

I'm just talking about what's in the new content that was added. For example this paragraph:

"There has been a limited but measurable amount of evidence leaning toward the assumption that media and culture influence subconscious ideals on 'race'. One study reveals that even from a very young age, individuals identify 'white' with positive attributes and stimuli and 'black' with negative attributes. These are ideals are translated into subconscious cognitive presumptions on individuals among white and black populations. Though the causes are unknown, language, media, television and education all are considered to play a factor in subconscious categorizations."

That's basically just repeating the same ideas that are already in the "stereotype threat" section, but with a different source. We don't need the same idea discussed multiple times in a single article. --Captain Occam (talk) 05:47, 17 May 2010 (UTC)

Oh, OK; I agreed the last section should be fixed--I was just wondering about the "fix." I'm just talking about how sourced information should be preserved and collected in the appropriate section, and the doll study is relevant (which is what I thought this talk thread was about). Is there a problem with including more sources? Steveozone (talk) 06:18, 17 May 2010 (UTC)

If you want to just add these sources to the appropriate parts of the article (without adding anything else to them), I guess there’s nothing wrong with that. I don’t think we should make these sections any longer in order to describe the additional sources, though. Most of the sections are balanced against one another kind of carefully in order to not violate WP:UNDUE, so if we’re going to add additional sources to them, we need to be careful not to skew that balance. --Captain Occam (talk) 06:52, 17 May 2010 (UTC)

I'll think twice before sourcing anything, then. I know this article and others are messy, and I wouldn't want to skew a balance. Steveozone (talk) 07:35, 17 May 2010 (UTC)

I disagree with the notion that the content currently in the article is well balanced and avoids UNDUE. I think it has serious weighting problems for example the sections on Brain size and Processing efficiency are much longer than the other sections about possible causes of the gap. And generally the article gives much too much credence to the genetic hypothesis adopting many of its assumptiuons tacitly throughout. Also the article isn't really very long so there is no really good argument "to not make sections any longer" especially not when other subsections of simiolar importance already are much longer. In short if you want to use undue weight as an argumnent it is not enough to simply say "it gives the topic more weight than it has in the previous version" because that is exactly the problem we are trying to solve. You could alternatively find arguments in favour of the current weighting, backed by sources of course.·Maunus·ƛ· 07:20, 17 May 2010 (UTC)

I actually agree that the processing efficiency section is too long. That’s why I said “most of the sections” rather than “all of the sections”. However, I think a more pressing concern about this section is the fact that it doesn’t contain any citations. It was written almost exclusively by Bpesta22, so whenever he becomes more active here I’m intending to see if I can get him to add some sources to it. Once he does, it’ll be easier for either of us to reduce the size of this section while still remaining true to what the sources say.

The current weighting was determined almost entirely by David.Kane, and was mostly based on the weighting of these topics in Richard Nisbett’s book Intelligence and How to Get It, particularly in the appendices where Nisbett discusses possible influences on IQ, and the pros and cons of each of them. (Or perhaps it was only one of the two appendices; you’d have to ask David.Kane.) Nisbett believes the cause of the IQ gap to be 100% environmental, but this is still how he weights these potential influences on IQ when he describes them. I haven’t examined Nisbett’s weighting in as much depth as David.Kane has, but from what I’ve been able to see, he seems to have represented it pretty accurately. If you have a problem with the current weighting, you should probably discuss it with David.Kane—he’s still active at Misplaced Pages, and I’m not sure why he’s stopped participating in this article. --Captain Occam (talk) 07:41, 17 May 2010 (UTC)

I don't need to discuss it with David.Kane. He is aware that I don't agree with his weighting (although admittedly I haven't checked whether it accurately represents Nisbetts). Anyway it is us - who are currently editing the article - who needs to discuss this together. As I have said before keeping Status Quo is not an argument.·Maunus·ƛ· 09:18, 17 May 2010 (UTC)

Well, I do think that it accurately represents Nisbett’s weighting. If you disagree, I guess I think you ought to look at how he weights these topics in the appendices of his book, and see if you can make any specific suggestions about how the weighting in the article could reflect this more accurately. (Other than reducing the size of the processing efficiency section, which I already agree should be done at some point after the citations are added to it.) --Captain Occam (talk) 09:42, 17 May 2010 (UTC)

Feel free to chop up the processing efficiency section. I added the background because I figured it's hard to just summarize race differences on RT without explaining why it's relevant to IQ. That said, of all the many things that could / could not go in the article, the doll study puzzles me. -Bpesta22 (talk) 15:25, 17 May 2010 (UTC)

Bpesta, I’d really like it if you could add some references to this section before any of us trim it down. Since you’re the one who wrote this section, you’ll have a much better idea than anyone else here what sources this material is from, and you’re also probably more familiar than any of us with the source literature about mental chronometry in general. --Captain Occam (talk) 19:12, 17 May 2010 (UTC)

Will do tonight or tomorrow. Would it be ok to cut n paste them here? -Bpesta22 (talk) 22:51, 17 May 2010 (UTC)

It would be easiest if you could actually add them to the article itself, but if you’re unsure of how to use <ref> tags in the article, just posting the list of citations here would be OK also. If you’re going to just post the citations here, though, one thing I’d ask is to make it clear which parts of this section are cited to which sources, so that whoever adds the citations to this section can make sure they add the right citations to the right parts of it.

Either way, when you’re coming up with your list of citations, you might want to take a look at WP:RS if you haven’t already. Primary sources (such as individual studies where data is first presented) are sometimes okay at Misplaced Pages, but secondary sources are best. It’s also best to use sources from a variety of authors, so for example, we shouldn’t be citing the entire section to Jensen’s Clocking the Mind. (Although a few refs to that book would be okay, as long as we don’t present Jensen’s view as the only valid one in areas where other researchers disagree with him.) --Captain Occam (talk) 00:06, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

I've just taken a careful look at the sources for the two new paragraphs, and I don't think any of them support the new material that was added. Two of the citations are to other Misplaced Pages articles, and the other two are to articles that just discuss how race can influence people's perception of others, without mentioning anything about this as a possible influence on IQ. The first two obviously aren't valid sources, and drawing an inference about IQ from the latter two seems to be a clear example of WP:SYNTH. Unless someone can provide a clear justification for how this material can be be included without it being synth, I think it needs to be removed. --Captain Occam (talk) 17:04, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

Most of the cites I have below are to primary/basic research demonstrating the effects. A few are secondary. If some violate Wiki rules; fair enough, don't include them. I would stipulate that so few people are willing to research the topic that most of the cites are to people like Jensen (and me!).

I likely could find more, if pressed. Also, Jensen's g factor (1998) and his more recent mental chronometry would be good secondary sources.

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6V9F-4R1FS44-1&_user=10&_coverDate=02%2F29%2F2008&_rdoc=1&_fmt=high&_orig=search&_sort=d&_docanchor=&view=c&_searchStrId=1341706642&_rerunOrigin=scholar.google&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=df978c2b9b341f4263f55bea0606a938

http://www.udel.edu/educ/gottfredson/30years/Rushton-Jensen30years.pdf

http://psycnet.apa.org/journals/amp/50/1/41/

http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/sbp/sbp/1990/00000018/00000002/art00016

http://defiant.ssc.uwo.ca/faculty/rushtonpdfs/2010%20Review%20of%20Nisbett.pdf

The last cite here is a specific rebuttal to Nisbett. It might be useful in the article as most of it is framed on Nisbett (it's possible we already cite it; I didn't look first) -Bpesta22 (talk) 04:19, 20 May 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the links, Bpesta, but I'm not able to get access several of these papers. (And for the third one, I can't even tell from the URL you linked to what its title is, in order to see whether I can find it anywhere else.) I still think it would be easiest if you could try adding the citations to this section yourself, and possibly also try making the section a little more concise while you're at it, since that also needs to be done at some point.

If you do, one other thing I’d suggest is to try relying on Jensen, Rushton and Lynn as little as possible for the citations in this section. Deservedly or not, anything by those authors is going to be contentious. The first paper you linked to is good because it’s by a pair of authors who aren’t so controversial, and because it’s a secondary source summarizing a lot of research in this area. Your own paper about reaction time would be OK also, but since it would most likely be considered a primary source, we’d probably want some secondary sources also. (If you can’t find anything better than this about race differences, a primary source from you plus a secondary source from Jensen and/or Rushton might be OK.) --Captain Occam (talk) 01:18, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

David Kane's revert

The claim that there is no consensus about what intelligence is is supported by the APA report and it was sourced to a paper by our very own Bryan Pesta. He starts the article by making the relevant caveats for any paper dealing with this topic noting that there is no consensus about the nature of either race or intelligence AND that views opposite his own view exist and are espoused by other scholars. This is more than sufficient proof that this wikipedia article MUST take those views into account, just like Bryan Pesta had to mention them up front if he wanted his article to pass peer review. There is no way around it. There is no consensus about race or about what intelligence is the article should not pretend there is. The APA report also does not say otherwise - it makes pages of caveats explaining several different views in detail and explaining how modern IQ tests do not measure those, it doesn't take any caveats for race because it completely rejects using the term (because it knows that if it did use the term race it would havr to make 7 pages more of caveats). David Kane will obviously have to reinstate my edit, or rewrite it into an improved form that still does not attempt to obscure the lack of consensus about the nature if intelligence. ·Maunus·ƛ· 05:11, 20 May 2010 (UTC)

Well, perhaps we are not so far apart on this. In general, I prefer to cite things like the APA report or a good secondary source rather than random academic articles (as much as I like our own Bpesta). But note that we already cover the debate over the meaning and definition of intelligence in the debate assumptions section, much of it written by me. So, clearly, we agree that this belongs in the article. I also agree that to talk about intelligence test scores without first mentioning these issues is problematic. Any objection if I try to fix this by moving the Assumptions section ahead of the test scores section and doing some other minor stuff? David.Kane (talk) 12:17, 20 May 2010 (UTC)

We could try that out and see if it works better.·Maunus·ƛ· 13:08, 20 May 2010 (UTC)

I will make that change now.. David.Kane (talk) 15:50, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

Reasonable point-- I mentioned long ago somewhere here that this article would be much easier to write if we highlighted that all the data in this area regard only self-reported race differences on g. Seems like many of our problems go away if we admit the data only indirectly speak to what race is biologically, and center on just the general factor. Note that my article claims no consensus on what intelligence is, not on what g is, or whether it exists. -Bpesta22 (talk) 15:17, 20 May 2010 (UTC)

That is exactly why I chose it as a good example of how we ought to do it here at wikipedia.·Maunus·ƛ· 15:47, 20 May 2010 (UTC)

The article does state that clearly. How would you state it even more clearly? Add it to the lead? David.Kane (talk) 15:50, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

I have a two-pronged solution I'd like to propose. First, following David's good idea, I added "self-identification" to the introduction - I tried to be as concise as possible. If anyone can come up with clearer writing, cool, but I think in the lead we have to be quite concise.

Second prong: I think that there is a section missing from the article. The second section, "debate assumptions," identifies four positions, #4 being that races themselves are social constructs. Clearly, the article currently goes into a fair amount of detail concerning positions 1-3, develope din different parts of the article later on. I do not think it gives adequate attention to #4. Also, the third section discusses "group differences." But this assumes that groups exist. Well, okay, they do, but what kinds of groups are these? What do we mean by groups? There are big assumptions here we do not discuss. Finally, for an article called "Race and IQ," there sure is a lot of space devoted to IQ and rvery little space devoted to race. I have one proposal that addresses all three concerns:

I think that there is a section missing, in between "debate assumptions" and "group differences." I propose creating a new section (it would be section 3, all the others would be bumped down one) called The nature of groups. Whereas later sections, on IQ tests, are dominated by research by psychometricians, this section might draw more on research by anthropologists and sociologists. It can explain why most social scientists believe that race is a social construction; it would explain why social constructions can correlate with phenotypic markers like hair texture and skin color (but may also correlate with phenotypic features that are not necessarily tid to heritable factors, such as education and income level, as is the case in Brazil). Finally, it an explain why it is that so many questionaires ask people to "self-identify," what "self-identification" means and why it is favored over other ways of identifying people's race, and if there are any debates over the meaning or the proper versus improper uses of self-reported data, and so on. I actually do not think such a section need be very long, I would not want it to be longer than the section on history or at most on debate assumptions. Readers should finish it with a clear understanding of what self-identified race defnitely means, may mean and does not mean, and it would vastly improve the article. Slrubenstein | Talk 17:31, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

Consensus

I think maybe it would be worthwhile to try to agree about what is the current scientific consensus about a few points in order to advance. I would like to make a survey about whether this representation of the scientific consensus is more or less adequate. When I write "consensus" that is supposed to reflect an issue about which there is no real debate and to which a majority of scientists on both sides of the hereditarian fence can agree to. When I write "no consensus" that means that there are vocal proponents of both views - without taking into consideration which side is a majority or which side is more likely to be right.·Maunus·ƛ· 08:10, 20 May 2010 (UTC)

Do you want us to add our comments point-by-point to the below? David.Kane (talk) 12:20, 20 May 2010 (UTC)

probably its easier if we add all comments below all the points.·Maunus·ƛ· 13:07, 20 May 2010 (UTC)

You mean each comment directly below the point we are responding to, right? David.Kane (talk) 15:51, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

No I meant at the bottom of all the points where we are currently just bickering. But by all means comment where you find it most practical.·Maunus·ƛ· 15:53, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

I find it easier to go point-by-point. My memory may be off about what was agreed to in mediation, so please consult those records directly. David.Kane (talk) 16:07, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

Intelligence

There is no community wide consensus about what intelligence is or how to measure it. A majority of intelligence researchers believe some version of the Spearman hypothesis to be correct and the g-factor to be the best measure of intelligence. Some intelligence researchers do not believe the spearman hypothesis, others do not believe that current IQ tests test all important aspects of cognitive ability. Among intelligence researchers belief in the spearman hypothesis is prevalent, but not necessarily because that is the predominant view within psychology as a whole, but perhaps because believers in the spearman hypothesis are easilier drawn into intelligence research and non-believers are easilier drawn away from the field.

Disagree. See Intelligence: A Very Short Introduction by Ian Dreary for a good introduction. A lot depends on what you mean by "community wide." Which community precisely? See the APA report for a fair summary of opinion among the community of psychologists. David.Kane (talk) 16:07, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

Well, this is a problem at the root of the editing disputes here. The way I read the APa report it quite clearly states that there is no consensus, Bpesta's article states there is no consensus, Nisbett states there is no consensus, Sternberg, Grigorenko and Kidd says there is no consensus. The community is of course the community of intelligence researchers (psychometricians mostly but not only).I don't know how you can claim that there is a consensus while as much as one voice disagrees - here we have several. ·Maunus·ƛ· 16:16, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

IQ as measured by modern tests only tests the cognitive abilities associated with the g-factor, specifically the kind of analytical abilities used in a school setting.

Disagree. David.Kane (talk) 16:07, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

Elaborate?·Maunus·ƛ· 16:16, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

There is consensus that both genetic and environmental factors contribute to determining measurable IQ in an individual.

Agree. David.Kane (talk) 16:07, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

There is a community wide consensus that IQ is heritable in the sense that a child of high IQ parents is more likely to have a high IQ, and a child of low IQ parent is likely to have a low IQ.

Agree. David.Kane (talk) 16:07, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

There is no consensus as to whether this heritability is caused by mostly genetic or mostly environmental causes - as both may have similar effects. There are many arguments advanced in favour of either a predominantly genetic or a predominantly environmental explanation. The APA report states that neither hypothesis is well supported by empirical studies, but that the genetic hypothesis has slightly less support. Not everyone agrees with the APA reports conclusion - some believe the environmental hypothesis has strong support, others that the genetic hypothesis has strong support.

Agree. David.Kane (talk) 16:07, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

No genes contributing to measured IQ have been identified to date.

Agree. David.Kane (talk) 16:07, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

Race

There is no community wide consensus about the nature of race as a classifier of human beings. Some believe it to reflect bio-geographic ancestry to some degree, others believe it to be purely a social construct.

Not sure. Again, what "community" are we talking about? I think that the article should handle this in the way that every researcher (including Flynn, Nisbett, et cetera) handle it. "Race" is defined as self-identified racial group. David.Kane (talk) 16:07, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

Race and Intelligence

There is a community wide consensus that current IQ tests have shown a pattern in which test subjects self identified as black score lower than subjects selfidentified as white.

Agree. David.Kane (talk) 16:07, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

There is a community wide consensus that this gap is on average of an entire standard deviation.

Agree partially. Some (like Flynn) argue that it is currently less than a standard deviation. I would agree with "approximately one standard deviation." David.Kane (talk) 16:07, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

Good point - the gap "was at the beginning of testing approximately 1 SD"·Maunus·ƛ· 16:20, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

There is no community wide consensus about whether the reasons for the gap are environmental or genetic.

Agree. David.Kane (talk) 16:07, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

Those who do not believe that race is a scientifically valid concept reject that the gap is based in genetic differences, but that environmental factors account for the entire difference.

Disagree. Those that object to race think that the whole debate makes sense. If race does not exist, then there is no "difference" to account for. David.Kane (talk) 16:07, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

Those who do not believe that IQ in an individual is largely genetically determined reject that the gap is based in genetic differences, but that environmental factors account for the entire difference.

Huh? I can't think of anyone involved in this debate who denies that individual IQ is largely (>40%) genetic. David.Kane (talk) 16:07, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

I think I can find a quote from Sternberg that puts that into doubt. Anyway by "largely" I meant mostly. 40% isn't mostly. I meant the views that say more than 50%. ·Maunus·ƛ· 16:18, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

Those who believe that IQ is largely genetically determined AND that race has a biological genetic basis believe that the IQ gap is likely to be caused mostly by genetic differences.

Disagree strongly! Flynn and Nisbett are counter-examples. Both believe that IQ is (partially) genetic and that race is meaningful. Both are environmentalists when it comes to explaining the gap. David.Kane (talk) 16:07, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

Ok, I take the point. There are even researchers who find both race and G-based intelligence to be valid who disagree with the hereditarian hypothesis.

Maunus, as much as I think what you’re suggesting is a good idea in principle, we already spent more than a month during the mediation case doing the exact same thing that you’re suggesting we do here. The points that we resolved during mediation can be found at the top of the mediation discussion page, and Ludwigs2 has also added most of them to the “FAQ” section at the top of this talk page. I know that the fact that this is the “status quo” is not in itself a argument for keeping what we’ve resolved there, but it’s also important that we be able to keep making progress with this article. It took us more than a month to resolve the answers to these questions during mediation, and only two months have gone by since then. It’s going to be difficult to get anywhere with this article if one out of every three months has to be spent re-discussing points that have already been resolved. --Captain Occam (talk) 23:36, 20 May 2010 (UTC)

It doesn't seem very useful to introduce procedural gambits to halt constructive discussion. Nothing in mediation is binding. The only rules that govern the editing of this article are wikipedia core editing policies. As new secondary sources appear - eg the book of Fish mentioned below - that can change the whole slant of the article, which I agree is heavily biased at the moment. That is a serious problem and one that various editors are trying to solve at the moment. Mathsci (talk) 23:57, 20 May 2010 (UTC)

Are you going to address my point about progress? Fish’s book is not relevant to what we’re discussing here—while it may introduce some new specific ideas that are worth covering in the article, a single book is not going to significantly alter the overall consensus of researchers in this area, which has been established by hundreds of researchers over the past 40 years. There is no reason for the resolution we reached about this two months ago—in which you had the opportunity to be involved, but chose not to—to not still be applicable. Having to devote another month to this (which is probably how long it will take, judging by past experience) will only take up time that could be used for more productive editing. --Captain Occam (talk) 00:12, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

This is progress. We have to get the articloe to reflect the scientific consensus or lack thereof. It currently doesn't. How can we progress without agreeing on what the scientific consensus is first? Anyway Progress hasn't been the first thing I have experienced from your side in this discussion - you have seemed quite content with reverting discussing and letting the issue go to an impasse so your version stands. You have defended the status quo at every turn (a status quo that is demonstrably unbalanced in favour of the hereditarian hypothesis). If you wan't progress then start working towards improving the article instead of working towards keeping it as is. Alternatively if you want to use your time for more productive editng wikipedia has a lot of backlogs about a multitude of interesting non race related topics. You go could edit some of them for awhile and then come back after we make some progress here. ·Maunus·ƛ· 05:10, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

Fish's book is one of the best secondary sources I've found. I don't understand any of these claims about consensus during mediation or why you keep repeating them. The article is definitely biased and there are clear ways to correct that. Primary sources should not be used for editing this article if it can be avoided - that's one of the main problems here. Wikipedians have no way of evaluating them and can manipulate them as they wish. Fish is a fine book and will be very useful for future editing (see below). We must move on, we must not become set in our ways. Mathsci (talk) 00:31, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

Mathsci, this is incredibly simple.

1: Two months ago, we spent a month during mediation determining what the consensus is among researchers in this area.

2: Maunus would like to start a new discussion to determine what the consensus is among researchers in this area.

3: I’m saying that wouldn’t be a good use of our time, because what he’s suggesting is something we’ve already done recently.

That’s it. None of your claims about bias in the article, or Fish’s book, have anything to do with this. Incidentally, if you’re going to get involved in the discussion here again, you should remove the description of yourself as a “non-editor” from your comment below; otherwise I can remove it for you. --Captain Occam (talk) 00:38, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

If this was done recently then I don't understand why there doesn't seem to be consensus for actually having the article reflect the scientific consensus. We need to agree about this. When I have tried to make the article reflect the fact that there is no consensus about this issues, that the hereditarian viewpoint isn't the default viewpoint and that not even the spearman hypothesis is universally accepted I have been met with this same kind of lame metadiscussion. "We shouldn't argue this." "we should argue this first" "thats not the right way to argue". When I have referred to the APA report which has been blatantly misrepresented to lend much more support to the hereditarian viewpoint than it does I have also been met with lame procedural objections, filibustering and calls to defend the staus quo (an article text that is demonstrably misrepresenting its sources).

If this was already agreed upon then it should be easy to agree upon again. If it wasn't then the mediation (which wasn't that succesful anyway) agreed upon the wrong things and we have to agree on something else. Please adress my proposal if you do have problems with any of these expressions of consensus. If you do not then I will take that as a sign of consent and I will proceed to adjust the article for neutrality in accordance with my impression of the scientific consensus as outlined above. ·Maunus·ƛ· 04:22, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

Maunus, I have two suggestions for you about this:

1: Read the points that we resolved during mediation. I don’t think you’ll disagree with them, although you might think they don’t cover enough different topics. (They don’t go into as much depth as what you’re proposing here.) It may be that the article doesn’t accurately reflect what was resolved during mediation; if that’s the case, then that problem is worth addressing, but re-resolving what was resolved during mediation is not going to be an effective way to deal with this problem. The way to deal with it is by proposing specific changes to bring the article more into line with consensus, both the consensus among researchers in this field and the consensus reached during mediation, as you’ve done for the changes you’ve proposed already. Most of the changes you’ve proposed in this manner have gone on to eventually be implemented, so I don’t think you can justifiably claim that I or anyone else is unilaterally blocking the article from being changed.

2: Be patient. I’m not the only editor here who might take issue with large-scale changes to the article, so whether or not I agree with any change you propose is not the only thing that should determine whether or not you should make it. At the very least, consensus for this article ought to include Bpesta22 and David.Kane also, and there are other users who are less active here whose feedback it would be good to have also. --Captain Occam (talk) 05:26, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

Whatever was decided during mediation - and there was no detailed discussion of content - we still have a biased article. Wikipedians are free to allocate their time editing wikipedia as they wish. I'm reading Fish a little bit. It's a long book and seems to be a great source. Many of the things Maunus has been worrying about are covered there very well. I wasn't aware that anyone on this page was presumed to be an expert on the subject. They'd have to be an anthropologist, geneticist, psychologist, historian, statistician, educationalist, sociologist, political scientist ... such creatures just don't exist, even on wikipedia. Mathsci (talk) 00:55, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

I am concerned that Captain Occam is on the verge of violating WP:OWN. Captain, a word of advice: stop referring to the mediation. Mediation is not about creating a perfect article, it is about resolving a set of disputes among editors. The mediation closed, meaning that the disputes among editors that led to it had been resolved. It is over, it is in the past. Anyone who participated in the mediation - anyone who signd on as a participant in the dipute - might do well to keep the mediation in mind, but that is about as far as it reaches. It is over.

Since this is no longer a mediation, there is no point in naming names - your very attempt to divide contributors here into two sides is itself divisive. Misplaced Pages is the encyclopedia anyone can edit. And all editors are equal. All. Why single out Bpest and David Kane, and not me, or Mathsci, or Jimbo for that matter? Anyone can edit, anyone can ofject to an edit, anyone can change an edit, anyone can ask that an edit be discussed on the talk page, it just does not matter what the handle of the editor is.

There are only two ways I can read your dividing editors into two camps. One, you are insisting that you, David and Bpeta own the article. This is wrong. Stop it. Second, you are accusing everyone else of forming some cabal or conspiracy. Do you wish to continue with this line of personal attacks?

Each editor is an independent individual. Moreover, judge any edit by its virtues (does it add relevant content? Does it comply with NPOV, V, and NOR?) If so, it doesn't matter who adds it, it is good. If not, it does not matter who adds it, it is bad. Do David Kane or Bpesta have objections to an edit? They are entirely free to voice their objections here. If they are valid, whoever made the editor must deal with it or risk a revert.

There is only one set of policies and guidelines for editing ikipedia articles, Captain occam, and you have no right at all, no right, to try to impose your own new rules for editing this article. If something was wrong in Amunus's edit, by all means tell us. But this campaign of yours to stop Maunus from editing the article because ... he is Maunus .... is itself offensive. Focus on the content of the edit, not the editor. Slrubenstein | Talk 14:53, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

SLR, please assume good faith. The reason why I specifically mentioned David.Kane and Bpesta22 rather than you is because judging by their comments and contributions here, I think they’re more likely than anyone else to have suggestions or objections about the changes that Maunus is hoping to make. Since the definition of consensus is for editors who previously disagreed with one another to reach an agreement, discussing his proposed changes with these users is especially important, even though their opinions don’t carry any more weight than yours does. If several days go by and David.Kane and Bpesta22 have nothing to say about one of Maunus’s suggestions, then I’m also fine with him assuming these editors don’t have a problem with his proposed changes; my comment about this was only in response to his claim that if I didn’t reply he would consider that sufficient to demonstrate that his proposals had consensus.

Nowhere have I said that I don’t want Maunus to edit the article. All I’m asking is for him to do is the same thing you’ve requested of me several times: to propose his edits one or a few at a time, and to be patient and wait for feedback from other editors about them, rather than rushing forward with large changes before there’s been sufficient time for other editors to comment on them. --Captain Occam (talk) 17:34, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

Arguments in favour of the Genetic hypothesis w. counterarguments from Nisbett

I think the article should contain explanations of all the arguments and counteraguments presented in the Appendix of Nisbett 2009:

H&M argue statistically that if environmental causes should account for the IQ gap the environement of all blacks would have to be as bad as for only the lowest 6-2% of whites.

Nisbett counters this by using Lewontins argument that causes of in group variation and outgroup variation need not be the same.

That doesn't counter it. High within group heritability places a constraint on pure between-group environmentalism, so this calculation is correct. See Philosophy of Science that Ignores Science: Race, IQ and Heritability, Neven Sesardic. It doesn't really matter whether the X-factor is the same for both groups. mikemikev (talk) 13:23, 20 May 2010 (UTC)

That is Nisbetts argument, if you have counter counter arguments then please source them to reliable sources. ·Maunus·ƛ· 13:32, 20 May 2010 (UTC)

The race gap is bigger on "culture fair" IQ tests.

Nisbett counters by saying that the Flynn effect IQ gains is larger for culture-fair tests.

IQs of Subsaharan Africans are as low as 70 or 75 on average.

Nisbett counters by saying that that is so low that the socres obviously do not mean the same as they do for Europeans. People with 70 average IQ could not survive in hostile environments. Furthermore the conclusions for these scores are based on highly environmentally responsive tests and on a small body of data. Other studies show that scores have risen in African popoluations by as much as 1.75 SD, and that a few months of education raise scores by as much as .70 SD. Nisbett concludes that the Flynn effect has not yet taken effect in Subsaharan Africa.

H&M & Rushton & Jensen 2005 argue that the reason African Americans have a mean IQ of 85 instead of 70 like in Subsaharan africa correlates with their estimated 20% admixture of "white" genetic material.

Nisbett counters that this would mean that a 50/50 African/European genetic mixture would have an IQ of 115.

Black performance is worse on heavily g-loaded subtests.

Nisbett counters that the WISC tests on which these data are based do not have much differentiation of g-loading. Flynn argues that the WISC is tilted towards crystallized as opposed to fluid g. The gap is biggest for crytallized g tests, but for fluid g-tests the flynn effect gains over time are higher.

Blacks do worse in tests with high inbreeding depression.

Nisbett counters that IQ gains on tests with high inbreeding depression are also more affected by the Flynn effect IQ gains, which would suggest that if the inbreeding depression is genetic in origin then so is the Flynn effect (which he finds absurd).

Whites have bigger brains than whites and among the white population high IQ individuals have bigger brains than low IQ individuals.

Nisbett counters with the ingroup/outgroup variation argument. Then he counters by saying that the male female gap in brain size is bigger than the black/white one. Then he mentions the existence of a high IQ/small brainsize group of people in ecuador. (wtf?) One sample of black females say that cranial capacity is the same as whites but IQ gap as the same 1 SD. Finally brain size is subject to prenatal environmental detrimental effects that black foetuses are more likely to experience.

Reaction times are slower for blacks.

Nisbett counters with the ingroup/outgroup variation argument. Then he says that variability in reaction time among asians is higher than among whites - variability usually being correlated with a lower IQ. He then states that movement time is also correlated with IQ and blacks have lower movement time than whites - suggesting then higher IQ.

Blacks regress towards a lower mean.

Nisbett counters that the same prediction can be derived from an environemental explanantion.

·Maunus·ƛ· 08:10, 20 May 2010 (UTC)

“I think the article should contain explanations of all the arguments and counteraguments presented in the Appendix of Nisbett 2009”

To some extent, the article does this already. What you’re suggesting is very close to what David.Kane was trying to accomplish when he wrote the majority of the “variables potentially affecting intelligence in groups” section. However, something to keep in mind is that Nisbett is far from the only researcher in this area who disagrees with the hereditarian perspective. In some cases, there are pro-environmental arguments which are common in the source material but which Nisbett doesn’t mention, in which case those arguments should still be included here; while other arguments used by Nisbett are used by almost nobody other than him, in which case giving Nisbett’s viewpoint equal validity with the viewpoint held by most pro-hereditarian researchers would be WP:UNDUE.

Please keep in mind that when I refer to undue weight, I’m not referring to giving undue weight to the 100%-environmental perspective in general; I’m just talking about specific arguments that Nisbett uses. An even more obvious example of the same thing is Gould’s anti-IQ arguments in The Mismeasure of Man, which are rejected by the vast majority of psychologists, regardless of whether they agree or disagree with Jensen about the cause of the IQ gap. As far as I’m aware, the current article describes all of these arguments with about the same degree of prominence as they have in the source material (with the exception of the “processing efficiency” section, which I intend to make shorter), although David.Kane can explain how this is the case more specifically than I can. --Captain Occam (talk) 23:56, 20 May 2010 (UTC)

Comment from a non-editor:

A good secondary source (possibly to check mainstream views) is the 436 page 2002 book edited by Jefferson M. Fish, "Race and Intelligence: Separating Science from Myth". This book has contributors from many disciplines. Not all of it can be read on the web (I now have a copy). Wikipedians have no way of evaluating primary sources except through secondary sources. That is why secondary sources are preferred. The books of Nisbett or Fish are secondary sources. The sections are:

A scientific approach to understanding race and intelligence, Jefferson M. Fish
The genetic and evolutionary significance of human races, Alan Templeton
The misuse of life history theory: J. P. Rushton and the pseudoscience of racial hierarchy, Joseph L. Graves
Folk heredity, Jonathan Marks
The myth of race. Jefferson Fish
Science and the idea of race: a brief history, Audrey Smedley
The Bell Curve and the politics of negrophobia, Kimberley Welch
An anthropologist looks at "race" and IQ testing, Mark N. Cohen
African inputs to the IQ controversy, or why two-legged animals can't sit gracefully, Eugenia Shanklin
Cultural amplifiers of intelligence: IQ and minority status in cultural perspective, John Ogbu
How heritability misleads about race, Ned Block
Selection of evidence, misleading assumptions, and oversimplifications: The political message of The Bell Curve, John L. Horn
Test scores, education and poverty, Michael Hout
Intelligence and success: is it all in the genes? Bernie Devlin, Stephen Fienberg, Daniel Resnick & Kathryn Roeder
Compensatory preschool education, cognitive development and "race", Steven Barnett and Gregory Camilli

One of the points here is that the researchers in the circle of Jensen, Rushton et al never discuss the biological problems with "race": they evade this issue. The articles in this book, which form a whole, discuss all of these problems - eg the "folk" notions of both "race " and heredity - instead of taking them as given. If a secondary source discusses them in detail, as here, so should the article. It's simply a question of summarising various parts of the book, which has partially been done by Jefferson Fish in chapter one. Mathsci (talk) 19:15, 20 May 2010 (UTC)

This would be a tertiary source (and a ridiculously fringe one). 146.179.213.158 (talk) 16:39, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

This source is not a secondary source. It is a collection of a dozen or so articles, each of which is a primary source, no different than other articles published in the scientific literature. MathSci constantly (and correctly!) harps on the wisdom of using secondary sources (Loehlin, Mackintosh, Nisbett, Flynn and so on) for this article. I agree. David.Kane (talk) 16:44, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

Articles can be primary, secondary, or tertiary sources. If an article is reviewing a collection of past research without making new conclusions it is certainly a secondary source. A.Prock (talk) 18:29, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

Okay, since we all agree this is a valuable source, can Maunus or MathSci or whoever has access to it add appropriate material to the appropriate sections of this article? Slrubenstein | Talk 19:07, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

Would it be possible to discuss before adding? A lot of this stuff seems fringe. 146.179.213.90 (talk) 19:50, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

What have we done to deserve all these Imperial College IP editors? Are they meatpuppets or sockpuppets of another London editor that regularly edits this page?

The book is an organised and coordinated set of articles, described in the first chapter by Fish. The book is a secondary source. Summarising the articles - eg the ones on folk race and folk heredity - is a fairly simple exercise and a much better way of writing wikipedia articles than acting as if we understand anthropology, statistics, sociology, education, psychology, history, biology, genetics, etc, although there obviously are several incognito experts on some of these topics here. I don't think anyway that professors at University of California, Berkeley are necessarily fringe, are they? Some might be, particuarly if they have been at the centre of a controversy at some stage, but I don't think that applies to the likes of Michael Hout or John Ogbu. Is there something I'm missing here? Is there something fringey about Hout being a member of the National Academy of Sciences? Aren't these both in fact very distinguished academics in their spheres? Mathsci (talk) 21:39, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

about pelvic size

I added a section called "pelvic size and musculoskeletal skelett features" to show that the cranial capacity is strongly genetic. Here you have the article, very interesting http://www.ssc.uwo.ca/psychology/faculty/rushtonpdfs/2004%20Human%20Evolution.pdf —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.147.29.155 (talk) 03:48, 23 May 2010 (UTC)

This is WP:UNDUE use of a primary source. Mathsci (talk) 07:45, 23 May 2010 (UTC)

Mathsci, please explain how Rushton is primary and Lieberman is not, and why for that matter we cannot use primary sources for a current science article. It's becoming painfully obvious that you are just using this secondary/primary nonsense as an excuse to justify pushing your POV. mikemikev (talk) 08:51, 23 May 2010 (UTC)

Unfortunately most sources being used in this article are primary, one of the consequences of the last stage of mediation. It's unclear why editors are shovelling the contents of questionable scientific papers or books (eg those of Rushton or Lynn) onto the pages of this encyclopedia without further qualification. Mathsci (talk) 11:48, 23 May 2010 (UTC)

Mike, if you look at the edit that Ramdrake and Mathsci reverted, you’ll see it had an entire section about this. While I don’t object to these papers being mentioned at all, I think it’s hard to argue with Mathsci’s and Ramdrake’s assertion that it’s undue weight to devote an entire section to just two papers. This is really just a subset of the “brain size” topic, and it’s one of Rushton’s arguments for the difference in brain size being genetic; how about we just add a single sentence about these papers to the part of the “brain size” section where it describes Rushton’s opinion? --Captain Occam (talk) 10:09, 23 May 2010 (UTC)

OK, actually I was thinking of something similar. Undue I can agree with as an objection, primary/secondary no. Adding the sentence in brain size should be an acceptable compromise, and no need to replace Lieberman. mikemikev (talk) 11:01, 23 May 2010 (UTC)

All right, I’m glad you approve of the compromise I’m suggesting. If nobody here objects to it, I’ll implement it sometime soon. --Captain Occam (talk) 11:42, 23 May 2010 (UTC)

Dubious tag on the brain size hierarchy section

I've put the {{dubious}} tag on the paragraph as it presents the brain size hierarchy as established facts, when in fact several researchers found no hierarchy or a different one. I'd refer anyone interested in reading about it to consult Liberman's excellent paper on this: right here. I'm not quite sure how to go about correcting the paragraph.--Ramdrake (talk) 13:03, 23 May 2010 (UTC)

Lieberman is absolutely note a rationalist, he is a marxist. Hundreds of studies have clearly demonstrated that the cranial capacity of blacks was smaller, their pelvis is smaller and the cranial capacity is less than the third week of pregnancy!

It should not include Lieberman is an obscurantist who denies the very foundations of the theory of évolutionK. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.147.29.155 (talk) 14:44, 23 May 2010 (UTC)

Folks, please: WP:DNFTT.--Ramdrake (talk) 14:47, 23 May 2010 (UTC)

I checked two of the Lieberman references (Beals and Montagu) finding "no hierarchy". They agree that there is a brain size hierarchy, but explain it by "thermoregulation" and "having no effect on intelligence" respectively. So the brain size data is correct. mikemikev (talk) 16:21, 23 May 2010 (UTC)

If you re-read beals carefully, you'll see that he never claims any kind of racial hierarchy to brain size: he posits an explanation based entirely on thermoregulation. Maybe I should have said "no racially-oriented hierarchy".--Ramdrake (talk) 17:34, 23 May 2010 (UTC)

If I re-read carefully I can re-find what I just told you. Cheers Ramdrake... mikemikev (talk) 17:40, 23 May 2010 (UTC)

I think there are good arguments against the brain size argument for heredity mad by Nisbett. That is a secondary source and is a fine source for providing the environmentalist view. He also mentions that there are contradictory studies showing larger cranial capacity among african american women. Anyway I think it would be useful also to mention that human pouplations within Africa has greater genetic diversity than the entire humanity outside of Africa, also an argument used by Nesbitt, there is bound to be groups of Africans with bigger brains and skulls than at least some groups of whites.·Maunus·ƛ· 17:50, 23 May 2010 (UTC)

“If you re-read beals carefully, you'll see that he never claims any kind of racial hierarchy to brain size: he posits an explanation based entirely on thermoregulation. Maybe I should have said ‘no racially-oriented hierarchy’”

Before all of the edits from the anonymous IP, the text of the article already pointed out that Lieberman disagrees with Rushton about this. If pointing out Lieberman’s and Beals’ disagreement with Rushton was the purpose of the “dubious” tag, and this was already pointed out by the article itself, isn’t the tag not necessary? --Captain Occam (talk) 18:30, 23 May 2010 (UTC)

This is pretty fringe stuff. No one questions that an increase in cranial size is a trend in human evolution, although it is unclear to what extent this is tied to the development of human intelligence. I do not know of any reliable research that suggests it explains inelligence differences among races. Slrubenstein | Talk 21:51, 23 May 2010 (UTC)

To Occam: the current article presents racial brain size hierarchy as an established fact, when in fact several researchers have found no racially-based hierarchy, or a different one. It then presents Lieberman as the sole dissenter to this hierarchy and attributes to him the geoclimatically-based variation hypothesis (which is really Beals'). So, it needs to be rewritten with a bit more balance and better attention to sources, is all I'm saying. To all: I would also appreciate other editors taking a close look at IP 88's edits which still stand, which sound awfully POV to me (for example, saying that the genetic hypothesis is now widely accepted). I won't touch them anymore since the good Captain has done me the favor of reporting me at AN3. :( --Ramdrake (talk) 23:33, 23 May 2010 (UTC)

in his review of lynn's "race differences in intelligence" mackintosh notes that:

"although he argues that the results of adoption studies point to this conclusion, lynn's main focus is on brain size and his evolutionary hypothesis, which is that genetic differences between different races must have produced differences in such a genetically determined characteristic as intelligence, since they have, after all, produced differences in brain size, with groups remaining in or migrating to benign tropical climates undergoing less selection pressure for increases in intelligence and brain size than those exposed to harsh northern climates and ice ages. it would have been news to the first europeans who ventured there that the australian outback was an undemanding environment, and, unfortunately for lynn's argument that increases in brain size were a consequence of migration to the northern hemisphere and the need to survive ice ages, the cranial capacity of early homo sapiens, 100,000 or more years ago, was rather greater than that of modern europeans (aiello & dean, 1990). moreover, even by his own calculations (in table 16.3), differences in brain size explain only a quarter of the observed iq differences between europeans and africans, native americans and south asians. in fact, this is a serious overestimate, because he assumes a correlation between brain size and iq of .40, which is true for mri studies; but the racial data he uses are based on cranial capacity, which correlates only .18 with iq. differences in cranial capacity between different groups, therefore, could explain no more than 12% of the iq differences between them."

smells like more manipulation from lynn.--mustihussain 23:47, 23 May 2010 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mustihussain (talk • contribs)

Ramdrake: even though I think we’re all agreed that the IP’s edits were erroneous, that doesn’t justify you reverting the article five times in twelve hours. If you had engaged in discussion with me and Mikemikev about the compromise we were suggesting between you and the IP, you probably could have dealt with this problem without violating 3RR.

SLR: if you’re not aware of any reliable research which links race differences in IQ to race differences in brain size, I hope you don’t mind me pointing out two studies about this that I think would qualify as reliable sources. One is this study by Arthur Jensen in the journal Intelligence, and the other is this study by Jensen and Johnson in the journal Personality and Individual Differences.

I know these papers are probably considered primary sources, so I’m not suggesting the article should necessarily cite them; and I also don’t think the article needs to devote more space to this topic than it did before all of the edits from the IP. I’m just mentioning this so everyone can have an accurate understanding of what research exists on this topic. Both Intelligence and Personality and Individual Differences are fairly reputable journals, and you’ve acknowledged yourself that Jensen is fairly well-regarded as a researcher, despite how controversial he is. So I don’t think this can be considered completely a “fringe” idea. --Captain Occam (talk) 04:49, 24 May 2010 (UTC)

some changes

Changed genetics to molecular genetics. There was a previous discussion during mediation where it was agreed that molecular genetics and heritability are related but separate approaches to studying IQ differences.

The section on brain size gave the impression that the magnitude of brain size differences is fixed when it is highly variable. There was no mention that races overlap in brain size too.

The Lynn data is as usual controversial and shouldn't be treated as factual. Rusthon is not a physical anthropologist to be a reliable source musculo-skeletal traits. Wapondaponda (talk) 06:22, 24 May 2010 (UTC)

Can you provide a reference for brain size differences being highly variable? And I'm not sure your argument that Rushton is not an anthropologist so any reference he makes to anthropology should be censored holds water. Surely he was collating data from anthropologists. If you can find an anthropologist who disagrees with him, that would be a reasonable argument. mikemikev (talk) 09:58, 24 May 2010 (UTC)

Lieberman is a good secondary source for just that. --Ramdrake (talk) 12:40, 24 May 2010 (UTC)

Couldn't find it, sorry. Can you be more specific? mikemikev (talk) 15:38, 24 May 2010 (UTC)

Page 70 of the article. It lists a variety of results by researcher.--Ramdrake (talk) 16:03, 24 May 2010 (UTC)

We've already established that that table isn't about racial brain size hierarchy. mikemikev (talk) 16:15, 24 May 2010 (UTC)

No, the table is about brain size hierarchies, showing that different researchers find different results, therefore a great variability.--Ramdrake (talk) 17:22, 24 May 2010 (UTC)

So you need to point to studies from 1849 (I won't even bother to double check them) to decide how we word the article regarding MRI variability? mikemikev (talk) 17:36, 24 May 2010 (UTC)

We use secondary sources like Lieberman. Wikipedians' personal points of view carry no weight at all. Mathsci (talk) 20:58, 24 May 2010 (UTC)

iq and myopia

in the "heritability within and between groups"-section it is stated that:

"a trait that is consistently associated with high intelligence is congenital myopia, and this trait shows a parallel frequency to the intellectual hierarchy by iq proposed by lynn. the gene for congenital myopia (nearsightedness), a trait that is transmitted from homozygous recessive manner, shows a higher frequency among ashkenazi jews (average IQ 112), followed by east asians (105), europeans (100), and congenital myopia is lower for south asians, amerindians or pacific islanders and lowest for africans and australian aborigenes. the congenital myopics show a gain of 7 iq points on the general population."

the sole reference is an article from "mankind quarterly", a controversial journal . on the other hand, mounting evidence indicate an environmental explanation . the paragraph above gives undue weight to a fringe view.--mustihussain 14:54, 24 May 2010 (UTC)

I think having an entire paragraph about a single paper is bad practice in general, unless it’s a particularly important paper such as the APA report. I’ve condensed this paragraph down into a single sentence in the “genetics” section. I’ve also changed it so that rather than only describing Lynn’s view, it also describes a similar conclusion reached by Cochran and Harpending, which is probably a lot more notable than the paper from Lynn is. (Cochran and Harpending’s paper about this was covered in The New York Times and The Economist.)

I’ve also made a few other adjustments to the article, but hopefully none of them are contentious; most of them just involved improving its organization and some of the citations. --Captain Occam (talk) 22:30, 24 May 2010 (UTC)

Figures

I see no reason to include figures of SAT scores. These are not any of the different kinds of IQ tests discussed in the article. Nor is the map of global IQ scores from Lynn & Vanhanen really acceptable, since Lynn's global figures have been disputed by experts and have not generally been accepted. Mathsci (talk) 02:32, 25 May 2010 (UTC)

Intelligence doesn't equal to IQ scores; although IQ is a widely used measurement. Intelligence is the ability to reason, plan, solve problems, think abstractly, comprehend complex ideas, learn quickly and learn from experience. SAT is designed to test how well the test taker analyzes and solves problems, and it is a well established and widely accepted indicator of the ability to learn in college. I don't see any reason to not to use SAT scores unless there are data of better quality.

For Lynn & Vanhanen's data, you may argue that they're disputed, however based on the information provided in the article, those criticisms didn't actually challenge (with reason and facts) the fact that IQ scores are different in different countries, for which the figure shows.

I'm changing it back until it can be established why these facts, data, and figures should not be shown. --roc (talk) 03:19, 25 May 2010 (UTC)

Look SAT scores are not IQ scores, that is just your own personal interpretation, not born out by any literature. If you are now edit warring to put that in, you risk being blocked. There are absolutely no sources to justify what your're trying to do. As for Lynn & Vanhanen, their claims about Africa have been widely challenged: there is a long footnote about it. You should understand that you are breaking W:BRD and that there are no legitimate reasons to support your edits. Mathsci (talk) 03:33, 25 May 2010 (UTC)

Hereditarians vs Enviromentalists

I have removed a paragraph as being inaccurate. My understanding of the literature is that a small group following Jensen has pushed for a partly genetic explanation of the racial IQ gap. Various scientists have criticized their work. It is unacceptable to describe two camps opposed to each other actively doing research into race and intelligence. Richard Nisbett has written a popular book on the subject- a DIY guide for parents brining up children- but can't be described as a researcher in race and intelligence. Stephen J. Gould is dead. Richard Lewontin does research on ecology as far as I know. These biologists were critics. Please could wikipedians not write about the world as they would like people to see it, but with a little accuracy? If the debate started in the late sixties as the result of a not very good paper of Jensen, we say so. If it sparked a reaction, we say so. If there are only 30 researchers in the world actively involved in research on this, or less possibly, we say so, etc, etc. But no need to give a completely misleading picture of what's going on. The quote from Nisbett was completely out of context - he makes no statement about the need to do resaecrh in this area, and there is very little (none?) that is government-funded. Mathsci (talk)-

I note that Occam is claiming of some kind of consensus for what I see as BLP violations - inaccurately describing Lewontin and Nisbett as researchers as in race & intelligence. I assume, if he commnts, he will deliver one of his long lectures on consensus. However, there is strong evidence now of WP:CPUSH by a small group of users. The paragraph I removed was an example of a non neutrally written contribution which was factually completely misleading. Mathsci (talk) 04:15, 25 May 2010 (UTC)

I'm still waiting for Captain Occam to comment about this material and the BLP violations. Mathsci (talk) 04:23, 25 May 2010 (UTC)

Categories:

Revision as of 04:23, 25 May 2010

Preliminary Review of Significance and Policy Relevence (revised) Section

Doll study

More problems

David Kane's revert

Consensus

Intelligence

Race

Race and Intelligence

Arguments in favour of the Genetic hypothesis w. counterarguments from Nisbett

about pelvic size

Dubious tag on the brain size hierarchy section

some changes

iq and myopia

Figures

Hereditarians vs Enviromentalists