Talk:Charles Murray (political scientist)

Contested edits
If IP 2601:805:8180:2d70:212a:16da:315a:3912 would like to make controversial changes to this page, they will need to persuade others first, since almost everything that is currently written here is the result of a preexisting consensus process. In particular, this edit contradicts the strong consensus of Wikipedia editors which found that the scientific consensus is that racial disparities in average performance on IQ tests are not caused by genetic differences. See this RfC: Talk:Race and intelligence/Archive 103. All Wikipedia pages which deal with this topic must conform to the finding of that RfC, and any WP:FRINGE views which contradict it need to be described from a mainstream point of view. Generalrelative (talk) 20:18, 25 November 2022 (UTC)


 * There have recently been edits by and  attempting to change this wording once again. My understanding is that the present wording is required by the WP:FRINGE guideline, and any attempts to introduce ambiguity to the statement run afoul of the prevailing consensus. I invite these editors to make their case here if they would like to see the language changed. Generalrelative (talk) 00:05, 22 April 2023 (UTC)

More contested edits
I invite to discuss their preferred text here rather than edit warring. Happy to be persuaded, but at first glance the suggested language appears WP:UNDUE. And contrary to the assertion in your edit summary, the current version of the lead does not fail to mention his promotion of discredited ideas about race and intelligence. With particular regard to including allegations of white supremacy in the lead, see the above RfC. Generalrelative (talk) 19:26, 15 December 2023 (UTC)
 * Some parts of that edit go too far, but I do think that we should describe his views on race and intelligence in the first sentence; it's by far the thing that he's most notable for. Mentioning it only in the very last sentence feels extremely strange. --Aquillion (talk) 20:24, 15 December 2023 (UTC)
 * Good point. I'd be open to a rewrite that does a better job highlighting what Murray is best known for so long as it comports with WP:BLP, WP:NPOV and WP:TONE. In my view, the suggested edit reads like a WP:STRAWSOCK type of argument. I'm not accusing ShirtNShoesPls of this, but we have seen this tactic in the R&I topic area and those accounts made similar types of edits. Generalrelative (talk) 21:26, 15 December 2023 (UTC)
 * I think second sentence tends to read better if it's a sentence that is long (as this one will be). It's only my personal preference, but putting fringe disclaimers in the first sentence always feels a bit RationalWiki for me (I enjoy a bit of RationalWiki, but still). Zenomonoz (talk) 21:28, 15 December 2023 (UTC)
 * On topics like race and intelligence] or creationism we don't need to "balance" the two perspectives. [[WP: NPOV doesn't prevent us from taking stances if there's overwhelming evidence for one side of the dispute. ShirtNShoesPls (talk) 21:31, 15 December 2023 (UTC)
 * Who are you arguing against here, ShirtNShoesPls? Generalrelative (talk) 22:33, 15 December 2023 (UTC)
 * I'm not trying to "balance" two perspectives? What is the other perspective here? I'm saying things often read better with a short first sentence and a clarifying second sentence. Zenomonoz (talk) 00:10, 16 December 2023 (UTC)
 * If there are RS calling Murray's work pseudoscientific, let's get them into the body of the article. BODYFOLLOWSLEAD is not the way to go. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 21:31, 15 December 2023 (UTC)

RFC: Should Charles Murray's positions on race and intelligence be described as pseudoscientific in the lead?
Should Charles Murray's insistence that the intelligence gaps between "races" is partially or mostly attributable to genetics be mentioned in his lead? And should this page state that his beliefs on the matter are considered pseudoscientific by members of the scientific community?


 * Background: The information has recently been removed from several of the articles surrounding Murray, along with other "racialist" thinkers such as Richard Lynn, due to a recent Quillette article that claims that the notion is a smearjob against him and other "hereditarian" thinkers. Others state that this presents a false balance. ShirtNShoesPls (talk) 17:08, 16 December 2023 (UTC)


 * Close as premature: The discussion above appears (to me) to fall well short of WP:RFCBEFORE. ShirtNShoesPls has not actually engaged at all with other editors. They've simply made a single declarative statement that ignores the substance of what others are saying. And now they've repeated that pattern above in their "Background" comment. In actual fact, the R&I topic area has been subjected to wave after wave of brain-dead meatpuppetry for years. It is nothing new, and has nothing to do with the OP's preferred text being reverted. Their phrasing The information has recently been removed is frankly misleading. They tried to institute a rather radical change in tone and I reverted it as WP:UNDUE. They have made zero effort to address that concern. Generalrelative (talk) 18:28, 16 December 2023 (UTC)


 * Close as premature the discussion above doesn't really justify going to a RFC yet per WP:RFCBEFORE. Nemov (talk) 14:33, 17 December 2023 (UTC)
 * Note: I posted a request for closure at WP:ANRFC due to the calls above for an early close. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 14:54, 17 December 2023 (UTC)

Phrasing of controversial topics should follows sources and closed RFCs
The status quo is that the articles phrasing contains some editorializing. Specifically, describing Murray's views as 'discredited' and 'false'. There's already been an RFC on this topic, cited elsewhere in the talk page, finding a consensus that "the theory that a genetic link exists between race and intelligence is enough of a minority viewpoint in the scientific consensus that it falls under Wikipedia's definition of a fringe theory", because it's held by a minority of scientists in the field. I think there's a distinction between 'fringe' and 'discredited', a term that never appears in the RFC nor in any of the sources linked (at least not in the context of Murray's statements). Other reliable sources already cited for these claims argue that Murray's claims are either unproven or unprovable. For example, one writes "Murray’s views do not represent the consensus in our field...We believe there is currently no strong evidence to support this conclusion...Currently, everything we know about the specific genetic variants associated with intelligence has been discovered in people of European ancestry, but because of these genetic differences between populations, applying genetic discoveries gleaned from one population to understand another turns out to be very difficult...speculations about innate differences between the complex behavior of groups remain just that" etc. These sources repeatedly emphasize how hard it is to determine anything with certainty about the topic, a far cry from writing that Murray's hypothesis is false. Rather, they emphasize that Murray's certainty in it is false and unscientific.

As the status quo is rephrazing sources in a misleading way, I'm going to reword the article slightly to better match the RFC and the sources, writing 'fringe' instead of 'discredited', and 'unproven' instead of false, if there are no objections. Hi! (talk) 08:40, 11 July 2024 (UTC)


 * The scientific consensus is that the views are fringe because they have been discredited. These are not two separate issues, and this isn't a coincidence. This has been affirmed by countless discussions on Wikipedia, not limited to the RFC you've linked. Further, Murray has never been qualified to speak on genetics or biology, so changing the article to imply that he may actually be correct misrepresents the situation and falsely legitimizes his form of pseudoscience. Grayfell (talk) 09:05, 11 July 2024 (UTC)
 * It's not about what kind of degree he has, it's about what reliable sources say. "We believe there is currently no strong evidence to support this conclusion" is hardly the same as "this hypothesis is false". As for your other claim, do you have a link to these other RFCs that use the word 'discredited'? Hi! (talk) 09:59, 11 July 2024 (UTC)
 * My "claim" is that scientific racism is fringe because it has been discredited. We're not going to litigate that yet again on this talk page, and we're not going to imply that disingenuous pseudoscience may be true because it is supposedly "hard to determine". The RFC you have linked already supports the substance of this description. Grayfell (talk) 10:05, 11 July 2024 (UTC)
 * I have added a source which should clear up any uncertainty as to where the scientific consensus stands on the matter. Generalrelative (talk) 22:15, 12 July 2024 (UTC)

When the secondary source literature is reviewed as a whole, instead of cherry-picking individual sources that support views of Wikipedia editors, there are slightly more secondary sources that agree with Murray than that disagree. The vast majority take a neutral position. There apparently has never been any attempt at Wikipedia to thoroughly review the secondary literature in the way that's done there, even though several past editors suggested it should be done. Some WP editors actively discouraged it. I won't speculate as to why it was discouraged, but this pattern of cherry-picking one or two sources at a time is producing a skewed impression of the balance of views that exists in the secondary literature.

If we need sources that directly comment on what the academic consensus is, the literature review linked above includes two of them. In opposition to the conclusion of the Kevin Bird source, there are two other secondary sources published since 2020 (the books by Warne and by Reynolds, Altmann and Alleng) that say the majority or dominant explanation for group differences includes both genes and environment. Reynolds, Altmann and Alleng is an especially authoritative source, and is exactly the type of source that should be used for determining what the academic consensus is, especially when compared to a preprint that hasn't yet been peer-reviewed.

You've both raised similar objections in the past few days, so you both should be aware of this review of the secondary literature. In that discussion is named as the editor who originally requested such a review, so if he's still reading posts here, he should be aware of it also. 2A02:FE1:7191:F500:1D68:AEEA:EBA5:D751 (talk) 00:36, 15 July 2024 (UTC)