Talk:Minnesota Transracial Adoption Study

Either hypothesis
Why does it say "Due to confounding of social and biological factors, it was inconclusive in terms of determining relative environmental or biological contributions to racial differences in IQ – as the study's result could be interpreted as supporting either hypothesis." Like, how in the world could the results be interpreted as supporting anything other than the genetic hypothesis? That's what happens when your study is not well done--- — Preceding unsigned comment added by 186.81.100.198 (talk) 00:22, 22 November 2021 (UTC)

Untitled Thread
Should the article not mention the critical analysis on the weakness of the study itself included in the study Family Racial Socialization and Ecological Comptence: Longitudinal Assessments of African-American Transracial Adoptees by Kimberly M. DeBerry, Sandra Scarr and Richard Weinberg (Child Development Vol. 67, No. 5 (Oct., 1996), pp. 2375-2399)? Fad (ix) 17:13, 16 November 2005 (UTC)


 * If you can present the facts and arguments the criticism is based on that'd be a nice addition. It looks like a certain group of researchers can't make up their minds between claiming the results support an environmental explanation and discrediting the entire thing. --Scandum 09:19, 17 November 2005 (UTC)


 * The study is more of a continuation of the previous one, it contains models of stressors and then, adjustments. The Wiki article BTW, does not contain the previous IQ(those before age 7), the Black group had about 110. Also, Scarr does not really reject genetic reasons for intelligence, to the contrary. In her 1991 presidential address to the Society for Research in Child Developpement, she declared: "parental genes determine his or her phenotypes, the child's genes determine his or her phenotype, and the child's environment is merely a reflection of the characteristics of both parents and child." (Scarr, 1992, p. 9) Scarr has also written a five pages praises of Jensen, in a way that probably even Rushton or others in the same "camp" haven't done so. (See: On Arthur Jensen's integrity published in the Intelligence, Volume 26, Issue 3, 1998, Pages 227-232)


 * While Scarr was examplary, the other camp has attached her intentions and attributed reasons for the reasons why it took so long before publishing the conclusions. For now, I don't have really the time to contribute, but if you are interested, I can send you the study (Family Racial Socialization and Ecological Comptence: Longitudinal Assessments of African-American Transracial Adoptees) in question. Fad (ix) 23:14, 17 November 2005 (UTC)


 * Other studies have shown that IQ measures for average children are only reliable at about age 8, so IQ tests on children under 7 should be treated with great caution.--greenrd (talk) 08:18, 14 June 2015 (UTC)

effect of racism
Has any researcher observed the effect that societal racism might have in the child's advancement? The caste-like minority argument seems relevant here.--Urthogie 17:25, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Then how do you explain the achievement gap between blacks and mulattos? They are both viewed as black. --217.233.215.46 (talk) 16:51, 20 October 2008 (UTC)
 * When I was in high school I saw plenty of recognition among students of relative 'blackness'. A mulatto student would be considered racially different than a black student. alach11 (talk) 20:39, 15 January 2020 (UTC)

no data on race of adopting parents
Were Black children adopted more often by Black foster parents than White children were? Pablo2garcia 12:47, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

Read the first sentence of the article. "..adopted by advantaged white families". All of the parents in the study were white.

Doesn't list methdological flaws
This article lists very few. if really any, of the methodological flaws contained in the Transracial study. It fails to mention that the IQ's of the adopted parents wern't tested, the children's IQ's before even being put into the adopted home wern't tested (which is why there was so much confusion about the slightly higher IQ over the black average, yet being the same as the Minnesota average), the fact that a number of the children left the program, especially the white sample, along with the children being adopted at age 7, which is halfway through childhood, making it impossible to truly assess environmental effects, due to how a person's brain becomes more developed as they age, thus lowering environmental effects on IQ (IE gains in IQ would result in brain growth), and how the black children were adopted even later. Plus, they didn't even examine all of the adoptees at age 17! And these were only AVERAGES.

This study is just pure trash.

These methodological "flaws" didn't seem to be to troubling to the researchers when, at age seven, the IQ gap seemed to be much smaller and blacks had a higher IQ than the U.S. mean. Are we to believe that things like the relatively late adoption of the black kids didn't prevent them from scoring well at age seven but DID prevent them from scoring well at age 17? Surely a genetic contribution can follow this pattern given that many genes don't "kick in" until puberty but are we to believe that late adoption doesn't as well? I think what we have here was a very disappointing follow up study that egalitarians had to scramble to explain.

What are you even talking about? IQ can flucuate largely at any age, but this says absolutely nothing as to how many permanent gains can be made. BTW, the study was looking at the effects of parental environment on IQ, which, with the exception of the highly stimulating environments typically provided by east asian and white parents, has little effect on IQ.

I wrote these critiques at the early of the year, and I appear to be wrong on some of them. Nearly all of the low IQ whites did drop out, but I'm still unsure of the full dynamics of the study.

Either way, the study is very faulty- no, it's essentially a strawman when you consider the parental environment variable.

age and iq scores
I remember eading that the black children were adopted later and later adoption age lowers iq. YVNP (talk) 05:21, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

misleading table
the first table makes it look like all the kids took IQ tests at age 17. only a select group did and this select group had lower IQs at age 7 to begin with. hence, the gap between the ages is exaggerated. Someone should create a seperate table for all age 7 kids, and then the age7+age17 table should have the age 7 scores of only the kids who were tested at age17. this needs to be fixed, its a gaping error in the article. --anon. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.223.240.198 (talk) 17:02, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

Last paragraph
The last paragraph doesn't cite any evidence: "However, the study can be considered largely invalid due to how it was looking at the effects of parental influence, now well understood to typically exert little effect on a child's IQ." - it sounds like the opinion of the author. It should be removed. Nada (talk) 18:22, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

Apparent Truth of the Matter
FTR, I am a middle aged person raised by birth parents who were black and white. There is an uncorroborated report the black parent was measured (presumably in the medical hospital of the Federal Prison System, I think in MO) with a Stanford Binet statistic of 160. The white parent probably was not above the mean and more likely was slightly below, not having graduated high school. I have been a Mensa member and have reason to believe my g figure would be about 4 sigma comparable to the black parent. Neither parent was a professional middle class individual. As hard as it is for people apparently to see, the data suggest two facts people seem to want to resist. First a probable statistically significant hereditary handicap for some people of African descent. I doubt it applies to people from every part of Africa and failure to acknowledge a glaringly obvious scientific finding only exacerbates the problem and blocks possible attempts to confirm (or dispel), fully understand, and address it therapeutically. Second. it's an obvious fact that as black teens acculturate their IQs drop. If that is what is meant by the researchers assigning environment, i.e. the identification of the mixed and black children with the fundamentally anti-intellectual black culture then I concur. The evidence of the difference at 7 and 17 in this study show that the first effect, from heredity, is the lesser of the two while the latter comprises the bulk of the phenomenon. On the world historical stage the first effect looms larger but in the context of American society and those with similar issues elsewhere, and in view of the fact that it is both a cultural artefact, in principal changeable simply by changing attitudes, and the bulk of the overall deficit, addressing it is therefore logically more likely to achieve desirable results. In fact the data of this study suggest that &#8531; of the effect is nature and &#8532; is nurture. The importance of this special case for the anti-intellectual American culture generally with its declining performance in education relative to other countries should be obvious. Also, the more interesting genetic effect is that which results in higher g. It is exceedingly unfortunate that a mass of over politicized thinking prevents even a general acceptance of the reality of g itself, let alone the scientific determination of these particular matters of fact. Lycurgus (talk) 05:15, 19 October 2009 (UTC)


 * If you look at the tables reporting the IQs of the four tested groups (adopted black, adopted mixed race, adopted white, non-adopted white) at ages 7 and 17, you'll notice that the scores of all the groups declined from age 7 to 17. For the white adoptees the decline was actually a bit sharper than for the black ones. So, clearly the drop in scores cannot be attributed to any specific anti-intellectualism of the African-American culture. Rather, it is a phenomenon well-known to behavioral geneticists: while the effect of an atypical family environment (either a very good or a very bad one) on traits such as IQ is large in early childhood, by age 12 this so-called shared environmental effect will virtually vanish, with the effect that the hereditary effects and the non-shared, individual environmental effects explain just about all the variation in the IQs of grown-ups. Also, a less dumbed down popular culture would of course be desirable, but how would you go about bringing it about?--Victor Chmara (talk) 01:14, 11 November 2009 (UTC)


 * With respect to the text prior to the last sentence, acknowledged, will review. As for "what is to be done", I'm not sure there is anything that need be done or rather I think it probable that the situation is self-correcting. That is I think the situation of being ignorant and backward in a species that is on the brink of the development of full scientific self-awareness will, if it does not result in a general species extinction, cull the offending groups/cultures/nation-states/individuals. Also your assignment of the problem to "popular culture" hints at its basis in class-based society, whose possible restructuring by the elites who will direct the next stage of its development could provide a positive answer. Lycurgus (talk) 13:44, 24 November 2009 (UTC)


 * Now let me pick apart and acquiesce to or refute the prior part as the facts warrant. With respect to the matter of fact of the uniform decline, of course, acknowledged, it's a general cultural issue not sparing any identity group whatsoever up to and including those who are biologically gifted in so far as the physiological support for thinking is concerned, the academic and intellectual elites, etc. However the impact is different in different subgroups. As far as the text contained after "So clearly ..." I deny the denial of that which of I have deep personal experience and which is the differential effect referred to in the previous sentence and empirically attested in the data we are discussing. As far the remaining thesis is concerned: duh, it's just saying that the effect is primarily social/cultural/environmental. The overall effect is, that doesn't negate the differential which is itself a matter of an aggravated case of the general as you say "dumbed down" culture. As far as the statement about white adoptees decline being a bit sharper that appears to be a counterfactual, the opposite of the data in the 2 tables ATM. Lycurgus (talk) 14:22, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

Intelligence Citations Bibliography for Articles Related to IQ Testing
You may find it helpful while reading or editing articles to look at a bibliography of Intelligence Citations, posted for the use of all Wikipedians who have occasion to edit articles on human intelligence and related issues. I happen to have circulating access to a huge academic research library at a university with an active research program in these issues (and to another library that is one of the ten largest public library systems in the United States) and have been researching these issues since 1989. You are welcome to use these citations for your own research. You can help other Wikipedians by suggesting new sources through comments on that page. It will be extremely helpful for articles on human intelligence to edit them according to the Wikipedia standards for reliable sources for medicine-related articles, as it is important to get these issues as well verified as possible. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk) 19:58, 30 June 2010 (UTC)


 * All of you are welcome to suggest new sources to make this article and related articles on Wikipedia more complete and accurate. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk) 15:47, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

Article presents incomplete data and likely POV
I was led here from a dispute on YouTube which indicated that white nationalist groups use Wikipedia references to this article to promote various race-centric claims. It was discovered that the Wikipedia article contains omissions and has a certain POV discussing this material. There are various issues with the article, in terms of omissions and which conclusions in literature are discussed (and which are, again, omitted). For example, the study also included Asian/Native Americans and the data can be found in the original articles as well as in Loehlin (2000). The table from Loehlin is only incompletely reported here with the Asian entry removed. The Wikipedia article in its current form gives no indication at all that Asian population was included. Further, the original study already discussed its confounding with respect to adoption histories and gave indication that this can explain the observed black/black vs black/white children differences. Further what in this article is cited as Rushton referring to "a special study" already appeared in full in the original paper. The citation to Rushton's booklet is questionable as the page on the book itself indicated given the level of critique of this work. Further the followup analysis by DeBerry, Scarr, and Weinberg on the data of this study (Child Development, Vol. 67, No. 5 (Oct., 1996), pp. 2375-2399) is missing.

Given that this article is in arbitration I am not editing.

If no arbitration were in place, or alternatively, I had permission to edit, I would do the following edits:


 * 1) Add the Asian/Indian data to the first table from the original 1992 paper, and add sample size numbers.
 * 2) Add the omitted line of Asian/Indian data from Loehlin (2000) and add sample size numbers.
 * 3) Correct the wrong citation to Loehlin (2000). The article appeared in the Handbook of Intelligence not the Handbook of Human Intelligence, the rest of the citation is correct.
 * 4) Add a table describing the averages for early and late adoption effects from the 1992 paper given that it illustrates the confounding effect.
 * 5) Add a section discussing experimental design, and sample selection.
 * 6) Add discussion of DeBerry, Scarr and Weinberg (1996). This paper discusses adoptee's adjustment issues as found by the study.
 * 7) Add discussion of Loehlin's (2000) interpretation of the work.

Finally I find the reference to Rushton with the select quote questionable. The original Scarr et all (1976) paper already contains this data and hence is a better source to cite. I do not see how Rushton can claim that a "special study" was performed. As can be seen on the pages discussing the book, it has received many critical reviews and perhaps should be taken with due caution as a source. Hence I would advocate that this particular citation be removed, or alternatively be replaced with perhaps a peer-reviewed publication by Rushton, though I find pointing to the original source preferable.

In closing I would like to note that the article in its current form is conveying misleading information and is used as such by consumers of wikipedia to push a POV and I consider it quite urgent that given that Wikipedia is widely used as a first point of access, that the article at least receives the base factual corrections, which at the bare minimum is the correction of the citation to Loehlin and the addition of the omitted data entries from the tables, and an adjustment of the introductory statement to include mention that Asian/Indian adoptees were also studied.141.212.71.146 (talk) 22:08, 19 September 2011 (UTC)


 * Go ahead and make those modifications. The arbitration does not prevent you from editing unless you are one of the banned editors. However, Wikipedia should be mainly based on secondary sources so Rushton is probably preferable to the original article.--Victor Chmara (talk) 08:38, 20 September 2011 (UTC)


 * Alright then. I've made most of the promised edits. While I see your point about secondary sources, I have still removed Rushton's reference. There are multiple reasons for this. Most importantly, I have tried to find a secondary source that would verify Rushton's claim that a "special study" was ever conducted. I could not find such a source, including the unabridged version of the cited book, which clearly should be a better source. Overall, I have made many changes, all while having the relevant sources in front of me. There were numerous problems that I corrected, including numbers in tables (numbers from wrong column positions were taken from the original paper). Please let me know if there is any question on any of the edits. Overall I think that some secondary sources discussing/interpreting DeBerry, Scarr and Weinberg (1996) should be added to the interpretation section. I will look to expand on this in future edits. 141.212.71.146 (talk) 04:43, 21 September 2011 (UTC)
 * Final number fix to the results table. The white children IQ was also from the wrong column. This is fixed now. 141.212.71.146 (talk) 05:17, 21 September 2011 (UTC)
 * I agree to removing Rushton there. But is the quote now given properly sourced to Loehlin? I can't find it. And is the "Further offers another possible explanation of the results, namely maternal effects" incompletely worded, or is "Further" the author of the quote?  Professor marginalia (talk) 00:03, 22 September 2011 (UTC)
 * The quote is from Loehlin (2000). To find it, go to page 189. The quote can be found in the section titled "Racial-Ethnic Effects: Conclusions." It starts in the left column at the very bottom (second line from the bottom) and continues into the right column until the end of the paragraph on the same page. I'm considering also referring to Loehlin's statement that more work is needed. The precise quote for this is "So we are left with the usual conclusion: More research is needed." This quote can be found further down also on page 189. 141.212.71.146 (talk) 03:20, 22 September 2011 (UTC)
 * Ah! I see it now. Thank you.   Professor marginalia (talk) 03:30, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

December 2014 edits
I see that editors are going back and forth in summarizing the main conclusions of the study. I'm watching without actively intervening one way or another as the edits go on. It occurs to me that the Scarr festschrift, which I have at hand but haven't even entered into my Wikipedia user bibliography yet, may be helpful in summarizing the study. That book is Experience and Development, a book you may be able to find in a library near you. I'll keep watching this article. Best wishes for all of us to reach a common understanding on how to describe the study and its findings for readers of Wikipedia. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk, how I edit) 14:38, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

Drew Thomas' Study: Numbers correct?
I just read the study of Drew Thomas >>Racial IQ Differences among Transracial Adoptees: Fact or Artifact?<<. I can't finde the numbers. Firstly he corrected for the Flynn -effect in three studys from >>Winick, Meyer, and Harris, 1975<<, >>Clark and Hanisee, 1982< >Frydman and Lynn, 1989<< because they didn't have a control sample. He didn't correct for the Flynn-effect in the MTRAS study, he rather wrote: "The published MTRAS reports do not have enough information to correct for that Flynn effect, so I take the published data as given while warning that a Flynn effect might have skewed them." Secondly he did correct for attrition, and came to these results: 101.8 for Whites, 98.3 for Black-Whites and 90.1 for Blacks not what the article says. The difference between BW and W he attributes to statistical noise and the difference between B and W to pre-adoption characteristics. One should correct these numbers, I suppose. --FlatEarther333 (talk) 18:37, 28 May 2018 (UTC)

undoing revert of my edit including later interpretations of Scarr's study, including her own
I clarified [] that later interpretations of the study, including Scarr's own, challenged the summary of the study's conclusions in the lead: ''The study found that "(a) putative genetic racial differences do not account for a major portion of the IQ performance difference between racial groups, and (b) black and interracial children reared in the culture of the tests and the schools perform as well as other adopted children in similar families." '' A subsequent edit by helpfully clarified that was not actually the finding of the later study at all.

Then a user who's been belligerently reverting, mansplaining to, and WP:HOUNDING me for more than a year decided to "spot check" my edit here and received the following advice from his chosen "spot-check" authority: yes, mine was a bad edit because Scarr "has a fringe POV on" her own study ! The reason being that she dared compliment Arthur Jensen for his professional integrity; the "spot-checker" claims, without any evidence, that Jensen, a Berkeley psychologist specializing in education of culturally disadvantaged children, psychometry, and one of the most cited researchers on intelligence in history, was "one of the leading white supremacist academics of the 20th century"—a risible claim showing total illiteracy regarding the subject (let's see the Wikipedia article claiming that!). To claim that Scarr, the first female Yale professor of psychology and an enormously respected researcher, is biased and on the "fringe"—especially when it comes to her views on her own study —is truly a new level in misogyny and mansplaining; Scarr was on the APA's Board of Directors, a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and an eminently respected researcher and academic.

The spot-checker also gratuitously noted that "I see from the user talk page of the editor who put that in that they've inserted edits claiming race differences in intelligence before, and you've had to revert some of their edits"—as if this had anything at all to do with the facts of the matter at hand.

Based on this ludicrous "spot-check", my edit was summarily reverted, with this gem as a comment: "addition to lead that does not reflect the body". Really? The body of the article read (emphasis mine):
 * In a 1998 article, Scarr wrote: "The test performance of the Black/Black adoptees [in the study] was not different from that of ordinary Black children reared by their own families in the same area of the country. My colleagues and I reported the data accurately and as fully as possible, and then tried to make the results palatable to environmentally committed colleagues. In retrospect, this was a mistake. The results of the transracial adoption study can be used to support either a genetic difference hypothesis or an environmental difference one (because the children have visible African ancestry). We should have been agnostic on the conclusions [...]." Later opinions supported Scarr's reassessment. For example, one group of authors wrote, "Generally, scholars in the field of intelligence see the evidence from this study . . . as consistent with both environmental and genetic hypotheses for the cause of Group IQ score differences . . ."

My addition, which supposedly did "not reflect the body" of the article, read (emphasis mine):
 * That conclusion has since been challenged, however, and Scarr herself clarified that, because the black adoptees IQ in adolescence was the same as black children raised by their parents in the region, the study's results can "support either a genetic difference hypothesis or an environmental difference one."

Furthermore, the same information is found in the lead of the Wikipedia article about Scarr herself —something the spot-checkers and mansplainers seem to have no issue with at all, likely because they've never even read it.

I hope at this point it's obvious why I plan to undo the reversion—although I will edit my previous editing to reflect and incorporate the subsequent editing by. Please reply here on the Talk page before making anymore "spot-checked" reverts that make it clear the editors haven't even read the article. Thanks! Elle Elle Kpyros (talk) 07:04, 12 October 2020 (UTC)


 * According to WP:BRD, once a controversial edit has been challenged and reverted, it has to be discussed on the talk page in order to reach a consensus on whether or not it should be included. It should not be reinserted until after this discussion, depending on the outcome.
 * The view that there's credible evidence that some races are genetically more intelligent than others is a fringe view. This was discussed at great length in a recent RfC on the subject, see.
 * Your edit says in wikivoice that Scarr clarified that the study allows for the possibility that black children are genetically less intelligent than white children. This is highly controversial, to say the least, and this way of framing your edit violates WP:SAY.
 * Putting that in the lead is UNDUE, because it is a minor point in the main body and because the source is very questionable (see below).
 * It is not really surprising that Scarr's BLP does not reflect the current consensus, does not include criticism, and is not very well sourced. That's unfortunately true of many BLP's of scholars, which are frequently heavily edited by admirers of the person. I thank you for calling our attention to the Sandra Scarr article, because it needs some attention.
 * Someone's eminence is no guarantee that they don't hold a fringe POV. Arthur Jensen, a professor at UC Berkeley, was an example, but there are many other prominent examples of scholars who have fringe POVs.
 * Your source is a journal that has been widely criticized for being a major outlet for racist pseudoscience, see Intelligence (journal). The article by Scarr was a tribute to her colleague "Art" Jensen, praising him for "integrity". He was one of the most prominent advocates for the view that black children are genetically less intelligent than white children. An article in Intelligence praising Jensen is a dubious source for anything.
 * Finally, please observe WP:NPA, and do not accuse us of "misogyny" just because the author of the source we're criticizing is a woman. NightHeron (talk) 10:24, 12 October 2020 (UTC)
 * Ekpyros, the correct place to make a conduct complaint is WP:ANI. (Be my guest, I would enjoy having uninvolved editors parse our interactions.) On the substantive part, NightHeron explains the issues clearly. --JBL (talk) 10:49, 12 October 2020 (UTC)