Talk:Race and intelligence/Archive 64

Suggestion
Stop the intellectual farting contest and start writing the article. --Jagz (talk) 07:24, 11 December 2007 (UTC)
 * If you do not have anything constructive to say, shut up. This page is for discussing how to improve the article.  This includes discussing reliable and notable sources.  Aron, Alun and I have been discussing central issues in good faith.  That this pisses you off is just one more piece of evidence that you are a troll. Slrubenstein   |  Talk 08:02, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

Actually, I kind of agree with Jagz. Most people think dividing the articles would be worthwhile. Let's do it and go from there. Aron.Foster (talk) 09:34, 11 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Aron, I think you know I agree with you, if by dividing the article you mean creating one article on genetics (or heritability) and IQ test scores, and another one on SES and IQ test scores. As a matter of fact, I proposed just this yesterday - and was shot down.  Moreover, it is not clear to me that Jagz is supporting this proposal.  When he says "start writing the article" it is not clear what "article" he is referring to, but the last time he expressed this sentiment, he unilaterally created an article for which there was no consensus.  If our discussion in the section above did anything to move us forward to a consensus, I am glad.  But I remain skeptical of anyone who thinks that discussing sources as a means towards building consensus is an "intellectual farting contest." Slrubenstein   |  Talk 10:14, 11 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Rubinstein you are a bloody admin! Do you really think it is appropriate to tell user to "Shut Up"? Lobojo (talk) 23:06, 11 December 2007 (UTC)
 * You don't need a consensus to create an article. I plan on having your involvement in the deletion of the article reviewed. --Jagz (talk) 16:34, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

Al's suggestion
Well let's agree to start two articles, "Socio-economic status and IQ" and "Genetics and IQ". It seems to me that arguments about the validity of racialist concepts are irrelevant to the creation of these two articles. Any discussion as to the global distribution of human genetic variation and whether this can lead to "cleverness" being differentially distributed between continental groups (which would not conform to the known distribution of physical and genetic traits) is a question for the "Genetics and IQ" article. The question then becomes one of how minor is the racialist point of view? Surely this reasoning is sound? Alun (talk) 11:34, 11 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Why dont we have one article that described both these theories, since both these theories are designed to explain the very same set of empirical data, we could call it say Race and intelligence? Lobojo (talk) 23:04, 11 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Obviously you have not read any of the scientific literature, or else you would not have said this, since each body of literature works with different data. Please tell me what of the scientific literature you have read?  Have you read Jacobs et. al. 2001?  Reed et. al. 1991?  Sokol et. al. 1995?  Race et. al. 2006?  Plomin et. al 1989?  In what way do they address the same data as those writing on socio-economic status?  This is just one reason for two articles, they examine different kinds of data to analyze different (though complementary) factors.  Another reason is that for each article there are scores of scholarly books and articles and to cover the scintific debates accurately in one article would make the article far, far too long for Wikipedia. Slrubenstein   |  Talk 00:35, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Oh my word, I was just making a joke. Foster got it, but you were so busy trying to figure out how to insult me again that it went right over your head, you made this (unintentionally) funny reply! So thanks. Lobojo (talk) 00:53, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
 * So, asking you how much of the scientific literature you have read is now an insult? It is a sorry day when encyclopedi writers think that the thought of doing research is insulting.  Anyway, your non-answer actually answers my question, obviously you haven't read anything. Slrubenstein   |  Talk 11:39, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
 * If we made an article like that, it'd probably end up getting locked while people yelled at each other on the talk page. Aron.Foster (talk) 23:43, 11 December 2007 (UTC)
 * HAHAHA Lobojo (talk) 00:02, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

Well let's agree to start two articles, "Socio-economic status and IQ" and "Genetics and IQ" This is fine, as long as these are not supposed to replace this article. No one has demonstrated why this topic of race and intelligence fails to meet criteria for its own Wikipedia article. W.M. O&#39;Quinlan (talk) 02:21, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Can we also agree to move the SES/IQ and genetics/IQ information into these articles and only leave summaries and links in the Race and Intelligence one? Aron.Foster (talk) 03:10, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Of course, as long as they can be shown to be related specifically to the race-IQ phenomenon. I'm all for a fair representation of this issue, and I think my proposal above is perfectly adequate to provide this. W.M. O&#39;Quinlan (talk) 04:43, 12 December 2007 (UTC)


 * No one has demonstrated why this topic of race and intelligence fails to meet criteria for its own Wikipedia article.
 * What a very selective memory you must have. Indeed Futurebird has stated in great detail why this article is original research here. You can disagree with it, but if consensus is against you then Futurebird's suggestion will be implemented. Alun (talk) 04:12, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
 * I don't know what to say to someone who is apparently being so willfully ignorant. Perhaps you should reread it, because all she says is that this article is somehow original synthesis with no attempt to prove it, so please forward me a link to her great details. The point is this, though: How is it original synthesis to have an article about the race and intelligence gap when the New York Times, CNN, Slate.com, the BBC (and many more independent sources), and countless other books and articles HAVE ALL DISCUSSED THE RACE-INTELLIGENCE GAP??? You obviously need to reread the statement on original research and so does futurebird if you two are honestly trying to say that there is nothing significant and/or respectable in publication on the race-IQ gap, in which case you are in a colossal state of denial. There's no consensus either, you, futurebird, and slr are simply not responding to specific things I've said. It's becoming harder and harder to assume good faith when you so consistently misrepresent the progression of dialogue on this talk page. W.M. O&#39;Quinlan (talk) 04:41, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Wait a minute, this article is not called "race and intelligence gap", it is called "race and intelligence" is it not? If you want to have an article about the actual gap, then we can create one. The point is the actual gap is somewhat irrelevant, what can an article about the gap actually say, except that the gap exists, and of course your citations are fine to confirm the existence of the gap, but non are academic sources that can be used to verify academic research. On the other hand, what is notable is the cause of the gap. So what causes the gap? The truth is no one knows. But what is the actual evidence that the cause of the gap between so called "races" is not exactly the same as the cause of the gap between different socio-economic groups within the same so called "race"? And, as there is a consensus among academic researchers that the cause of the gap between "races" is the same as the cause of the gap between different socio-economic groups within the same so called "race", then this article is unwarranted, because it a priori assumes that the cause is "race" itself. So what are the options? We can do what SLR suggests, we can have an article that deals with SES and the test score gap, which will deal with test score gaps between socio-economic groups, and we can have an article about the Genetics of intelligence, of which very little is known. Alternatively we could have an article called Within and between group variation in IQ and put everything in there, this article would not a priori assume that the cause was "race". Now I understand some of your concerns, there is apparently an observable difference in test scores between people from the same socio-economic group who happen to identify as belonging to different ethnic groups, possibly this needs to be addressed in one or both of the suggested articles somehow. I can find no evidence of you "assuming good faith" at all, furthermore your comment above about "willful ignorance" is very close to a personal attack. Please remain clam. Alun (talk) 06:53, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Alun, please read the WP Original research guidelines. In order for something to have its own article, it must have received notable coverage by independent sources. That's why I mentioned the New York Times and the BBC, etc. to show that the issue of race and intelligence and the gap between races in measures of intelligence is notable because it has been covered extensively by independent sources, and thus it can have its own article. And it's not just the gap itself that is notable, but the entire phenomenon of the correlation between race and intelligence/IQ. James Watson's remarks (and no, I'm not using him as an authority on the matter, I'm using his remarks because they are germane to a discussion of how this issue got to be so notable, i.e. covered by independent sources in the international media) weren't just about the IQ gap between races, he said explicitly that people of different races were intelligent to different extents, and that is what the media fallout was focused on: whether or not the so-called races differed in intelligence. I'm not saying any of these parties involved are scientific, and that's the point: since they are not scientific (but the debate about whether so-called races differ in intelligence is), but there is plenty of scientific evidence behind all of it (whether it be in favor of SES explanations or hereditarian explanations) then the subject (race and intelligence) deserves its own article. I'm sorry for losing my cool, but it doesn't seem like we're on the same page and I think you and slr and futurebird are confused as to what this article is and should be about. W.M. O&#39;Quinlan (talk) 13:59, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
 * I believe that what Alun, Slrubenstein and Futurebird are all alluding to is this interesting bit: the IQ test score gap is notable with regards to the media and press coverage it received - it is indeed very notable in popular and politcal discourse. However, in academic circles the IQ test score gap isn't that notable, it's closer to what one would call a conundrum of science. Even though there are about a dozen scientists who do research on the subject around the world (and their books do receive a lot of attention in the press), it's not otherwise considered a scientifically important topic. Therefore, while there is enough notability to the subject to have an article about the subject in the media, building an article describing in detail the different theories around this result (a great many of them being fringe) threads dangerously close to synthesis. I hope this explanation makes sense to you.--Ramdrake (talk) 15:36, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Not considered a scientifically important topic? Says who? There are more than a dozen scientists who have published on the topic, but even if there weren't, that's not how we decide whether or not a WP article about a given subject ought to exist. And once again, the media coverage was about the phenomenon and the work published on it. You're describing a situation in which the media covered their own coverage of the topic, which is not what is really going on. If you had read the articles in the New York Times and Slate.com you would know that they weren't talking about public perception of the race-IQ gap or how it is portrayed, they were talking about the topic itself and the scientists and published works. It isn't up to you to decide whether or not the question is academically popular, it is determined by the independent coverage, and in this case, the independent coverage focused on the published work done on the race and IQ disparities; whether that included a mere dozen scientists or more doesn't really matter, it's only important that the issue has been notably covered by independent sources. And again, there is no original synthesis, just read the New York Times and Slate.com: they synthesize the matter for us by explicitly discussing the correlation between the so-called races and measures of intelligence. W.M. O&#39;Quinlan (talk) 15:47, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

Here's another way to put the question we're dealing with: What would it take for the various explanations of the "race" and "intelligence" correlation to meet criteria for having their own collective and inclusive article? This ought to be a simple test of whether or not this issue is being heard out fairly. W.M. O&#39;Quinlan (talk) 15:53, 12 December 2007 (UTC)


 * You seem to be conflating the importance of the media coverage of an issue with its importance in academic circles. If you take, for example, Creationism, it has usually rather wide media coverage. However, in academic circles, this viewpoint is considered that of a tiny minority. So yes, there may be tens or even hundreds of newspaper articles on this subject, but that doesn't vouch for its scientific importance. It does, however, vouch for its political, social and popular importance. And yes, the articles did talk about the research being done on the subject. But due to its political and social importance, this subject receives more media coverage per article published in the scientific press (I'd say nearly every paper written is at some point talked about in the press) for each of maybe a dozen papers published every year (if that). Compare that with the press coverage that a field such as astronomy gets (a few blurbs a year in the popular press - for several thousand publications!). So, no, a subject's weight in the popular press doesn't vouch for its importance in the academic circles.--Ramdrake (talk) 16:51, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Well I hardly think the minority status of creationists within the life-sciences is comparable with that of the non-"SES-causes-IQ-variance" crowd among intelligence researchers, but I think we probably aren't actually in too much disagreement; I'm fairly supportive of reframing this article in terms of its public and socio-political significance. I disagree with those who want simply to dissolve this article and create "SES and IQ" and "Genetics and IQ" (the latter of which already exists). W.M. O&#39;Quinlan (talk) 19:55, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

Chimps cleverer than humans
On some types of "intelligence" tests young chimps are better than human university students. So much for tests and "intelligence". Alun (talk) 12:09, 11 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Argh. So that means that "intelligence" has no real meaning now. What a perfect Chomskyite fallacy! So you say "intelligence" has no real meaning and whatsisname argues, that "race" has no meaning, yet somehow, there exists this set of perfect correlations between self-identified race and IQ test performance. I suppose it is all just a coincidence. Its not like we need a new study to tell us that chimps are smarter that some humans. Lobojo (talk) 23:03, 11 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Where does Alun say "intelligence" has no real meaning? His statement above makes sense only if it has real meaning.  Lobojo, I think you are making things up again/ Slrubenstein   |  Talk 00:28, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
 * He dosent say it, he implies it but putting it in scare quotes. I dont know why I'm replying to you, you are so rude to everyone else here. PLease dont reply to my comments any more unless you have something substantial to say. Lobojo (talk) 00:56, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
 * No the quotes imply that the tests does not measure intelligence. Alun (talk) 04:10, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

Bringing up this article just incites a flame war. Garbage in, garbage out: just because a test that has shown high 'g' correlation in humans, one cannot conclude that monkeys can have their intelligence measured on the same scale by the same test. Reaction times also have a strong 'g' correlation, and some animals have faster reaction times than humans, too. This is all unrelated to the issue at hand. Aron.Foster (talk) 00:37, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Well the idea of "g" is a disputed isn't it?General_intelligence On the other hand I only posted this link because I think it just highlights the shortcomings of these sorts of tests. So many editors here seem to have an almost religious belief in the twin fallacies that (a) biological race has any real meaning and (b) tests scores measure intelligence. It's always good to challenge firmly held convictions, especially those held on such flimsy evidence. Alun (talk) 04:10, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

On a different note, there is already an article Genetics of intelligence, it has a short discussion of the distribution of genes between continental groups. So this article already exists. Alun (talk) 04:10, 12 December 2007 (UTC)


 * That's akin to saying that the American War for Independence article mentions the Battle of Saratoga, so we don't need an article on that... W.M. O&#39;Quinlan (talk) 05:37, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
 * I have absolutely no idea what your comment is referring to. Care to be a bit less cryptic? My comment was relating to the suggestion by SLR that we create a "Genetics and IQ" article, and I was merely pointing out that we already have a Genetics of intelligence article, so there is no need to create a "Genetics and IQ" article. You seem to be discussing some copletely unrelated issue regarding some long distant war. Are you sure you have posted your message on the correct talk page?Alun (talk) 06:59, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Maybe you need to read the article on analogies or just consult your nearest dictionary. The way it works is that if a person wants to describe what's going on in one given situation, he or she will compare it to an unrelated but easily understood situation with similar properties (in this case, the criteria for something having its own article) to show how rules are being applied, thereby demonstrating whether they are consistent or not. In this case, the rules are clearly not being consistently applied because people are trying to do away with this article for arbitrary reasons. I'm sorry no one here seems to understand how analogies work, but you'll just have to trust me on this, I wasn't actually making a point about some long distant war, I was mentioning it to make the following point:
 * Just because some article on a very broad subject (the two analogues are the "revolutionary war" and "genetics and IQ") mentions a subject that is more specific than itself (the two analogues are "the battle of saratoga" and "race and IQ") doesn't mean that the specific subject is therefore spoken for, and it thus doesn't need its own article. It works kind of like a simile, so in case you've ever read a work of fiction or anything else ever written, then try to think of it like that. I'm using a simile to describe our situation, okay? (I don't mean to sound demeaning, but did you even think about what I wrote before dismissing it as a post on the wrong page??) W.M. O&#39;Quinlan (talk) 13:48, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Maybe you should read what I posted. The two articles I was referring to were Genetics of intelligence and Genetics of IQ, I was stating that we do not need an article on Genetics and IQ (as SLR has suggested) because we have an article on Genetics of intelligence. Now how is that difficult to understand? I nowhere made any mention whatsoever of Race and IQ. So clearly I was totally confused by your inappropriate analogy. If you had bothered to read by response to your so called analogy, you would not responded in such an arrogant fashion. I don't mean to sound demeaning either, but clearly I was not talking about "race and IQ" and I clearly stated this in my previous post. Just to be absolutely clear here, the words "race" and "genetics" are not synonyms, you do understand that don't you? Alun (talk) 17:30, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
 * On a different note, there is already an article Genetics of intelligence, it has a short discussion of the distribution of genes between continental groups. So this article already exists.
 * This was what you wrote after you criticized the biological reality of race and I'm supposed to know that this was in reference to SLR's motion for an article on genetics and IQ?? No where in this thread on "chimps cleverer than humans" does anyone say anything about the proposal for split articles on SES and IQ and genes and IQ. And I absolutely agree with you that "race" and "genetics" are not synonyms, which is why I disagree with the idea of splitting this article into those two forks, because then the substantial correlation between race and intelligence is ignored, despite all its significance. W.M. O&#39;Quinlan (talk) 17:58, 12 December 2007 (UTC)


 * Here we get to the core of the problem, O'Quinlan's fear that the correlation between race and intelligence will somehow disappear from Wikipedia "despite all its significance." O'Quinlan, "significance" can mean different things.  The correlation is important as I have said in popular culture for political reasons and I have no objection to an article on race in the US covering the popular significance of this correlation.  But Wikipedia should not just have articles on popular culture.  We should also have articles on scientific research.  In science, the correlations of race and intelligence is not significant because in science, it is the causes, not the effects, that are important.  And the correlation between race and intelligence is not a cause, it is an effect.  Let us grant as you say that race and genetics are separate things.  Then the cause for the correlation lies either in a flaw in the design of the IQ test, or in socio-economic factors.  Articles on the relationship between SES and IQ tests will not "ignore" the correlation between race and intelligence.  On the contrary, they will explore the things that really are important, the causes of this effect. Slrubenstein   |  Talk 18:10, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
 * But signficance has a very specific meaning in terms of Wikipedia articles about certain topics existing. It's not a "fear" of the correlation disappearing as a fear of people exercising arbitrary powers on issues to effect a certain outcome which they favor. That was the whole point of my making the two ill-received analogies above: to show that some people are using a double standard on this topic when they wouldn't dream of using their same flawed logic on articles they don't really care about. But either way, if you feel that on the basis of my arguments above the best interpretation of this article is in terms of its popular and socio-political significance, then I would probably settle for retitling and rewriting this article to reflect this interest. W.M. O&#39;Quinlan (talk) 18:28, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Fair enough ... one thing I am sure of, this article has been used to say too many different things for a very long time and just doesn't work. I think most people agree that the media controversy over race and intelligence, which has social cultural and political reasons for existing and being notable, is worth covering.  I think that people agree that there is research on genetics and intelligence that is worth covering, and that there is a debate over whether IQ tests are flawed in their design in a way that creates a racial gap, and that there is a debate about the way the social and economic environment leads to test score disparities that also are worth covering.  I do not see how one article can do it all, effectively. Slrubenstein   |  Talk 18:40, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Ramdrake made the comparison with the intelligent design-evolution debate, which I think is maybe a useful model (I haven't actually read that entire article). W.M. O&#39;Quinlan (talk) 19:54, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Actually, I have made the coimparison and proposed it as a model several times already, in previous sections.Slrubenstein  |  Talk 20:04, 12 December 2007 (UTC)


 * This was what you wrote after you criticized the biological reality of race
 * No, this is what I wrote after I stated that the idea of "general intelligence" was disputed, and after I gave a reason why I had posted a link to the chimp article. I then went on to say on a different note, you see, there's a clue there, it's a different note. Furthermore, though you are correct that I could have been more explicit in what I was referring to, I had though that it was perfectly obvious that an article called "Genetics and intelligence" would be very similar to an article called "genetics and IQ", but not similar to an article called "race and IQ". If you were confused, then i suggest you could have ask for clarification rather than taking such an extremely patronising attitude. Not only did you not assume good faith, but you were deliberately provocative and went out of your way to try to create an antagonistic atmosphere. Something you seem to make a habit of. Again you make reference to "substantial correlation between race and intelligence being ignored", but I don't think anyone has ever stated that we should ignore this. All anyone has ever said is that we should report what mainstream academics tell us, which is that "race" is a social construct, and therefore the correlation between IQ and "race" is due to social inequity. Just how does this ignore the correlation? Indeed it is you who seem to be ignoring the vast bulk of mainstream science in order to promote a tiny minority opinion as far as I can see. Alun (talk) 18:58, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Sorry for sounding patronizing, it's just frustration. But the problem with that syllogism of "most people believe race is a social construct, therefore let's replace it with 'SES'" is that it is an original synthesis. W.M. O&#39;Quinlan (talk) 19:54, 12 December 2007 (UTC)


 * 1) Most people probably don't think it's a social construct. But the consensus in academia is that it is a social construct, For academic subjects we use academic research. This has got nothing to do with what "most people think" and everything to do with the results of scientific investigation and the consensus of mainstream scientists. Alun (talk) 03:26, 13 December 2007 (UTC)
 * 2) No one said that we should replace "race" with "ses" did they? The discussion is how best to frame this subject in a way that better reflects the research being done. rather than framing it in the simplistic and misleading way the popular press often treats it. Alun (talk) 03:26, 13 December 2007 (UTC)
 * I understand your frustration, we are all frustrated, let's all try to be a bit less testy. Cheers. Alun (talk) 03:26, 13 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Fair enough. Apologies for that. W.M. O&#39;Quinlan (talk) 15:42, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

We can call the article Race, Apes, and Intelligence. --Jagz (talk) 05:39, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
 * ? Alun (talk) 06:59, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

Things that are already out there
These are some of the articles were we might move things from this article:

futurebird (talk) 12:24, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Achievement gap - but this name seems to be a misnomer since it contains a graph based on studies by Flynn on cognitive ability. Calling the gap one in "achievement" may be a bit of spin-- as it implies it can't be a gap in ability. Thoughts? (anything mainstream about the gap should go here) We might want to rename it "test score gaps"
 * Racism in the United States - Needs a section on scientific racism. (material from the "controversies" section)
 * Scientific racism has a section called "Criticism of IQ tests and intelligence research" (much of the content in the history section belongs here, cand much of the content from the controversies section)
 * Genetics of intelligence
 * There is no reason to move things from this article into those. The subject of race and intelligence can sustain itself as an independent WP article vis-a-vis the significant independent coverage thereof. W.M. O&#39;Quinlan (talk) 14:14, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

I agree with you. That article would be a sub-article of the article on racism or the article on scientific racism, and it would discuss the race and intelligence debate about the intrinsic intellectual inferiority of black people as seem in mainstream media. It would not conflate the issue with legitimate, research on:
 * Genetics and intelligence
 * The achievement (or test score) gaps found along lines of class and race and the widely accepted research about the many factors that influence those gaps.

Theses things do not belong in this article. futurebird (talk) 16:52, 12 December 2007 (UTC)


 * The subject of race and intelligence can sustain itself as an independent WP article vis-a-vis the significant independent coverage thereof.
 * So you want to make an article from the point of view of "coverage" of a scientific research and not from the point of view of published reliable sources by actual researchers? How is this notable? Unless you are proposing to expose the biased way that the media cover this subject (in which case the article should be called Media bias and the coverage of race and intelligence), I can't see this as encyclopaedic. It is not the purpose of an encyclopaedia to have articles on the "coverage" of science, it is the purpose of an encyclopaedia to have articles on the consensus of mainstream scientists who do research into the subject at hand. Let's fact it you have failed to produce a single reliable source in the whole of this discussion, you just post links to newspaper articles and internet blogs that would never be considered reliable sources in Wikipedia. So your whole argument is "it must be true I read it in the newspaper". Alun (talk) 17:18, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Alun, you are tragically mistaken. I've never said that "it must be true I read it in the newspaper." I've never said that these newspapers and magazines have anything useful to say about the science of the correlation, much less that they validate some hereditarian explanation of it; I'm only using newspapers and magazines to show why race and IQ deserves its own article. (And the last time I checked, the New York Times is a reliable source (not for proving scientific hypotheses, but obviously, that's not what I'm doing).) Furthermore, I haven't made a single scientific claim about race and IQ, but I hope you bear in mind that it doesn't make any difference whether or not Wikipedia editors find some scientific hypothesis convincing—it's not our job to evaluate the science itself.


 * Anyway, here's what I have said (and this is for Alun, because those who have actually read anything I've written above will likely be offended that I am writing it here yet again):

Back to being patronizing, again, huh? Let's see. Slrubenstein  |  Talk 20:13, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
 * I wasn't patronizing him, I was writing that as a disclaimer for you, because I have already said all this to you. And if you read Alun's characterization of my argument, you'd know that he is obviously not following me, so I owe it to him to clarify myself. W.M. O&#39;Quinlan (talk) 22:04, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Argument One:
 * 1) The correlation between race and IQ is notable.
 * 2) All notable things get their own Wikipedia articles.
 * Therefore, since the correlation between race and IQ is a notable thing, it gets its own WP article.

Wrong. Notability means it gets included in Wikipedia. Whether it gets its own article, or two or three articles - or whether it be part of an article - is up for discussion. We all agree that it should be covered in Wikipedia. That is a starting point for compromise. Slrubenstein  |  Talk 20:13, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Here's a great example of you all of a sudden instituting an arbitrary policy. If that's what notability means, then why not just dissolve the article on Biology and just write it into the article on Science? Because that's not how Wikipedia works, and it shouldn't make special provisions just for this article. If something meets the criteria for having a Wikipedia article, then it makes sense just to give it one. If we just mentioned all "notable" things in other articles, then it would be impossible to determine which ones got their own articles and which didn't. W.M. O&#39;Quinlan (talk) 22:04, 12 December 2007 (UTC)


 * Argument Two:
 * 1) All correlations require explanation.
 * 2) There is a correlation between race and IQ.
 * Therefore, the correlation between race and IQ (which has a WP article by virtue of being a notable thing) requires explanation.

Patently false. all of our discussion correlates positively with gravety but this does not require explanation. You do not understand basic science. Slrubenstein  |  Talk 20:13, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Wrong. The correlation between gravity and our discussion would be so slight and it has never been written about or discussed in any publication of any kind. If you disagree with the argument I wrote, then you must agree with the following: "Some correlations don't need any explanation--they just are." Do you actually think this make sense from a logical or scientific perspective? W.M. O&#39;Quinlan (talk) 22:04, 12 December 2007 (UTC)


 * Argument Three:
 * 1) The explanation of how race correlates to IQ is a scientific one.
 * 2) On Wikipedia, all scientific explanations are given attention in accordance with their prevalence among the experts (i.e. their majority/minority status among the experts).
 * Therefore, the explanations of the correlation between race and IQ are given attention in accordance with their prevalence (i.e. minority/majority status) among the experts.

Wrong. There may be scientific explanations for the correlation. However, beyond this disagreement I agree with the rest of what you wrote. Slrubenstein  |  Talk 20:13, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
 * If you disagree with this argument, you are admitting that there is a non-scientific explanation for the correlation. What this explanation would look like, I have no idea. Please share if you think of one. (Perhaps you don't consider the SES explanation scientific? In this case, you're surely better at refuting yourself than I am.) W.M. O&#39;Quinlan (talk) 22:04, 12 December 2007 (UTC)


 * Argument Four:
 * 1) Among experts, the SES explanation of the race-IQ correlation is favored by the clear majority.
 * 2) Among experts, the hereditarian explanation of the race-IQ correlation is favored by the clear minority.
 * Therefore, the SES explanation of the race-IQ correlation is given attention as the clear majority position and the hereditarian explanation is given attention as the clear minority position.

It is now clear that you either did not read my comment here and Alun's addition, or you did not understand it. All the hereditarian research I know by scientists involve twin studies and do not address the race issue. I do know people who address the IQ disparity gap in terms of race biologically rather than socially understood, but these people are (1) not population geneticists who have done research in heredity and (2) repreent a fring and not a "minority" view. They should be represented in an article on racist science, but they do not qualify as a minority view among scientists, they are fringe. Slrubenstein  |  Talk 20:13, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
 * In fact, I hadn't read that comment so I apologize for that, but I think you are right to some extent; basically, I am just using "hereditarian" to differentiate between the position that claims IQ variance among populations is simply due to SES and that which does not. I don't know of a different way of putting it without writing too much every time I refer to it. I'm not sure what your definition of "fringe" is either (this is why I made the analogy to UFOs, which is based on a fringe view, because even in that case no one denies that UFOs deserves its own article). W.M. O&#39;Quinlan (talk) 22:04, 12 December 2007 (UTC)


 * The last argument is, to me, the only one that should really be disputable, and that dispute would concern the extent to which the SES and hereditarian explanations are the majority-minority status. At any rate though, it seems clear to me that the hereditarian explanation, while clearly a minority position, is not a "tiny minority", and thus it is to be treated as such. I'll add though, that this is in no way an original synthesis because this has been synthesized by the independent (that is, non-scientific sources). In light of this synthesis which has been provided by non-scientific, yet reliable, sources, I am supporting reframing this article as a public debate (maybe, as Ramdrake suggested above, something like the Intelligent design/evolution controversy). W.M. O&#39;Quinlan (talk) 19:56, 12 December 2007 (UTC)


 * I am responding to W.M.'s comment of 22:04, i.e. two paragraphs up (I just don't want this to get too involuted). I understand how you could have missed my comment and Alun's subsequent comment, W.M., things get so involuted here.  But I am glad you took the time to read them now.  Here is my point: "heritability" is an important concept in population genetics and there are indeed people who do serious research on the heritability of IQ (meaning, what proportion of variation in IQ score - but it could be other things like height - among a population has a genetic cause.  The thing is, this notable literature does not use the term "race."  The reason that I consider those people who do use the term race in relation to genetic differences (like Rushton) as "fringe" is that they are not trained in genetics, they have not done proper research in genetics, they do not get published in the major geneticist journals, and are not cited by geneticists (except as examples of racist science). Slrubenstein   |  Talk 15:27, 13 December 2007 (UTC)
 * It's true that Rushton and the like aren't geneticists, but they're not necessarily making a point about genetics, their work is simply designed to show that the race-IQ gap transcends the SES factors that their intellectual opponents use to explain the gap. Anyway, I think you and I more or less agree that this issue is better framed as a public or popular debate than a scientific one, so I'm ready to move on with that and put all this behind us. W.M. O&#39;Quinlan (talk) 15:38, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

What would it take for the various explanations of the "race" and "intelligence" correlation to meet criteria for having their own collective and inclusive article?
I'd like to hear some ideas on this. W.M. O&#39;Quinlan (talk) 15:55, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
 * An article titled "Race and intelligence in the United States" could use the definition of "race" commonly used in the USA. --Jagz (talk) 16:04, 12 December 2007 (UTC)


 * There is plenty of debate in the US about the "definition of race" --the census just changed the way it records race. In medicine there has been a long debate about weather or not race is useful. People used to go by the "one drop rule" but more and more people are identifying as "mixed" --other people want to abolish racial designations altogether. Most think they hold too much social significance to ignore, but the issue is complex. So, how would limiting it to the US, clear up the "definition" in any way? futurebird (talk) 16:58, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
 * I can tell you are using this argument as a red herring. --Jagz (talk) 17:16, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
 * A red herring for what?futurebird (talk) 17:19, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Ditto. Alun (talk) 17:33, 12 December 2007 (UTC)


 * This would need to be framed as a debate which occurs mostly in the popular media, acknowledging the proponents of the racialist-hereditarian position (e.g. Rushton et al.) as a tiny minority view, litterally a fringe view. The majority view could be represented by the likes of say, Flynn, Niessen, Lieberman and others (who write the real reviews, about which you hardly ever hear in the news because it doesn't make for sensationalistic news).--Ramdrake (talk) 16:55, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
 * What??? --Jagz (talk) 19:24, 13 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Is this in response to Ramdrake's comment?futurebird (talk) 19:32, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

( A comment was removed by JagZ futurebird (talk) 19:44, 13 December 2007 (UTC) )
 * ? huh? futurebird (talk) 17:19, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
 * FB, you took the words right out of my mouth. :)--Ramdrake (talk) 17:22, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Ditto. Alun (talk) 17:33, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

Folks, don't feed the trolls. This whole section is a red-herring because the article that wold be inclusive of all different kinds of explanations would be this article. But most people involved in this discussion feel that this article is a disaster for one reason on another. There has been much constructive discussion about how to handle this set of topics, and O'Quinlan's question just brings us back to square one. It is clear to me that there are two methods clashing here. Some people do research on an area by trying to identify sources; they can then distinguish between different kinds of debates (like, the debate over the reason ofr a certain average heritability of intelligence among single-chorion twins among biologists; the debate over funding for public education in the US among politicians and policy-makers; research on racist representations of diferent groups of people, largely by historians and sociologists) and between notable views, like Phillips 1993 and Stromswold 2006, and fringe views, like Rushton, in one discussion among scientists. It is by doing this kind of research that people figure out merits an encyclopedia article or articles, and what they should cover/include. But other people begin with a personal belief, for example blacks are less intelligent than whites, and insist on an article that caters to that belief, and they they just go out looking selectively for whatever sources would fit their belief. Obviously this second method leads only to bad scholarship - one ends up taking things out of context and misunerstanding them, or making connections between different sources when none exist. Slrubenstein  |  Talk 17:44, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
 * That's exactly my point; I'm trying to show that this topic, despite all of our bickering and endless arguing, deserves its own article. The point is that when people honestly appraise this topic according to Wikipedia's guidelines, it meets all of the criteria for having its own article. People keep disputing every point under the sun on this topic except the truly relevant ones about it meeting Wikipedia criteria for inclusion.


 * And just to clarify, by a collective and inclusive article on the explanations for the race-IQ gap, I mean that the article would give attention to the explanations in accordance with their weight and minority/majority status. I'm not saying this article should be a rambling exposition on the work of Rushton, Lynn, or the likes of them, but rather they should be given attention according to their status within the field of experts on the relevant field. W.M. O&#39;Quinlan (talk) 18:10, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
 * The problem is that not enough of the editors have the balls to write this article correctly. They also appear to be concerned with having to scrap a lot of the unnecessary information in the article. --Jagz (talk) 22:35, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
 * What are you talking about? Of course I don't have balls I'm a woman!!! :P jeeeeeez. OK. I'll be serious. What on earth do you mean by "write this article correctly" ? -- I think that is what everyone is trying to do here. We just don't agree on the right way to do it-- though, right now I see there is consensus with everyone except for you and WM. futurebird (talk) 22:42, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
 * I'm glad to see you're making progress on what to do with the article. I don't have any objections to splitting the article in two. I can see Quinlan's point too. --Jagz (talk) 23:06, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

Basic structure
I think the whole article is based on faulty premises. It begins with: "The study of race and intelligence is the controversial study of how human intellectual capacities may vary among the different population groups commonly known as races. This study seeks to identify and explain the differences in manifestations of intelligence (e.g. IQ testing results), as well as the underlying causes of such variance."

Apart from the obvious affront to good English, the lead makes the mistake of framing this as a scientific issue. It's primarily a popular issue - people have always assumed that other "races" (or classes) are somehow lesser. Secondary to that is the fringe "scientific" views of people like Rushton (with their deep methodological flaws). "Modern theories and research on race and intelligence are often grounded in two controversial assumptions:
 * that the social categories of race and ethnicity are concordant with genetic categories, such as biogeographic ancestry, and
 * that intelligence is quantitatively measurable by modern tests and is dominated by a unitary "general intelligence factor""

The article isn't called "modern theories of race and intelligence", it's called "race and intelligence". It cannot give undue weight to one set of fringe theories. Granted, if you look at word count, the article devotes a lot to the certain aspects of the history of "race and intelligence" (although even there, it's got a huge "undue weight" problem, since only addresses the issue of black and white in the US).

It's unacceptable to write articles from an "in universe" perspective. We need to give greater weight to the mainstream scientific perspective, and give appropriate weight to agenda-driven fringe science. Guettarda (talk) 17:49, 12 December 2007 (UTC)


 * Guettarda, what do you think about the proposals, in the sections above. I agree with you about the framing issue. futurebird (talk) 17:53, 12 December 2007 (UTC)


 * Nice post Guettarda. Alun (talk) 19:02, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

There's a lot of discussion about daughter articles. I think that's a bit premature this soon after the AfD. Can we create a balanced, NPOV article here? Guettarda (talk) 03:46, 13 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Would it be a solution to have three broad sections in this article, two about academic mainstream work, on "ses and race" and on "genetics and race"? A third section could deal with the problems of hysterical media reporting of some of the work? Just an attempt at compromise. Alun (talk) 06:04, 13 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Sounds good. Brusegadi (talk) 06:11, 13 December 2007 (UTC)
 * That sounds reasonable to me. Guettarda (talk) 07:21, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

Test data article is back


Any comments on this diff? Now we have another article again. --can't we just merge this in too? I don't know why it was missed. futurebird (talk) 22:52, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
 * It's important information that's too in depth for the main article but should be available to those who are interested. Since we're planning a split of Race and Intelligence anyways, I see nothing wrong with keeping this information where it is for now and merging it with the new articles in the future. Disregard; I hadn't read the AfD discussion. Aron.Foster (talk) 23:22, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
 * I put it back, simply because the idea was to merge it in here, but this was never done. The artilce has problems but 130 sources down the drain dosen't wash by any standards. Lobojo (talk) 23:25, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

The conclusion of the AfD was "merge", which was, in this case, a soft deletion. If you want the references, you can get them from the history. Guettarda (talk) 03:15, 13 December 2007 (UTC)
 * I agree, the result of the AfD was clear, changing the state of the article was a breach of policy. Alun (talk) 03:19, 13 December 2007 (UTC)
 * There was no "soft deletion" whatever that might mean, you might have liked that, but the idea was merge, and explicitly NOT delete. The material was never merged back. If you want to delete 130 sources you need an AFD decision to that extent. I nor nobody else needs to get the sources from the history. There are procedures for deleting material from wikipedia and this is just gaming the system. Lobojo (talk) 03:49, 13 December 2007 (UTC)
 * The merging is due mainly to preserve a track of who has contributed to what. If you delete a page then only admins can see who wrote what and thats problematic (I think there is an associated license issue; under it, it is better to merge.) Brusegadi (talk) 05:48, 13 December 2007 (UTC)
 * I am going to escalate this matter as people are bahving very badly and playing games with wikipeida policy. Lobojo (talk) 03:51, 13 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Lobojo, this sort of behaviour is unacceptable. You are being disruptive.  Guettarda (talk) 04:07, 13 December 2007 (UTC)
 * what's wrong with mining the article history for any sources we need. If you're adamant that we merge it back in here, then let's get an admin to do that. I don't know what you mean by "people are playing games" futurebird (talk) 04:03, 13 December 2007 (UTC)
 * nothing is wrong with it, but it should need to be done. Five weeks ago a choice was made to redirect the page and merge in inforamtion. The first part was done, the second part not. Thus the article was DELETED in the face of consensus at the AfD. Lobojo (talk) 04:22, 13 December 2007 (UTC)


 * I am going to escalate this matter
 * Surely this sort of "threat" violates Wikipedia behaviour policies? Is it not a threat to edit war? It is a direct "challenge" to confrontation and deliberately ignores the philosophy of consensus building. Furthermore when articles are merged it does not mean that all content needs to be kept, Wikipedia is an encyclopaedia, it needs to give good quality articles, but there are limits to the detail that should be included, it needs to be accessibly to everyone. If Lobojo wants some of the material from the article to be merged into "Race and intelligence" then he can always do it himself. It seems an odd solution to say that "because it hasn't been merged I will restore the article" when the correct response should be to merge the content yourself. Alun (talk) 06:01, 13 December 2007 (UTC)
 * In what sence is that a threat? If people continue to ignore AfD closings, it needs to be escalated to an RFC or something. What a drama queen! None NONE of the content has been merged, not a damn word, and a number of editors have mede it clear that they think this fine, since "merge really meant delete" anyway. Its not Lobojo that wants the material merged, it the WIKIPEDIA COMMUNITY that wants it merged as set out in the AfD of five weeks ago. I can't add it the artilce is locked! Lobojo (talk) 06:34, 13 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Well no one else can add the content if the article is protected can they? There's no point in complaining that you cannot add the content when no one else can either. The result of the AfD was not to keep the article, so it has been redirected. When this article is unlocked you will be free to move whatever info you like. Until that time the decision of the AfD was not to have all of these pov-forks. That was the decision, that was what the AfD was about. If you want to get this article unlocked then we need to avoid edit wars and come to a consensus about what to do, you have some responsibility in this regard as well. No point in complaining the article is locked if you are not prepared to contribute constructively to the debate about getting it unlocked. Furthermore you need to explain the utility of all of the test score data, we do not need to present every piece of evidence that the test score gap exists, we just need to cite reliable sources to verify that it does exist when we make this claim. So what purpose do these data actually serve? Alun (talk) 07:03, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

A possibly useful source
If and when this article ever gets unlocked, here's an article from the New Yorker that could be used as a source for some of the 'anti-IQ' arguments:. It's a review of a book which argues that IQ is essentially the product of social and cultural factors rather than inherent biological ones, and quotes some interesting results; if anyone has the book itself, of course, that would be even better. Terraxos (talk) 23:51, 13 December 2007 (UTC)
 * I wish I could respond to this as I would on /b/. Aron.Foster (talk) 02:33, 14 December 2007 (UTC)
 * That is a good article, Terraxos, and the book is surely a must-read for IQ fundamentalists everywhere. My favourite bit:


 * The psychologist Michael Cole and some colleagues once gave members of the Kpelle tribe, in Liberia, a version of the WISC similarities test: they took a basket of food, tools, containers, and clothing and asked the tribesmen to sort them into appropriate categories. To the frustration of the researchers, the Kpelle chose functional pairings. They put a potato and a knife together because a knife is used to cut a potato. “A wise man could only do such-and-such,” they explained. Finally, the researchers asked, “How would a fool do it?” The tribesmen immediately re-sorted the items into the “right” categories. Trachys (talk) 12:30, 16 December 2007 (UTC)


 * Seems like an excellent source. Think about how it can be used/fit, and let's see how our discussions for reorganizing this go.  Please stayinvolved! Slrubenstein   |  Talk 00:17, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

Early stereotypes
Are either of the new articles going to discuss minstrel shows like the current article or is type of information going to be discarded? --Jagz (talk) 04:53, 14 December 2007 (UTC)


 * I think most of that stuff would get moved to the articles on racism or scientific racism. Right? It's talking about stereotypes about race and intelligence-- which, under the general heading of this article, is perfectly on topic-- futurebird (talk) 04:58, 14 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Racism perhaps. It doesn't seem to fit under scientific racism. --Jagz (talk) 02:52, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

Splitting the article
Might it possible to return to the discussion on Slrubenstein's constructive suggestion for splitting the article into two


 * "IQ Scores and Genetics"
 * "IQ Scores and Socio-Economic Conditions"

with one or both of the articles briefly covering controversies around "race and intelligence in the USA"? I have been following the discussion for some time (I intervened here at the time of the Watson affair). There seemed to be reasonable consensus over such a split fairly recently and I think the editing impasse would disappear once a decision to split was made. It would undoubtedly result in two good mainstream encyclopedic articles. [I apologize for being the 3rd mathematician to join this discussion; there is not yet a WP article on Age and Intelligence to disqualify my participation.] --Mathsci (talk) 08:47, 15 December 2007 (UTC):
 * "IQ Scores" is not necessary, just "IQ" is enough. --Jagz (talk) 13:08, 15 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Yes, shorter titles are better. A more precise explanation of what is meant by IQ in this context can appear in the lead. Mathsci (talk) 13:48, 15 December 2007 (UTC)
 * We've already established that there is already an article called Genetics of intelligence. My understanding on the agreement reached was that this article was to be reframed as a popular debate and not a scientific one. W.M. O&#39;Quinlan (talk) 16:14, 15 December 2007 (UTC)


 * In that case the "IQ and Genetics" article can easily be redirected and that article can be expanded, renamed or modified as appropriate.
 * I wonder whether you could spell out what exactly you mean by "popular debate"? Do you mean uninformed soapboxing, as happens for example at Hyde Park Corner? User:MoritzB lurked on this page and soapboxed: you know what happened to him. Wikipedia, on the other hand, is about producing articles and operates according to intelligent academic principles. Both "IQ and genetics" and "IQ and socio-economic conditions" have a significant scientific component. Do you personally have a problem with science? Mathsci (talk) 18:47, 15 December 2007 (UTC)


 * I believe in this case, what WM Quinlan is referring to is that there is a popular debate about possible genetic causes of the observed Black-White IQ test score gap, which is considered fringe in academia, but which has notability in the popular press (not unlike the creation-evolution debate, which exists in the popular press, but is basically nonexistent in academia).--Ramdrake (talk) 19:13, 15 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Possibly. But this has nothing to do with the main point: the split of the page into two. That particular point can be made later in either or both of the two articles, and is connected with the controversy "race and intelligence in the USA" I first mentioned. It has nothing to do with the split. In France where I live, there are prejudices against racial minorities, sometimes echoed in the "popular" press. I have not so far seen these echoed on the french wikipedia. Amicalement, Mathsci (talk) 19:27, 15 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Just to be clear: I think that an article solely on the "popular debate" with no scientific component would be pointless and offensive. This is a fringe point of view which must be presented in its correct context in a mainstream encyclopedia. Mathsci (talk) 19:46, 15 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Luckily, you finding something offensive and pointless has no bearing on whether or not Wikipedia will have an article about it. And don't jump into a debate that's been going on for over a week and make threats and accusations against me until you've read the whole discussion here. If you had, you'd know that the only thing I've argued for this whole time is that the subject of the relation of race to measured intelligence meets Wikipedia criteria for notability and thus deserves its own article. And recasting this as a popular debate does indeed have to do with splitting the article into two new articles: Why rewrite the entire thing in two very different forms instead of just retitling this article and remaking it into a discussion of the popular debate about race and IQ (similar to the intelligent design-evolution debate) (and creating a separate article about SES and IQ)? W.M. O&#39;Quinlan (talk) 22:35, 15 December 2007 (UTC)
 * The popular debate is something that occurs in the USA, not in Europe or the rest of the world, as far as I am aware. It might also be more accurate to use "popular misconceptions" to describe it. It does not seem to warrant its own article in an encyclopedia if there is no mainstream scientific support. BTW I expect that any attempt to insert this kind of material as a footnote in Genetics of intelligence might encounter difficulties. Unless backed by mainstream science, these are controversial fringe views which should not be given undue weight. Such controversial fringe theories can be discussed in a more appropriate context, as Slrubenstein outlines below. (This would not confer any scientific validity on these particular points of view.)
 * I'm not sure you're quite right about editors' opinions. European people was a racist article until it became European ethnic groups. We had to vote on that, so views that the previous version of the article was repugnant and offensive mattered. Similarly User:MoritzB's continued attempts to insert racist material onto the WP seemed designed to cause offense; he made the mistake here of over-capitalising on Watson's misguided and retracted interview and was reported by me on WP:AN/I. Even just recently I had to add 6 or 7 references to European ethnic groups to stop an editor removing the statement about race being a social construct. There are people around determined to get their racist message onto WP by fair means or foul. Mathsci (talk) 07:28, 16 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Please reread the discussion above before you make abusive threats towards me. I have not made or attempted to support a single racist statement at any point, and it is not my position to propagandize on behalf of racists. Give me an example of my "attempt to insert racist material" into this article; if you look, I have persistently advocated giving due weight to the relevant sources—nothing more, nothing less. I can't speak on the example of the "European people" article, but if in fact changes were made simply on the basis of some editors finding material offensive, then that would indeed be a sorry precedent for a purported encyclopedia to adopt. There are many Wikipedia topics that I find offensive (e.g. pornography) but I wouldn't attempt to change those articles on that basis alone. All I am arguing for here is that we treat this topic consistently with its merits as a subject for an article. W.M. O&#39;Quinlan (talk) 17:15, 16 December 2007 (UTC)
 * I made no threats towards you: the statement you quote refers to User:MoritzB not you. You said personal opinion does not count on WP and I gave some examples where this was not the case. These matters of judgement occur on a higher level than edits of articles. For example if somebody writes even a sourced article it can be put up for deletion and then the community has to decide by voting whether or not they want it deleted. That process seems to be purely reliant on opinion. Regarding pornography, whatever you may mean by that, a basic tenet of WP is that it is not about censorship. Another tenet is WP:UNDUE: that seems to be part of the problem with the current article. Mathsci (talk) 01:38, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

W.M. Quinlan has being doing a pretty good job of clarifying the issues including my own views, but just to be clear, Mathsci is wrong that I proposed dividing this article into two. I proposed two articles to deal with the notable scientific research relating to variation in IQ: one looking at innate (genetic) factors, which would provide an account of the extensive and growing literature based on twin studies as ways of caluclating heritability (and debates arising over different findings) - since we already have an article on genetics and intelligence I think that this literature could be discussed in that article; and a second article on environmental (SES) factors. But i also proposed a variety of alternative additional articles to deal with fringe and racist theories such as those proposed by Rushton. Here are some possibilities: I am not sure which one or combination of any of these is the best way to go but I do see a need for more than two articles and at least one of the above would suffice to cover mjaterial left out of the two scientific articles, that nevertheless should be covered in Wikipedia. Slrubenstein  |  Talk 01:32, 16 December 2007 (UTC)
 * deal with fringe theories in science in articles on the scientist in question e.g. Rushton
 * deal with fringe theories in science in articles on their specific books e.g. the article on race, evolution and behavior
 * deal with them in an article on racist science
 * deal with them in an article on race in the US
 * deal with them in a new article on how the popular media and politicians appropriate views that within science are fringe, and make them centers of controversy that are notable not for scientific but for cultural and/or political reasons.
 * Slrubenstein. Thank you for your reply. I had already been told about the article Genetics of intelligence, which at the moment seems like a properly written encyclopedia article. As you suggest a second article on Environmental factors and intelligence on IQ and SES would also be good. I would hesitate to have the word "race" in any of these titles as it seems just to be misleading. Why not simply start a separate article on "Environmental factors and intelligence"? Then, with two articles covering genetics and SES in existence, it will become clearer what to do with the remaining controversial fringe material. Mathsci (talk) 07:24, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

How about if we split the article into "Race, Genetics, and IQ" and "Race, Environment, and IQ"? --Jagz (talk) 03:35, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

How about an article on "Race and Races"? It will discuss how blacks excel in sprints. --Jagz (talk) 07:52, 16 December 2007 (UTC)
 * WP:DNFTT. Mathsci (talk) 08:25, 16 December 2007 (UTC)
 * That's ridiculous. Does the domination of sprinting by those of West African ancestry upset you? --Jagz (talk) 17:42, 16 December 2007 (UTC)
 * We can call it "Race, Races, and Intelligent Design". --Jagz (talk) 16:19, 16 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Please stick to the topic under discussion, which involves intelligence and IQ tests. Athletics is a quite different topic: discussing athletics here amounts to trolling. Was that your intention?
 * Returning to the main point, anybody can now start an article on Intelligence and environmental factors, independently of this discussion, since no such article exists already. Slrubenstein has already supplied a valuable starting set of references. Mathsci (talk) 01:38, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

Conclusion
There is no need to create an article on ENVIRONMENT AND INTELLIGENCE as it already exists: it was created in June 2007. There is also an article on Nature or nurture, another public debate, but this time involving academics. There therefore seems to be no point in discussing variants of yet another article on "environment and intelligence" as Slrubenstein has been proposing. All a bit of a storm in a teacup really. Mathsci (talk) 02:34, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

Fix
Please fix the Charles Murray wikilink. Disambiguate to Charles Murray (author). Thanxs. =) Jumping   cheese  06:01, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Deleting the article
There are already articles on the Genetics of intelligence and Environment and intelligence. Racial aspects can be briefly discussed in those articles. We should be able to begin the process of deleting the current article. --Jagz (talk) 15:56, 17 December 2007 (UTC)
 * I disagree. The issue of differences in average intelligence between the races, regardless of causes, is important. I think there needs to be an article on wikipedia discussing the current state of knowledge on that issue, seeing as how most people in the general population are convinced there isn't any difference at all. Aron.Foster (talk) 17:01, 17 December 2007 (UTC)
 * The proposal to not have an article with the name "Race and Intelligence" won 6 to 4. --Jagz (talk) 17:31, 17 December 2007 (UTC)
 * I hope my vote was counted in favour of your proposal :) Mathsci (talk) 18:10, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

A More Recent Version of Snyderman and Rothman 1988?
From the current page: In a 1988 survey, journalists, editors, and IQ experts were asked their "opinion of the source of the black-white difference in IQ" Ed Robert J Sternberg, Elena Grigorenko y, and Environment. Ed Robert J Sternberg, Elena Grigorenko

Which is counter to the claim that the 'environment and genetic' viewpoint is fringe. At least for 1988. I assume the numbers have changed since then; does anyone know a more recent study that collected this information? Yes, I know science isn't done by majority rule, but I believe this is relevant to the 'is it a legitimate view or pseudo-science' discussion. Aron.Foster (talk) 17:25, 17 December 2007 (UTC)
 * I think this is very helpful - thank you for bringing it to our attention. What follows is not so much a criticism as a different point.  I question the ultimate value of surveys that ask whether it is all environmental, all genetic, both or neither etc. because the questions themselves define the terms of the "debate."  Now, it may well be that if we did a survey of all major articles in the popular press over the past 20 years we would see that they actually do present the debate as "nature versus nurture" or "genetics versus environment."  But what do the scientists doing the actual research think?  I am not asking for another questionnaire because my point is that one cannot even ask the right questions unless one already knows something about how they think (otherwise, one ends up putting one's own biases into the questionnaire).  For me the answer to my question would come from reading the most notable books and scientific articles to see how the scientists themselves frame the issue.  We might discover that there is a major controversy these scientists are debating and it actually is not about genetic versus environmental causes for the IQ gap at all, but something else.  What?  i have no idea - that is my point, let's not make any assumptions.  How do we know what are the best books and articles?  I have a few suggestions that are meant to generate a list of publications we can all agree are notable among scholars: see if we can get syllabi for graduate school courses on the topic and see what books and articles they assign.  See what books are published by university presses, and see if they were well-reviewed in the major relevant journals (in psychology, anthropoloogy, sociology, biology).  Then see what other books and articles these books cite as authoritative. See what articles have come out in major peer-reviewed journals, and see what books and articles these articles cite as authoritative.  I know one needs access to a good library to do this kind of research ... but I think this is the kind of research one must do to write a great encyclopedia article. Slrubenstein   |  Talk 17:54, 17 December 2007 (UTC)


 * Is this particular question not also just one aspect of the academic debate on nature or nurture for which there is already a large literature? Would the article on "nature and nurture" not be an appropriately neutral place to give a thorough discussion of this question? Mathsci (talk) 18:39, 17 December 2007 (UTC)


 * Which question? It looks like you are responding to Aron and not to me. Slrubenstein   |  Talk 18:41, 17 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Actually both. At present there is not a proper discussion of the ongoing academic debate about the significance of genetics vs environment in the development of intelligence in the article on nature and nurture. It mentions chess and music, but does not at all give a proper balanced account of the full scientific debate: at present it reads like an excerpt from a childcare magazine. This debate would, as I have indicated, also include a discussion of Aron.Foster's question. "Nature and nurture" at present seems just to be a stub and what you are talking about seems to be what it should be about, possibly with a slightly modified title, although "Nature or nurture" is quite good since it immediately suggests that it is a topic of public debate (as W,M. O'Quinlan has pointed out). It seems like the correct context and your proposed content could change "nature and nurture" from a stub into a proper encyclopedia article. Mathsci (talk) 18:56, 17 December 2007 (UTC)
 * All I can do is repeat my point: instead of starting with a point of view (e.g. "there is a debate over nurture versus nature") and looking for sources, we should start with reliable sources and see what notable views emerge out of them. I think one problem with Wikipedia is a systematic bias for items that are available on the web (as opposed, in this case, to books published by academic presses and peer-reviewed journals).  This means we cover notable views in cultural and political, or otherwise popular, debates ... and fail to cover, or misrepresent, academic debates.  For example, I think that the "nature versus nurture" controversy is notable in major publications like Time Magazine and some popular science writers like Steven Pinker.  But in most current, important research in psychology, anthropology, and so on, it is a non-issue.  I believe that psychologists, population geneticists from biology and anthropology, as well as cultural anthropologists and sociologists, who research race or intelligence are not for the most part concerned with "nature versus nurture."  I believe that they are concerned with other questions and the most notable views make sense in terms of other debates.  What are these other debates?  i repeat my main point: instead of assuming that we know (or assuming that scholars debate the same issues as Time magazine journalists), one would have to go to peer-reviewed journals and other academic publications to find out.  I repeat: start with reliable sources and then find out what the notable debates, questions, and related views are, rather than the other way around. Slrubenstein   |  Talk 19:12, 17 December 2007 (UTC)


 * Slrubenstein: you seem reluctant to suggest a completely neutral but accurate and informative title that could discuss all these issues. If you propose a first approximation to such a title (rather than six or seven), people could work from there. You yourself already seem to have rather clear ideas about what such an article could contain in view of your preliminary summary of the literature. I think it would be valuable if you took the intellectual lead and, using a rough preliminary synthesis, suggested a retitling of this article, given the prior existence of the two articles on environment/genetics and intelligence. This title should be neutral, not assuming any particular stance and not restricting the subject matter. If it wasn't quite right, or somebody thought of something better later on, it could easily be changed by consensus. Mathsci (talk) 19:53, 17 December 2007 (UTC)


 * I still do not know to what issues you refer. Slrubenstein  |  Talk 20:54, 17 December 2007 (UTC)
 * I have even less idea what you have in mind. It remains nebulous unless you produce some kind of concrete proposal. Also in real life and even on WP it is very rare that initial drafts of articles are written by committees. A first approximation of whatever you have in mind would be extremely useful. I have not advocated using the web or the media for writing WP articles. Somebody has to to compile a representative list of sources, describe roughly which areas might be covered and then suggest a possible title. Since two articles already exist on genetics and intelligence/environment and intelligence, it is unclear what the present article should contain. Personally I don't see the point of having an encyclopedia article on the "popular debate" because it does not appear to have been properly documented in books or published articles. Mathsci (talk) 08:16, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Well, this is slightly different than the nature versus nurture page because we're assuming partial heritability of intelligence between individuals. Instead, many of the conflicting opinions are on the causes of the difference in IQ between races. You could describe the arguments about race/IQ as a nature/nurture debate, but I see this as more of a subcategory of the wider nature versus nurture topic—and I think that the question is intelligence heritability a factor in the race/IQ gap is better answered on this page (whatever we name it) than the nature versus nurture one.

In keeping with the tradition of bringing up another point that's only tangentially related, what about the liberal bias in Academia? Many of those who write of the existence (and some who write of a possible existence) of a genetic component to the gap also write of the reluctance of many peers to support that view—not because it's bad science but because of negative pressure: fear of bing labeled a racist, losing their job, etc. Though it's our goal to present the views of experts in the field, what's to be done if there's a bias of the experts in the field? That question of course begs the 'creationism/evolution' analogy, but I'd argue that it's entirely within the realm of possibilities that both "the Earth is 4.5 billion years old" and "there is a bias against the genetic component of the IQ gap that leads to underrepresentation in academic journals" could be true statements. Aron.Foster (talk) 02:16, 18 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Most scientists I know of will readily agree that intelligence is largely heritable. I do not see how this is a racist or even political argument.  It does not lead to any specific political position - no more than saying eyesight is heritable does.  Politics as I see it enters into policy debates that follow from this: should the government pay for or subsidize eyeglasses for people who need help?  Should government mandate braile on elevators, and stuff like that?  I suppose on these questions one can be liberal or conservative .... Slrubenstein   |  Talk 11:05, 18 December 2007 (UTC)


 * Is this debate not on "Factors affecting intelligence"? Would this title not cover everything? As in summary articles (I have experience with Europe), areas covered in detail elsewhere can be summarised with wikilinks to the main articles; and all other topics, if backed by a suitable body of published literature, would find their place. Slrubenstein has produced literature already on this page. So far what has appeared has been the two schools of thought on genetics and environment plus the controversy as to whether there is accepted scientific evidence on averages of IQ scores among ethnic groups, however these were defined by the investigators. Aspects of this have already appeared in WP articles with sources, for example here.


 * There are already articles on academic censorship and Race and genetics, which is where some of the tangential points you make are discussed. Can you supply properly documented evidence of what you claim? It seems now to be uncontroversial and widely accepted by researchers that there is a genetic component to intelligence; its possible relation to ethnicity, however that is determined, does appear to be controversial. Mathsci (talk) 08:16, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Reply to Mathsci: I thought my proposal was very clear: stop the BS of picking a POV we hold or that is popular in the press before looking for sources to illustrate them, and instead, start with reliable scientific sources and then from those sources work out what is the important debate/question/issues.

To start us off, I propose we look at these articles: Many are by geneticists or in genetics journals. Do any of them discuss a "nature versus nurture" debate? Is it notable, for them? I do not know - because I am not pushing a POV one way or the other. Let's find out what issues they are debating and from there decide what articles we need. I invite others to help search for other prominent scientific journal articles on this and related themes, in order to find out what the real scientific debates are. Slrubenstein  |  Talk 11:05, 18 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Bouchard, Arvey, Keller, Segal, 1992, Genetic Influences on Job Satisfaction: A Reply to Cropanzano and James,” Journal of Applied Psychology 77(1): 89-93
 * Devlin, Daniels, Roeder 1997 “The heritability of IQ” Nature 388: 468-471
 * Jacobs, Van Gestel, Derom, Thiery, Vernon, Derom, and Vlietinck, 2001, “Heritability Estimates of Intelligence in Twins: Effect of Chorion Type,” Behavior Genetics 31(2): 209-217
 * McCartney, Harris, and Bernieri, 1990, “Growing Up and Growing Apart: A Developmental Metanalysis of Twin Studies” Psychological Bulletin 107(2) 226-237
 * Phelps, Davis, Schwartz, 1997, “Nature, Nurture and Twin research Strategies” in Current Directions in Psychological Science 6(6): 117-121
 * Plomin and Loehlin, 1989, “Direct and Indirect IQ Heritability Estimates: a Puzzle” Behavior Genetics 19(3): 33-342
 * Race, Townswend, Hughes, 285-291, “Chorion Type, Birthweight Discordance, and tooth-Size Variability in Australian Monozygotic Twins” Twin Research and Human Genetics 9(2) 285-291 (no, not about IQ – but as it is about other clear phenotypic traits it provides a good benchmark for assessing the value of twin studies and the various factors one must also take into account)
 * Reed, Carmelli, Rosenman, 1991, “Effects of Placentation in Selected Type A Behaviors in Adult males in the national Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute Twin Study,” Behavior Genetics 21(1) 1-19
 * Segal, 19999, Entwined Lives: Twins and What They Tell us About Human Behavior
 * Sokol, Moore, Rose, Williams, reed, and Christian, 1995, “Intrapair Differences in Personality and Cognitive Ability Among Mynozygotic Twins Distinguished by Chorion Type,” Behavior Genetics 25(5) 456-466
 * Stromswold, 2006, “Why Aren’t Identical Twins Linguistically Identical?” Cognition 101(2): 333-383
 * Are you suggesting that a neutral title like "Factors affecting intelligence" comes with a "BS", media-fed rag-bag of presuppositions? It is unclear what POV such a title would be pushing. (I personally have no point of view to push: I will, however, come clean with you and admit that I find certain aspects of racism abhorrent. I hope you don't mind me writing this.) It is disingenuous of you to suggest that the scientific literature can be trawled for articles, without any clear idea of what type of article is being looked for. Above you seem to have selected articles on genetics and intelligence; nobody could object to them.


 * Where you have a clear point is that where no significant body of scholarly literature exists supporting a particular hypothesis, a proposed subject should probably not be given undue weight on WP. Also it is absolutely correct that WP should attempt to reflect trends in current research whenever possible. I just read a chapter on race and IQ in a recent book by Joseph L. Graves, cited as an undergraduate textbook; it gave a very interesting well-written historical overview, but perhaps might not be regarded as an undisputed source. With no prior familiarity with the vast body of literature, is it fair to to presume that this corpus of academic research can be assessed by non-experts with no formal training in the area? At least on WP some mathematics articles are written by experts; I'm not sure that applies here. Again that is another fundamental problem with this encyclopedia.


 * If on the other hand there are editors with expertise in biology (eg wobble/alun) or anthropology, their advice and suggestions should be listened to carefully. Mathsci (talk) 12:15, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Let's take your paragraph that begins "Where you have a clear point" as a starting point because at least there we understand and agree with one another. I am saying it is premature to come up with a title until we have trawled the literature. I also think we have enough people who know enough to know how to do this, even before knowing what the right titel for an article would be. We are concerned with the following key words: "race", "intelligence", "genetics", "environmental" and either "SES" or a proxy (social or status would probably work). I suggest anyone with a good library and therefore a good reference librarian request a search for articles with these keywords in the major relevant journals. These would be:
 * Interdisciplinary
 * Critical Inquiry
 * Public Culture
 * Social Science Research
 * Social Text


 * Anthropology
 * American Anthropologist
 * American Ethnologist
 * Annual Review of Anthropology
 * Cultural Anthropology
 * Current Anthropologist
 * Identities: Global Studies in Culture and Power
 * American Journal of Physical Anthropology


 * Communications (includes media studies)
 * Communication Theory
 * Human Communication Research
 * Public Opinion Quarterly


 * Education
 * Review of Educational Research


 * Educational Psychology
 * Child Development
 * Education Psychology
 * Education Psychology Review
 * Journal of Learning Science


 * Genetics
 * American Journal of Human Genetics
 * Annual Review of Genetics
 * Genetics and Development
 * Genome Research
 * Nature Genetics
 * Nature Review Genetics


 * History
 * American Historical Review
 * Comparative Studies in Society and History
 * Journal of Modern History
 * Journal of Social History
 * Past and Present


 * Sociology
 * American Journal of Sociology
 * American Sociological Review
 * Annual Review of Sociology
 * Journal of Historical Sociology
 * Law and Society Review


 * Psychology
 * American Psychologist
 * Annual Review of Psychology
 * Behavior Genetics
 * Behavioral Brain Science
 * Biological Psychology
 * Cognitive Psychology
 * Psychological Bulletin
 * Psychology Review

I have provided a long list of journals precisely in an attempt to capture a wide range of approaches and views. However, I bet many of these journals have not had any relevant articles in the last few years. So while I realize this is a lot of journals, I bet if we restrict searches to all keywords, I bet the results would be managable. I am pretty sure I got the leading journals in these relevant disciplines but yes, it would be great if there were other editors who could sy "no, this is not a respected journal" or "Add the following to the list ..."

A keyword search of these major journals would not I think assume or imply any particular point of view. As I said I think that if we use enough keywords, the results will be managable but perhaps someone can suggest a way to further limit it (for starts, we can ask the reference librarian to search just the past three years. I bet that won't turn up much and we will want to expand it to the past five or even ten years.

Just a suggestions! Slrubenstein  |  Talk 16:46, 18 December 2007 (UTC)


 * Can't standard electronic tools for searching academic databases not be used? Mathsci (talk) 17:23, 18 December 2007 (UTC)


 * I definitely think Annual Reviews (what you posted before) is good. As for other electronic tools - I think they are fine as long as they include the leading journals.  And I think this depends on the library.  Some search engines do not include all the leading journals for proprietary reasons.  Another problem with standard academic search engines is they include many journals that are not highly ranked.  This is not a problem (indeed, can be a good thing) for someone doing academic research.  But if the task is to do a quick survey of the most notable views, a search engine that covers ALL journals will swamp us with data much of which is not appropriate.  By the way, I selected the journals above based on their ranks in citation indices. Slrubenstein   |  Talk 17:53, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, the heritability of intelligence isn't too politicized, but for whatever reason people who say "the gap between IQ scores of blacks and whites could be partially based on genetics" are labeled racist. When I read the summary of the American Psychological Association's 1995 report, it struck me as odd how they stretched to say it could be all social. "It is clear, however, that these differences—whatever their origin—are well within the range of effect sizes that can be produced by environmental factors." (which to me begs the question "Aren't they also well within the range of effect sizes that can be produced by environmental and genetic factors, too?") And when they do talk about possible genetic factors, they only mention Eyferth, 1961 (the WWII soldiers/children study); a study whose results haven't been reproduced and one that doesn't seem to account for selection bias in the military (Flynn, 1980). Forgive me for not having a worldview on the issue, but I know in America that black intelligence is a politically charged issue, with tabula rasa on the left and "significant differences exist between groups and are important" on the right.

Briefly, on some other points above:
 * I think policies derived from the race/intelligence differences should be left out of this article: unless it's really notable by itself, "what to do about it" is exclusively a matter of personal opinion.
 * "Factors affecting intelligence" doesn't give due weight to the focus of this article, namely the race/IQ gap. I've read title arguments above, but I still believe that "Race and Intelligence" is fine.
 * Slrubenstein, your hope of an unbiased analysis of all literature in the field prior to forming an opinion might be a pipe dream. It's a fine idea, but I for one don't have the energy, resources, time, or drive to be so well read in the field. The people who do that are the ones publishing reports, not editing Wikipedia. I'm not opposed to trawling through some of the journals you mentioned, but I don't think a full analysis of every study and paper is required for intelligent, informed discussion on this issue.
 * "Just a suggestions!"... chuckle... Aron.Foster (talk) 17:29, 18 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Aron.Foster, in mathematics mathscinet is a useful tool for self-teaching; I don't know whether you use it. Similarly the ISI Web of Knowledge and other electronic tools can be used to search other academic databases and for example to examine your assertion that there is an immutable race/IQ gap. Here is one paper I found just searching for race and intelligence:


 * JF Fagan, CR Holland Racial equality in intelligence: Predictions from a theory of intelligence as processing, INTELLIGENCE 35 (4): 319-334 JUL-AUG 2007


 * "« African-Americans and Whites were asked to solve problems typical of those administered on standard tests of intelligence. Half of the problems were solvable on the basis of information generally available to either race and/or on the basis of information newly learned. Such knowledge did not vary with race. Other problems were only solvable on the basis of specific previous knowledge, knowledge such as that tested on conventional IQ tests. Such specific knowledge did vary with race and was shown to be subject to test bias. Differences in knowledge within a race and differences in knowledge between races were found to have different determinants. Race was unrelated to the g factor. Cultural differences in the provision of information account for racial differences in IQ. »"


 * Anyway I think, with reliable academic databases and unbiased searches on two or more key terms, it should not be hard to build up a set of articles in the way Slrubenstein has suggested. A biased search using for example "IQ gap" and "race" produces very few articles; but the ones that turn up are by the much quoted authors in the current article. I now agree that Slrubenstein's method might indeed be the way forward if we can agree on academic databases. (I used a university account to access the abstract quoted above.) Mathsci (talk) 18:18, 18 December 2007 (UTC)
 * For Mathsci: I appreciate the vote of confidence &mdash; and acknowledge that my proposal can be improved upon. I think you get the idea I was trying to explain and the one example you came up with is indeed an example of what I am after.  Now, you came up with one article.  If, through whatever means, we came up with ten or twenty articles that are very frequently cited, or that appear in major journals (meaning, those that score high in citation indexes - I looked at both immediacy index and impact factor), we would be in a good position to say "Wikipedia needs an article on topic (or debate) x or "The most accurate title for an article that looks at current research on variance in IQ scores would b y" or "An article on this topic ought to have sections a, b and c, and be sure to include points of view x, y, and z."  My idea is to get at as unbiased a method as possible for determining not just what are the notable views on a given debate or question, but what actually are the notable questions and debates in current research.  The titles of articles themselves have to be well-informed and if the article is going to be on a topic that is currently being researched, we need to know something about the current research before we know what the best-informed and appropriate titlefor an article would be (and we may discover we need two articles instead of one, or we may discover that there is a better way to parse an issue into several articles than the ones previously proposed).  And we want our sample of current research to be both notable and unbiased by prior assumptions about the nature of the research (this is just standard research design - if the question we ask is "What are the dominant questions and debates among current researchers," we shouldn't phrase the question in a way that will bias the results).  Matchsci and I now seem to agree on a rough strategy and I am sure it can be refined and improved upon. Perhaps s/he can even articulate/explain it better than I can at this point!  Slrubenstein   |  Talk 18:57, 18 December 2007 (UTC)


 * For Aron: Well, it may be a pipe-dream, but (1) we could divvy up the work and (2) my intention was to get a sense of how researchers frame the question and debate. One would not actually have to read through entire articles to find out whether their research is meant to contribute to some ebate on nature versus nurture or some other debate; indeed, this may be popssible from reading just the abstract or if not the first few and last few paragraphs. My point: I am proposing this just as a means of discerning what questions and debates researchers are actually engaged in.  When it comes to actually writing a Wikipedia article I certainly wouldn't expect even a group of people working togethr to read all articles.  In short: you are right that a full analysis of ever study and paper is not required!! Slrubenstein   |  Talk 17:53, 18 December 2007 (UTC)
 * I'm not opposed to putting in some research, reading, and brainpower to be part of a group that has the whole issue covered. Although I'm not going to put in much work until after the holidays. :) Aron.Foster (talk) 21:27, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Unprotected
Per request at my talk page, I have removed the protection status on this article. Please discuss controversial edits before making them on this talk page. If the article becomes embattled again, please let me know at my talk page or register another request for protection at Requests for page protection. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 19:39, 17 December 2007 (UTC)


 * Wooohoo!!! Edit War!!! :) Guettarda (talk) 20:08, 17 December 2007 (UTC)


 * Err...how about we try to avoid that?--Ramdrake (talk) 20:09, 17 December 2007 (UTC)


 * That was my point, actually. Guettarda (talk) 20:27, 17 December 2007 (UTC)


 * I guessed as much. I was just translating for those who might be humour-challenged. :) --Ramdrake (talk) 20:39, 17 December 2007 (UTC)


 * YEEEHaw! futurebird (talk) 20:40, 17 December 2007 (UTC)


 * I think that those of us who have cooperated here should agree to revert all undiscussed edits no matter whether we agree with them or not. Bold is good, but in the spirit of cooperation, let's move forward with a plan and consensus.  --Kevin Murray (talk) 18:40, 18 December 2007 (UTC)


 * As usual, I think Kevin makes a very constructive and important point. Slrubenstein  |  Talk 18:58, 18 December 2007 (UTC)
 * A stalemate is a better word than cooperation. If every edit is going to be discussed, it will take years before there is a decent article. The discussion about the future of the article has been going on for over a month without action or a definitive game plan. Just use good faith in the edits and revert if there is a significant problem like in all the other articles I have been involved in. Slrubenstein has been involved with the article for several years but seems to be unable to provide the leadership necessary to move the article forward. --Jagz (talk) 19:08, 18 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Jagz, I think that you bring a good balance to the discussion, but your actions have been questionable and you tend to polarize your opposition. Chill-out; pissing on people's legs won't convert people, it just makes them wetter and smellier opponents.  --Kevin Murray (talk) 19:45, 18 December 2007 (UTC)
 * I'll check back in in a few months then as I can find better ways to waste my time. --Jagz (talk) 19:56, 18 December 2007 (UTC)
 * I'd prefer that you hang around and be patient. I think that you really have done some good research.  --Kevin Murray (talk) 20:01, 18 December 2007 (UTC)


 * I'd like to say congratulations to the group here. We have had great cooperation in stemming the tide of first day edits, and especially thanks to the two editors who reverted their edits at my request in the spirit of gainig consensus.  Cheers! --Kevin Murray (talk) 03:12, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Stereotypes revisited
For balance, although I regard it as in extremely poor taste, I concocted the following extra stereotype, which uses the same method of sources (media and popular culture) as the other stereotypes. It has been carefully designed to be equally pointless, offensive, inaccurate and unencyclopedic:

American intelligence stereotypes
The American people are often stereotyped by the British as brash ignorant loud-mouthed rednecks. . Other unflattering characterisations can be found in the novels of Evelyn Waugh and Max Beerbohm, whose Rhodes Scholar Mr. Abimelech V. Oover in Zuleika Dobson cannot prevent himself from spouting pompous long-winded neologisms.

The section on stereotypes is disgraceful and has no place on the wikipedia. Mathsci (talk) 21:18, 18 December 2007 (UTC)
 * I agree with at least a cleanup, but have felt that it is off-topic. --Kevin Murray (talk) 21:23, 18 December 2007 (UTC)
 * It would be desirable to know how this article can in fact be edited. Does every edit require a vote? Mathsci (talk) 21:58, 18 December 2007 (UTC)
 * It seems premature to fine tune what is likely to undergo major shifts in organization and message. I'm asking that we (a) discuss major changes and (b) postpone fine-tuning.  I'm thinking that we should build a list of proposed changes and see where we can establish consensus.  I didn't oppose unprotecting the article since our efforts to work in a sandbox have so badly stalled, but as Morrridden warned, she will clamp this down at the first signs of battle.  --Kevin Murray (talk) 22:10, 18 December 2007 (UTC)
 * OK, with that understanding I will revert the article to the bad version, as is customary on WP. However, this section is appalling: who calls themselves English these days? I suppose some editors at some stage must have added this spicy savoury to balance the unpalatable pseudoscientific hors d'oeuvres :) Mathsci (talk) 22:31, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Restoring references

 * The references need to be restored urgently, because the article is at present unreadable. Although it's hard to tell at the moment, it does seem that the 2006 book of Lynn, Race differences in intelligence, has been used as a source. A review of this book by a reputed scholar has drawn attention to Lynn's manipulation of data, some of it data gathered by the reviewer. Such books cannot be used unquestioningly as reliable sources. Mathsci (talk) 09:41, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
 * It appears that N. J. Mackintosh is the critic. A G-search yields little info on him, though what I see hints at his good reputation.  In many cases good biographies here at WP have been built while evaluating sources.  Perhaps we could build an article on Professor Macinitosh. --Kevin Murray (talk) 10:28, 19 December 2007 (UTC)


 * Lynn might be a reasonable inclusion in a reference list or other reading section, but not inline citations. I can see discussing his work, but not relying on it as a source of fact. --Kevin Murray (talk) 10:32, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
 * He has a home page . Google actually reveals quite a lot: he is an animal behaviouralist, amongst other things; he has written IQ and Human Intelligence, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1998. 429 pp. ISBN 0-19-852368-8; his initials stand for Nicholas John; he became a fellow of King's College, Cambridge in 1981; he was made FRS in 1987, etc, etc.  (To be fair I used extra inside information here.) Mathsci (talk) 11:10, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Do you think that we can build an article on him? If you can give me the references etc.  If you are busy, I can build and you can fine tune. --Kevin Murray (talk) 17:48, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
 * His name should certainly be added to the list of Fellows of the Royal Society and you could start a biographical stub, in the hope that it would be fleshed out by some expert in his field. I do know people who probably know him fairly well, but that route is out of bounds. His bio must be sketched in one of his books, viewable on google, amazon or in the flesh. Otherwise there might be a Royal Society Biography available on demand. Here's his entry from the International Who's Who that I retrieved. Mathsci (talk) 22:04, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

MACKINTOSH Nicholas John DPhil, FRS British professor of experimental psychology

Date of birth: 9 July 1935

Parentage: s. of Dr Ian Mackintosh and Daphne Mackintosh

Family: m. 1st Janet Ann Scott 1960 (divorced 1978); one s. one d.; m. 2nd Bundy Wilson 1978 (divorced 1989); two s.; m. 3rd Leonora Caroline Brosan 1992; one s.

Education: Winchester and Magdalen Coll., Oxford

Career: lecturer, Univ. of Oxford 1964–67; Resident Professor, Dalhousie Univ. 1967–73; Professor, Univ. of Sussex 1973–81; Professor of Experimental Psychology and Professorial Fellow of King’s Coll., Cambridge 1981–2002; Resident Fellow, Lincoln Coll., Oxford 1966–67; Visiting Professor, Univ. of Pennsylvania 1965–66, Univ. of Hawaii 1972–73, Bryn Mawr Coll. 1977; Ed. Quality Journal of Experimental Psychology 1977–84

Publications: Fundamental Issues in Associative Learning (ed. with W. K. Honig) 1969, Mechanisms of Animal Discrimination Learning (with N. S. Sutherland) 1971, the Psychology of Animal Learning 1974, Conditioning and Associative Learning 1983, Animal Learning and Cognition 1994, Cyril Burt: Fraud or Framed? 1995, IQ and Human Intelligence 1998, papers in psychological journals

What I found: Please name the top 3 sources in this list and explain your reasons
I did a google scholar search for the most recent articles with key words "race" and "IQ" These are the first few results with my commentary. How should we sum these up?


 * The Totality of Available Evidence Shows the Race IQ Gap Still Remains (Psychological Science 2006) J. Philippe Rushton and Arthur R. Jensen
 * Everything these two guys write is regarded as controversial.
 * Basic position seems to be that the gap has narrowed in a century.
 * Article isn't available for free on line (costs $44) but this proof can give us the gist of the content.
 * The article criticizes the results of Fynn who showed that the gap was closing.
 * Depending on how one accounts for SES factors the gap can be shown to be closing, or remaining the same.
 * No mention of genetics.


 * The association of dental caries with blood lead in children when adjusted for IQ and neurobehavioral performance (Science of The Total Environment 2007) Martin et. al.
 * Fairly non-controversial article about the impact of lead exposure on IQ mentions the fact that black children are exposed to more lead. Suggests this may play a role in the gap.
 * This shows that these kind of findings continue to be published.
 * only came up in the search because race is one of many factors considered. There is a lot of research along these lines, but the focus is not on race. Doing this kind of research isn't controversial.
 * Not about genetics.


 * The Bell Curve: On Race, Social Class, and Epidemiologic Research C Muntaner, FJ Nieto, PO'Campo - American Journal of Epidemiology, 2006
 * I didn't look in to this as it seems to be a book review.


 * Testing the genetic hypothesis of group mean IQ differences in South Africa: Racial admixture and cross-situational consistency J. Philippe Rushton
 * Rushton, again.
 * The paper shows that mixed-race people in South Africa have IQ scores that are about the average of scores of whites an blacks.
 * No mention of genetics in the abstract.


 * Heredity, environment, and race differences in IQ: A commentary on Rushton and Jensen (2005) Nisbett - Psychology, Public Policy, and Law, 2005
 * Strong criticism for Rushton and Jensen


 * Intelligence, race, and genetics RJ Sternberg, EL Grigorenko, KK Kidd - American Psychologist 2005
 * Criticism for Murray and Jensen


 * Race and intelligence: The fallacies behind the race-IQ controversy
 * Book review for a book from 1973? I skipped it.


 * Thirty years of research on race differences in cognitive ability Rushton Jensen Psychology, Public Policy, and Law, 2005
 * Asserts that a genetic cause cannot be ruled out.


 * Race and IQ RS COOPER - Am. Psychol, 2005
 * This is a really solid source and it covers a lot of ground. It's published in a "good" journal. This is one of the articles that looks at the debate as a whole rather than focusing on particulars.


 * IQ variations across time and race are explained by literacy differences D Marks - 2007 - precedings.nature.com
 * Rejects the idea that nutrition or health factors are the primary cause (so the paper about lead levels is a little controversial after all!)
 * Links IQ to education —Preceding unsigned comment added by Futurebird (talk • contribs) 18:17, 19 December 2007 (UTC)


 * Genetic Differences and School Readiness William T. Dickens The Future of Children, 2005
 * The author considers whether differences in genetic endowment may account for racial and ethnic differences in school readiness. While acknowledging an important role for genes in explaining differences within races, he nevertheless argues that environment explains most of the gap between blacks and whites, leaving little role for genetics.


 * Temperature, skin color, per capita income, and IQ: An international perspective Hiroko Arikawa and Donald I. Templer, Intelligence Volume 34, Issue 2, March-April 2006
 * Try to assert that people from colder climates have evolved to higher IQs
 * There is a fair amount of criticism of this one:
 * Major sources cited are Lynn, Jensen and Rushton


 * Race as biology is fiction, racism as a social problem is real A Smedley, BD Smedley - American Psychologist, 2005
 * pretty much what the title says.


 * Case for Non-Biased Intelligence Testing Against Black Africans Has Not Been Made: A Comment on Rushton, Skuy, and Bons (2004) International Journal of Selection and Assessment 14 (3), 278–287.
 * Says tests are still biased.

There are, of course, more in this search. Questions: Which sources are the highest quality? Which are the least controversial? Please name the top 3 sources in this list and explain your reasons.

futurebird (talk) 18:08, 19 December 2007 (UTC)


 * As already discussed, could you please use an academic database to compile a list of sources? If, like Aron.Foster, you are a math graduate student, you will have access to academic search machines, as discussed above. Google scholar is unacceptable: it does not search scholarly literature in a systematic way.  Please learn about these search machines like ISI Web of Knowledge and then use them. (They are analogous to the search machines like mathscinet and Zentralblatt MATH, which are probably be known to you as the two prinicipal search machines for mathematics articles - Google scholar is no substitute.)  What you have produced above is not at all what is required. Please read what Slrubenstein has said about bias before attempting further literature searches. Mathsci (talk) 18:55, 19 December 2007 (UTC)


 * I agree with Mathsci - Google scholar is an imperfect tool. I am certain that there are many more articles on this set of topics or some major aspect of them in many of the journals I named above.  That Google Scholar returns practically no journals from the list suggests to me that it is missing most of the current research.  In any event, I stated my position above:I give more weight to articles in the journals I listed.  I made this claim without knowing anything about the content of such articles but rather on the basis of the influence and notability of the journals themselves, which to me is the least biased way to proceed, if what we are after are notable views among researchers. Slrubenstein   |  Talk 19:43, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

I'll check out the Library at some latter date. I'm still working on my last finals so... there isn't much time I sort-o hoped there was an easy solution to all of this. futurebird (talk) 20:01, 19 December 2007 (UTC)


 * Yes, this is a somewhat hectic time of year. The electronic resource I used with a UK academic proxy was here . I haven't investigated what happens if I use a US academic account, but that shouldn't be too hard to figure out, either directly from a university web site or by finding a user-friendly librarian in a central university library. Good luck and happy hunting, Mathsci (talk) 22:58, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Old reference/bibliography page
I've copied the old reference/bibliography list to Talk:Race and intelligence/references. This was slated for deletion at AfD, and thus blanked and redirected here. I'm wondering why this is not properly reinstated as it is way too long to be appended to an article. It seems like a good resource. If we agree on reinstatement we can asking the Admin who closed the AfD for permission to revert his blank/redirect. --Kevin Murray (talk) 18:39, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Thanks, Kevin, that is an excellent idea. Cheers, Mathsci (talk) 19:57, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

List of proposed changes
(please discuss the changes in a separate section so the list is readable -- comments will be removed from the list.


 * 1) Restore the missing reference section. Mathsci (talk) 09:41, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
 * 2) Remove the stereotypes. Mathsci (talk) 22:42, 18 December 2007 (UTC)
 * 3) Remove the Media Portrayal section up to but not including the sub-section "Portrayal of research by the media" --Kevin Murray (talk) 23:29, 18 December 2007 (UTC)
 * 4) Remove the Race section --Kevin Murray (talk) 23:33, 18 December 2007 (UTC)
 * 5) Remove the Intelligence section --Kevin Murray (talk) 23:33, 18 December 2007 (UTC)
 * 6) Condense from 4 & 5 a brief discussion of both Race and Intellignce sufficient to the context of this article and with links to the WP articles --Kevin Murray (talk) 23:33, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Comments on proposed changes

 * Removal of sections is fine. However Kevin Murray's suggested new material does not take into account the consensus developed by Slrubenstein about how to proceed in changing the article. Mathsci (talk) 09:23, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Can you be more specific? --Kevin Murray (talk) 09:50, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
 * S/he suggested that we must gather source literature to determine possible content in an unbiased way. Please read the discussion above. Mathsci (talk) 09:58, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Are we discussing my item 6 above? If so I am suggesting a section which summarizes and condenses from the sections removed in my proposals 4 & 5.  There is two much disjointed discussion above to refer to a consensus without being more specific. --Kevin Murray (talk) 10:07, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
 * That is not an satisfactory response. Please read what Slrubenstein has said, searching for "unbiased" if necessary. What you are proposing is going against consensus. Mathsci (talk) 10:16, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
 * I don't see a clear consensus on that point. But, I do not feel strongly about item 6.  I would be satisfied with the removals described in items 4 & 5, and then see if there needs to be some reference to the topics in summary.  --Kevin Murray (talk) 00:02, 20 December 2007 (UTC)
 * P.S. I already added "replacing references" at the head of the list. Putting them back to replace the dead wikilink is hardly what MRG meant by a "controversial change". Why don't you go ahead and just restore it? (P.P.S. I shall be editing from Berkeley, California instead of France from next Monday :)) Mathsci (talk) 10:04, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
 * I'd still like to see us get consensus as a matter of form. --Kevin Murray (talk) 10:07, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
 * I cannot participate in any discussions unless I have some wayhttp://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Race_and_intelligence_%28References%29&diff=168535151&oldid=166472527 of accessing the references. Where are they? Mathsci (talk) 10:16, 19 December 2007 (UTC)


 * If you plan to restore them, then I assume that you know where to find them. I don't see the urgency that requires action before a few other people comment.  Other than that, you will have my support in restoring the references. --Kevin Murray (talk) 10:28, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Thanks, I found them. User:thebainer performed a redirect instead of a proper merge in November . Mathsci (talk) 11:10, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
 * I think that Bainer chose redirects so we could still access the old files easilly for reference etc. --Kevin Murray (talk) 00:08, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

"He" for what it is worth, and Mathsci, with respect, I think we need more discussion before we can say we have consensus although of course I feel strongly that some form of what I suggested is the only effective way to proceed when working on an article on a controversial topic. I know Aron is concerned about the amount of work involved, I wonder if Kevin has any objections to the method Mathsci and I, at least, agree would be most productive? perhaps if others consider my reasons and suggestion more, they can come up with more effective ways to do it.

But for now I will restate my main issue: I think that this article was - with very good intentions and hard work by some editors - poorly conceived and designed from the start. "Poorly" in this sense: over the past several years most major edits to this article have either exacerbated NPOV disputes or has made the whole structure and content overwrote. I thinnk most people would agree with me; I am just adding that I think this owes to the original conception and design which means an effective solution means revisiting the basic conception and design. I do not see a point to discussing any specific edits until we have. I fear tht if we continue as usual, we will just produce an article that is either more overwrought, or that someone, certainly within the next year, will consider seriously POV and in need of major edits. The method I proposed above is meant to avoid this by providing a firm - meaning, fully compliant with NPOV, V and NOR - foundation by providing us with a conception of the scope and section of the article that is not based on original research and does not advance the views of any of us editors. I think the method I proposed will result in enough reliable, verifiable sources from multiple points of view, especially views not our own, that we will then be able to work our way out of the black-hole of an article (which has swallowed up so many editors over the past several years, some of them to disappear forever) that this had been.

In short, let's try to reach consensus on process for researching the article rather than content and structure of the article - and let the process dictate the eventual content and structure. Slrubenstein  |  Talk 20:06, 20 December 2007 (UTC)


 * Just for the record I am also "he" (I used s/he because that is how you referred to me earlier). After first deciding on databases and searching over pairs of key words, we can compile a list of observed themes and then proceed from there. I suspect that very little academic literature is devoted to the so-called IQ gap, although we'll just have to wait and see. I was quite struck between the difference in the universally positive academic reaction to the scholarly book on Race and intelligence produced in the 1970's, designed as a data source without itself drawing any conclusions, and  the raised eyebrows in mainstream academic circles generated by Lynn's recent book on Race and intelligence (2006). Again this is irrelevant at the moment. Having decided on scholarly electronic databases, we can proceed from there. You have already provided a set of key words, which at the moment I believe are


 * intelligence/IQ and genetics/ environment/race/socio-economic


 * I haven't covered all search terms such as psychometric or other standard terms that might emerge from the academic literature in the search. Again the number of returned articles from these searches could be important, even if only a few articles are selected in the end. I'm not sure about using citation indexes, unless inordinately long lists are produced when pruning might be useful. I agree with your implicit statement that it is not appropriate to start drawing up lists of what to change. I have so far simply queried the disapppearance of the references and the presence of the offensive, pointless and unscholarly stereotype section. (It is hard to see how this could survive in the future article or articles that replace this one.) Is what I am saying roughly what you had in mind? Mathsci (talk) 21:58, 20 December 2007 (UTC)


 * SL, I support the idea of establishing critera for our sources here as a first step. Can you draft a set of citeria is succinct bullet points.  It becomes difficult to follow some of the prose.  Just the facts please.  We know what the problems are.  Less why and more how.  --Kevin Murray (talk) 23:17, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Just the facts:
 * find a reference librarian who will help us do a search of the journals listed by me above, or use an academic search-engine that includes the journals I listed above (note: I sought to list the most prestigious journals in a wide array of related fields)
 * search for articles with the keywords of (either intelligence or IQ) and (one or more of the following: race, genetic, environmental. socio-economic status)
 * start with the past five years; if the result is under twnety articles, expand it to the past ten years.
 * compile a list of those questions and debates that are explicitly central to the research design (introduction) and/or significance (conclusion) sections of these articles
 * use this list of questions and debates to determine (1) how many articles on this area we need (i.e. to maximize content forks and minimize POV forks); (2) what they should be called and (3) how they should be organized (i.e. what subsections each article should have)

That is in brief my proposal. Matchsci, can you improve upon it? I know Wobble has done University-based research, perhaps he too can improve it. Slrubenstein  |  Talk 00:38, 21 December 2007 (UTC)


 * It seems basically fine, although I don't think it is a good idea to limit the period of research: that method has obvious flaws, is unscholarly and arbitrary. (When I make mathematics searches I sometimes have to explore the early 20th and late 19th century using Jahrbuch für die Fortschritte der Mathematik, a standard academic database, so far completely off WP's radar.) There are also references found in references: standard collections of raw data like the one compiled in 1976. One can then look at the papers that cite them. To do this exercise properly takes time and patience. I have my own professional research to do - closely linked to my WP contributions in mathematics - and a graduate course to prepare for the UK, so I have limited time. But I will try to generate preliminary lists. Mathsci (talk) 06:11, 21 December 2007 (UTC)
 * My only reason for a time limit is that it is as you say an arbitrary 9and thus unbiased) way to limit the number of articles we come up with. Now, personally, I wouldn't want to limit it to articles more than fifteen years or twenty years old which believe me covers a tremendous amount of research.  But others have already criticized my proposal because of the amount of work it generates.  It isn't any good if it generates so many citations no one will look at them! Slrubenstein   |  Talk 13:34, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

Procedural issues
As per a request from Kevin Murray, I've reverted my minor changes on the main page. Now, I reverted because I don't want to cause conflict, but I don't think formatting changes really need discussion. So now we arrive at the big question: do we require every change to be discussed here on the talk page, or do we set some bar below which changes don't require discussion? I'd like to suggest that we set the bar at changing sentence structure is ok, as long as it doesn't change the tone (positively or negatively). Changing the tone, adding or removing sections, etc. should be discussed here.

My changes were the removal of a dead picture link, and deletion of an unnecessary semi-colon and comma. Thnughts? Aron.Foster (talk) 22:18, 18 December 2007 (UTC)
 * In any other article I would agree. I suggest that we just discuss and ask one person to make the changes. --Kevin Murray (talk) 22:39, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

I suggest using the guidance provided by the template shown below. --Jagz (talk) 19:03, 26 December 2007 (UTC)


 * I don't see a problem with using this template. --Kevin Murray (talk) 21:52, 26 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Suggest that someone start making changes to the article. It seems to be in a holding pattern. Editors will lose interest. --Jagz (talk) 15:21, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

Good faith
If the editors are going to continue to revert changes in this below par article then they need to demonstrate a good faith effort at improving the article. There has been no discussion recently about improving the article. There has been zero progress made in actually improving the article since the editors adopted the policy of reverting substantial changes. Habitually reverting the article is soon going to be looked at as disruptive behavior that stymies progress instead of being part of a good faith effort to improve the article. --Jagz (talk) 15:39, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

Proposal: Revert article to a 2005 version
I propose that the article be reverted to the following 11 July 2005 version, when the article was a featured article candidate: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Race_and_intelligence&oldid=18633210 --Jagz (talk) 03:53, 9 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Just a comment: Most articles can becomes featured article candidates, you just have to nominate them. So, I feel that using that criteria is just a bogus way to legitimize the choice of that particular version.  Anyone interested, the discussion is here.  I feel that in that discussion many objected on grounds of neutrality so we should try to keep on working here.  I have not been very active in the editing and I feel that Jagz really wants to make progress towards something so I suggest that those interested make some edits and start moving somewhere.  Also, Jagz, if no one else responds you should be bold and make edits that you deem necessary.  I think reverting to the 2005 version is extreme, but you should be bold with the small changes.  Happy editing, Brusegadi (talk) 06:47, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Caste
Ye gods, this looks like a horrifically contentious article, and with good reason, no doubt. Reading the 'caste' section, however, there are problems from a neutrality point of view. It seems to make implicit assumptions about race being a 'social construct' and suchlike: which while it is a major and important viewpoint, is not the only one, and it is certainly not the place of the article to endorse it (or any other viewpoint) as the right one.

I have added a 'converse' interpretation to the section, and will look for a proper citation for that when I get the chance. Until then, I hope that my addition can remain as it is what the Germans might call 'offensichtlich': so glaringly obvious a fact that it doesn't need a citation (when I say a 'fact', I mean that it is a fact that the data could be interpreted like that, not that it is a fact that that interpretation is the correct one).

Anyway, if anyone has any other suggestions I would be interested to hear them.


 * I have doubts that we should even use the word caste, which has a precise definition. However, absent a citation, I have removed the following:
 * The converse explanation would be that if intelligence is positively correlated with ability and performance, and if intelligence is genetically determined and differs across racial groups, that these differences in intelligence are the reason for caste differences; in other words, groups with higher average intelligence are likely to acquire higher social status.
 * in part because it looks like original research and in part because it is so obviously an inappropriate explanation, by which I mean not that it is simply wrong, but wrong in a way that contradicts the very terms of what it seeks to explain. If we can liken say African Americans in the US to a "caste" it is because of historically documented acts of political violence - slavery and Jim Crow legislation - that no one denies as factual. Slrubenstein   |  Talk 18:53, 23 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Not necessarily: the very fact that certain groups could be dominated or exploited through slavery and Jim Crow legislation is possibly explicable through a difference in ability between them and their exploiters. Hence, while a correlation would seem to be established by the data between low IQ and low social status, the causal link (if indeed there is one) may be in either of the two directions.  The 'converse' view, that low IQ may lead to low social status, is essentially the main argument of the Bell Curve book by my understanding, as well as a pretty standard hereditarian line (which the lovely little table does little to refute, because the data tell us nothing of causal links).
 * In any case, the argument presented at the moment is dubious, because while it may be that IQ tests (designed primarily by European males etc.) are biased against low status groups in those societies in which the IQ test designers operate, it's a little weird that they simultaneously manage to discriminate against low social status groups in every country, while giving high scores to the 'elites'. Indeed, the argument undermines itself quite drastically, by alleging that ethnicity is a 'local social construct' while still allowing for IQ tests to globally distinguish between (ethnically divided) social status groups in totally unrelated cultures.
 * I'm quite happily agnostic about this particular debate, but I would be very surprised if someone hasn't written a formal critique of the 'caste' argument as it is presented here; if not, and if there are no other researchers writing in support of the argument either, I would argue that the entire section should be removed as a relatively unimportant contribution to the debate, which has attracted little critical attention in either direction: surely an encyclopedia article cannot, and should not, include every researcher's (or group of researchers') opinions on the matter, but only the most influential, since the literature in this field is somewhat bloated. Additionally, the main source for the section seems to be a chapter synopsis of a book, which scarcely amounts to proper research since the arguments of the authors are not present to be evaluated.
 * That being said, I agree wholeheartedly about the word 'caste' being inappropriate here, and have taken the liberty of replacing it with the more accurate 'social status'. The fact that the authors of the source use the word 'caste' in that manner also indicates a perspective that is perhaps, to be charitable, idiosyncratic.

I recommend that the Caste section be removed because it gets into ethnicity. This article is about race, not ethnicity. We need to shorten the article. --Jagz (talk) 19:46, 13 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Then why do you have Hispanics, which is NOT a racial grouping. Brusegadi (talk) 08:19, 14 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Hispanics is only mentioned in the bell curve diagram which I got from an older version of this article. The article originally included a discussion of Hispanics. If I could remove Hispanics from the diagram I would. --Jagz (talk) 13:21, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

Unlogical conclusion
The fact that there is a relation between High status and low status and High test scores and low test scores, does not necessarily mean that the low status races have to have low scores because they are low status, nor those it mean that these groups would have a higher score if they were high status. With all likelyhood, they have low status because they have low scores. There is a reason why one group has a high status and the other does not. Its that nature thing again-were the strongest survives, witch is the smartest in this case. The high status group is the high status group just because of this differences in test scores. The low scores group are low status because they are low score. There is a reason why the high stutus group is the high status group, they are smarter, or superior, witch is proven by the tests. The fact that the charts are the same should be a "well da'ah". It proves the fact that darwinism exists in societies as well, infact, in all of the societies tested. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.197.153.168 (talk) 05:51, 7 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Let's not have a revert war over this comment; why don't we instead leave it, talk about how it's unsigned flamebait, and move elsewhere? (Me fail English? That's Unlogical!) Aron.Foster (talk) 10:07, 7 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Right, you can't remove someone's comments just because they're controversial. --Jagz (talk) 19:40, 13 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Actually it depends on how hard you enforce WP:TALK. In an article like this one it should be enforced in a broader way because we have too many who just want to piss people off.  The comment is not controversial, its bait, and its "unlogical" and poorly written. Brusegadi (talk) 08:22, 14 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Then just write a comment like Aron.Foster did above. --Jagz (talk) 13:24, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

Stereotypes
I am going to remove the examples of media portrayal of stereotypes. I have already moved this information to the Stereotype article. I will keep a brief summary along with a link to the Stereotype article. --Jagz (talk) 14:55, 9 January 2008 (UTC)
 * I have not received comments so I proceed to remove the information as discussed. --Jagz (talk) 05:32, 11 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Seems fine to me. Cheers, Mathsci (talk) 06:28, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

Editing the main article
Now that the festive season is over, I hope that the discussion on how to improve the article by gathering references will recommence. At the time that the article was unprotected by MRG, it was hoped that editors would not add contentious or inflammatory content without discussion on this talk page. Quotations are currently being added by a WP:SPA which seem to be in the style of a permanently banned user. They centre on one of the books of Richard Lynn, whose work has been publicly charged with being unscholarly and unduly manipulating statistics. Please discuss such edits here: it is not sufficient to justify these edits in edit summaries, disingenuously claiming "censorship". That is intellectually dishonest and shows a fundamental misunderstanding, possibly deliberate, of the way troublesome WP articles like this one should be edited. --Mathsci (talk) 02:06, 11 January 2008 (UTC)
 * On the basis of his latest revert, User:Jagz seems set on allowing this article to descend into an appalling sequence of poorly argued and quite unscholarly edits. This attitude seems both disruptive and irresponsible: it ignores any consensus reached on this talk page and encourages disruptive and tendentious edits. This strategy will not produce a good article. It is now probably appropriate to ask MRG to reprotect the article. --Mathsci (talk) 05:18, 11 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Please stop the wholesale reversion of the article. I'm not sure who the hell you people think you are. You don't have those kinds of rights. You don't own Wikipeida. --Jagz (talk) 05:28, 11 January 2008 (UTC)
 * This intemperate language is completely uncalled for. It is you that are going against consensus: I simply agree with Kevin, who is representing consensus. Kindly refactor your comments. Mathsci (talk) 05:46, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

As previously discussed, I will try to comply with this template. --Jagz (talk) 05:34, 11 January 2008 (UTC)
 * I have asked User:Moonriddengirl to reprotect the article because editors such as you are going against the consensus reached on this talk page. You are allowing pseudo-scholarly poorly sourced information to be added to the page, which was certainly not what was discussed in mid-December. Or do you remember otherwise? I do not own wikipedia, but edits to this particular page were subject to special restrictions. Why do you choose to forget this now? Mathsci (talk) 05:42, 11 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Just to reiterate what I thought had been agreed by consensus about edits to this article:


 * no edits without prior discussions and agreement here
 * a list of references would be compiled using scholarly databases and, on the basis of this search of the academic literature using pairs of keywords, proposals for restructuring/rewriting the article, further articles or substitute articles would be discussed.


 * Is this not what was agreed? Mathsci (talk) 05:59, 11 January 2008 (UTC)
 * The editors have failed to make satisfactory progress at improving the article. I suggested that we use the guidance in the template and Kevin Murray agreed. There was no further discussion. I will use the guidance in the template. --Jagz (talk) 06:36, 11 January 2008 (UTC)


 * You should take into account that we've just had a seasonal break. Several editors are students and might not yet have returned to the computer accounts from which they edit. The template is fine as far as it goes, but does not completely summarise the discussions on this page. To suggest that the template is the only guideline is wikilawyering. Kevin Murray said he didn't see a problem with using the template, but never suggested that it was the sole guideline for editing. Mathsci (talk) 07:04, 11 January 2008 (UTC)
 * I suggest some of the editors take some laxatives and sit on the toilet for a couple of hours. --Jagz (talk) 07:07, 11 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Jagz, you descend into intemperate language of the playpen here and pseudo-scholarship below. I'm surprised that anybody takes you seriously. Mathsci (talk) 07:24, 11 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Why don't you do something constructive for the article. --Jagz (talk) 07:34, 11 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Carrying out surveys of academic literature is time-consuming and, as already discussed on this page, takes days or weeks. I start teaching a graduate course next week in the UK, so it's not clear that I can at present invest much of my time on such a project, although I'm willing to help. I have already for example included elsewhere on the WP a summary of an academic review that harshly criticizes Lynn's statistical methods. I believe Steven J Gould also criticizes the findings on IQ tests, e.g. the use of bell curves or normal distributions. However, as already discussed, this is not the correct way to go about writing the article. If you yourself haven't written WP articles which require research from academic databases, perhaps it might be an idea to temper your language and try to be more patient. Editing this article by trying to make a "main point", as you put it, that demands explanation does not seem to be an acceptable route. We can only report as accurately as possible on mainstream findings in the academic world. I don't know why you think that should be an easy task. Mathsci (talk) 08:31, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

Obeying the template is necessary but not sufficient. Brusegadi (talk) 07:36, 11 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Minor changes do not need to be discussed. --Jagz (talk) 15:37, 11 January 2008 (UTC)
 * The article slowly becomes a joke and goes in the same direction like articles made by leftist donkeys on CITIZENDIUM. No racial IQ data are listed, all related articles with additional info were merged, photos of discredited racial fabulists (Boas) were added, various half-truths are favoured (Flynn and Dickens show no increase of IQ in US blacks; the increase was observed only in children and decreases with age), and the content was filled with messy ballast dealing with societal problems of blacks in USA, which non-American readers are hardly interested in (Curiously, I missed any societal explanation of the high IQ scores of Asians in USA). Centrum99 (talk) 04:41, 13 January 2008 (UTC)
 * The article started out in 2002 discussing the IQ gaps between whites, blacks, and Hispanics in the United States. We are now changing the perspective of the article to have a worldwide view. The information on the societal problems of blacks in the USA will have to be eliminated or reduced drastically. I had started an article titled "Race and intelligence in the United States" that could have included that information but the article was deleted by editor Slrubenstein; the way it was deleted appeared to blatantly violate Wikipedia policy. --Jagz (talk) 14:31, 13 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Since IQ values differ even within races, it is true that some arguments against the name of the article could be taken in consideration (although they obviously come from editors with political agenda), e.g. "Racial and ethnic (or Population) variation in IQ". Each group should get its own section, from East Asians, Europeans, Eskimos to Khoisan and Pygmies. At least averages of available studies and their range should be listed. A different section can be devoted to critics of IQ theories and societal explanations - again, it can be divided into sections dealing with each group specially. And as for Mr. Rubenstein (and his close friend Mr. Wobble/Alun), they are politically motivated contributors, who can't stand any reasonable discussion. They only recite the same phrases over and over again, despite facts to the contrary. Their opinions basically stem from a religion, to which they passionately reshape the surrounding reality. Centrum99 (talk) 08:30, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

Race and intelligence in the United States (continued)
This article started out in 2002 discussing the IQ gaps between whites, blacks, and Hispanics in the United States. We are now changing the perspective of the article to have a worldwide view. The information on the societal problems of blacks in the USA will have to be eliminated or reduced drastically. I suggest that an article titled "Race and Intelligence in the United States" be created to cover race and intelligence issues in the USA in more detail. --Jagz (talk) 03:30, 14 January 2008 (UTC)


 * I really like that idea, with a caveat. All the race/intelligence articles were merged because some people thought that it was too difficult to monitor all the sub-articles against "racists". Therefore, prior to creation of a new article there must be a general approval on this talk page.
 * Race in the US is, in my mind, more of an issue than Europe or elsewhere because of the large disparity in intelligence between blacks and whites. There certainly has been more research into the B/W difference in America than anywhere else (in this language anyways). I think it's a better division than environment/genetics. Aron.Foster (talk) 23:10, 14 January 2008 (UTC)
 * We have a consensus to do this, 2 for and 0 against. --Jagz (talk) 19:49, 18 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Not so fast, please. The concerns raised before on this talk page are still valid; i.e. there are good reasons why Race and intelligence in the United States was speedily deleted.--Ramdrake (talk) 20:42, 18 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Actually it is not clear why it was deleted. It sounds like you are preparing for another edit war instead of making an effort to cooperate. If you have a specific objection you should state it here. --Jagz (talk) 20:51, 18 January 2008 (UTC)
 * That is a POV fork. Brusegadi (talk) 21:56, 18 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Why is it a POV fork? --Jagz (talk) 22:17, 18 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Because that information belongs here. If you place it elsewhere you are obviously doing it to present the material in a different way, hence, a POV fork.  If race is so correlated with intelligence, then geographic distinctions like "in the US" are not important.  Brusegadi (talk) 01:05, 19 January 2008 (UTC)
 * This article was begun in 2002 to discuss the IQ differences between blacks, whites, and Hispanics in the USA. We need to change the article to give it a worldwide view but that will not be possible unless we remove a large amount of the information about the plight of blacks in the USA. What is your choice, to have that information deleted or moved to a new article? It doesn't make any difference to me. --Jagz (talk) 01:52, 19 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Like Brusegadi said, it was deleted because it was found to be a POV fork. That, in and of itself, should be enough to convince you not to recreate it.--Ramdrake (talk) 22:03, 18 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Why is it a POV fork? --Jagz (talk) 22:17, 18 January 2008 (UTC)
 * If I remember correctly, one of the salient points was that it was presenting the POV of minority scientists as if it were the mainstream scientific opinion, and that's just to start with.--Ramdrake (talk) 23:12, 18 January 2008 (UTC)
 * You remembered incorrectly. Here is the link to the discussion. Now can you explain why it is a POV fork? --Jagz (talk) 23:31, 18 January 2008 (UTC)
 * I'll take Ramdrake's lack of a response to mean that they had zero evidence to support their claim that a new article would be a POV fork. Ramdrake should not make false claims. I'd like to request that Ramdrake and others quit using the term POV fork as some type of religious mantra. --Jagz (talk) 15:21, 19 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Well, you pointed to the discussion where the most prominent argument was that it was a POV fork, saying that I was incorrect in my recollection (AFAIK, the explanation I gave did come up prominently in the talk page discussions). No matter what you say it is still a POV fork. The discussion of IQ test score differences between Blacks and Whites cannot be dissociated from considerations of B-W differences in socio-economic status and a host of other considerations (foremost among them, that which you designated as the "plight of blacks in the USA"). Trying to convey that differences in SES have nothing to do with differences in IQ test scores is the POV fork, if you must know. Again, please discuss and gather consensus before attempting to recreate anything like that if you wish to avoid yet another speedy deletion.--Ramdrake (talk) 16:21, 19 January 2008 (UTC)
 * You can't have so much focus on blacks in the US and credibly say that the article has a worldwide view. It is a big world and the article is way to big as it is. There are almost 200 countries. Part of your motivation seems to be supporting Futurebird who posted a photo on their user page of mixed race female who is partially black and presumably from the US. That brings up another point in that most US blacks are of mixed race; they have a significant percentage of European ancestry. I suspect that a lot of whites in the US have a small percentage of African ancestry without having any knowledge of it. Blacks and whites have lived together here for hundreds of years and it is inevitable. Race as used in the US for example is largely a social construct because really there are a lot of mixed race people here. This article needs more of a focus on indigenous people that have low levels of racial mixing and other countries besides the US. --Jagz (talk) 18:25, 19 January 2008 (UTC)
 * However, outside of the US (and UK in some smaller measure), the subject of the correlation of race to IQ test score results has not been extensively studied. However, if you can find reliable sources relating studies in such countries, you're welcome to add them. However, I think removing the social issues relating to this subject (SES concerns and all) is inappropriate.--Ramdrake (talk) 18:37, 19 January 2008 (UTC)
 * How could anyone justify adding anything to this article, which is way too large as it is? What about ethnic discrimination among blacks in African countries; does that lower IQ? --Jagz (talk) 19:04, 19 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Here is an example of discrimination in Trinidad. --Jagz (talk) 21:28, 19 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Do incidents in which Africans shoot and hack each other to death with machetes, like the Rwandan genocide, lead to lower IQs? --Jagz (talk) 22:31, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

It is almost universally acknowledged that the article is a piece of garbage and the editors have no clue how to turn it around. Every time someone tries to do something to improve it they object or spout out a bunch of repetitive rhetoric like Ramdrake. Ramdrake believes there is no genetic connection between intelligence and race and wants everyone else to share his belief. Now he feels he has to oppose me in everything because just maybe I will somewhere mention a possible genetic connection and that will conflict with his personal beliefs and upset him greatly. --Jagz (talk) 23:58, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

Edit-warring on race-related articles
Here is evidence provided in a request for arbitration for edit-warring on race-related articles. It says: "Per request for specificity on the talk page, the users who are most commonly involved in revert wars on these articles are Dbachmann, Deeceevoice, and Ramdrake, with Jeeny and Futurebird also contributing some, but not as many, reverts. Egyegy, Muntuwandi, Taharqa, and Lusala lu ne Nkuka Luka, and other also join from time to time. This list is by no means exhuastive." I believe that some of these individuals form edit-warring gangs to get around the 3RR policy. --Jagz (talk) 14:31, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

Fringe
Some editors appear to be overusing the word fringe. Theories that are not mainstream are not necessarily fringe theories. See WP:FRINGE. --Jagz (talk) 23:49, 12 January 2008 (UTC)
 * The WP:FRINGE argument is difficult or impossible to resolve because it's so difficult to prove. Those who think intelligence differences are entirely environmental will cite the preponderance of published journals and studies that reach that conclusion; those who believe in a genetic component will mention the enormous press and attention the possible genetic component gets, and the bias in the field against even acknowledging that it's a possibility. Aron.Foster (talk) 00:03, 14 January 2008 (UTC)
 * That's right, they don't want to get Al Sharpton stirred up. --Jagz (talk) 06:11, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
 * I do not know of any participant in this discussion who has claimed that 100% of variation in IQ scores is environmental. In fact, most of the current scholarship - mainstream scholarship - on IQ scores is not even concerned with the debate "is it environmental or is it genetic."  There is a body of literature, and I provided many citations above, that debate what the heritability of IQ is and that also debates a very specific environmental factor, namely the fetal environment, in differences between monochorionic and dichorionic twins.  There is another body of literature that is critical of actual IQ tests and the ways IQ results have been used to characterize people of different social groups (generally either races or classes); these people are not rejecting the claim that there is a genetic component to IQ, they are however rejecting the claim that the genetic component is relevant to the phenomena they are investigating.  Given that those scientists who are investigating heritability are not addressing differences between social groups, I'd say there is no "nature versus nurture" debate, there are rather two separate lines of research right now.  Since people in either line of research are not criticizing people in the other line of research, I have no reason to believe that either set of researchers rejects the claims of the other set.  Now we come to the word "fringe."  There is indeed a fringe group that mixes up claims about heritability and social groups.  They are fring not because they are "not mainstream."  They are fringe because they are not trained in th area of research in which they claim to have expertise, do not publish in the major peer-reviewed journals that do publish articles on either of these lines of research (heritability and fetal environment on the one hand, and the interpretation of IQ results for different social groups on the other), and they are not cited by established scholars.  Rushton, for example, not only was not able to publish his opinions in a major peer-reviewed journal, his publisher actually had to give away free copies of his book.  That is right - scholars, and university libraries, who regularly spend thirty, forty, or fifty dollars on an academic book (that's right, they are not Dell Paperbacks!), wouldn't even buy the book.  He had to give away free copies.  These to me are all indicators of "fringe." Slrubenstein   |  Talk 19:10, 19 January 2008 (UTC)
 * What audience do you think Wikipedia articles should be written for? Fourth-graders, experts in the field, etc.? --Jagz (talk) 21:05, 19 January 2008 (UTC)
 * My comment was a direct response to your comment, and Aron's. Your comment is a non-sequitor, it does not follow from mine.  Let's keep this thread on point.  if you want to open another discussion on another topic, create a new section. Slrubenstein   |  Talk 22:13, 19 January 2008 (UTC)
 * You should not be making up your own criteria of what a fringe theory is, instead refer to WP:FRINGE. Also, I believe that the Rushton books that were given away were abridged versions. --Jagz (talk) 08:31, 21 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Those who think intelligence differences are entirely environmental will cite the preponderance of published journals and studies that reach that conclusion; those who believe in a genetic component will mention the enormous press and attention the possible genetic component gets
 * What a phenominally biased way to express this. You frame the debate as if it is between a group on the one hand who claim that variation in IQ is 100% environmental, while on the other is another group that claims "a genetic component". This at best displays ignorance, and at worst a deliberate misrepresentation of the facts. I don't know of a single person who has ever claimed that "intelligence differences are entirely environmental". "Those who believe in a genetic component" would therefore include all reliable researchers. As anyone knows who has read even a small amount about this subject it is impossible to differentiate between biologically inherited ability and environmentally inherited ability, the best anyone can do is to try and estimate the relative contributions of "biologically inherited" vs. environmentally stimulated ability, and it is here that there seems to be a dispute. On the one hand a small group of academics claim to have evidence that about 80% of intellectual ability is "biologically inherited", on the other hand a much larger consensus of scientists claim that the "biologically inherited" component of a person's intellectual ability is about 40%. One the other hand a recent study found that the within group variance for the children of affluent people was estimated at 60% "genetic", while the within group variance for the children of poor people was estimated at 40% genetic. Their conclusions are obvious, the more environmental opportunities children have to reach their full potential, the greater the influence of innate ability, but given a poor environment, then innate ability is not given the opportunity to flourish. Clearly no academic claims there is a dichotomy between "nature" and "nurture" as Aron is claiming, there are only very crude attempts to estimate the relative contributions of innate ability vs. environmental effects. The fact is that the overwhelming consensus in the academic community is that environment is fundamentally important to a child's ability to learn and progress, a small group of researchers claim the opposite, that environment is of little import, so we should say this in the article, should we not? I've said this before, we are discussing the difference between a minority point of view and a tiny minority point of view. If it is decided that the likes of Jensen and Rushton comprise only a tiny minority, then their beliefs need not be included, if we decide that their beliefs comprise a minority point of view, then their beliefs may be accorded a small section in the article as per policy. The "race" thing is just a side issue of the belief in an 80% "biologically inherited" ability is it not? Of course this suffers from the obvious flaw that ideas of "biological race" have been systematically and comprehensively disproven over the last 50 years or so. Alun (talk) 12:23, 20 January 2008 (UTC)
 * It was unnecessary to add all this drama to the discussion. --Jagz (talk) 15:27, 20 January 2008 (UTC)
 * I agree, so why did you do it? Alun (talk) 15:41, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

Alun, it should be clear to you by now that Jagz is racist (not because he disagrees with you or me, but because on several occasions he has made comments here that have nothing to do with the article and serve only to denigrate non-Whites); he is a troll (virtually all of his edits have been disruptive and insulting) and he is ignorant (he has demonstrated no understanding of science, and seems to have no respect for people who value scientific research). In short, DNFTT Slrubenstein  |  Talk 17:03, 20 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Agreed on all points. Thanks for the reminder. Alun (talk) 17:31, 20 January 2008 (UTC)
 * The article is crap and you are both zealots. --Jagz (talk) 17:48, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

Well, ok, wow. Thanks for the insults, Alun. Listen, I'm not arguing about whether or not the heritability of intelligence has a genetic component; as you point out, it's generally accepted as somewhere between 40-80%. I argue that some scientists believe that the difference in intelligence between blacks and whites has a genetic component, while others argue that it has no genetic component (hence all environmental). From the APA report: It is sometimes suggested that the Black/White differential in psychometric intelligence is partly due to genetic differences (Jensen, 1972). There is not much direct evidence on this point, but what little there is fails to support the genetic hypothesis. When I said "intelligence differences" above, I assumed that it was clear that I was talking about intelligence differences between the races, as this is the "race and intelligence" page. Sorry if I was unclear.

I'd also like to point out that to discuss intelligence differences between races, we must assume that intelligence and race exist. There are arguments that both are constructs of society, not important, etc., but this article should briefly touch on and link to those, and then discuss studies, people, history, and science assuming those two things exist. By the way Slrubenstein, how do you define racist? Jagz may have a habit of poorly choosing his words, but I seriously doubt he believes that blacks can't be intelligent enough to be professors, doctors, and the like. Aron.Foster (talk) 10:56, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
 * I can't find where I have insulted you, but if you feel I have, then I appologise. Some researchers claim that all intelligence differences are overwhelmingly (80%) "genetic" in origin, they use this claim to make a further claim that the largest component of intelligence differences between African-American, Asian-American and European-American must also be overwhelmingly genetic. The point is not that they make this claim, the point is that the people who make this claim do not represent mainstream opinion, it is at least a minority, if not a tiny minority point of view, as such it should not be given undue weight. This is clear. The fundamental point is that this article is not about that particular group of people's work, though the argument can be made that their claims might be considered worthy of inclusion in a small section of their own. I don't know how fringe these claims are, but they certainly are not mainstream. I do know that just a few weeks ago a radio programme broadcast by NPR discussing just this ("Race and IQ" from "On Point" by WBUR Boston, the podcast may still be available for download) made absolutely no reference to either Jensen or Rushton, and made it clear that this subject is about disparities in wealth and opportunity. Furthermore the claims about a genetic component do not represent work by geneticists. I don't know what evidence they have for making this claim, I do know that it is virtually impossible to differentiate between what is genetic and what is not genetic in this, and also that just because a group of researchers claim only to be able to identify a 20% environmental effect, this does not necessarily imply that the rest of the difference in intellectual ability is "proven" to be "innate", it could just as easily imply that they are just not very good at differentiating between what is an environmental effect and what is not and environmental effect. Genetics and anthropology show us that the concept of "race" is biologically nonsense, and is a house of cards, they also show us that differences between groups of people represent two distinct types, differences that are neutral, (caused by Genetic drift and Founder effect etc.) and those that are under selection, such as HaemoglobinS and skin pigmentation. Those under selection have identifiable causes, such as the protection from Plasmodium falciparum infection or protection from Folic acid degradation by strong UV light. Note that traits under selection are determined by environmental factors, which are not distributed "racially", skin colour is distributed by UV intensity and HaemoglobinS by exposure of people to the anopholes parasite, both traits cut across stereotypical "racial" boundaries. Those that are neutral are random and have no significance beyond chance. The best essay I read on this was written in the 1970's by Ashley Montague and Theodosius Dobzhansky and it makes the obvious point that any genes for "intelligence" must occur in all populations because they will be under positive selection in all populations (because the children of intelligent people will always better survive). The upshot of this will be that all genes for "intelligence" will always tend to be distributed throughout all populations due to the positive selection of the people carrying these genes. There is no human environment where there is a negative selection for the most intelligent people. This essay has been reprinted in the book "Race and IQ" edited by Montague himself. Alun (talk) 11:45, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Let me sum it up for you, Aron: there is no sense to having an article on genetic explanations for differences in IQ results between races - not because there is no genetic component to IQ (Alun and I and I think everyone else here has stated that there is, and I have provided a list of mainstream scholarly research on just this topic), but because races are not biological groups. They are social groups and the mainstream research on IQ differences gbetween social groups understandably looks at social factors.  This is a simple fact (a simple observation about scientific research).  It in no way implies that there is no genetic component to intelligence. Slrubenstein   |  Talk 13:22, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Thanks, you said succinctly what I was trying and failing to say. Alun (talk) 13:45, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
 * However, there is a genetic component on the average to our social constructs of race. This is especially true when discussing indigenous races. The question is whether these small genetic differences include differences which affect the average intelligence (most commonly measured by IQ) of races. --Jagz (talk) 17:37, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

From reading these 'fringe' authors (The Bell Curve, Rushton, Jensen), they aren't arguing that the genes that make someone black or white also increase or decrease intelligence. That idea doesn't stand up to scrutiny for reasons you point out above, it's as ignorant as Melanin Theory, and any straw man you set up to believe that will be an easy target. Hereditarianism argues that if all social factors were equal, there would still be differences in intelligence between groups. "Genetic component" can mean differences in gene pool as well as differences in genes. IRT "overwhelmingly genetic", from Rushton and Jensen 2005: "[The hereditarian] view contends that a substantial part (say 50%) of both individual and group differences in human behavioral traits is genetic". From The Bell Curve: "...variaton within groups is much greater than variation between groups." Aron.Foster (talk) 00:07, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
 * The problem, Aron, is, that neither Rushton and Jensen are geneticists, which may be why they either do not understand or understand and reject the science of population genetics ... that is, they are either misrepresenting the research by geneticists, or are presenting a wholly original theory that is simply rejected by mainstream science. I am refering to their claim that the hereditarian view holds that x % of the difference between groups is genetic.  Geneticists do have a concept, called heritability, which is a measure of the degree to which genes account for phenotypic variation.  However, heritability applies only to variation within a group.  It cannot be used to explain differences between groups.  This is just basic population genetics.  Anyone who claims otherwise is either misrepresenting population genetics, or is simply making a claim that has nothing to do with research by population geneticists.  This is why, as far as arguments about genetics and heritability go, Jensen and Rushton are fringe. Slrubenstein   |  Talk 12:52, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
 * I don't think that we should be judging someone's expertise on a subject by what they studied for their PhD or what their job title is. Also, you need to use WP:FRINGE for guidance on what a fringe theory is according to Wikipedia standards. Until you start being more compromising you are not going to get anywhere ever. --Jagz (talk) 13:32, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Actually we really should be judging their expertise based on what their PhD and research is. This is how we judge a source to be reliable or not. Jensen and Rushton are psychologists with an interest in psychometrics. Neither seems to have even any expertise of either genetics or evolution, and neither claims such an expertise. Speaking of compromises, you have had the most uncompromising and obstreperous attitude of anyone here, coupled little or no understanding of the subject at hand. Alun (talk) 14:11, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

Qualities/skills of editors who may produce a successful Race and intelligence article
I have been watching this article from the sidelines for some time. It appears to me that the level of scholarship reqired to effectively edit this complex topic is, at this stage, beyond most WP editors. It may be that as WP editor culture develops the necessary skills and attitudes will become available in sufficient quantities. Am interested in what other editors think this skill set would include. Is it beyond what is suggested in WP:POLICY? How much familiarity with genetics, the history of psychology, sociology and science, and access to online scientific journals would be necessary. How would effective editors deal with a group of ineffective/ignorant editors attempting to edit? How would a group of effective editors prevent themselves being swamped by a constant stream of tangential, unfocused, ignorant discusion flowing through the discusion page? SmithBlue (talk) 00:36, 20 January 2008 (UTC)
 * I strongly believe that credentials are not an issue at Wikipedia. One need not have a PhD. in population genetics, psychology, or sociology to edit this article.  Surely, we do not demand that someone have a PhD. in math or physics in order to edit Maxwell's equations or Gauss's law!  That said, surely we expect an editor to understand math and physics well, if they are to contribute to those articles.  Articles like Maxwell's equations and Gauss's law must be accurate and reflect the state of the art in mathematicians' and physicists' understanding of these things, and should be based on sound research by editors capable of doing sound research, right?  I would expect nothing less for this article. Slrubenstein   |  Talk 00:51, 20 January 2008 (UTC)
 * I believe it is important to decide who the target audience is for the article and write it for their benefit. The article is not for the benefit of the editors. If you try to write it like a scholarly journal you are not going to connect with a lot of the readers and a lot of the editors are not capable of writing the article at that level because most are not experts. I'm not sure if Wikipedia has a policy on this. --Jagz (talk) 02:02, 20 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Non sequitor. Please stick to the topic.  Are you repeating the same trollish tactic you did in the section above, "Fringe," where instead of responding to other people's points you just change the subject?  First of all, it is very much Wikipedia's policy that we write articles for editors since anyone can edit Wikipedia and all readers of Wikipedia articles are, potentially, editors.  Second, no one has ever said that this article should be written "like a scholarly journal."  I defy you to quote even one sentence in which anyone has suggested that this be written "like a scholaly journal."  Or, by "scholarly journal" are you referring to what I wrote immediately before your comment, that the article should be ccurate and well-researched?  Please be clear: are you saying that the article should be inaccurate and poorly-researched? Is that what you mean when you say it should not be written like a scholarly journal?  If that is not what you mean, I see no point or sense to your comment, it has no connection then to what SmithBlue or I wrote.  I repeat what I wrote bfore: If you do not want to respond to what others are discussing, then start a new section to introduce your new point. Slrubenstein   |  Talk 08:28, 20 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Slurbenstein, will you please find another article to work on. You have been involved in this article for 6 years and what do you have to show for it. The article is a well known piece of garbage. Your arrogant ramblings on this Talk page are unhelpful. --Jagz (talk) 15:18, 20 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Jagz, another non-sequitor. Please focus.  if you have nothing to say related to this thread, then just don't say anything. Slrubenstein   |  Talk 17:00, 20 January 2008 (UTC)
 * I'm saying it would be in the best interest of the article for you to stop participating. --Jagz (talk) 17:06, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

Split the article
I see that it is impossible to come to any conclusion with this article, as many people are divided on whether race influences intelligence or not. I suggest to split the article in two parts, one arguing against any link between race and intelligence, the other part arguing the opposite. Bh3u4m (talk) 18:51, 20 January 2008 (UTC)
 * That would be a POV fork and is forbidden at Wikipedia. besides, why divide the article this way?  Shouldn't encyclopedia articles be based on appropriate sources?  We should divide the article according to content, not points of view.  We could have one article on the heritability of IQ scores, and debates among scientists who study the heritability of IQ scores, and we can have another article on IQ and socio-economic status, including all notable views (i.e. debates among scholars) concerning this topic. But it is absured to argue that a topic is "right" or "wrong."  There are two bodies of scholarship out there, written by scholars trained in different disciplines using different methods to answer different questions.  We should have articles that provide clear accounts of these two bodies of scholarship. Slrubenstein   |  Talk 20:30, 20 January 2008 (UTC)
 * It would not make sense to split the article that way because both genetics and environment could influence one's IQ. --Jagz (talk) 22:28, 20 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Also, genetics and environment are not independent variables over generations. They both affect each other on the average over time. --Jagz (talk) 16:10, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Pray tell, how can genetics affect environment???--Ramdrake (talk) 17:06, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Adults with a low IQs are more likely to live in a poor environment. If your parents have low IQs you are more likely to grow up in poor environment. --Jagz (talk) 18:00, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Non sequitor. I repeat Ramdrake's valid question: Pray tell, how can genetics affect environment??? Slrubenstein   |  Talk 18:19, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
 * I have explained the basics of what I meant. --Jagz (talk) 19:00, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
 * That would be a fork. We have to have everything here. Brusegadi (talk) 22:29, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

Content forks are permitted. The title and contents of an article should conform to actual topics, not ones that just exist in the head of an editor. Jagz just hasn't read - or understood - what I wrote. I wrote that "We could have one article on the heritability of IQ scores, and debates among scientists who study the heritability of IQ scores." Such an article - on heritability - will by definition discuss environmental influences on IQ. On December 18, in the section on "A more recent version of Snyderman and Rothman" I provided a list of journal articles that would be notable, verifiable, and appropriate sources for such an article. On 19:10, 19 January, in the section "Fringe," I provided one example of a debate among these scientists involving environmental factors. So once again, Jagz' comment is just an ignorant non-sequitor. DNFTT. Slrubenstein  |  Talk 17:15, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Are you proposing that these two articles replace this article? I had assumed that when you brought this up earlier but then I believe you made a statement somewhere that that is not what you intended. --Jagz (talk) 05:25, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I proposed this split some time ago. I am opposed to POV forks, which violate policy. I favor Content Forks, which lead to better articles. Slrubenstein  |  Talk 12:46, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
 * I think that there should be one main article that discusses both issues but that there could be two additional articles that discuss socio-economics and hereditability in more detail. --Jagz (talk) 18:34, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
 * The question is: how much does intelligence depend on inheritage or on genetics, and if the difference among races in intelligence is environmental or an heritage. I think a good idea would be to split the article in an environmental section and a genetic section, both collecting arguments for their side. Well, what's the problem with it? There's no POV problem, research is going on and there are various different results, so stating different things is OK because the medical study of intelligence is still under development and lacks a unique scientific truth.   So, just write these two hypothesis for explaining the differences, eventually adding other hypothesis. What's the problem for doing so? Bh3u4m (talk) 18:39, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
 * You claim that these are two hypotheses. Where did you get them from?  if you thought of these hypotheses, then we cannot use them to organize the article - that would violate WP:NOR.  Any hypothesis that the article discusses has to come from a notable source.  Now, I know of only two notable sources that have proposed that there are significant differences in IQ between races and that the explanation for this difference is genetic: Arthur Jensen and later Murray and Herrnstein.  However, I know of no geneticist who has ever supported their claims or who has even taken their hypothesis seriously.  I think their works are notable enough that Wikipedia should have articles on these men and their books, which provide full accounts of their views.  But in the scholarly literature I know of, concerning variation in IQ score, the views of Jensen, Murray and Herrnstein are not notable, they are fringe.  Such fringe views may or may not be mentioned in the article but they certainly should not be used to organize the article.  I do not want to violate NOR.  I think wikipedia articles concerning heredity, IQ, and race should represent mainstream scholarship.  Above, i provided a short bibliography of people actively researching heritability and IQ.  None of them propose the hypothesis that genetics accounts for differences in IQ scores between races.  Please tell us what your sources are.  How many articles published by trained geneticists published in peer-reviewed journals address the hypothesis you suggest?  If there is indeed a notable body of literature from mainstream sources that addresses this hypothesis, I defer to you - we should indeed present it in the article.  But can you provide us with such sources?  If you cannot, you are just proposing original research and that is forbidden by our policies. Slrubenstein   |  Talk 19:01, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Excuse me, ever heard of James Watson ? He is the co-discovered of the DNA and Nobel Prize winner, thus he is notable (or not too much for wikipedia standards? Perhaps winning a Nobel prize is just a fringe thing). I saw he claimed that scientific research is leading us to a discovery of genetical origins of intelligence, that blacks are probably on the average less intelligent because of genetic factors, and he said that he is hopeful that in a few decades the genes responsible for the gap will be discovered. Well, I know that this is not politically correct, because political correctness wants un to claim that we are all equal (and that could be a good thing), but we have to realize that there are differences, I remind you that there is an evolutionary gap of 50 to 300 thousand years between different races, so why cannot there be any difference in intelligence? It seems that your claim of fringe theories would just lead to censorship on wikipedia, as happened to nobel prizes such as Watson and Shockley (who are not fringe theorists). Thus, your sources claiming that intelligence is an environmental factor, are welcome, along with sources discussing the hereditability of intelligence!, but do not try to push for a censorship of different opinions and reseach. Bh3u4m (talk) 20:01, 21 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Excuse me, ever heard of James Watson - Yes, he is a molecular biologist, neither a geneticist nor a psychologist or a psychometrician, thus very much a non-expert on the subject at hand.
 * I remind you that there is an evolutionary gap of 50 to 300 thousand years between different races - Please cite relevant, verifiable sources. This is breaking news.
 * You seem to be clamoring for equal wieght to be given to all viewpoints on this matter. This is not what WP:NPOV says. NPOV says: All Wikipedia articles and other encyclopedic content must be written from a neutral point of view, representing significant views fairly, proportionately and without bias. (emphasis mine). The viewpoint of people like Watson is that of the minority (if not that of a tiny minority), therefore, it should not by any means be given equal weight. I hope this clears up the matter.--Ramdrake (talk) 20:56, 21 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Excuse me, ever heard of James Watson?
 * Yes, I've heard of him, can you please provide citations for research he has published in the field of "intelligence" and any theories he has published regarding the genetics of intelligence. Please take a look at his Wikipedia article James Watson, where no mention is made of him having made any contributions to the study of the genetic component of intelligence. So he is in fact non-notable in this field of research. Alun (talk) 07:17, 22 January 2008 (UTC)


 * I saw he claimed that scientific research is leading us to a discovery of genetical (sic) origins of intelligence, that blacks are probably on the (sic) average less intelligent because of genetic factors, and he said that he is hopeful that in a few decades the genes responsible for the gap will be discovered..
 * Actually Watson didn't say any of this. If you want to make a claim at the very least make it accurate. according to his Wikipedia article "In his book... Watson does not directly mention race as a factor in his hypothesized divergence of intellect between geographically isolated populations." Watson also stated: "[I] understand why people, reading those words, have reacted in the ways they have . . . To all those who have drawn the inference from my words that Africa, as a continent, is somehow genetically inferior, I can only apologize unreservedly. That is not what I meant. More importantly from my point of view, there is no scientific basis for such a belief". As far as I can see he makes no mention of "genes responsible for the gap". Most interestingly Watson appears to be one of the many so called European-Americans who has a significant recent African ancestry, the Sunday Times claims that 16% of Watson's DNA is of recent African origin (and Watson is one of only two people who have published their whole genetic code, so we can know this, the other being Craig Venter). This actually means that Watson's recent African ancestry is significantly greater than that of many African-Americans. Alun (talk) 07:17, 22 January 2008 (UTC)


 * political correctness wants un to claim that we are all equal
 * Eh? "political correctness" is just a term the far right use when they make unfounded claims against rational people. It has little meaning above and beyond being an ad hominem attack. Alun (talk) 07:17, 22 January 2008 (UTC)


 * I remind you that there is an evolutionary gap of 50 to 300 thousand years between different races
 * This is the most fatuous piece of ignorance I have read on Wikipedia for a very long time. Our species appeared ~200,000ybp by most estimates. I don't know your source for claiming an "evolutionary gap" between "races", but given that anthropologists and geneticists generally reject the concept of "biological race" I can only assume your source is non-reliable. I find it interesting that Coon claimed that Europeans evolved a million years ago and represented a much older population that Africans, and used his theory to claim that Europeans were "more evolved" because they were older, now Rushton uses the opposite claim to draw the same conclusion, that Europeans are better because they appeared more recently. Just goes to show that racists will always discover that their group is "better", whether they claim it's older or more recent, one might conclude that they have an agenda above and beyond science. In reality evolution is not necessarily progressive, evolution is adaptive, there is no such thing as "more evolved", there is only well adapted, there isn't even "poorly adapted", because poorly adapted individuals are dead individuals, so poorly adapted species do not arise. This is why we get mass extinctions, when the environment changes rapidly species that are not adapted to the new environment become extinct very quickly, it's adaptation not progress. Please see The Use of Racial, Ethnic, and Ancestral Categories in Human Genetics Research. Alun (talk) 07:17, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

Fellas, settle down - I asked the guy for a source for the hypothesis, and he could not provide one. That is enough to end the discussion. Slrubenstein  |  Talk 16:39, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

The Flynn Effect
I think the section on the "Flynn Effect" needs real expansion. The New Yorker recently published an article by Malcolm Gladwell reviewing a recent book by Flynn that emphasizes not just that IQ's have gone up over time, butthat the standard IQ test is renormed ("100" is recalibrated periodically so that it remains the average score) periodically. This means that the results from IQ tests administered in the 1950s cannot be compared with results from the 1970s or the present, without adjustment. yet, many studies that compare IQs of different races do just that - compare scores from different times, without taking into account the renorming of the test. here is one excerpt from Gladwell's article:


 * For instance, Flynn shows what happens when we recognize that I.Q. is not a freestanding number but a value attached to a specific time and a specific test. When an I.Q. test is created, he reminds us, it is calibrated or “normed” so that the test-takers in the fiftieth percentile—those exactly at the median—are assigned a score of 100. But since I.Q.s are always rising, the only way to keep that hundred-point benchmark is periodically to make the tests more difficult—to “renorm” them. The original WISC was normed in the late nineteen-forties. It was then renormed in the early nineteen-seventies, as the WISC-R; renormed a third time in the late eighties, as the WISC III; and renormed again a few years ago, as the WISC IV—with each version just a little harder than its predecessor. The notion that anyone “has” an I.Q. of a certain number, then, is meaningless unless you know which WISC he took, and when he took it, since there’s a substantial difference between getting a 130 on the WISC IV and getting a 130 on the much easier WISC.




 * The fact that the I.Q.s of Chinese-Americans also seemed to be elevated has led I.Q. fundamentalists to posit the existence of an international I.Q. pyramid, with Asians at the top, European whites next, and Hispanics and blacks at the bottom.


 * Here was a question tailor-made for James Flynn’s accounting skills. He looked first at Lynn’s data, and realized that the comparison was skewed. Lynn was comparing American I.Q. estimates based on a representative sample of schoolchildren with Japanese estimates based on an upper-income, heavily urban sample. Recalculated, the Japanese average came in not at 106.6 but at 99.2. Then Flynn turned his attention to the Chinese-American estimates. They turned out to be based on a 1975 study in San Francisco’s Chinatown using something called the Lorge-Thorndike Intelligence Test. But the Lorge-Thorndike test was normed in the nineteen-fifties. For children in the nineteen-seventies, it would have been a piece of cake. When the Chinese-American scores were reassessed using up-to-date intelligence metrics, Flynn found, they came in at 97 verbal and 100 nonverbal. Chinese-Americans had slightly lower I.Q.s than white Americans.


 * The Asian-American success story had suddenly been turned on its head. The numbers now suggested, Flynn said, that they had succeeded not because of their higher I.Q.s. but despite their lower I.Q.s. Asians were overachievers. In a nifty piece of statistical analysis, Flynn then worked out just how great that overachievement was. Among whites, virtually everyone who joins the ranks of the managerial, professional, and technical occupations has an I.Q. of 97 or above. Among Chinese-Americans, that threshold is 90. A Chinese-American with an I.Q. of 90, it would appear, does as much with it as a white American with an I.Q. of 97.


 * There should be no great mystery about Asian achievement. It has to do with hard work and dedication to higher education, and belonging to a culture that stresses professional success. But Flynn makes one more observation. The children of that first successful wave of Asian-Americans really did have I.Q.s that were higher than everyone else’s—coming in somewhere around 103. Having worked their way into the upper reaches of the occupational scale, and taken note of how much the professions value abstract thinking, Asian-American parents have evidently made sure that their own children wore scientific spectacles. “Chinese Americans are an ethnic group for whom high achievement preceded high I.Q. rather than the reverse,” Flynn concludes, reminding us that in our discussions of the relationship between I.Q. and success we often confuse causes and effects. “It is not easy to view the history of their achievements without emotion,” he writes. That is exactly right. To ascribe Asian success to some abstract number is to trivialize it.


 * Two weeks ago, Flynn came to Manhattan to debate Charles Murray at a forum sponsored by the Manhattan Institute. Their subject was the black-white I.Q. gap in America. During the twenty-five years after the Second World War, that gap closed considerably. The I.Q.s of white Americans rose, as part of the general worldwide Flynn effect, but the I.Q.s of black Americans rose faster. Then, for about a period of twenty-five years, that trend stalled—and the question was why.


 * Murray showed a series of PowerPoint slides, each representing different statistical formulations of the I.Q. gap. He appeared to be pessimistic that the racial difference would narrow in the future. “By the nineteen-seventies, you had gotten most of the juice out of the environment that you were going to get,” he said. That gap, he seemed to think, reflected some inherent difference between the races. “Starting in the nineteen-seventies, to put it very crudely, you had a higher proportion of black kids being born to really dumb mothers,” he said. When the debate’s moderator, Jane Waldfogel, informed him that the most recent data showed that the race gap had begun to close again, Murray seemed unimpressed, as if the possibility that blacks could ever make further progress was inconceivable.


 * Flynn took a different approach. The black-white gap, he pointed out, differs dramatically by age. He noted that the tests we have for measuring the cognitive functioning of infants, though admittedly crude, show the races to be almost the same. By age four, the average black I.Q. is 95.4—only four and a half points behind the average white I.Q. Then the real gap emerges: from age four through twenty-four, blacks lose six-tenths of a point a year, until their scores settle at 83.4.


 * That steady decline, Flynn said, did not resemble the usual pattern of genetic influence. Instead, it was exactly what you would expect, given the disparate cognitive environments that whites and blacks encounter as they grow older.

Does someone have Flynn's book and other work? It would be better to work from the actual source, except for Gladwell's reporting of a public event. Suggestions for how to incorporate this in? Slrubenstein  |  Talk 18:32, 22 January 2008 (UTC)