Talk:Race and intelligence/Archive 65

Bot archiving
This page grows quickly. I was wondering if anyone had any objections to having a bot do all the archiving. I would set it to archive anything thread older than 31 days. Let me know asap. Thanks, Brusegadi (talk) 01:55, 23 January 2008 (UTC)
 * No objections here.--Ramdrake (talk) 15:34, 23 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Ok, I set it to 35 days. Hopefully that will keep this page at a nice size.  Brusegadi (talk) 02:50, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

Proposal to move article
I propose that this article be moved to Wikibooks and it be replaced by a condensed version that has more resemblance to an encyclopedia article. The article could be expanded further in Wikibooks by interested editors. --Jagz (talk) 22:25, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

Everyone is overcomplicating this.
We need to remove many more sections than you folks indicate. Sorry for the long post, but I think it is needed. I feel that the lists and debates on this talk page overcomplicate what the total, simple rewrite should be:

1. Remember that the article is called "Race and Intelligence" 2. Therefore, it should start out referring to the page race and the page intelligence. 3. Then, almost by definition, it should summarize the findings about any trends between, you guessed it: race and intelligence. 4. Then it should discuss the controversy about the various hypotheses about the causes of these trends. 5. Then it should end.

The discussion of whether races exist does not belong in this particular article. Colonial history does not belong here. Lengthy discussions of IQ testing do not belong here. Sections on colonialism, slavery, and segragation do not belong here. To use it as an example, it may be appropriate to say something like "one hypothesis highlights the dynamics in colonial history as a major driving cause of the differences" and link colonial history, etc. Of course this is only after we say what the differences are.

But let's stick to the topic, mention the other things as they apply, but discuss those other things in the appropriate wiki page.

One more example: There is no need for a caste section. If there is some reference saying caste is part of the cause or an effect, we say "some have claimed that caste structure has maintained intelligence differences between races, others argue that caste is partly the effect of intelligence difference." and link to caste. Most people know what caste means, and if they don't, this page is not the place to educate them.

(Regarding my item 3: In the entire article, I cannot find the one thing summarizing the findings relative to what the article is about: race and intelligence. These correlations and trends should be reported. These results do not even appear in the "Test Results" Section.  Yes we should report the controversy over causes, but we need to report the results first. So here I am just agreeing with the Ideas about "the main point of the article".)

75.52.252.147 (talk) 07:23, 26 January 2008 (UTC) artman772000


 * Actually I think your own argument about it not being necessary to include long discussions about "cast" and "colonialism" are equally applicable to "test results". What I mean is this, this is an encyclopaedia, wherever possible we should avoid using primary sources, well test results are primary sources. All we need to do is have a simple statement saying that many independently conducted surveys, mainly in the USA, show that some groups of people on average have lower test score results than other groups of people. Then we can expand upon it, in the 20s it was people from the Mediterranean and eastern Europe who underperformed, now African Americans tend to underperform. Then it's just a question of including the various theories and models that attempt to explain this phenomenon, and it's the various theories and models that the article should concentrate on. Most of the intelligent debate (and as one would expect from such an article there are a fair number of flame warriors, see above) here on the talk page seems to revolve around the validity of including theories that are in essence based on biological determinism, ie are these theories so fringe that they deserve no place in the article. Personally I'm ambivalent, I don't have a problem with including a small mention of biological determinism as long as it isn't given undue weight. To a great extent you are right though. Alun (talk) 12:02, 26 January 2008 (UTC)
 * How are the Somalis in Finland performing? Maybe we can add that to the article. --Jagz (talk) 15:00, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

IQ gap
IQ tests are often designed to have an average score of 100. Studies have shown that Whites in Europe and the United States (U.S.) average from 100 to 103 on IQ tests. Orientals in Asia and the U.S. tend to have scores of about 106. Blacks in the U.S., the Caribbean, Britain, and Canada have average IQs of about 85. The average IQs for sub-Saharan Africans range from 70 to 75. Black Africans in the South African school system have an average IQ of 70, whereas Mixed-Race Black students in South Africa, with about 25% White ancestry (as determined by genetic testing), have an average IQ of 85 -- the same as Blacks in the United States, Britain, and the Caribbean. --Jagz (talk) 01:37, 27 January 2008 (UTC)
 * I just found this data: "Virtually all of today's African Americans have some degree of White ancestry. The average for the entire United States is 25%..." This is the same percentage as the Mixed-Race Black students in South Africa discussed above and they both have the same average IQ of 85. Is this just a coincidence??? --Jagz (talk) 01:37, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

sources for the diligent editors
Look for papers by authors who are recognized as experts in the field. The editorial boards of journals in the field are good source lists. For example:
 * http://www.isironline.org/journal.html

The Watson affair brought out a lot of bad and some good commentary. This exchange was particularly frank and detailed (participants include Flynn, Ceci, Turkheimer and Gottfredson):
 * http://www.cato-unbound.org/archives/november-2007/

In particular, Flynn, Ceci Turkheimer and Gottfredson seem to each stake out different positions.

The June 2005 issue of Psychology, Public Policy and Law included a number of review articles (freely available here):
 * http://www.udel.edu/educ/gottfredson/30years/

And from a decade ago there were some balanced review articles written after the publication of The Bell Curve:
 * http://michna.com/intelligence.htm
 * http://www.lrainc.com/swtaboo/taboos/wsj_main.html
 * http://www.wjh.harvard.edu/~cfc/Chabris1998a.html

Cheers --Legalleft (talk) 11:30, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

Genetics of Brain Structure and Intelligence
"Nature is not democratic. Individuals’ IQs vary, but the data presented in this review and elsewhere do not lead us to conclude that our intelligence is dictated solely by genes. Instead genetic interactions with the environment suggest that enriched environments will help everyone achieve their potential, but not to equality. Our potential seems largely predetermined." http://www.loni.ucla.edu/~thompson/PDF/TT_ARN05.pdf --Jagz (talk) 17:05, 27 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Nice quote, it seems about right. Just two observations: First, "individuals' IQs vary" not "group IQs vary", this is specifically a comment about variation at the individual level, not at the group level. Second "genetic interactions with the environment suggest that enriched environments will help everyone achieve their full potential". So again, unless one can categorically show that everyone's environments are "enriched" to the same degree then it just supports the repeated observation that environmental factors are extremely important with regards to the ability of everyone to reach their potential, or to put it another way even someone with extremely good "intelligence genes" would do exceedingly badly on IQ tests if their environment were impoverished. Note further that this quote is totally irrelevant to any discussion about group differences in IQ test scores. Alun (talk) 18:01, 27 January 2008 (UTC)
 * So you are saying that on the average, groups vary in the degree to which they are reaching their potential because of socio-economics, etc.? Don't you believe that it is also important to discuss that groups are born with different average potentials? --Jagz (talk) 18:34, 27 January 2008 (UTC)
 * No I'm not. I'm making an observation about the quote you give. This quote makes reference to individuals, it makes no claims one way or another to group differences in IQ. Therefore this quote has little or nothing to offer to this article. This quote may be useful for the "Intelligence" article, it may be useful for an article about "Gentics and intelligence", but it is of no value to an article about group differences because it has nothing to say about group differences, be those groups defined by "race", gender, income, social status, height or mass. It's still a nice quote though, just not relevant here. Alun (talk) 06:33, 28 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Again, there is no direct evidence that groups are born with different average potentials. Individuals are born with different individual potentials; such has been demonstrated. That the same applies to group differences isn't supported by any direct evidence at this point.--Ramdrake (talk) 19:04, 27 January 2008 (UTC)
 * So should we assume that all groups have the same average potentials because there is no direct evidence to indicate otherwise? Would that be a better assumption than groups having different average potentials? --Jagz (talk) 19:22, 27 January 2008 (UTC)
 * I believe that, in the absence of proof that groups have different average potentials, assuming that groups have the same average potential would be the most logical assumption.--Ramdrake (talk) 19:36, 27 January 2008 (UTC)
 * I know it's a much-tried analogy, but when we talk of race differences in athletic ability vice intelligence the logical assumption is a difference in average potentials. Aron.Foster (talk) 00:47, 28 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Aron, please keep it relevant to the article, this article is not about the absurd and demonstrable claptrap notion that some so called "races" are better at athletics (or any sport). Jagz, we should not assume anything. You posted a quote, presumably because you thought it was relevant to this article, I pointed out that this quote is specifically about how environment is important for individual differences in intelligence, however good one's "intelligence genes" may or may not be. As such the quote is somewhat irrelevant to any article about group differences. Above and beyond what the quote actually says we can make no other inferences. Please try to remember that this is not the place to promote personal opinions or for a general discussion of the subject. The quote was irrelevant to any observed "group difference". Alun (talk) 06:33, 28 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Alun, when did we stop knowing that blacks have more fast twitch muscles than whites, hence better at sports? If you say it's demonstrable claptrap, I beg demonstration. That issue is in direct parallel to the race/intelligence debate; I agree this quote isn't. Aron.Foster (talk) 07:58, 28 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Hence the plethora of black people who participate in sports like Ice Hockey, Lacrosse, Table Tennis, Eventing etc. Not to mention the fact that the best (by far) cricket team over the last fifteen years or so has been the Australian team (until recently all white) and not the West Indian team (predominantly black with the exceptions of Shivnarine Chanderpaul and Ramnaresh Sarwan). Different sports are played by different social groups are they not? The sports of working class people such as Football (or American football, basketball or baseball in your case), are played by working class people, the sports of the affluent (for example rugby in England or golf in the US) are played by the affluent. Let's face it, the only way the "blacks are better sports people" ideology (and it is an ideology) works is if one selectively chooses what sports and what country to analyse, in the USA some sports are dominated by black people, also in the USA some sports are dominated by white people. Outside the USA the discrepancy is far less apparent. If you want to read a very good demolition of this fallacy then I can recommend Joseph L. Graves' The Emperor's New Clothes: Biological Theories of Race at the Millennium.  I agree, the issue is in direct parallel to the race/intelligence debate, in that only people with a racist ideology to promote believe either. Alun (talk) 09:32, 28 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Maybe we've reached an impasse on this, but I don't appreciate being labeled a racist. Aron.Foster (talk) 11:09, 28 January 2008 (UTC)
 * If you are trying to suggest that I have labelled you a racist, then please re-read what I have written. I am saying that people that promote racial stereotypes are racist, I have not accused you of doing this. This is the second time you have accused me of making personal attacks against you, you should assume good faith more and not assume that all comments are necessarily about you personally. Nevertheless I am sorry if I offended you, it certainly was not my intention. All the best. Alun (talk) 13:24, 28 January 2008 (UTC)
 * No hard feelings, but please understand that when you say someone's comment "at best displays ignorance, and at worst a deliberate misrepresentation of the facts" or that "only people with a racist ideology to promote believe" the issue someone is defending, it will be taken as an attack. "Only stupid people would say what you just said" doesn't work any better. Sorry I overreacted. Aron.Foster (talk) 23:04, 28 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Maybe there's just a cultural difference here. I have noticed on Wikipedia that often when I write things on talk pages that I think are quite innocuous sometimes people from the USA get offended. For example I don't think it's an attack to claim something displays ignorance, we are all ignorant of some things. I'm happy to admit that if I were discussing mathematics with you I would be relatively ignorant. Anyway you are clearly a good faith editor and again I'm sorry I offended you. I'll try to be more careful how I express myself in future. Cheers. Alun (talk) 06:36, 29 January 2008 (UTC)


 * So there are two different beliefs unless I have missed some; one being that groups of people should be assumed to be born with equal average potentials unless proven otherwise and the other that it cannot be assumed that groups are born with equal average potentials, especially when the groups (or their recent relatives/ancestors) have been geographically separated for an extended period of time. I believe both views must be respected, at least for the purposes of this article. --Jagz (talk) 14:22, 28 January 2008 (UTC)
 * I added "born with" above because the average potentials of groups may change in succeeding generations through a variety of factors. --Jagz (talk) 15:02, 28 January 2008 (UTC)
 * No. There are no "beliefs". There is evidence. This evidence comprises of IQ test scores that show that in the USA "white" people score better than "black" people. Science is about producing theories to explain what we observe. The problem with the test score results is that very little is actually known about how intelligence is transmitted from parent to offspring. Clearly there are many ways a parent can transmit intelligence, to a certain (unknown) extent genes determine the intellectual potential of a child, but genes are only a small part, genes give a potential for excellence, but in a poor environment having good genes may make little difference, no one can learn calculus if they are never encouraged or taught to learn calculus. Environmental effects are so varied that they comprise a huge set of unknown variables. Environmental effects include things as diverse as: Nutrition during pregnancy, nutrition during childhood (including breastfeeding), reading to children from a young age, schooling (how good the teaching and facilities are, how often a child attends), exposure to toxins such as lead during brain development (this last is especially important for people living in older and poorer housing), parental affection, class (social status), wealth (economic status), some people even claim that listening to Mozart can "boost" the intellectual development of a child etc. etc. Environmental effects are so diverse and varied that scientists need to study them in order to understand the extent of these effects on cognitive ability. One group of academics want to promote their biological deterministic theories (geneticists generally do not support biological determinism), on the other hand the overwhelming majority of scientists say that these theories are simplistic and do not take into account the vast amount of environmental effects we just don't know about. The question is about presenting the various theories about what affects a child's cognitive development in a neutral way, that is what this talk page is for. This is not a forum for debating the merits of various theories. This means that we present the consensus opinion in academia and only give a small section to minority theories, as per policy. Alun (talk) 06:36, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
 * No one is disputing that environmental factors affect to what degree someone reaches their potential. What we were discussing is that one's potential is limited by genetics. You're not necessarily going to be like Albert Einstein, Mozart, or a professional athlete just by having a good environment and trying really hard. --Jagz (talk) 11:27, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Well no one is disputing a genetic component to "intelligence". I don't understand what you mean by "maximum potential". Potential is what one has at the start, there can be no "maximal" or "minimal" potential. A person has an unknown potential, they may or may not reach the full ability that their potential indicated, depending upon circumstance. Indeed probably no one ever does, there must be environmental constraints on all of us. It is the environment that provides the unknown circumstances. There appears to be little dispute that on the whole black people have a much worse environment than white people, this is a fact and easily supported. So the question arises, how much of the IQ difference is because of this environmental gap? A small group of scientists want to claim that the massive disparity in environment between white and black Americans is irrelevant, that the differences are "genetic", though they appear to have zero genetic evidence for this claim. This tiny group constantly claim that they know why there is a "test score gap", a breathtakingly audacious claim, though one they have clearly failed to support. Most scientists acknowledge that what we don't know is greater than what we do know, but that environment is clearly very important. Obviously it doesn't matter how good a person's "potential" is, if that person is not taught to read, then they will perform badly on a written test, so are we then measuring how good "education" (an environmental effect) is in a place, or are we measuring the lack of ability of an individual? The OECD clearly think that when we test children, we are actually testing how good the teaching is in any particular region. For example see the recent PISA results. On the other hand there appears to be a 17 point difference in IQ between French and German people. Education or "genetics"? Alun (talk) 07:10, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
 * The quote at the beginning of the article says, "Our potential seems largely predetermined." This implies that potential can be affected to a small extent by other factors besides genetics and that is why I used the term "maximum potential". For the purposes of our discussion here the term "potential" is sufficient. --Jagz (talk) 13:59, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
 * It implies no such thing. Potential may very well be largely predetermined, but one's actual achievements may be dramatically affected by other factors. A Ferrari has the potential to travel over 200kph, but if one fails to provide it with petrol then it will not move at all. Likewise a child may have the potential to be a genius, but will be a dunce if not provided with adequate nutrition, education etc. QED. Alun (talk) 15:42, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
 * You disagreed, changed the subject, then explained something else. I struck through it so as not to create confusion. --Jagz (talk) 19:55, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
 * You are being disingenuous. Heritability measures the influence of genetics within groups, not between groups.  No one, for the nth time, has claimed that intelligence is not heritabile.  All this article is suggesting is that the heritable component of intelligence may be connected to a specific aspect of brain structure - that it the point of the article.  Stop trying to use it to make your own point.  The article makes no claims about differences between races (the word race occurs once in the article, in the bibliography, and the word racial appears once in the article; the article simply is not about differences between races).  Of course, my height and the length of my legs will limit how high I can jump.  But so does nutrition and how much I exercize and these factors create as much a "maximum" limit on how high I can jump as any other factor.  As the authors state, explicitly, it is impossible to distinguish between the effects of nature and nurture in intelligence.  You are quoting selectively, misinterpreting, and arguing to push your own POV.  Please, show a little respect for the science.  Try.  Try hard.  Let's see what your maximum potential to understand science is. Slrubenstein   |  Talk 16:33, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Did I see on your user page that you are a scientist? What type of scientist are you? --Jagz (talk) 17:01, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
 * It doesn't matter. Credentials do not mater at Wikipedia, what matters is good research.  I do not care what you do for a living.  What I do care about is your disregard for serious researchers (as in your 13:32, 22 January 2008 edit) and research (as in your 02:02, 20 January 2008 edit); your childish, ad hominem attacks whenever you talk to someone who knows more than you (as in your 07:34, 11 January 2008, 17:48, 23:58, 19 January 2008, 15:18, 20 January 2008, 20 January 2008 and 23:58, 19 January 2008 edits); your hypocracy in saying we should not introduce new material that is directly relevant (20:21, 23 January 2008 and 18:00, 29 January 2008 edits) and then your introducing new material that actually is not related directly or even indirectly to race and IQ (17:05, 27 January 2008); and your racist, disruptive edits (06:11, 16 January 2008, 22:31, 19 January 2008).  Aside from these, your contributions amount to non-sequitors and confused points that ignore other people's attempts to explain the science to you, or that are just meaningless disruptions (21:36, 23 January 2008).  You complain about the sorry state the article is in, but I have yet to see a single constructive point or edit; moreover you systematically disrupt any serious attempt to discuss improving the article.  Your question, above, is just another non-sequitor disruption.  Let's stick to the point about how scientists study variation in IQ scores.  Given that you systematically fail to do this, I can only conclude that it is because you actually have no understanding of the science, and based on some of the edits I just mentioned, you have made it clear, you do not care. Slrubenstein   |  Talk 17:42, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Well said. Alun (talk) 17:47, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
 * I will say that both Slrubenstein and Alun/Wobble's logic and reasoning seem to be markedly different than that of the scientists and engineers whom I have worked with throughout my career. I can only speculate that Alun has a political agenda whereas Slrubenstein has a religious agenda. --Jagz (talk) 18:33, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
 * It is a policy of Wikipedia to assume good faith, which you are failing to do. Discussions of intelligence are within the scope of the article and especially discussions on this Talk page. There is a good chance I understand hard sciences better than you do. You seem to be mostly involved in social science. If you don't want to participate in the discussion here then start another discussion. --Jagz (talk) 19:55, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Jagz, you dumb, lying hypocrite. You write "It is a policy of Wikipedia to assume good faith" immediately after a statement in which you state that you do not assume good faith on my part of Alun's!!!!  At least be smart about this and do not accuse me of failing to assume good faith until a few days or weeks from now, after we might have forgotten your own declaration that you fail to assume good faith.  It just is not intelligent to accuse someone of violating a guideline immediately after you yourself have violated that guideline!  Anyway, there is plenty of hard evidence that you do not understand science as well.  I am not sure what you mean by hard science, by the way; population genetics and the theory of evolution are not that difficult, certainly no harder than any other science.  Or did you mean something else?  Science is science, but sciences can be distingished by their objects.  Evolutionary theory used to be classed as one of the natural sciences but today is considered a life science.  Either way, you have made it very clear that you do not understand it. I have not failed to assume good faith, I have concluded that you systematically act in bad faith based on various edits of yours. I said it before and I will say it again: you are an ignorant, racist troll and most of your edits serve only to disrupt any progress on this talk page. Slrubenstein   |  Talk 23:38, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Slrubenstein and Alun; it's like Batman and Robin, the Dynamic Duo of arrogance. --Jagz (talk) 06:22, 1 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Doesn't that make you The Joker?--Ramdrake (talk) 20:05, 1 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Sure, and you can be Ace the Bat-Hound. --Jagz (talk) 22:52, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

What we are discussing is not "that one's maximum potential is limited by genetics." This is of course true in a vague and banal sense: in the course of human evolution we evolved so that we can no longer swing from branch to branch in the forest canopy; we evolved language; we evolved a particular kind of intelligence ... in all these things our genes simultaneously limit and enable us. But that is neither here nor there. What we are discussing is only one thing: how best to improve this article. When it comes to matters of content (the title of this section suggests we are talking about content and not style), the only thing to discuss is: what are the notable points of view in reliable sources? The literature that I know of that concerns itself with variation in IQ scores does not concen itself primarily with the point "that one's maximum potential is limited by genetics." This is just Jagz's WP:POINT and really irrelevant to this article. The literature that I know of discusses different measurements of heritability; different explanations for the effects of fetal environment on monochorionic twins (obviously in contrast to dichorionic twins); the effect of changes in IQ tests and the norming of IQ tests on the classification of people by degrees of intelligence; the effect of social and economic circumstances on IQ scores. If we want to focus on brain structure and intelligence, one of the most important sources is Ralph Holloway's research using cranial endocasts. But this body of literature really relates to a different topic, the evolution of human intelligence, and not variation in IQ scores among humans, who - absent a congenital birth defect, inherit the same brain structure. A Wikipedia editor can draw on these literatures selectively to make his own points, but that violates WP:NOR. Let's leave this page for discussing improvements to the articles. Readers who are more concerned with airing their own points and opinions can, I am sure, find some chat-room or list-serve where they can bloviate to their hearts' content, or they can create their own blog. Slrubenstein  |  Talk 17:30, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
 * There are two different beliefs unless I have missed some; one being that groups of people should be assumed to be born with equal average potentials unless proven otherwise and the other that it cannot be assumed that groups are born with equal average potentials, especially when the groups (or their recent relatives/ancestors) have been geographically separated for an extended period of time. I believe both views must be respected, at least for the purposes of this article. --Jagz (talk) 17:46, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
 * This will hopefully help to alleviate endless debates on this discussion page. --Jagz (talk) 18:40, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Please provide a verifiable and notable source that explicitly asserts the first "belief." As for the second "belief," I know of a few sources already - like Rushton and Jensen - but there views are fringe and therefore do not meet the threshold for inclusion according to our NPOV policy. Slrubenstein  |  Talk 17:59, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Art Jensen is fringe?
Please provide a verifiable and notable source that explicitly asserts the first "belief." As for the second "belief," I know of a few sources already - like Rushton and Jensen - but there views are fringe and therefore do not meet the threshold for inclusion according to our NPOV policy. Slrubenstein  |  Talk 17:59, 29 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Art Jensen is fringe? I don't see any support for that and plenty that argues against it. "Despite two decades of jousting with Jensen, Flynn says he has the deepest regard for the scholar and his scholarship." http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=00037F65-D9C0-1C6A-84A9809EC588EF21&print=true See also Detterman, D.K. (Ed.). (1998). A king among men: Arthur Jensen [Special issue]. Intelligence, 26(3). --Legalleft (talk) 07:38, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps Jensen is notable, I will accept that - but Rushton surely is not. Slrubenstein  |  Talk 14:38, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Jensen is reputable in some contexts and not reputable in others. While he may have contributed significantly to psychology in some areas, his racist ideas about intelligence are clearly fringe. He uses folk theories of "race" to try to support straw men regarding the validity of genetics. Geneticists, anthropologists and evolutionary scientists reject folk theories of "race", the claim that the IQ gap is due to genetics is not supported by any genetic evidence. Jensen appears not to be an expert in evolution, genetics, biology or anthropology. In this regard Jensen's racism is clearly not derived from any notability in the fields of human biology or anthropology, as it is based on an ignorant view of how genetic variation is distributed in humans. Jensen may know something about psychology, but this does not qualify him as an expert on "race" or genetics. Being an expert in one area does not make one's views universally valid. Alun (talk) 16:02, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

good point Slrubenstein  |  Talk 16:33, 30 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Jensen's views on race and IQ are exactly what Flynn was referring to when he commended the quality of his scholarship -- while disagreeing with his conclusions. I just don't see where you can get the idea that Jensen's views are fringe. A large number of academic discussions of this topic begin by noting Jensen's contributions, and his arguments are taken seriously by people like Flynn. Indeed, it's not unreasonable to say that Jensen's work has largely shaped the landscape of the debate (look at the citation counts of his top articles) -- rather than being fringe his views are quite central to understanding the debate. Also, you're appraisal of Jensen's areas of expertise is inaccurate. Quantitative genetics is very different than molecular genetics, but Jensen is made a number of novel contributions to quantitative genetics (in addition to psychometrics). His technical works are replete with the mathematical formalism of these fields. You shouldn't let personal opinions about someone's view cloud your objectivity when describing them. However, I'd tend to agree that some of the things Rushton writes have a rather small academic following, and so aren't prominent enough to warrant much attention in a shortened article. For example, his r-K theories to explain group differences. However, I'm not sure even they meet a criteria of being not normal science, and they have certainly attracted a lot of 'attention'. --Legalleft (talk) 20:40, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Nonsense, Jensen's views on "race" are not mainstream. Only someone with zero understanding of genetics or anthropology could make such a claim. Human genetic variation is not structured "racially", it is structured clinally. Any half competent geneticist or anthropologist knows this. Jensen's ideas concerning "race" are folk ideas vested in the misrepresentation of differences between population groups. If one can speak of any meaningful division within the human species (which is dubious to say the least) then the only division would be between sub-Saharan Africans on the one hand and all non-Africans on the other (including Indigenous Australians for example, a black people if ever there were any), with non-Africans representing a sub-set of East African genetic diversity. As it is, even this represents a gross oversimplification because there is plenty of evidence for multiple waves of migration both in to and out of sub-Saharan Africa. Furthermore we see a dilution of diversity the further we go from Africa, with African populations having about twice as much genetic diversity as all non-Africans combined. For example in a single African ethnic group we see a 100% representation of human diversity, while we see only about a 60% representation of human diversity in a group in Papua New Guinea, this supports the RAO model of human origins. The fallacy is also based on the misunderstanding that somehow human "racial" groups are somehow genetically discrete, a fallacy promoted by racists ad nauseum. In fact, of the genes we do know about, it is clear that they are shared by all population groups, even genes that are very common in some groups and rare in others are nearly always (with a single exception) shared by all population groups. It is therefore clear that all genes occur in all groups, but at varying frequencies. The final fallacy is the claim that some environments seem to be selectively neutral for "intelligence" a claim so full of holes it should go o Switzerland and become a cheese. Clearly whatever environment a human lives in it is clear that more intelligent people are going to be better at ensuring their offspring survive than more stupid people are. This is so obvious that it beggars belief that any half competent academic could ignore it, unless they have a racist axe to grind of course. So the situation as it is understood by geneticists and anthropologists is that (1) Human genetic diversity is not structured into discrete "races". (2) Human gene frequencies tend to vary geographically, but all human groups contain nearly all human alleles. (3) Intelligence "genes" will always exist in all populations and will always give people who carry them a selective advantage. These are our mainstream understandings of how human variation is structured, how genes are distributed and how selection works. It takes a very great leap of faith to claim that any other interpretation of human genetic diversity or selection is anything other than fringe. Jensen is clearly not mainstream in his ideas of "race and IQ". Of course people like Flynn takes his arguments seriously, we should debunk pseudo-scientific racism at every opportunity, it does not make his claims for a genetic basis for the test score gap "mainstream". You would have to show that a significant proportion of people with a detailed understanding of human biology and genetics agreed with his racism, to support your claim that his ideas concerning "race" are mainstream. "THE involvement of Eysenck and Jensen, not to mention other academics of high repute, in the attempts to create a racist culture shows the difficulty of distinguishing between 'respectable' and non-respectable racism. This is reinforced by the fact that Eysenck's and Jensen's involvement goes further than connections with the semi-academic publications of The Mankind Quarterly, Nouvelle Ecole and Neue Anthropologie. It is possible to point to two occasions when Eysenck and Jensen have figured in actual fascist publications." Alun (talk) 06:47, 31 January 2008 (UTC)


 * (1) Flatly claiming Jensen's views are fringe is clearly nonsense and the burden of proof is on you. (2) Jensen's 1969 Harvard Educational Review article alone has over 1000 citations. Whether the content is correct or incorrect, the content of a paper that's been cited more than 1000 times is important. (3) I'm quite certain in my credentials and research experience to be sure that I know a lot about race, genetics and IQ. (4) Here's an apt quotation from the winner of a Nobel prize for the discovery of the structure of DNA:
 * Unlike you and your colleagues I have formed the opinion that there is much substance to Jensen’s arguments. In brief I think it likely that more than half the difference between the average I.Q. of American whites and Negroes is due to genetic reasons, and will not be eliminated by any foreseeable change in the environment. Moreover I think the social consequences of this are likely to be rather serious unless steps are taken to recognize the situation.
 * That's Crick, not Watson! http://profiles.nlm.nih.gov/SC/B/B/N/M/_/scbbnm.pdf
 * (5) Most of your post is attacking a straw man. Have you read his 1998 book? (Yes, a lot has changed since 1998, but it was up to date for the time.) (6) If 1000 loci contribute to population variation in IQ, allelic differences at each loci affect IQ by 0.1 points, and the frequency of the IQ boosting variants are 0.45 in one population and 0.55 in a second population, then the average IQ difference between the two populations would be 10 points. You don't need any implausible genetic architectures to get quantitative trait differences between groups, and there's been a lot of selection in the last 10k years to tweak allele frequencies. --Legalleft (talk) 07:16, 31 January 2008 (UTC)


 * (1) I haven't "flatly" claimed anything. I have pointed out that human genetic diversity is not structred by "race". A claim easily verified form hundreds of papers published by both molecular anthropologists and geneticists. The most obvious place to start would be with Nature Genetics supplement on "race", in which paper after paper staes this fact again and again.Genetics for the Human Race."Knowledge gained from the Human Genome Project and research on human genome variation is forcing a paradigm shift in thinking about the construct of 'race'...Today, scientists are faced with this situation in genomics, where existing biological models or paradigms of 'racial' and 'ethnic' categorizations cannot accommodate the uniqueness of the individual and universality of humankind that is evident in new knowledge emerging from human genome sequence variation research and molecular anthropological research.""A true understanding of disease risk requires a thorough examination of root causes. 'Race' and 'ethnicity' are poorly defined terms that serve as flawed surrogates for multiple environmental and genetic factors in disease causation, including ancestral geographic origins, socioeconomic status, education and access to health care.""The term 'race' engenders much discussion, with little agreement between those who claim that 'races' are real (meaning natural) biological entities and those who maintain that they are socially constructed...An examination of these discussions indicates that there is a problem with semantics. 'Race' is not being defined or used consistently; its referents are varied and shift depending on context. The term is often used colloquially to refer to a range of human groupings. Religious, cultural, social, national, ethnic, linguistic, genetic, geographical and anatomical groups have been and sometimes still are called 'races'...The within- to between-group variation is very high for genetic polymorphisms. This means that individuals from one 'race' may be overall more similar to individuals in one of the other 'races' than to other individuals in the same 'race'.""In this review, we focus on the biogeographical distribution of genetic variation and address whether or not populations cluster according to the popular concept of 'race'. We show that racial classifications are inadequate descriptors of the distribution of genetic variation in our species.""The picture that begins to emerge from this and other analyses of human genetic variation is that variation tends to be geographically structured, such that most individuals from the same geographic region will be more similar to one another than to individuals from a distant region. Because of a history of extensive migration and gene flow, however, human genetic variation tends to be distributed in a continuous fashion and seldom has marked geographic discontinuities19, 42. Thus, populations are never 'pure' in a genetic sense, and definite boundaries between individuals or populations (e.g., 'races') will be necessarily somewhat inaccurate and arbitrary." (2) I agree that we need to address the racist science of a small group of academics in the article. I do not agree that this represents anything like mainstream opinion. Minority racist theories should be given a small place in the article, as befits their minority status. biological determinism is an old, tired and quite frankly discredited concept. The eugenicists who promoted it are mostly dead, a small number of right wing idealogues who still promote "racial purity" do not represent the mainstream. A thousand citations doesn't seem like a great deal for a paper that you claim is seminal and mainstream, especially when you consider it's forty years old. Having a great deal of citations may make it notable, it does not necessarily make the theories contained therein mainstream does it? As you point out yourself many of the citations will be people citing it to debunk it. (3) I'm not sure of your "credentials" and quite frankly I don't care. Wikipedia doesn't care either, you cannot claim authority here, you can only cite reliable sources. (4) Crick can believe what he likes, so can Watson. Neither is an anthropologist and neither is an expert in population genetics or "intelligence". They represent non-expert opinion when it comes to "race and IQ". Both Watson and Crick are the product of a generation where "race" was considered to be a biological reality, it is not surprising that they echo the social constructs of their generation. Anthropologists and modern genetics have thoroughly debunked the "race" myth, all that is left are folk theories of "race" that seem to be the product more of faith than fact. (5) Why is it "attacking a straw man"? Pointing out that most people who know what they are talking about reject the concept of "race" is highly relevant. (6) Nonsense, both alleles would be present in both populations, as anyone with even a basic understanding of genetics would know, and the allele that provided superior intelligence would be selected for differentially in both populations. Do you even know the difference between selection and drift? Alun (talk) 08:05, 31 January 2008 (UTC)


 * (1) I find Neil Risch's arguments most compelling, and think that most people's view about 'race' are more motivated by political than scientific considerations, but that's basically beside the point. (2) Then I'm not sure what we're debating. AFAIK, fringe views aren't allowed in Wikipedia, but notable views are compulsory. I'm not sure I've ever read anything from Jensen about "racial purity" or the like. I would think that neo-Nazi type views would be fringe and wouldn't belong in this article. Perhaps the disagreement is that you think neo-Nazi's and Jensen are indistinguishable, whereas I can't fathom that idea. (3) Good. (4) Only practicing anthropologists and population geneticists can understand race and IQ? Watson's research includes the genetic determinants of schizophrenia. Jensen's research is extensively related to race and IQ, but he isn't an athropologist or pop geneticist by affiliation. IMO, most anthropologists stopped doing science decades ago, but I wouldn't try to say they were fringe. (5) Which concept of race does Jensen use? (6) I must not have been clear. In the simplified model I presented, both alleles (of all 1000 loci) are present in both populuations (but selection, perhaps, has pushed the frequencies apart in a non-random fashion such that they all tilt towards one population). -- I think you're point is that you really strongly believe certain things are true. Fine, but that doesn't have anything to do with being unbiased in writing an article or in minimizing the views of those you disagree with. --Legalleft (talk) 09:00, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
 * (1) So what? Your opinion's are irrelevant, we do not publish the views of editors here. Neil Risch's views are somewhat odd, he can't even define what he means by "race" when he is asked.(A concept without a clear definition is not scientific. Neil Risch says Scientists always disagree! A lot of the problem is terminology. I'm not even sure what race means, people use it in many different ways.(emphasis added)) (2) Claiming that one so called "race" is superior to another so called "race" is not mainstream. (4) I didn't say that did I. Address what I say please. I said that experts in genetics and anthropology reject the concept of "biological race" because it does not accurately represent the distribution of human diversity on the planet. Jensen does not seem to realise this and uses "folk" concepts of "race" to support his thesis. Your opinion about anthropologists is irrelevant. Please stop giving your opinion, it is not relevant to Wikipedia. See my response to (3) above. You might also like to acquaint yourself with molecular anthropology as you appear to be uninformed about how much science anthropologists actually do. (5) That's what I'd like to know, given that he claims a biological difference between socially constructed groups, which just goes back to his "race" theories not being mainstream. (6) My point is that you have to provide evidence that in certain environments there is no selection in favour of genes that promote "intelligence", an absurd claim without foundation or merit. As I said previously all human environments will promote "intelligence" because our environments are social, but see Montague and Dobzhansky for more on this. Indeed it is this unfounded claim that is derived from a desire to "believe". Well Jensen can "believe" that there is environmental selection in favour of "intelligence genes" in some environments that does not occur in others, but this is neither notable nor a mainstream. Environment selects, we see sickle cell disease not in "racial" groups but in malarial regions. We see light or dark skin colour not distributed by "race" but distributed by the intensity of UV light a region receives. Likewise if it were the case that some environments selected for "intelligence" more than others then we would see intelligence in those environments and not in others, but we would not see them selected by "race" but by environment. Indeed Indigenous Australians live in one of the most challenging environments known to humankind, odd then that it is not this group that is claimed as the "most intelligent" by people like Jensen. One might almost think they had predetermined point of view to push. Clearly Jensen's views on "race" are not notable or mainstream. Alun (talk) 10:08, 31 January 2008 (UTC)


 * This doesn't seem to be getting anywhere. I suggest that you are not actually familiar with Jensen's work, and are ascribing opinions to him that he does not express. His scholarship is notable as scholarship and for its impact on the debate, and while people with fringe political views may write about his work, this does not make his work itself fringe. Basically, you've picked the wrong person to blame. William Shockley might more closely fit your descriptions of a racist lunatic. Secondarily, you're reasoning about the evolution of intelligence is, IMO, incorrect. The factors that drove the evolution of intelligence in the last 10k years are likely related to settlement and agriculture. Economist Greg Clark's recent book provides an example of the kind of situation which could have acted to increase intelligence during recorded history. Also, world wide IQ scores do appear to have a geographic cline (see the infamous Templer and Arikawa paper). --Legalleft (talk) 10:27, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
 * You're wasting your time trying to discuss things with Alun. He's good at repeating what he reads in books though. --Jagz (talk) 12:42, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
 * I don't think I've called anyone a "racist lunatic", I have said that Jensen does not appear to realise that our understanding of human genetic variation has left his ideas about "race" far behind, he is relying on mid 20th century ideas of "race" when those ideas have been disregarded by other scientists studying humans. Your characterisation of the debate is biased, you accuse me of making ad hominem attacks when I have done no such thing. Your second point is even more off the mark. I have not given "my reasoning", that would be wrong, I cannot include my reasoning here in Wikipedia. I have generally provided sources to support what I say (specifically Montague and Dobzhansky (1973) for why human envrionments all select in favour of intelligence, this essay is printed in the aptly named volume "Race and IQ"), and where I have not I can easily do so. Clearly you believe that an economist and a psychologist are better qualified to discuss human evolution, genetics and population genetics than geneticists and anthropologists. Obviously you are entitled to believe this if you so wish, but it really does smack of cherry picking your sources to support an opinion you already have regarding socially constructed groups. Alun (talk) 11:20, 31 January 2008 (UTC)


 * I have addressed this above. There are no beliefs, there are scientific theories. A theory is not a belief. A belief relies on faith, a theory relies on evidence, and evidence can disprove a theory. Please don't bring your beliefs here, we need reputable sources and not beliefs based on faith. Wikipedia does not "respect views", Wikipedia is an encyclopaedia, it is about knowledge, specifically presenting knowledge as the consensus in any particular field sees it. If there is a dispute in any branch of knowledge, then clearly all points of view need to be presented (whether we "respect" them or not). But it is clearly a policy that all points of view do not need to be presented equally, for the sake of neutrality we present points of view proportionate to their support by reputable experts. Biological determinism is an old fashioned and rather discredited idea, if we are to include the theories of a few tired old racists who are still banging the eugenicist drum, then we need to give them an appropriate amount of space. Besides what has any of this got to do with the quote you posted at the start of this thread? It seems to be completely irrelevant to group differences in IQ. Alun (talk) 07:25, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
 * I see no point in trying to discuss anything with you. --Jagz (talk) 14:15, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

The concepts you're looking for are heritability and norm of reaction. Some background here: http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/archive/00002084/01/austin-online.doc --Legalleft (talk) 07:38, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

Alun -- I've read the Fringe theories page several times now and I don't see how your arguments support the claim that Jensen's views are "fringe". That's my point and the discussion that followed was aiming to make that point, albeit circuitously. --Legalleft (talk) 03:17, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

This person reproduced 12 chapter from Jensen's 1998 book -- http://home.comcast.net/~neoeugenics/jen12.htm -- I can't be certain that there are no transcription errors but paging through quickly that looks like the actual text (without the footnotes, equations, tables and figures). That should help editors who only know Jensen's views from secondary accounts. --Legalleft (talk) 08:09, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

too long, no?
This talk page contains some, err... interesting debate, but isn't the main problem that the article is too detailed? An encyclopedia article doesn't need to be comprehensive. Most readers aren't capable of understanding the technical details of the scientific debate -- as the content of the talk page suggests :). It seems that about 6 to 10 solid paragraphs, after the summary, plus some well chosen diagrams would suffice. The temptation would be to add just one more thing or to put in your favorite argument -- stick to the most commonly discussed topics and use the most commonly cited examples. --Legalleft (talk) 18:51, 27 January 2008 (UTC)
 * I really like that idea. It should be clear that different races (as the term 'race' is generally understood) score differently on intelligent tests (as the term 'intelligence' is generally understood), since much of the public still thinks that issue is unresolved. We can then discuss how most scientists believe the differences to be environmental, but some claim a genetic component as well. Aron.Foster (talk) 00:27, 28 January 2008 (UTC)
 * But you fall into the trap of claiming that the term "race" is "generally understood", whereas there is no "generally understood" definition of "race", please see the article Race (classification of human beings) for further details. "Race" is an arbitrary socially constructed phenomenon, and as such different societies construct it differently. Alun (talk) 06:39, 28 January 2008 (UTC)
 * It would be hard to shorten this article if you couldn't gloss details that are fully covered by other articles. And it seems pretty important to do some shortening.--Legalleft (talk) 07:06, 28 January 2008 (UTC)
 * "Race" is a generally understood social construct. I agree that there is no definitive definition of race, but there is a difference in scores on intelligence tests between those who identify themselves as black and white, and hispanic and asian to a lesser extent. You're missing the forest for the trees; yes, race hasn't been scientifically defined, but that doesn't mean everything comparing races is bunk. Affirmative action and racial quotas are important social issues, and modern Western governments don't seem too hesitant to use the term. Aron.Foster (talk) 07:41, 28 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Agreed, as long as we are clear that we are discussing a social construct defined by self identity. Really it's ethnicity and not "race". Alun (talk) 07:44, 28 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Ha, ok, so who's up for an article on ethnicity and race? It might be more helpful to the casual and semi-serious Wikipedia reader than this one. Aron.Foster (talk) 08:04, 28 January 2008 (UTC)
 * To avoid getting into an argument over semantics, I suggest we just look at the literature on diferences in IQ score between self-identifying social groups. Then we can use whichever word is used most commonly in this literature (race or ethnicity) and define it the way this literature defines it.  For a start, I excerpted an essay on Flynn's book, which speaks precisely to this topic.  I proposed we discuss how to incorporate that material into this article (or, as I have suggested several times, we can create a separate article on SES and IQ scores), but so far there has been no discussion.  If you guys really want to address this issue, may I propose that Alun and Aron begin by reading the excerpt of the article I quoted and begin discussing the best place and way to fit this kind of research into Wikipedia? Slrubenstein   |  Talk 17:35, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
 * I believe it is best to focus on improving the existing contents of the article as discussed numerous times already before adding new material. It's good that you are discussing ways to possibly improve the article though. --Jagz (talk) 18:00, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Flynn's book is mostly about intergenerational differences (and his theory to explain them) and not race. Flynn's recent work on race is published in the primary literature and has been expanded in several public talks. http://www.brookings.edu/views/papers/dickens/20060619_IQ.pdf (This paper includes a giant regression of IQ scores on race, age, and test date.) It's not infeasible to work a discussion of the Flynn effect into a general discussion of how IQ scores are multidimensional (in that intergenerational changes vary depending on the dimensions being measured), which is relevant to this article in that racial gaps vary depending on the dimensions being measured. The notable result about the intersection of those two issues is that intergenerational changes have a different pattern than interracial differences, such that interracial differences look a lot like interindividual differences, whereas intergenerational differences are quite different. --Legalleft (talk) 02:29, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

There seemed to be overall positive comments to this thread, no? Do we agree, at least in principle, that the current article is too long (and hence too detailed) to be useful? I did a word count and found >11k words, including figure legends and tables. It seems to me that maximally there should be 5k words or so. That's a lot of deleting, rewriting, or footnoting. --Legalleft (talk) 07:11, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Greg Clark
Above, Legaleft wrote, "Economist Greg Clark's recent book provides an example of the kind of situation which could have acted to increase intelligence during recorded history." Can you tell us more about this book? Is it based on any empirical evidence? What kind of research did he do? On its face, I find it hard to take a book by an economist seriously - they are not trained, and tomy knowledge have never done, research on genetics or intelligence. I suspect a typical "just so" story but maybe I am wrong - I'd like to give Legaleft an opportunity to explain the argument and its basis. Just the other night I saw a TC show on recent research that chimpanzees are far superior than humans when it comes to working memory. The argument of the researchers is that there are many components of intelligence, and different forms, and different species have the kind of intelligence best suited for their niche. The human species is characterized by generalization and there are plenty of documented cases of hunter-gatherers becoming agriculturalists, and agriculturalists becoming hunter-gatherers, and I know of know evidence that one way of life requires "more" intelligence than the other; what is important is the ability to think symbolically and to negotiate complex social interactions, and this is required (and expressed) in all societies, albeit in strikingly different forms. Slrubenstein  |  Talk 12:50, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
 * What does this have to do with shortening the article? --Jagz (talk) 13:31, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

In dusty archives, a theory of affluence. Not much about genetics or intelligence as far as I can see. Indeed it claims "What was being inherited, in his view, was not greater intelligence — being a hunter in a foraging society requires considerably greater skill than the repetitive actions of an agricultural laborer. Rather, it was “a repertoire of skills and dispositions that were very different from those of the pre-agrarian world.”" Seems to be discussing a change in behaviour and educational levels that allowed the industrial revolution to occur, rather than anything else. Behaviour is not determined at the genetic level, we are a sentient animal, we can reason, learn and understand, and modify our behaviour appropriately. This is based on social and cultural shifts in behaviour rather than natural selection. Alun (talk) 14:14, 31 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Slrubenstein -- The book is called A Farewell to Alms. Clark is a historical economist. His finding is, briefly, that there was a period of Malthesian population dynamics in agricultural societies that wasn't escaped until the industrial revolution. Clark says that caused changes in behavior, such as decreases in interest rates. He says he doesn't know whether the effect was genetic, cultural, or both, but he demonstrates differential reproduction by wealth. I don't mean to imply that Clark says there was a eugenic effect on intelligence, but rather than Clark says that there were non-trivial selective pressures acting during historical times. No one really knows what causal factors were in play or what role selection played, and if you read the book you'll be quite disappointed that Clark didn't do any back-of-the-evelope calculations to estimate the effect sizes. If you take his numbers, there was enough selection to increase a "money making" trait by about 1 standard deviation in Europe. --Alun, there are heritable behavioral differences within human populations on a range of traits. If there is/was selection, then those traits would change. Quantitative, not categorical changes. My point being that you seemed to be insisting that the evolution of group differences was impossible/implausible, whereas there's no reason to believe it couldn't have happened. As Gould wrote, "Human Equality Is a Contingent Fact of History." --Legalleft (talk) 19:28, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Actually the "evolution" (whatever you mean by that overused and usually misunderstood word) of so called behavioural "group" differences is clearly an argument without any sort of support. Behaviours may be selected for in societies, but this has got absolutely nothing to do with biology and everything to do with social norms, which can shift and change over time. Societies and cultures change, with this change bahavioural norms change. For example trying to claim that we do not burn witches at the stake any more due to genetic changes is ludicrous (ah, that witch burning gene must have been selected against eh?). You appear to view every human trait through the tired old biologcial determinism "theory", this is at least a century out of date, we are not slaves to our genes, we do not behave in certain ways because our "genes" dictate that we do, the differences in culture between ethnic groups are not due to "genetic" differences between these groups, and the differences in culture between us and our recent ancestors is not due to selection at the "genetic" level. Socially and culturally I lead a very different life than my parents did, and they lead very different lives to their parents, my great grandparents lived during Victorian times, the vast differences between the society I live in and the behavioural norms of my time, and the norms of their time has got bugger all to do with "genetic selection". There is no evidence that the so called "mercantile class" that is supposed to have replaces the lower classes according to Clarke, was genetically any different (except on the individual level) to the lower classes in the first place. If the argument is that there were behavioural and educational differences between the labouring classes and the trading classes, and that the social and cultural norms of the trading classes seeped down to the workers due to downward drift of these ideas, then I can see no fault with this analysis. But to claim that the mercantile class was somehow "genetically different" to the people from which it was derived is ludicrous. The fact is that there has been far too much migration of humans between geographical regions (and I use the term migration in the population genetics sense) for any idea that there exist clearly defined "biological groups" to be meaningless. Indeed this is obvious from Clark's theory, the "mercantile class" were part of the working class from a population genetic point of view, with massive migration (both ways) between these social groups occurring according to Clark's own theory. I don't think anyone is arguing that all individuals are identical with regards to intellectual ability, but the problem is that some people are too eager to misrepresent this fact as if it applies equally to socially constructed groups, as if these groups had some basis in nature. To see everything in terms of "biological determinism" is to be blind to modern science and to see "races"/populations as discrete and distinct "biological groups" is to be ignorant of modern genetics and anthropology. Alun (talk) 07:20, 1 February 2008 (UTC)


 * Alun, I appreciate you taking the time to reply, but we're just wasting each other's time with these comment threads that don't directly address the article. We clearly have very different interpretations of the science. --Legalleft (talk) 07:45, 1 February 2008 (UTC)
 * I agree, Greg Clark's book is clearly totally irrelevant to the concepts of both "race" and "intelligence" and is primarily about a socio-cultural change. Alun (talk) 09:44, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

I have not read that book, but I am familiar with the transition from the Malthusian regime to the Industrial revolution and I can tell you that genes are not invoked. Any economist who uses "race" is not mainstream by a large margin... Most important in this context are the increased profitability of human capital and the demographic transition. These topics are fascinating but, not directly related to this article. Brusegadi (talk) 04:29, 1 February 2008 (UTC)


 * Apparently the relevant details are here Gregory Clark (economist). --Legalleft (talk) 04:55, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

African American history: move proposal
I propose that the section "African American history" be moved to the article African American history. A summary of the information and link to the African American history article can remain, like what was done with the stereotypes in the media section. --Jagz (talk) 19:39, 4 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Insofar as the history is, according to one notable point of view, an explanation for IQ differences, it needs to be fully explained here. Slrubenstein  |  Talk 22:32, 4 February 2008 (UTC)
 * I think you're talking about The Bell Curve? Also, there is a historical dispute within the United States regarding the possible relative development of "black" versus "white" intelligence. As such, I think that it probably does more clearly qualify for inclusion in this article, which deals with race's impact, if any, on intelligence, than in the general "African American history" article, which would I think more fully deal with the general history of the "blacks" (including any that might qualify as "African pre-African Americans" or whatever) in America than in a now often largely disputed theory that has little if anything to do with the real "history of African Americans" per se. John Carter (talk) 02:17, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

There is no longer an African American history section. --Jagz (talk) 06:59, 5 February 2008 (UTC) There is no longer a section named African American history. --Jagz (talk) 07:55, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
 * There is now. You do not have the authority to do this alone. Both editors above think the African American history section should stay, and so do I. So there are three editors against a single editor. This is certainly not a consensus for change. Any more editing like this and I will report you for pov-pushing and editing against consensus. Please also do not engage in edit waring, wait untill this discussion has a clear consensus in favour of your proposal before making the changes. A statement on intent is not sufficient. Alun (talk) 07:07, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
 * The information is still there. It is just reorganized. I changed the name to African American history and then back to History. --Jagz (talk) 07:13, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Well don't untill others agree with you. This is a difficult article and making changes without consensus is very damaging to the community. Alun (talk) 07:15, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
 * The proposal to move the section to a new article was rejected. I did not move the section. --Jagz (talk) 07:55, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

History
I propose that a history section be added to the article to give it a historical perspective. The section could have a worldwide view to the extent possible and not focus only on African Americans. --Jagz (talk) 22:47, 4 February 2008 (UTC)
 * If you can provide relevant sourced information, I honestly can't see any objections provide WP:Undue weight isn't violated. The problem might be in finding reliable sources for the information, though. John Carter (talk) 02:18, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
 * I wasn't suggesting that I write the history section personally. I am seeking comment on the idea of adding such a section. --Jagz (talk) 02:27, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

Proposal to rename article
I propose that the article be renamed "Race and intelligence in the United States". The article is USA oriented. --Jagz (talk) 02:31, 5 February 2008 (UTC)


 * That's true. But there is research on world-wide IQ scores that could be included. Lynn and Vanhanen's numbers and the international PISA and TIMSS test scores have been analyzed in more scholarly articles than I can count at this point. That research can / should be described. Secondarily, if you're not also proposing to create a new article called "Race and intelligence", then this one should suffice without the extra specificity in the title. --Legalleft (talk) 05:16, 5 February 2008 (UTC)


 * Actually, maybe that's not a bad idea. Due to its length and detail, this article is almost incomprehensible / unusable to the average web user. This article could become the detailed review of race and intelligence in the united states and the new article could be the much briefer summary I described above. --Legalleft (talk) 05:40, 5 February 2008 (UTC)


 * I reject this proposal as being nothing more than another attempt to produce a pov-fork by Jagz, a notably pov-pushing editor. There is already a proposal to change the article. Slr has proposed that we create two articles, one called Heritability and IQ and the other called Socioeconomic status and IQ. This article is poor because it includes the word "race" in it's title, the concept of "race" is completely undefined so it can mean anything to anybody (as I show above, geneticists and anthropologists have comprehensively destroyed the idea that "races" represent anything like identifiable discrete biological groups), and so just about any half baked idea can be included in this article. Likewise "intelligence" is an even more poorly defined and less well understood concept. As for Tatu Vanhanen's racist nonsense, even his own son (Matti Vanhanen, our prime minister here in Finland) has distanced himself, and Vanhanen was investigated for incitement to racial hatred by the Finnish police. Why not include the work of Joseph Mengele given your predeliction for unreconstructed racists. Vanhanen and Lyn's so called "research" has been comprehensively debunked again and again, they are racists who have been shown to have used biased statistical analyses to get the results they want. Maybe include their ludicrous "research" in the article on scientific racism. As the Noam Chomsky says, we need to question the motives of people who conduct such pointless "research" A possible correlation between mean IQ and skin colour is of no greater scientific interest than a correlation between any two other arbitrarily selected traits, say mean height and colour of eyes. The empirical results, whatever they might be, appear to have little bearing on any issue of scientific significance. In the present state of scientific understanding, there would appear to be little scientific interest in the discovery that one partly heritable trait correlates (or not) with another partly heritable trait...the zeal and intensity with which some pursue or welcome it cannot be reasonably attributed to a dispassionate desire to advance science, it is even more important when they are prepared to use biased data sets and analyses to get the result they want. Science articles should be named after concepts that are well defined and scientifically quantifiable, such as IQ, heredity and socio-economic status, then we can produce something a lot better. Alun (talk) 06:55, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
 * No one wants to read all this crap. --Jagz (talk) 07:07, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
 * What you mean is you do not want to read anything that does not agree with your prejudice. What it must be to be so enlightened. Alun (talk) 07:09, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
 * It's obvious that you are not as bright as you pretend to be. --Jagz (talk) 07:16, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

Trading insults isn't very productive. --Legalleft (talk) 08:05, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

Alun, that's a non-starter. First, the heritabilty of IQ within groups and the relationship of IQ and SES are interesting, but don't substitute for a discussion of race and intelligence. Second, race and racial labels are ubiquitous in social science research. Even if the mapping of an individual's racial labels to their underlying biology is fuzzy and directed in part by social convention, it doesn't make it wholly uninformative and certainly doesn't make it irrelevant. Besides that, as I understand Wikipedia policy, you can't redefine the debate as a corrective to preceived inaccuracies. You just report the views as you find them. I've read extensively in this area, and I can't disagree more with your characterization of what ideas are / are not part of the scholarly debate. You need to look no further than Mainstream Science on Intelligence to find 52 professors who pubically wrote that "Most experts believe that environment is important in pushing the bell curves apart, but that genetics could be involved too." Note they are not saying that they believe that, but more importantly they are saying that they believe that most experts believe that genetics could be involved too. Lastly, if the world wide IQ numbers were debunked then they wouldn't be used in so many primary research articles -- see just the latest issue of the jounral Intelligence for the most recent examples. --Legalleft (talk) 08:05, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

Here's the TOC of that journal -- http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/01602896 -- and here are the titles of the papers from the latest issue: You can see the large number of studies looking at world-wide IQ scores. Here's the abstract of one of the papers that uses PISA and TIMSS in addition to Lynn and Vanhanen's scores: Cognitive abilities are important for the economic and non-economic success of individuals and societies. For international analyses, the collection of IQ-measures from Lynn and Vanhanen was supplemented and meliorated by data from international student assessment studies (IEA-Reading, TIMSS, PISA, PIRLS). The cognitive level of a nation is highly correlated with its educational level (r = .78, N = 173). In international comparisons, it also shows a high correlation with gross domestic product (GDP, r = .63, N = 185). However, in cross-sectional studies, the causal relationship between intelligence and national wealth is difficult to determine. In longitudinal analyses with various samples of nations, education and cognitive abilities appear to be more important as developmental factors for GDP than economic freedom. Education and intelligence are also more relevant to economic welfare than vice versa, but at the national level the influence of economic wealth on cognitive development is still substantial. --Legalleft (talk) 08:20, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Temperature and evolutionary novelty as forces behind the evolution of general intelligence
 * IQ and fertility: A cross-national study
 * The decline of the world's IQ
 * Secular declines in cognitive test scores: A reversal of the Flynn Effect
 * Relevance of education and intelligence at the national level for the economic welfare of people
 * Effects of age and schooling on intellectual performance: Estimates obtained from analysis of continuous variation in age and length of schooling
 * ACT and general cognitive ability
 * The measurement of visuo–spatial and verbal–numerical working memory: Development of IRT-based scales
 * if the world wide IQ numbers were debunked then they wouldn't be used in so many primary research articles
 * Nonsense, citing something doesn't display support for it. Scholars must cite something when they are debunking it. I can cite Jensen, but it doesn't mean that this supports the validity of his research does it? Besides I don't think I made the claim that the "IQ numbers" had been debunked did I? I said that the statistical treatment and validity of these numbers had been debunked. The numbers themselves are just that, numbers, it is their contextual treatment that has been criticised. I also don't think that I have ever claimed that Jensen's work should not be included in this article, I have only stated that it should not be given undue weight. Your responses do not actually make reference to what I am saying. You can whitter about "race" all you like, but as far as I can see you have categorically failed to explain what Jensen means by "race". You claim it is about "hereditary" but "race" is not a very good predictor of ancestry, whereas hereditary is specifically about ancestry. To conflate concepts of "race" with concepts of "hereditary" is to ignore the vast swathes of data that have been available for decades that categorically show that "heredity" derives from one's ancestors whereas "race" is a construct applied by societies. "Recent studies of human population genetic variation show that while race captures some information about genetic ancestry, particularly in US populations, it often fails to account for admixture and population structure....Geographical origin and explicit genetic data are more accurate predictors of ancestry than race." So It would be nice if these data actually included genetic ancestry information instead of "racial" information. Alun (talk) 08:49, 5 February 2008 (UTC)


 * The papers I'm referring to use the IQ values as you would use any other kind of data -- they're not debunking it -- they are expanding the research. See the list of papers I created above. See especially the work using PISA and TIMSS along with the IQ numbers. For Jensen on race, read Jensen (1998). But few arguments with Jensen center on debates about race, so that doesn't seem very relvant. I responded to your Bamshad citation on your talk page. Yes, asking the race/ethnicty of your four grandparents will better identify admixed people, and yes, adding genotyping data will fruther shrink the CIs for admixture estimation, but per Tang et al, in the US, there are hardly any people for whom race misinforms (rather than underinforms) about ancestry. Moroever, these arguments just aren't that germane to this article. Even if (picking numbers randomly) race captures ancestry only half as well as a genetic test, that doesn't make race unassociated with ancestry at a population wide level (which should be obvious). --Legalleft (talk) 09:01, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Tang et al is a paper very familiar to me. They do not claim that African Americans have no European ancestry. If they had sampled West African populations as well as the African American population their results would have been strikingly different. Your claims for this paper are overblown and far greater than the claims the paper makes. Tang were doing an excersise to identify if genetic clustering conforms to self identified race/ethnicity (SIRE), unsurprisingly they found that SIRE formed non-discrete clusters, but clustering analyses can only differentiate between the input data, and this paper does not use groups outside of the USA, as I say the inclusion of West African samples would have made a huge difference to their results. Alun (talk) 11:20, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
 * On the details of race, I'm not sure we're saying anything different except in semantics and your suggestion about West African samples. Surely someone has looked at the Perlegen African American samples and compared them to the YRI HapMap samples. Also, HGDP has a lot more African genotype data. FYI -- you can download all the ethnically identified genotype data you want from a number of sources in order to conduct your own study -- were that I had any time, I'd be interested to try that (I've got the data on disk but no time for that analysis). You could publish in PLoS One or a BMC journal and advance the field a bit. However, all of this discussion of the details of race is really distracting from the problems of this article, which is not a lack of detail but a lack of clarity (and comprehensiveness from a worldwide perspective). --Legalleft (talk) 23:02, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
 * And here's that paper -- http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=1828730 -- almost exactly the analysis i suggested in a BMC journal --Legalleft (talk) 23:55, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

Alun, what would you think of the title Ethnicity and intelligence in the United States? Aron.Foster (talk) 05:29, 7 February 2008 (UTC)


 * If the article is changed to "Ethnicity and Intelligence in the US" would it still make claims about the heritability of IQ? If so, it does not solve the problem.  I do not think the problem is the word "race," and I do not think the problem would be solved by changing the word "race."  I think the problem is that the article mixes up debates about the heritability of intelligence and race.  As long as these two things are kept separate, I have no problem with using the word race. Slrubenstein   |  Talk 13:41, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

From what I understand of your positions, Alun is primarily concerned about this article not addressing the lack of a clear scientific definition of race, and SLRubenstein is primarily concerned about this article giving undue weight to those who support a genetic component to the race/IQ gap. Both legitimate concerns, but they can be addressed regardless of a US/World split of the article. I'd argue that the race/IQ gap is a bigger issue in America than much of the rest of the Western world because of the large percentage of (self-identified) blacks and the larege difference in their average intelligence scores from whites. We should consider that a large portion of our audience is only concerned about the black/white difference in the US. Aron.Foster (talk) 02:56, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

History


Charles Darwin wrote in his Descent of Man (VII, On the races of Man): "The races differ also in constitution, in acclimatisation and in liability to certain diseases. Their mental characteristics are likewise very distinct; chiefly as it would appear in their emotional, but partly in their intellectual faculties."

The opinion that there are differences in the brain sizes and brain structures of different racial and ethnic groups was widely held and studied during the 19th and early 20th centuries. During this time period, research on race and intelligence was often used to show that one race was superior to another, justifying the poor status and treatment of the "inferior race". The scientific debate on the contribution of nature versus nurture to individual and group differences in intelligence can be traced back to at least the mid-19th century.

The writings of Sir Francis Galton, a British psychologist, spurred interest in the study of mental abilities, particularly as they relate to heredity and eugenics. Galton estimated from his field observations in Africa that the African people were significantly below Anglo-Saxons' position in the normal frequency distribution of general mental ability; findings that continue to spark controversy in academia today.

====Early testing==== Average ethnic and racial group differences in IQ were first directly observed in the United States when analyzing the data from standardized mental tests administered on large scales during World War I. For example, in this test "Southern Whites", scored below "Northern Negroes." These results inspired the first theories of environmental influences on intelligence. An early advocate of these ideas was Ruth Benedict, who in her book, The Races of Mankind challenged the idea that people of different races had different inherent intelligences."The difference arose because of differences of income, education, cultural advantages, and other opportunities. --Ruth Benedict"

Foremost amongst those researching this was Stanley Porteus, who although not a staff member, gave some lectures at the University of Melbourne, devised his maze test as early as 1913, later applying it in his study of the Aborigines in the Kimberley region and Northern Territory of Australia (1929) and later the Kalahari tribesmen of southern Africa (1934). He also used it to assess the results of pre-frontal brain surgery on mental performance, publishing his results in 1931.

W.O. Brown, writing in The Journal of Negro History in 1931, wrote regarding early intelligence tests:

"After the World War and during the severe agitation for the restriction of immigration, aimed especially at the Southeastern Europeans, tests came into a new usage. ..the tests revealed the inferior intelligence of various racial and nationality groups. ..The Southeastern Europeans and the Negroes especially came of badly in these tests. ..The results of the tests elevated their dogma of racial inequality from a mere prejudice to the dignity of a scientifically validated opinion."

Slavery
During the Atlantic slave trade period, scientific theories about the mental capacities of people of African descent were provided to justify the enslavement of Africans. According to Alexander Thomas and Samuell Sillen, during this time period the Black man was described as uniquely fitted for bondage because of what researchers at the time called "his primitive psychological organization." A well-known physician of the antebellum South, Samuel Cartwright of Louisiana, had a psychiatric explanation for runaway slaves; he diagnosed their attempts to gain freedom as a mental illness and coined the term "drapetomania" to describe it.

Scientific arguments about the mental inferiority of Black people were instrumental in keeping slavery alive as an institution in the United States; it was widely regarded that Black people lacked the mental capacity to handle freedom. Secretary of State John C. Calhoun arguing for the extension of slavery in 1844 said, "Here (scientific confirmation) is proof of the necessity of slavery. The African is incapable of self-care and sinks into lunacy under the burden of freedom. It is a mercy to give him the guardianship and protection from mental death."

Some early opinions about the differences among races grew out of stereotypes about non-whites developed during the period of colonialism and slavery.

School segregation
Lewis Terman wrote in The measurement of intelligence in 1916 "'(Black and other ethnic minority children) are uneducable beyond the nearest rudiments of training. No amount of school instruction will ever make them intelligent voters or capable citizens in the sense of the world…their dullness seems to be racial, or at least inherent in the family stock from which they come…Children of this group should be segregated in special classes and be given instruction which is concrete and practical. They cannot master abstractions, but they can be made efficient workers…There is no possibility at present of convincing society that they should not be allowed to reproduce, although from a eugenic point of view they constitute a grave problem because of their unusual prolific breeding.'"

Researchers such as Amanda Thompson and Elazar Barkan have suggested that "Scientific racism" has been used to perpetuate the idea of the intellectual inferiority of African Americans and that it was used to justify segregated education in America.

Eugenics
Dorthy Roberts writes that the history of the eugenics movement in America was strongly tied to the older scientific racism used to justify slavery. Roberts writes that paralleling the development of eugenic theory was the acceptance of intelligence as the primary indicator of human value. Eugenicists claimed that the IQ test could quantify innate human ability in a single measurement, despite the objections of the creator of the test, Alfred Binet.

Beginning in the 1930s, race difference research and hereditarianism — the belief that genetics are the primary cause of differences in intelligence among human groups — began to fall out of favor in psychology and anthropology after major internal debates. In anthropology this occurred in part due to the advocacy of Franz Boas, who in his 1938 edition of The Mind of Primitive Man wrote, "there is nothing at all that could be interpreted as suggesting any material difference in the mental capacity of the bulk of the Negro population as compared with the bulk of the White population." The hereditarian position was challenged by Boas' claim that cranial vault size had increased significantly in the U.S. from one generation to the next, because racial differences in such characteristics had been among the strongest arguments for a genetic role.

Inspired by the American eugenics movement, Nazi Germany implemented the T-4 Euthanasia Program in which roughly 200,000 mentally and physically disabled Germans were killed, and about 400,000 sterilized. The association of hereditarianism with Nazi Germany created a modern academic environment that has been very skeptical of suggestions that there are racial or ethnic differences in measures of intellectual or academic ability and that these differences are primarily determined by genetic factors.


 * This is my proposal for the reorganization of the History section. --Jagz (talk) 07:30, 5 February 2008 (UTC)


 * The order isn't really chronological, not that it has to be. --Legalleft (talk) 08:07, 5 February 2008 (UTC)


 * This is a mess that makes no sense. This is really three sections: a history of IQ testing, a history of research on race, and a history of black-white relations in the US.  Now, each of these three histories make sense: in an article on "race and IQ" a considerable part of which involves test differences between Blacks and Whites in the US, it makes sense to have a section on "race" including a history of research on it, a section on IQ including a history of research, and a historiy of Black-White relations.  But they should be kept separate not merged into one hadge-podge chronology. Slrubenstein   |  Talk 11:40, 5 February 2008 (UTC)


 * You may be right but the History section that is in the article now is a mess. You can't polish a turd. It needs to be reoriented to put the focus more on the History of the field of race and intelligence overall. One section heading is "Slavery and colonialism" but does not discuss colonialism. The other section heading is "Immigration and segregation" but doesn't really discuss immigration. There is information such as eugenics discussed in "Immigration and segregation" that should not be in that section; the inclusion of such material in that section could be considered original research because it appears that an editor has "connected the dots" in a way not supported by the sources. Also, there have been East Asians in the USA for a long time and it is not mentioned once. The section is also too oriented towards the USA; the USA is not the center of the universe. --Jagz (talk) 13:39, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

It's not "original research." It's a standard telling of the history of this topic in the US. Multiple sources cover it. futurebird (talk) 18:24, 6 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Then it needs to be rewritten. One section heading is "Slavery and colonialism" but does not discuss colonialism. The other section heading is "Immigration and segregation" but doesn't really discuss immigration. There is information in the "Immigration and segregation" section that should not be in that section or at least the reason for its inclusion is not clear. The reason for the inclusion of Galton in the section "Slavery and colonialism" is not clear. There seems to be an attempt to link the whole issue of race and intelligence throughout human history to African Americans and that is simply not the case. --Jagz (talk) 19:36, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

Jagz, I like your proposed revision of this section, but I don't think that graph adds anything to the History section. I do think it adds a lot of clarification to the Test data section, so I moved it there. Community thoughts? Aron.Foster (talk) 03:27, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

Race and Intelligence article on Wikinfo
Here is a link the the Race and Intelligence article on Wikinfo: http://www.wikinfo.org/index.php/Race_and_intelligence --Jagz (talk) 15:07, 23 January 2008 (UTC)
 * While there is some interesting material in the intro of the article, a lot of it relies on OR and synthesis and is therefore unsuitable for WP. Also, the lack of references is disturbing.--Ramdrake (talk) 15:37, 23 January 2008 (UTC)
 * It's more readable, better organized, and more succinct than the WP article. --Jagz (talk) 15:45, 23 January 2008 (UTC)
 * So not actually more accurate, factual or representative of academic thinking then? Your criteria for comparison are stylistic and superficial. You seem to be saying "look at this, it's better because it's less intelligent". Alun (talk) 18:45, 23 January 2008 (UTC)
 * I'm drawing attention to some shortcomings of the WP article. --Jagz (talk) 19:00, 23 January 2008 (UTC)
 * I just added a lng section on other points made by Flynn that are relevant to this topic. i thought we could move towards some consensus about how best to incorporate that into the article - Flynn is a well-regarded scholar who is an expert in this field and surely a better source that Wikinfo's ignorant original opinion essay.  One editor here insists on never making a constructive contribution; aqny time someone attempts to bring well-informed research into the article he either changes the topic or introduces a non-sequitor, or a racist remark or a personal attack.  Folks, WP:DNFTT.  Let's focus on what we can do to improve the article rather than get bogged down in ignroant, racist drivel. Slrubenstein   |  Talk 19:42, 23 January 2008 (UTC)
 * It would be better to fix what is in the article now before adding something else. It needs to be made more readable, organized better, shortened, and written more succinctly. Also, see the templates at the top of the article. I suspect that a lot of knowledgeable editors have long ago abandoned this article out of frustration. --Jagz (talk) 20:21, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

We may be able to get some ideas for improving the Wikipedia "Race and intelligence" article from the Wikinfo "Race and intelligence" article. See: http://www.wikinfo.org/index.php/Race_and_intelligence --Jagz (talk) 15:00, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

Article cleanup
Now is a good time to cleanup the article as it is unlocked. --Jagz (talk) 16:59, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

Can I suggest that this article simply go through a simple editing process? I haven't looked at it in a while, but the major problems do not seem to have changed. There is very little flow to the actual piece and much of what is included is particularly repetitive. It reads as though a large number of people have simultaneously cropped and inserted facts without much thought about the usefulness or importance of these facts to the topic. As well, many of the titled sections include irrelevant or off topic information, much of which does not seem to support any actual idea.

Overall, it seems to me that this is occurring because authors are trying to push too much information into a single article. I think that a skilled editor could easily reduce, eliminate or link a majority of this extraneous information within about 2 hours time. Not only would this simplify the article to the point of providing informative material for readers, but it would also help with reducing problems with POV and invalid information from future edits.

I would offer to do this myself, but I really am not interested in getting involved in such a divisive topic. I am sure that amongst the numerous editors who have already spent considerable time working on this paper there could be a single person willing to spend a few hours making this page look legitimate.

Frank0570618 (talk) 05:24, 11 February 2008 (UTC)Frank0570618

material from Race and genetics
I just cut this from the Race and genetics article because it's really appropriate here and not there (no need to concentrate so much on two particular genes, and their interest is really only the intelligence angle). If you would like to integrate it please do. (And remember to indicate in the edit summary the article it came from.) Thanks! Calliopejen1 (talk) 22:26, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

Recently the New York Times reported the discovery of two genes, microcephalin and ASPM that are associated with brain size, people who lack functional copies of these genes are born microcephalic. A new version (allele) of the microcephalin gene is thought to have arisen about 37,000 years ago, this new version of the gene is found in about 70% of Europeans and Asians but is rarer in Africans. A new ASPM allele is thought to have arisen about 5,800 years ago, this new allele occurs in about 50% of Middle Eastern and European people, but is rare in East Asia and Africa. The rapid spread of these new alleles may indicate positive selection. The new microcephalin allele coincides with Upper Paleolithic transitions in Europe and the ASPM allele is about concurrent with the start of agriculture, but the researchers claim there is no clear connection. It should be noted that the New York Times article also states "Even if the new alleles should be shown to improve brain function, that would not necessarily mean that the populations where they are common have any brain-related advantage over those where they are rare. Different populations often take advantage of different alleles, which occur at random, to respond to the same evolutionary pressure, as has happened in the emergence of genetic defenses against malaria, which are somewhat different in Mediterranean and African populations."

Following the release of the study websites promoting racism quickly seized on the evolutionary findings. One magazine called the discovery "the moment the antiracists and egalitarians have dreaded". In an article in the National Review Online, John Derbyshire wrote that the research implied that "our cherished national dream of a well-mixed and harmonious meritocracy may be unattainable."

Consequently the study by Bruce Lahn began to attract considerable controversy. Many scientists criticized Lahn stating that he overinterpreted and sensationalized his findings. One of the co-authors, distanced herself from the study saying that she was bothered how the paper drew a link between the genetic changes and the rise of civilization. She felt that it was too early to reach any conclusions about why the changes spread and said it is "very simplistic" to imagine that a single gene could have a major effect on complex cultural traits. Richard Lewontin stated that the two papers were egregious examples of going well beyond the data to try to make a splash. Lahn would later concede that there was no real evidence natural selection had acted on cognition or intelligence through these genes. Subsequent studies by other scientist have failed to find any relationship between these genes and intelligence or brain size.

Contemporary issues
I recommend that the "Contemporary issues" section be expanded and the "Research" section be reduced in size because it is unencyclopedic. Some of the information from the Research section could go into the Contemporary issues section. The Contemporary issues section can cover what are currently considered to be the mainstream and non-mainstream viewpoints regarding race and intelligence. --Jagz (talk) 15:26, 8 February 2008 (UTC)


 * Some kind of reorganization is needed. First, I see a lot of redundancy -- the same thing said in multiple places. Second, the order in which things are discussed is not fully logical. I tried rewriting some of the paragraphs in the research section where I could see the point that previous authors were trying to make had been lost. I think it's more coherent now, but the sections I didn't edit are still a jumble of sentences. --Legalleft (talk) 18:09, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

Why is a Racial Debate in this article?
This article is about race and IQ. It is not about whether or not race exists. That would be a separate article, and people who wanted to read that article can click on a link to get to it. Feel free to put such a link in this article. However, people who want to read about race and IQ should not be forced to wade through all these irrelevant racial debate articles. It only obfuscates the true purpose of this article. JettaMann (talk) 18:08, 9 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Agreed, it just makes the article too long. --Jagz (talk) 22:42, 9 February 2008 (UTC)
 * I also agree, but it's an important enough issue where it should at least be mentioned and linked in this article. One or two sentences... I'm at a loss on where to put them in the current article. Aron.Foster (talk) 00:53, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Maybe if you put it in the introduction to the article it will keep it from expanding in the future. --Jagz (talk) 17:55, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Actually JettaMan this article is not about race and IQ, it is about Race and intelligence. Intelligence and IQ are not the same thing, whatever certain psychometricians want to claim, after all there is no doubt that psychometricians do not represent an uninterested party when it comes to conflating IQ and intelligence. Indeed your other claim that the article is not about whether "race" exists is rather odd, if one is going to have an article called "race and intelligence" then it is clearly within the scope of the article to cover human variation and whether ideas of "race" are accurate descriptors of the variation that does exist, just like it is within the scope of the article to discuss the concept of "intelligence" and that many scientists are sceptical that IQ really does measure intelligence. Likewise it is within the scope of the article to discuss the fact that heritability is a measure of variance and that gene-environment interactions are not independent. Currently the article is extremely biased and only wants to give a very watered down discussion of the massive amount of evidence against the simplistic and rather pathetic "nature-nurture" attitude of certain so called "scientists". Indeed the article hardly covers the huge amount of the literature against the "hereditarians", including the volume "Race and IQ" edited by Ashley Montague compiled in direct response to Jensen's 1969 diatribe, it's not mentioned once in the appropriate section. Indeed there seems to have been a conscious effort on the part of right wing idealogues recently in this article to remove information that does not support their eugenicist point of view. Alun (talk) 07:05, 14 February 2008 (UTC)
 * No. --Jagz (talk) 10:54, 14 February 2008 (UTC)
 * The article should mention controversies with the definitions of 'race' and 'intelligence', and link to their respective pages. I also liked when the article mentioned that most studies concerning race/intelligence assumed that 1) race, or at least ethnicity, exists and 2) g exists and measures intelligence. But this isn't the place to fully explore those issues. Aron.Foster (talk) 11:55, 14 February 2008 (UTC)
 * I added a sentence to the article's introduction. --Jagz (talk) 13:36, 14 February 2008 (UTC)


 * When it comes to race and IQ, race is a marker for socio-economic status. If the article simply explored the relationship between race as a social status and variation in IQ, I would have no problems.  But Arthur Jensen, a notable although very much a minority view in this debate, has suggested that race is best understood as a biological group (although Jensen has no training in biology).  We now have the mainstream and a minority view, and they disagree.  The article has to provide some account of this disagreement, and a context for understanding the mainstream and minority views. Slrubenstein   |  Talk 13:53, 14 February 2008 (UTC)


 * I'm really quite certain that the two main views regarding the causes of the observed differences -- ignoring questions of minor / major -- are that race is a marker for "racism" vs "biology" (both very broadly construed). From there, there's some debate about the importance of SES factors in the racism thesis. However, you won't find, for example, Flynn saying that SES is the explanation -- or rather any sense of SES as it is typically defined. The reason for this is quite simple: the children of the wealthiest, best educated parents living in the most socially progressive towns in the U.S. still have a race-gap issue. Obgu and Sowell, two black social scientists, both have particular environmental theories to address these issues, but they don't involve SES. Likewise, Steele's work and Fryer's work to address the issue (again two black social scientists) doesn't focus on SES. --Legalleft (talk) 17:42, 14 February 2008 (UTC)


 * the children of the wealthiest, best educated parents living in the most socially progressive towns in the U.S. still have a race-gap issue.
 * So what? There is a social gap however "progressive" the town is supposed to be. The social gap is not due to wealth, it is due to socio-cultural factors. There is no such thing as "equality" even when economic factors are equal. Thsi is "socioeconomic" and not just "economic" or "educational" factors. The social factors that present the gap in wealthier populations are due to 500 years of historical and continuing white supremacism. You can't model for that. Alun (talk) 17:48, 14 February 2008 (UTC)


 * Hence, SES as it is commonly understood in terms of class, education and income isn't what people think is involved and something more analogous to "racism" is what they think is involved. This SES vs racism issue is important to people in the field because it tells you where to look for the cause. --Legalleft (talk) 17:51, 14 February 2008 (UTC)
 * I am not wedded to the term SES. I am commited to representing notable sources without giving undue weight.  When "race" is concerned the overwhelming bulk of the literature explores social and other environmental causes; as long as this literature is accurately represented I am okay.  As for the "biology" view that seems to be a tiny minority in the scientific literature on IQ differences between races. Slrubenstein   |  Talk 18:48, 14 February 2008 (UTC)


 * Great. Then I think the problem is just with using that term. If you quantify opinions by counting the number of different notable opinions, then there certainly are more distinguishable opinions related to social/environmental causes. That is, there are a multitude of suggested environmental causes. However, the only sources I know of that quantify opinions by having a larger number of researchers give their opinions find non-trivial support of biology being part of the explanation as well. So I'm not sure how you assess undue weight in that context. Are there currently example of undue weight in the article? --Legalleft (talk) 19:14, 14 February 2008 (UTC)


 * BTW -- I'm not saying that "racism" is exactly the right term either. Flynn writes that while the word "racism" captures the idea, simply saying "racism" is not a satisfactory kind of answer because racism has to work though some kind of causal process, which he wants to discover. --Legalleft (talk) 19:26, 14 February 2008 (UTC)


 * If I may use Occam's razor here. What we are discussing is environment not racism. Legalleft seems to be assuming that a test score gap between white and black people supposedly of the same socioeconomic status is ipso facto a result of genetics. This is based on an assumption that the environment and environmental history of people from a high socioeconomic status are not a factor. I am disputing this. I mentioned that social status is not the same as economic status, is it warranted to conflate social status and economic status? I'm not sure it is. This is not necessarily about racism though. I'm from the UK and there are clear differences between social classes that are not due to economics at all, one can be a hereditary peer and be poor, one can be a working class success story. Racism is also a factor in the different environments of white and black people of the same educational and economic status, it is not necessarily the same as having a different social status. Whatever one's social status one can suffer from racism. Likewise there is a difference between institutionalised racism and overt racism. Indeed I think the important point to make is that there are environmental differences between black and white people that appear to be from the same socioeconomic status. The assumption that because both groups appear to have similar economic resources, similar educational backgrounds and have similar employment then, the difference in test scores is because of "genetics" is just that, an assumption. There are differences in environment; social status, racism, stereotype threat to name but a few, there are probably many more differences in environment between these groups that can affect test scores. Alun (talk) 09:57, 15 February 2008 (UTC)


 * What?!? I hope people read what I actually wrote because I was asking for suggestions on areas for improvement in the article. --Legalleft (talk) 17:20, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

Worldwide view template
Can the worldwide view template be removed from the article now? --Jagz (talk) 20:10, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

The main point of the article
Older versions of the article included these bell curves. I intend to add this diagram and the following information so we get to one of the main points of the article near the beginning of the article, that is the disparity of IQ between races. --Jagz (talk) 07:05, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

IQ tests are often designed to have an average score of 100. Studies have shown that Whites in Europe and the United States (U.S.) average from 100 to 103 on IQ tests. Orientals in Asia and the U.S. tend to have scores of about 106. Blacks in the U.S., the Caribbean, Britain, and Canada have average IQs of about 85. The average IQs for sub-Saharan Africans range from 70 to 75. Black Africans in the South African school system have an average IQ of 70, whereas Mixed-Race Black students in South Africa, with about 25% White ancestry (as determined by genetic testing), have an average IQ of 85 -- the same as Blacks in the United States, Britain, and the Caribbean.
 * For an additional source of IQ score data, click on the bell curve diagram. --Jagz (talk) 17:43, 11 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Are you not citing just one WP:FRINGE source? That is why the consensus was that the article should summarise the current mainstream state of academic research, ascertained from scholarly databases. Rushton is not a mainstream source unfortunately. Mathsci (talk) 07:22, 11 January 2008 (UTC)
 * His book contains some theories that are not considered mainstream but there does not seem to be a problem with the IQ numbers. I have not included any non-mainstream information from his book. --Jagz (talk) 07:32, 11 January 2008 (UTC)
 * There may be a problem with the statistical methods which have been criticized by biologists and experimental psychologists. The article must reflect mainstream academic findings in the correct context. How can you judge what's mainstream or not without having surveyed the literature? That would be original research. Mathsci (talk) 08:37, 11 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Are you disputing the IQ numbers? I think your main reason for participation in this article is because you enjoy debating. Could you please do or say something constructive for once? --Jagz (talk) 09:23, 11 January 2008 (UTC)
 * It doesn't seem particularly fruitful to criticize my editing history on main space articles, which you can check for yourself. What might emerge from this interchange possibly is that you may already have a fixed point of view before writing.


 * The present article is extremely problematic – you must surely be aware of that – and I do not find that your suggestions above are at all constructive or that your approach is scholarly. The interpretation of the graphs, statistical or otherwise, that you propose is not clear at all. Do you take it as a proof that "blacks in the US are less intelligent than whites" or as a proof that "the average score on IQ tests taken by blacks was less than that taken by whites". The latter statement is correct; but for example were the tests "controlled", i.e. were the tests taken under exactly similar circumstances (e.g. were both groups

equally prepared)? These questions are scientific and are addressed in the literature - that is what we have to record in the article. The text that you have written suggests that the IQ test measures innate intelligence and is independent of circumstances, which has been shown not to be the case in the literature. This is what I meant by context. Again let me repeat myself: it is not for us to interpret these findings, but to record how they are interpreted in mainstream literature, e.g. whether they are regarded as having any significance, statictical or otherwise. In what you wrote above, it is unclear whether you meant to suggest that there is an inherent undisputed intelligence gap between races, irrespective of upbringing and independent of the method of testing. Is that what you meant to write? The case of Irish vs English (that you also mention), instead of Black Americans vs White Americans, seems equally problematic and WP:FRINGE. Mathsci (talk) 10:25, 11 January 2008 (UTC)
 * The main purpose of the article is to discuss what appears to be an intelligence gap between races. An intelligence gap is suggested by the IQ gap. After presenting the IQ gap data, the article can discuss whether or not it actually indicates an intelligence gap between the races and whether the concept of race is meaningful, etc. This key information was removed from earlier versions of the article. There is no point in continuing any further with the article until this is resolved. --Jagz (talk) 14:29, 11 January 2008 (UTC)
 * "An intelligence gap is suggested by the IQ gap." Thank you for at last making your position so clear. Mathsci (talk) 19:22, 11 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Right, you were reading things into the article that were not there in writing. --Jagz (talk) 19:27, 11 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Apologies for confusing your quotes with similar sources which suggest that the IQ gap between blacks and whites in the USA is the same as the IQ gap between Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland (or between the English/Scottish and the Irish). Following your "logic", should we now also be discussing whether Irish Catholics are less intelligent than Irish Protestants? Mathsci (talk) 19:36, 11 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Since Irish Catholics are not a race, at least in the context of this article, the answer is no. --Jagz (talk) 19:45, 11 January 2008 (UTC)
 * There, sir, you are wrong: Irish Protestants are of Scottish origin; Irish Catholics are of Irish origin. Please read a history book, in particular the bits about an individual called Oliver Cromwell, Lord Protector of England, Scotland and Ireland. No, Jagz, if you're in for a penny, you're in for a punt :) Mathsci (talk) 19:54, 11 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. It should include white Europeans, black Africans, and oriental Asians; indigenous races. Also, countries other than the USA should be discussed and I did that by mentioning Britain and Canada for example. Also, mixed-race people add another consideration. --Jagz (talk) 20:24, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps the exercise of comparing the IQs of Irish Protestants and Irish Catholics might also show that IQ tests could possibly be scientifically meaningless, since so many white Americans are of Irish Catholic origin (following the 19C emigrations resulting from the potato famines in Ireland). Mathsci (talk) 21:08, 11 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Did you know that Irish people were brought to Iceland as slaves but now the people there are of mixed Icelandic and Irish ancestry? --Jagz (talk) 21:33, 11 January 2008 (UTC)
 * This source says Dublin was probably the prime slave market of western Europe. It also says the Irish slave trade "appears to have petered out in the early 12th century along with the Viking Age itself". --Jagz (talk) 20:00, 13 January 2008 (UTC)
 * The article Slavery in Britain and Ireland shows that hundreds of years later, thousands of Irish people were sent to the the West Indies as indentured servants and slavery was resurrected. --Jagz (talk) 23:56, 20 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Here is another article disussing Irish slavery. Also see Irish diaspora. --Jagz (talk) 07:00, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
 * It is better to discuss geographic regions and not islands. --Jagz (talk) 14:59, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Mathsci, when you mention "comparing the IQs of Irish Protestants and Irish Catholics might also show that IQ tests could possibly be scientifically meaningless", it seems to me to be dangerously close to original research. If indeed that's what the data suggests, and if a reputable source concludes that, then that information should be included in the article about IQ tests, not this one. Aron.Foster (talk) 23:52, 13 January 2008 (UTC)
 * If I'm not terribly confused, the Scots were from Ireland, and the Picts were Scotland's indigenous peoples. Scotland was Catholic until the upstanding Calvinist John Knox introduced ' Presbyterianism". I think that this alone would argue that the Scots and the Erse are racially the same people.Die4Dixie 23:00, 16 February 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Die4Dixie (talk • contribs)

Wikipedia citation policy
What is Wikipedia's policy regarding the use of citations from news sources? --Jagz (talk) 13:36, 15 February 2008 (UTC)


 * I don't see anything specifically about news sources here Verifiability. I suppose it would depend almost entirely on the context. --Legalleft (talk) 17:26, 15 February 2008 (UTC)


 * You need to look at reliable sources and especially at Science article in the popular press, this states "Articles in newspapers and popular magazines generally lack the context to judge experimental results. They may emphasize the most extreme possible outcomes mentioned in a research project and gloss over caveats and uncertainties, for instance presenting a new experimental medicine as the 'discovery of the cure' of a disease. Also, newspapers and magazines sometimes publish articles about scientific results before those results have been peer-reviewed or reproduced by other experimenters. They also tend not to report details of the methodology that was used, or the degree of experimental error. Thus, popular newspaper and magazine sources are generally not the best sources for scientific and medical results, especially in comparison to the academic literature. What can a popular-press article on scientific research provide? The mainstream press is valuable for reporting the public perception of scientific topics and for summarizing their implications for public policy. Such articles can also be used as pointers to more substantive information on the science itself. For instance, a newspaper article quoting Joe Smith of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution regarding whales' response to sonar gives you a strong suggestion of where to go to find more: look up his work on the subject, and cite his published papers instead of the newspaper article." Be careful when citing science from the popular press, they do not represent the views of academics, but the impressions of journalists. If a reputable scientist is writing in a well respected newspaper or magazine, then clearly it has more validity that a journalist writing in less reputable publication. Alun (talk) 13:09, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

This is great work
This article has made enormous progress recently. This is an article the authors can be proud of, in my opinion. Thank you for your hard work! 68.42.98.97 (talk) 23:33, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

nature vs nurture section
the text alun added is somewhere between trivially true (and hence could simply be given in the definition of heritability should we desire to define it) and irrelevant (as in not important to this article). lewontin's argument isn't an argument but a statement of the definition of heritability -- it's about population level variance, not the "causes" that are necessary and sufficient at an individual level. (for example, oxygen food and water are 100% necessary for an individual to develop a brain, but variation in these three factors contributes only some proportion to the total population level variance in brain development.) heritability is just ANOVA on the phenotypes of related (and unrelated) individuals with a certain ANOVA model. --Legalleft (talk) 18:03, 14 February 2008 (UTC)


 * Lewontin's article is about the non-independence of genes and environment, the section also makes specific reference to the fact that some researchers have conflated heritability with the effect of genes on traits, but heritability is about the effect of genes on "variance" and not on traits. Furthermore the fact that the effect of genes are not independent of environment is more than "trivial". Heritability is dependent upon environment, the same trait can be 100% heritable in one environment and 0% heritable in a different environmment. Considering part of Jensen's argument is based on heritability the edit is absolutely relevant. Jensen claims that because heritability is high for "intelligence" then the differences of "intelligence" between "populations" must be due to innate differences and not due to environment. When we argue that heritability is only measurable with fixed environments we are revealing a flaw to a least part of this logic. Furthermore it is revealing that you removed this edit almost imediately that I made it, indicating that you at least thought it detremental enough to the blatant pov you have been pushing to feel it was a challenge to you biased editing. Indeed your argument that it is about population level variance is relevant, or do you not consider "races" populations? Indeed your original reasons for removing this edit of mine was some humbug about it being a "critique of behavioural genetics", but none of the articles cited mention behavioral genetics at all, they are specifically about heritability and gene-environment interractions. The journals from which they derive indicate this, for example "The International Journal of Epidemiology", in this they discuss the interaction of genes and environment with regards to cancer, as well as with regards to "race and intelligence". Why are you so affraid of any edit that does not support your pov? You came to this article claiming that you want a "neutral" article, but your editing is blatantly pov, you have systematically removed text that undermines Jensen and Rushton. Worse your idea of "neutrality" is to include long sections of text supporting Jensen et al while relegating differeing opinions to little more than a footnote. For example take a look at the sections "Contemporary issues", "The Bell Curve" and the Genetics section in the "Natur nurture" section, these all provide very long sections detailing the work of people supporting a "genetic model" for the test score gap, and a line or two at the end giving little more than a nod to gainsayers. Thus it appears that the consensus is that the genetic model is accepted and only a small minority of scientists dispute it. This is neither neutral according to Wikipedia policies, nor is it honest, breaching the neutrality policy is taken very seriously on Wikipedia and you can be banned from editing for it. Given your initial claims for wanting a neutral article I can only assume that this was never your intent. The eminent neuroscientist Steven Rose has written "Every time we think we have buried the pseudo-science behind racist claims about differences in intelligence between Blacks and Whites, some attention-seeker attempts to re-ignite them." It seems you may well be one such "attention-seeker". Wikipedia works because we agree to follow the rules, there are few absolute rules, most rules are more like guidelines, breaking guidelines is not ecoraged, but sometimes it may be necessary. On the other hand we do have several policies, these cannot be broken, the most important of these policies are neutrality, no original research and verifiability. Constantly breaching these policies can lead to a ban from editing. I observe that you have made no effort to be neutral and I am warning you that this is not acceptable. You have tried to accuse me of lacking neutrality on this article, but you should observe that I have made very few edits to this article and have been more involved with discussions on the talk page. Wikipedia is not a free for all, we are collaborative, edits need to be discussed on the talk page and ideally there should be a consensus, especially for big changes to articles. It's one reason why I have made relatively few edits to this article, because it is difficult to get consensus here, and also because this is a contentious issue that is certainly not as clear cut as you would like to portray it. Excuse any typographical errors, I'm using an unfamiliar keyboard. Alun (talk) 13:01, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

For the record, as you accused me of pov-pushing on this article, I have made exactly 16 edits to the article on "Race and intelligence", 14 of them in the last week, most of these 14 were me trying to replace my perfectly good edit, that either you or Jagz had removed or moved to the bottom of the section because it did not support your pov. My total edit count over the last three years or so is 8196 at the time of writing. You have made a total of 110 edits, 38 of which are to this article and 39 of which are to this article's talk page, 2 of which are to the related article Minnesota Transracial Adoption Study, the remainder of which are to user pages and user talk pages. Clearly if I am pushing a pov on this article I am disguising it very well. Alun (talk) 13:50, 16 February 2008 (UTC)


 * Alun, it is very difficult to discuss anything with you because you don't appear to respond to what I actually write. I was trying to say that the entire section you added could be replaced with a non-argumentative statement that everyone agrees about the points being raised and that they were very simple and easy to understand if made directly. That is, it should require nothing much more then giving the defintiion of "heritability" to make that clear, assuming that's even necessary. We don't have room to correct all misconceptions here, and the existing text in that section already goes to some lengths to explain the relationship between heritability (within groups) and the causes of group differences. A further section, especially a long and detailed one, seems unnecessary. --Legalleft (talk) 18:13, 16 February 2008 (UTC)


 * Ha. I just wrote about your pov-pushing and you didn't respond to that. Furthermore I don't think it is you who decides what should be included and what should not, if so you would only mention the work of people like Jensen and Rushton on current form. Besides which you keep changing your mind. First it's about "behavioural genetics" (wrong) then it's "not relevant" (wrong) now it's "too detailed" (though any level of detail seems OK to you as long as it promotes a racialised pov far as I can see). When I do respond to what you say, you just change what you are saying. Alun (talk) 18:38, 16 February 2008 (UTC)


 * I'm doing my best to stay on topic and thus stay productive. The topic is the content of the genes and environment section. The current content is wholly unnecessary as written and at most we can make due providing the definition of heritability, but even that isn't clearly necessary as it is covered in so many other articles, and more importantly, the relationship between within group heritabilty and between group differences (the only part relevant to this article) is already spelled out in the section above that. --Legalleft (talk) 18:49, 16 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Hardly a correct statement. The topic of my edit was your blatant lack of neutrality when you edit. Your response was to ignore this. Indeed far from staying on topic you keep changing your mind, as I pointed out above. You appear to be a right wing racialist idealogue with little or no interest in producing a neutral article. Your edits belie your claims when you cane to this article. Originally you stated that you wanted to include Jensen's work in context, instead you have systematically removed any real discussion of the limitations and critisism of this work. I'm sorry to say that you are editing in a pov way and trying to produce an ideologically motivated article based on your own personal opinions and beliefs. You appear to have little or no interest in actually producing an encyclopaedia article that gives a neutral point of view. We can of course have a Request for comment regarding the article, or even a Peer review. Furthermore if you contunue your pov-pushing and breaching of the Wikipedia policy on neutrality we can have a Request for comment on your contributions. As I have stated before this is not a free for all, any editor who does not follow policies can be sanctioned. You do not appear to understand this, I have stated this several times to you, but you continue to produce thoroughly biased edits. Articles are not here to promote the personal beliefs of editors, this is not a blog, and it is not supposed to promote one ideology over any other. You have had a relatively free hand over the last week or so, but have produced nothing like a balanced article. If it comes to it we can get the article locked so no one can edit it. Alun (talk) 07:37, 17 February 2008 (UTC)
 * The quality of the article has increased by a factor of 10 since it was unlocked February 1. --Jagz (talk) 14:11, 17 February 2008 (UTC)


 * Legalleft, I am not convinced everyone involved in the debate over IQ does agree with the way populaion geneticists and evolutionary biologists use the word "heritability;" I am pretty sure I read an ad in the Wall Street Journal several years ago signed by a number of psychologists that made false claims about heritability - well, certainly claims that wouldn't make it into a peer-reviewed journal. Or notable college textbook. Slrubenstein   |  Talk 19:43, 16 February 2008 (UTC)


 * Here's what I wrote. I don't think it's controversial, and I think it clears up what is being discussed. It largely says what heritabilility doesn't mean: --Legalleft (talk) 19:52, 16 February 2008 (UTC)
 * In a modern context, the issue often relates to estimating the relative contribution of genetic and environmental factors to difference between individuals. However, all commenters agree that these methods cannot and are not intended to distinguish genetic and environmental contributions to the development of individual people. Instead, they are meant to determine the extent to which difference between individuals, for example individual difference in IQ scores, can be attributed to genetic and environmental factors that differ between individuals. Thus, a heritability of 100% does not mean that environmental factors are unimportant for development, but rather that physical or behavioral difference between individuals are not caused by difference in environment.


 * Yeah, I know what you're talking about. They did say something that's at best clumsily worded and at worst just wrong. But it wasn't some kind of fundamental disagreement, just sloppiness. --Legalleft (talk) 19:59, 16 February 2008 (UTC)
 * I just don't know what to make of your comment. All we can do is judge the text of the ad, it is accurate or inaccurate.  The ad was presented as a firm testament as to the beliefs of the signatories, and if you do not know, ads at a newspaper like the Wall Street Journal cost a lot - I would imagine the PhD's would be as careful in their wording in an ad. they pay for, as in the wording of anything else they sign their name to.  If they were "sloppy" you would have to provide me evidence that the fault is sloppiness.  Lacking any evidence I just cannot agree with you.  What we do agree on is that what they claim about heritability is wrong.  When we have a fringe view that we agree is wrong, we should be very careful not to give it undue weight in an encyclopedia article.  And when we have notable views that we agree are right - well, explaining those views carefully, accurately, and clearly - isn't this juse avoiding the mistake you accuse the WSJ ad. signitories of?  How can you fault Alun for wanting to avoid the fault you accuse them of? Slrubenstein   |  Talk 19:07, 17 February 2008 (UTC)


 * (1) It wasn't an ad, but an invited editorial. (2) What they wrote is technically correct, but sloppy. I know the authors personally and I suspect they would agree with my characterization. They wrote that if you eliminate environmental variation, then heritability goes to 100%. By environmental variation, they meant shared + nonshared environmental variation, but the common sense understanding of the term "environment" refers just to shared environmental variation, and it is not true that eliminating shared environmental variation will cause heritability to rise to 100%. That's where they were sloppy. I was very careful to avoid such pitfalls. (3) I didn't see any comment from Alun regarding the WSJ statement, and I was responding to your question. (4) So far, Alun has offered no speciifc suggestions for improving what I wrote other than to reintroduce an additional 4k of text, including a large block quote, to further explicatate what is an indirect point that should be covered in detail in any of a number of other articles. --Legalleft (talk) 19:25, 17 February 2008 (UTC)


 * Your text is at best an understatement, and conflates heritability with the actual effect of genes and nvironments on traits. Heritability is not a measure of the affect of genes or environment on a trait. I get the impression that you want to promote this misconseption because it appears to support your point of view. Furthermore you deliberately downplay the fact that genes do not act independently of environment. You really are not at all neutral or ballanced in the way you edit, and your hysteria about my small and correct edit clearly displays this. You can't even settle on why you don't like my edit, you just don't like it because it doesn't support the biased right wing ideology you are blatantly including into the article. Alun (talk) 07:37, 17 February 2008 (UTC)
 * If there is a problem with the text, then make corrections to it. --Jagz (talk) 13:51, 17 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Well, this is a surprise, Jagz supporting Alun's additions and changes to the article! Finally, an authentic spirit of good faith and cooperation!! Slrubenstein  |  Talk 19:02, 17 February 2008 (UTC)


 * Let me second Jagz -- if there are specific problems with what I wrote, then fix them, and we can make progress. Reintroducing a large block of text that only indirectly addresses the topic of this article is unnecessary. --Legalleft (talk) 19:25, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

shockley
What precisely is the point being conveyed in with the Shockley text and does that existing text convey that point as well as it could? It seems important to point out that there were public debates on this topic in the 1970s, and that seems to be the real underlying point of mentioning Shockley.--Legalleft (talk) 19:22, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
 * The section the Shockley text is included in is attempting to provide a brief overview of landmark events from 1969 to the present. --Jagz (talk) 21:55, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
 * I think the section should mention the James Watson incident too. --Jagz (talk) 14:30, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
 * That seems appropriate. re: Shockley, it could probably do with a less detail. --Legalleft (talk) 21:28, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
 * I shortened the Shockley paragraph. --Jagz (talk) 22:03, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

Factual accuracy disputed
The article has a template disputing the factual accuracy of the article. It says, "Please see the relevant discussion on the talk page." I can't locate the discussion regarding the article's factual accuracy. What exactly is being disputed? --Jagz (talk) 14:21, 17 February 2008 (UTC)
 * The massive pov bias of the article, especially the refusal of certain editors to observe policies. The article is biased and does not represent anything like an unbiased encyclopaedia article. It is more like an opinion piece than an unbiased discussion of the subject at hand. See the constant attempts by legalleft to remove a soundly sourced edit by myself. I'd like to contribute more to the neutrality of this article and give it a less biased slant, but it is apparent that some editors are forming a cabal to push a specific Jensonian point of view. It's not encyclopaedia and is a clear breach of Wikipedia policy. Alun (talk) 15:09, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

I propose that the factual accuracy template be removed because Alun/Wobble has not raised a valid point concerning the factual accuracy of the article. See: Accuracy dispute --Jagz (talk) 16:08, 17 February 2008 (UTC)
 * It is not accurate to present the Jensenian model as if it is a consensus and other models as if they are fringe. This article portrays Jenensen and Rushton's work as if it is a fact, when their theories are hotly disputed by a majority of researchers in several fields of life sciences, including molecular biology, genetics, population genetics, neurology, anthropology and psychology. You're just clutching at straws man."If you come across an article with an accuracy warning, please do the following: * don't remove the warning simply because the material looks reasonable: please take the time and make sure that content is from verifiable reliable sources and that it is unbiased and contains no original research. The article is biased, and therefore factually inacurate." Alun (talk) 17:43, 17 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Could the position of the templates not be changed instead? I don't think there is any debate over the fact the Asians have the highest IQ's, followed closely by Whites, with Hispanics and Negroes clearly lower. Every test ever carried out has shown this, the debate seems to be merely over the existance of races (A laughable debate, in my opinion), and whether the mental inabilites of the Black race are caused by nature or environment. The article needs to be broken up more clearly into undebated test results, and discussion of those tests/results. --Confederate till Death (talk) 09:04, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Alun, please follow the Wikipedia policy regarding accuracy disputes. It says:
 * if the neutrality of the content is in question, please look at NPOV dispute.
 * if only a few statements seem inaccurate:
 * insert dubious after the relevant sentence or paragraph.
 * insert a "Disputed" section in the talk page to describe the problem.
 * (Or insert   replacing 'section' with the appropriate section on the talk page.) --Jagz (talk) 17:11, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

While I do not contest that "race and intelligence" is a valid field of study, and the article looks comprehensive enough, I find the terminology used in some cases somewhat suspicious. Is "whites" an acceptable indication for people of caucasian descent? Also, I find few references to the issue of racism and discrimination, which one would expect in this context. Also, some of the references seem biased. Note the table from the book "Cracking the bell curve myth" in which a distinction between people of British and Irish descent is made, but no such distinction or reference to ancestry is made for the "whites" in the North Americas. Gralgrathor (talk) 12:29, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

Consensus on recent change requested
A recent change to the article added a "Primarily environment" section. The section looks unintelligible to me, like someone pieced together some vaguely related paragraphs, perhaps from a previous version of the article, and added it. I don't think that the section belongs in the article as written. I'd like some opinions from others. Here is the change I am referring to: --Jagz (talk) 23:18, 6 March 2008 (UTC)
 * I am fixing it. Copied if from an earlier lost article version which was not very good.Ultramarine (talk) 23:32, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

Article is biased, and written with racist POV of vested interests- requires cleanup!
The neutrality of this article is in doubt as it is contain racist point of view of vested interests who are trying to propogate there POV and false notion that bilogically race do exist and there is a direct correlation between the intelligence and colour of the skin. The data presented in the article is of little credibility or relevance which has been counter challenged and proved unauthentic by several authors of repute and should be removed. The neutrality check of this article should be carried out.--Himhifi 01:45, 10 March 2008 (UTC)
 * What specifically is your problem with the article? You need to state specifics. As the article states, "The contemporary debate on race and intelligence is about what causes racial and ethnic differences in IQ test scores." If you wish to present another POV, you can add it provided you cite your sources. --Jagz (talk) 19:40, 12 March 2008 (UTC)
 * I'm planning to take the POV tag off the article in a few days because there has been no discussion. --Jagz (talk) 20:06, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

Needs editing: High-achieving minorities
Most of this section of the article was removed recently. Let's see if we can edit and improve it here. I request that RedPen not participate because he contested it and also Ramdrake to not participate for now. --Jagz (talk) 14:14, 19 March 2008 (UTC)


 * Jagz, you just CANNOT ask other editors to not participate because they disagree with you.
 * I don't do things just because I don't agree with people or their message. It is more complicated than that. I know you probably don't believe what you said though, it was just kind of fun for you to say it. --Jagz (talk) 17:12, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

For starters, I find it's a bad idea to try to reintroduce ethnic differences in this article. Also, there is no explicit link between intelligence and the Nobel Prize (just a widely assumed link, but that's not good enough). Attribution of the Nobel prize has obviously as much to do with the presence of high-level research facilities in a given country than with a purported higher ethnic intelligence.--Ramdrake (talk) 15:51, 19 March 2008 (UTC) --Ramdrake (talk) 15:51, 19 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Will you please stop stirring up trouble in all articles you participate in? Everything was going peaceful until you decided to start participating again. All of RedPen's objections would have been addressed had you not intervened. --Jagz (talk) 16:40, 19 March 2008 (UTC)
 * What you call stirring trouble, I call trying to make the article more neutral, or at least less biased. Furthermore, there are several other editors besides myself who object to many of your edits. Please remember that WP is not a license to edit what you want whichever way you want; it's meant for editing within the consensus of editors. If your edits can't find consensus, then ask yourself how encyclopaedic and neutral they really are. Go ahead, label me an anti-racist if you will; I'd rather be mistaken for that than for the contrary.--Ramdrake (talk) 16:48, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

'''I have moved the "High-achieving minorities" section in question to my Sandbox here:. Let's see if we can edit and improve it there. I request that RedPen not participate because he contested it and also Ramdrake to not participate because I don't feel it would be helpful. --Jagz (talk) 16:59, 19 March 2008 (UTC)'''

It appears very counterproductive to attempting to build concensus to try to exclude the voices that have concerns about material in the article. In fact WP:BRD would suggest that you and I would be the primary editors of the contested content so that we reach an agreement. But ... its your sandbox. Just keep in mind that my concerns for that material were that no WP:RS were making the claims that 'success' was an aspect of intellegence. TheRedPenOfDoom (talk) 17:30, 19 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Don't worry, you'll get a crack at it later. There is just no sense continuing an edit war now on a draft section. It would have been easier to have left the section in the article and edited it while discussing on the Talk page. Taking it out makes it more difficult. It was counterproductive. --Jagz (talk) 17:38, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

race and intelligence [and its correlates]
an article about race and intelligence would also rightly discuss its correlates, such as school achievement, income, etc. several of the paragraphs removed by directly discuss race (e.g. IQ and the Wealth of Nations) whereas others are themselves the topic of discussions regarding race (e.g. the Ashkenazi intelligence stuff). That should all be restored. --Legalleft (talk) 07:29, 18 March 2008 (UTC)
 * the items removed did not include identifying the correlations by the published authors thus being clear violations of WP:SYN - all analysis and conclusions in WP articles must be the result of third party reliable sources - not strung togethter by WP editors. TheRedPenOfDoom (talk) 12:08, 18 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Discuss on this Talk page then. --Jagz (talk) 12:17, 18 March 2008 (UTC)
 * I see you have added tags to the article but have not initiated discussions specific to the tags. You should initiate the discussions. --Jagz (talk) 13:44, 18 March 2008 (UTC)
 * TheRedPenOfDoom -- but (as I tried to explain above) they do discuss race. You'd have to read the sources to know whether they do or not. Most prominently, IQ and the Wealth of Nations / IQ and Global Inequality does explicitly, getting into details such as estimating the average national IQ from the racial demongraphics of the country. --Legalleft (talk) 17:01, 18 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Show the analysis made by the sources. The analysis by third parties wasn't there in the cited material. It appeared to be violation of WP:OR / WP:SYN. It was therefore removed.TheRedPenOfDoom (talk) 17:07, 18 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Also, let's please ensure we resolve this issue here on the talk page before reintroducing this material in the article, as per WP policies. Also, other further objections are that tables such as found in IQatWoN are national IQ values, therefore largely ethnic rather than racial; also they are highly controversial, and they certainly cannot be presented without the full context of what's controversial about them, and finally adding them would again put undue weight on theories adhered to by a very small minority of academics in the field.--Ramdrake (talk) 18:26, 18 March 2008 (UTC)
 * I disagree. All the data can be regarded from one POV as being largely ethnic rather than racial. The racial v ethnic issue is a fundamental aspect of this, as race as a biological criteria is itself in dispute AND even if it weren't the data is largely based on using ethnicity as a proxy for race. Is that a big problem for people who claim an intelligence-IQ link? Yes indeed. Should it therefore be avoided in the article? Absolutely not, expunging data based on ethnicity would make the article confusing and even more open to POV biases.Nick Connolly (talk) 18:56, 18 March 2008 (UTC)
 * The map that was removed is neither ethinic nor racial data- it was National IQ scores. To jump from national scores to 'race' or 'ethnicity' is not allowed under WP:SYN - therefore it cannot be included. TheRedPenOfDoom (talk) 19:16, 18 March 2008 (UTC)
 * For the national IQ map, it's much simpler than that -- the connection is explicitly made in the original source, the book IQ and Global Inequality. Therefore, it is not SYN to present it in this article. Please read the book to confirm for yourself if you doubt it. Otherwise, assume good faith when I tell you that I have confirmed the connection. --Legalleft (talk) 20:28, 18 March 2008 (UTC)
 * You would need to include the quotes from the original source. Without attributable third party analysis, it is SYN.TheRedPenOfDoom (talk) 20:33, 18 March 2008 (UTC)
 * There's no room to quote vast sections of a book. Look it up in a library. I can put various excerpts here, but that seems absurd. We can't quote at length from the hundreds of sources cited. --Legalleft (talk) 20:38, 18 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Look at Table 9.6 "The intelligence of nations categorized by race" or any of the ~100 other references to race in the book. --Legalleft (talk) 20:40, 18 March 2008 (UTC)
 * (e/c) Doesn't matter if I read the source and see it there. You can't include analysis in the article with out attributing it to the WP:RS that is doing the analysis. TheRedPenOfDoom (talk) 20:44, 18 March 2008 (UTC)
 * I don't have a clue what you're talking about. I'm saying that the book where the map is found talks about the data in the map in the context of racial differences in IQ. The analysis is done in the book where the map comes from. What part of that doesn't make sense? --Legalleft (talk) 20:49, 18 March 2008 (UTC)
 * If that is indeed the case, you need to find a way to accurately reflect what ever the processes (analysis/synthesis of data) were undertaken by the author(s) of the book to create a map of nations that somehow reflects race.TheRedPenOfDoom (talk) 20:58, 18 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Not to mention that the matter of undue weight hasn't been addressed yet, as this is a very controversial piece of research, and represents a very small minority opinion.--Ramdrake (talk) 21:29, 18 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Agreed.TheRedPenOfDoom (talk) 22:07, 18 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Dear TheRedPenOfDoom, I think you are misunderstanding the issue of synethsis in articles. An article should be an adequate representation of the issue. In this case the issue is an unresolved partly-scientific, partly-political debate in psychometrics about the relation (if any) of race and IQ. In that debate, far beyond the walls of Wikipedia and prior even to the existance of the WWW, all sorts of arguments and data have been thrown about. The synthesis you are objecting to is not that of the editors of the article, but of the assorted academics who have contributed to the discussion over many decades. National IQ is relevant to the article because it is VERIFIABLY part of the issue the article describes. Is National IQ actually a big enormous red-herring? In my opinion yes it is, but that has nothing to do with the article. The article should not be edited on the basis of the quality of the underlying ideas but on the basis of which arguments/data can be verified as having played a role in the external academic debate. Both critics and advocates of a Race-IQ link would probably include National IQ in a survey of the topic, the latter if only to debunk it. Nick Connolly (talk) 21:54, 18 March 2008 (UTC)
 * I am quite aware of the disputed nature of the topic outside Wikipedia. However, I am specifically objecting to SYN by the editors of the Wikipedia article who are attempting to include a map of IQ by nations under the rubric that it is somehow related to the topic of 'race' and intellegence. If the map under discussion is indeed on topic for this article, it is up to the editors who wish to include it to provide the analysis from the source that shows how national IQ scores are related to the topic of 'race and intellegence'.TheRedPenOfDoom (talk) 22:01, 18 March 2008 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure of your point here. If you are aware of the debate then surely your objection isn't SYN but that the map wasn't properly explained in the context of race & IQ. If that is your point then why didn't you just add some text to explain it? That would have reduced the net amount of typing in the world by, erm, lots. Suggestion reinstate the map and add better explantory text eg "Attempts to measure national IQ has played a role in the ongoing debate over Race and IQ". Nick Connolly (talk) 22:10, 18 March 2008 (UTC)
 * No - it is SYN for WP editors to take a map of national IQ scores and drop it into an article on 'race and intellegence'. If the source of the map does indeed make claims somehow linking national IQ scores to race, and I will state that it is entirely possible that someone does try to make that claim, it is not my responsibility to read the book and summarize the authors arguements. That is the responsibility of the editors who want to include that information in the wikipedia article - and so far it has not been done. Therefore the map does not belong.TheRedPenOfDoom (talk) 22:22, 18 March 2008 (UTC)
 * I think we may have to agree to disagree on the issue of synthesis and editorial responsibility. In the meantime do you agree with my suggestion? Reinstate the map with a better (none synthetic) explanation as to why the map appears ina Race IQ article. Seems like a happy compromise :) Nick Connolly (talk) 22:37, 18 March 2008 (UTC)
 * What I have continually stated in nearly every one of these posts is that the map of national IQ would need to have the analysis that somehow claims to link 'national' IQ to 'race' summarized or quoted from the source material before it could be considered for inclusion. However, since, as Ramdrake has indicated, there may also be concerns about undue weight, you may want to show a draft of your proposal for re-inclusion here or in a sandbox to gain concensus prior to adding that material to the article.TheRedPenOfDoom (talk) 22:55, 18 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Consensus is a wonderful word. I note that in this case to achieve consensus I really need to find a form of words that would be agreeable to you. My mind reading powers are not what they where after that unhappy incident with the martian milkfloat. So perhaps you could suggest a form of words that you'd find agreeable? Cordially Nick Connolly (talk) 23:01, 18 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Next time I am at a library I will see if they have the book. If they have the book I will see if I am able to find a coherrent way to express how someone is attempting to conflate current national IQ scores to race. TheRedPenOfDoom (talk) 16:26, 19 March 2008 (UTC)
 * So in the meantime you wouldn't actually have a way of judging whether the form of words I might put up is fiathful to the source or not. How about you assume good faith, let me fix up the issue of National IQ - and in the event of you looking it all up and thinking it should say something different you can then change the wording later. Nick Connolly (talk) 19:07, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

I changed the caption of the current average IQ map. It may fix the problem. --Jagz (talk) 03:51, 19 March 2008 (UTC)
 * The addition to the caption had no relation to the topic of the article as far as I could see and was removed. It would seem to be appropriate to add to the 'See Also' section a link to WP article on "National IQ rates", if such an article exists. However, there is no need within this article to continue the conflation of current 'National' identities with ethnicity/race. TheRedPenOfDoom (talk) 16:20, 19 March 2008 (UTC)
 * I disagree with you and believe the caption should be changed back to the way I had it as shown below. It is a good compromise. Instead of including the other map, we can just include a link to the article with the map. --Jagz (talk) 17:24, 19 March 2008 (UTC)


 * You are continuing to conflate 'national' IQ and race/ethnicity. National IQ rates are not the topic of this article. TheRedPenOfDoom (talk) 17:33, 19 March 2008 (UTC)
 * The authors of IQ and Global Inequality think that national IQ has a lot to do with race. Who are we to say otherwise? --Legalleft (talk) 17:46, 19 March 2008 (UTC)
 * That is the nub of the issue. IMHO the national IQ is 1. probably meaningless and 2. probably not comprable across populations and 3. tells us nothing about race and IQ anyway. BUT my opinion isn't what the article is about and it is verifiable that notable people in notable works on the topic of IQ and group variations in intelligence really, really, really do think national IQ is relevant to race. Are they wrong? Probably. Are they motivated by racism or some sinister variation of right wing politics? Probably. Does that have a bearing on this article? Nope. What I assume to be a well intentioned attempt to police the veracity of this article is having the (unintended) effect of disrupting it. RedPenofDoom, you seem to be saying you haven't read the reference - in which case you can't claim synthesis and your objection stands only on a lack of proper explanation. The correct thing to do is to add a short account of how national IQ gets thrown into the academic argy-bargy of Race and IQ. Nick Connolly (talk) 19:07, 19 March 2008 (UTC)
 * (e/c w/Ramdrake below) The point is that no one has included how these authors (or anyone) has converted nationality into race. You need to include their analysis of how they managed to accomplish this - or the article is in violation of SYN. TheRedPenOfDoom (talk) 19:18, 19 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Well I keep suggesting that we do exactly that. I'm happy to do the leg work if one of you two can't. We could have fixed it all in the time we've spent on this conversation. I'll make the edit later.Nick Connolly (talk) 19:46, 19 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Nick, here is a critique of one of the two studies. As you can see, some of the same concerns are raised.:
 * IQ and the Wealth of Nations. A Critique of Richard Lynn and Tatu Vanhanen's Recent Book
 * Thomas Volken
 * Recently Richard Lynn and Tatu Vanhanen have presented evidence that differences in national IQ account for the substantial variation in national per capita income and growth. However, their findings must be considered as highly problematic. The authors neither make use of state-of-the-art methodological techniques nor can they substantiate their theoretical claims. More precisely the authors confuse IQ with human capital and fail to adequately discuss the causal sequence of their argument.
 * Hope this helps.--Ramdrake (talk) 20:30, 19 March 2008 (UTC)
 * OK useful. Critical appraisal of this sort of research enhances its notability.Nick Connolly (talk) 23:58, 19 March 2008 (UTC)


 * In case that wasn't obvious, I totally agree with TheRedPenOfDoom: conversion of "national IQs" (such as they are) into "racial IQs" is SYN at best. Above all, it is intellectually dishonest to present them as legitimate science when they have been so highly disputed.--Ramdrake (talk) 19:33, 19 March 2008 (UTC)
 * It isn't synthesis by an editor of WP but synthesis by a referenced third party. The first is naughty, the second isn't. Nick Connolly (talk) 19:46, 19 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Actually, I can supply sources to the effect that the view such as represented in those books is held by a small minority of researchers only, and is thus close to being a fringe view. From this perspective alone, one can challenge the inclusion of this theory in the article. I don't have time now, but I'll be back soon with those... and yes, they can already be found in the list of references of this veyr article (or one of its previous version).--Ramdrake (talk) 19:13, 19 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Smallish. In the field of IQ testing its a largish minority. This is why it isn't as clear cut as it may seem.Nick Connolly (talk) 19:46, 19 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Actually, in the field of intelligence, it's not even a majority then. However, many try to pass themselves off as a majority.--Ramdrake (talk) 20:30, 19 March 2008 (UTC)
 * You are right. The field of intelligence is massive and cross-disciplinary. IQ testing is a much smaller field and although the race-IQ view is a minority it 1. has some heavyweights involved and 2. is provocative research. That second point is the biggest issue -demonstrating that Jensen et al are wrong is motivating factor in psychometric research. The minority view is heavily influential - for example the concept of stereotype threat etc. Race and IQ is a big topic in intelligence testing and directly pertinent to making sense of the history and research trends in the subject. This isn't like creationists and biology - creationist "research" has no (or very little) impact on biology as an actual subject.Nick Connolly (talk) 21:09, 19 March 2008 (UTC)


 * Here is the section you removed from the article:

"Some people have attributed differential economic growth between nations to differences in the intelligence of their populations. One example is Richard Lynn's IQ and the Wealth of Nations. The book is sharply criticized in the peer-reviewed paper The Impact of National IQ on Income and Growth. Another peer-reviewed paper, Intelligence, Human Capital, and Economic Growth: An Extreme-Bounds Analysis, finds a strong connection between intelligence and economic growth. " --Jagz (talk) 21:00, 19 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Indeed - That material was removed because as you can plainly see, the sources quoted/cited are discussing the supposed impacts of 'national IQ' and not race. TheRedPenOfDoom (talk) 21:31, 19 March 2008 (UTC)
 * If that is your position then it was removed in error. Read the source []

Lynn and Vanhanen (2002:23; passim) have claimed that the widespread assumption that the peoples of all nations have the same average level of intelligence is seriously incorrect and that therefore these national differences in intelligence are bound to have significant effects on national economic development and rates of economic growth. The argument is however twofold; in the first part, it is hypothesized that average national IQs are different because IQ is mostly determined by race-dependent genetic predisposition. The second part of the argument supposes a substantial link between national IQ and economic success. The critical reference given explicitly refers to race. VERIFIABLY "IQ and the Wealth of Nations" makes contentions about race and IQ, contentions that have been criticised (IMHO thoroughly debunked) in cited references.Nick Connolly (talk) 00:26, 20 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Because the material removed did not include the connection made by the authors in the source material, it was properly removed. If you/another WP editor can find some way of including the source materials' connection of nationality to race without giving UNDUE weight, please feel free to post your suggestions. TheRedPenOfDoom (talk) 15:38, 20 March 2008 (UTC)
 * You are allowed to read quoted sources :) . The sources confirm the connection, do you agree?Nick Connolly (talk) 19:43, 20 March 2008 (UTC)
 * I do not feel that the above mentioned content meaningfully adds to a reader's understanding of the topic of the article and am therefore not willing to spend my time attempting to craft words to make the content appropriate for the article. But thanks for offering me the opportunity! TheRedPenOfDoom (talk) 20:00, 20 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Your feelings should, of course, be respected but we must strive for dispassionate criteria. The criteria has to be on the basis of whether there has been academic debate on this issue by known experts in the field and/or in scholoraly journals. That way we avoid POV and WP:UNDUE in the nearest thing to an objective way. No? If you have better criteria that we can hold Legalleft and Jagz to as well then do tell, before this talk page takes over Wikipedia :) Nick Connolly (talk) 20:15, 20 March 2008 (UTC)
 * There is also the problem that the connection as purported by the authors has been severely criticized as being bad logic and bad science. If we were to include the material, we'd need to include criticism of the purported connection, and the resulting section size would almost certainly violate WP:UNDUE.
 * If the issue has been discussed (and yes, debunked) then giving that discussion sapce wouldn't be WP:UNDUE. As I keep pointing out the basis for including things isn't if the science is sound (if it where then the article would "there is no significant evidence of a link between race and IQ" and nothing else) nor is it a matter of counting up numbers of supporters v detractors. The basis has to be the significance within the whole discussion. Arguably within the wider discussion the view of a vocal minority gets undue weight BUT that isn't the same as the ARTICLE giving undue weight. It isn't Wikipedia's job to tell the IQ testing community that they should send Jensen or Lynn to Coventry. This is basically the same conceptual error RedPenofDoom is making with synthesis. Undue weight, synthesis etc aren't criteria that we apply to sources from beyond Wikipedia. Arguably psychologits and psychometricians shouldn't feed the trolls, but they do (probably because they are big, loud and influential elder trolls). Also by avoiding certain aspects of the Jensenites you avoid the substantial criticism. That criticism is far more than debunking - it has been a spur for more sophisticated psychometric approach to intelligence testing. Lastly the national IQ data and dodgy pseudo-evolutionary arguments that have been published that argue (for example) that colder-climes were the spur to evolving greater intelligence is out there and not out-there in a fringe-press sort of way but in scholraly peer-reviewed journals. Unless it is addressed the article will appear both incomplete and out-of-date.Nick Connolly (talk) 19:43, 20 March 2008 (UTC)
 * "the same conceptual error RedPenofDoom is making with synthesis" - My statements and stated concerns of SYN have all applied to Wikipedia editors/the way the content within the Wikipedia article is presented and not to the original source material. If I have been unclear about that, I am sorry. TheRedPenOfDoom (talk) 20:06, 20 March 2008 (UTC)
 * My point is that I believe you made an error. That the synthesis (linking National IQ to the issue of race and IQ) was made external to Wikipedia rather than by the editor. I think I have now established that this was indeed the case and that if the editor who included this material made an error it wasn't one of synthesis EVEN IF if may have looked that way :) Nick Connolly (talk) 20:15, 20 March 2008 (UTC)
 * I guess that I just don't see any practical difference to the article between an editor's whole cloth SYN and an editor adding material without including/referencing the analysis done by the published RS. Analysis in an article needs to be attributed to attributed to the party making the analysis, and in this instance there were missing components. TheRedPenOfDoom (talk) 20:39, 20 March 2008 (UTC)
 * With all due respect, I disagree. Would, for example the article on Earth have a long section discussing the concept (and debunking thereof) of the Flat Earth concept? Would the article on Evolution have a long section explaining the pros and cons of the Creationist concept? No. I'd say we treat this article the same way. These theories, if they go anywhere, belong in the Scientifc Racism article.--Ramdrake (talk) 19:48, 20 March 2008 (UTC)
 * BINGO! think about it! Proponents of a flat Earth are an utter irelevance to current geology. Proponents of creationism or ID have almost zero effect on biology. Biologist don't conduct research or improve their methodology to counter creationists, they don't need to. Both groups are an irrelevance to the actual content of the discipline (except in a deep historical sense). No prominent geologist over the past few decades have been flat-earthers, no biologist of great significance has been a creationist in recent times. That doesn't hold for the field of intelligence testing. The race-IQ debate is an active discussion within the IQ-testing academic community and within its peer-reviewed jounarls - it acts as a motivator of research and other research is often discussed in terms of its role in the debate eg the Flynn effect. The ideas might be wrong but their relationship with the mainstream is not like that of flat-earthing, creationism or holocaust denial (or even aquatic ape theory). A closer analogy would be climate sceptics but without the slam-dunk IPCC position, perhaps to climate sceptics in the 1980s when the anthropogenic global warming hypothesis wasn't as well established as it is now. Psychometrics just isn't strong enough to slay this particular beast yet. I suspect once the elderly proponents of the race-IQ link die off the issue may get less airplay in the journals, but who knows? Like it or not the various flawed hypotheses of the race-IQ proponents are of academic significance and do get space in the relevant journals. Hence the article should, in general, cover those issues that have recieved coverage within peer-review that are affirm or deny a race-IQ link. To do otherwise is POV. Nick Connolly (talk) 20:05, 20 March 2008 (UTC)
 * I disagree that mentioning an idea or concept would constitute undue weight. --Jagz (talk) 19:57, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

Tagging this article
I've tagged this article again, as it seems there is a definite push from at least one editor to impart a racialist POV to the article again. The numerous attempts at inserting lengthy and multiple racialist theories when these theories are endorsed by a handful of people is just one example; trying to present extremely controversial studies (such as the tables from IQatWoN) without mentioning they're far from mainstream is another. Work needs to be done to present the racialist POV as the extremely controversial position that it is, with few adherents, rather than as the mainstream position, which it manifestly isn't.--Ramdrake (talk) 15:59, 19 March 2008 (UTC)
 * If there is no discussion, I'm taking the tags off in about a week. --Jagz (talk) 17:06, 19 March 2008 (UTC)
 * The initiation of the discussion is right there Jagz.
 * inserting lengthy and multiple racialist theories when these theories are endorsed by only a handful of people
 * present extremely controversial studies (such as the tables from IQatWoN) without mentioning they're far from mainstream
 * present the racialist POV as the extremely controversial position that it is, with few adherents, rather than as the mainstream position
 * Until those concerns are met or shown to be without basis, then the tags stay. It is up to YOU to address those concerns if you want to remove the tags, not just ignore the concerns then claim there was "no discussion" and remove the tags. (This instance is different than the tags that appeared a few weeks ago (and subsequently were removed by you). Those tags did not come with any specific concerns to the talk page. )TheRedPenOfDoom (talk) 17:19, 19 March 2008 (UTC)
 * You need to discuss specific items. --Jagz (talk) 17:33, 19 March 2008 (UTC)
 * What references do you have that state what is and is not mainstream? --Jagz (talk) 19:19, 19 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Simple: just read up on the matter. Pretty much any researcher related to the Pioneer Fund isn't mainstream. That includes Rushton, Lynn, Gottfredson, and a number of others. When you start reading Neisser, Lieberman and the multitude of researchers who are mainstream, then you'll see.--Ramdrake (talk) 19:29, 19 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Ok, let's discuss. I've expressed the issues I see. How do you plan to address them? The ball is in your court.--Ramdrake (talk) 19:15, 19 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Your mind is in a different space than mine obviously. I have no idea how to reply to your generalizations. --Jagz (talk) 19:21, 19 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Take your time to answer, that's fine. The tags can certainly wait. :) --Ramdrake (talk) 19:29, 19 March 2008 (UTC)
 * It looks like this may require an RfC but it won't be this week. Sorry if the article does not support your vision of the world. --Jagz (talk) 19:39, 19 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Jagz, the problem is not that this article does not support Ramdrake's vision of the world. The problem is that this article does not comply with our policies of NPOV and NOR, and it does not provide an adequate account of the notable debates among respected scholars.  It sounds like you are projecting - you are scared that science does not support your vision of the world.  Well, sorry.  Get used to it.  We who wish to work on an encyclopedia should have open minds, and not come her trying to push our own racist agendas. Slrubenstein   |  Talk 10:21, 20 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Hiya Jagz! So nice of you to respond to my comment.  You know, when you requested that two editors not participate in editing this article, I myself had no idea how to respond!  So good to be communicating, now, isn't it! Slrubenstein   |  Talk 15:06, 20 March 2008 (UTC)
 * I don't wish to communicate with you anymore. --Jagz (talk) 20:37, 20 March 2008 (UTC)