Talk:Race and intelligence/Archive 71

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Captain Occam, I read your comment. Using the term "hereditary hypothesis"... You have not demonstrated that the hereditary hypothesis is viewed as a valid theory by psychologists. In fact, I doubt you'll find a citation which shows broad support for the idea that the hereditary hypothesis is a meaningful hypothesis. What you have found is significant support for the hypothesis that "environment plays an important role, and genetics could be involved too". Aprock (talk) 21:28, 8 October 2009 (UTC)


 * I have explained at least three times in what way the sources I'm using support this argument. Each time, you have repeated this same assertion--"My sources don't support my claim"--while not even acknowledging my explanation of how they do.  Until you at least make an attempt to address my point, your continued claiming of this is not meaningful.  it’s no longer necessary for me to reply to you when the only thing I can reply with is re-explaining what I’ve explained multiple times before, which you’ve ignored each time. --Captain Occam (talk) 21:39, 8 October 2009 (UTC)


 * I certainly haven't been ignoring what you've written. What I have been doing is trying to point out that your sources do not say what you think they do.  The hereditary hypothesis is a minority/fringe view, and your sources support that position.  The "Mainstream Science" editorial states that "Most experts believe that environment is important in pushing the bell curves apart, but that genetics could be involved too."  That position rules out the hereditary hypothesis, which proposes something akin to the inverse: "that genetics is important in pushing the bell curves apart, but that environment could be involved too."  Likewise your other source, the 2005 journal publication, illustrates that the hereditary conclusions of Rushton are actively disputed by other researchers. Aprock (talk) 21:54, 8 October 2009 (UTC)


 * I think you may not be aware of what the hereditarian hypothesis actually says. If you listed to the NPR interview with Rushton that I linked to earlier, he says in it that he believes the IQ difference to be caused by 50% environment and 50% genetics.  That’s what the hereditarian hypothesis is—not that the IQ difference is 100% genetic, but just that is has a substantial genetic component.  If genetics are involved in causing the IQ difference, then the hereditarian hypothesis is right.  So for this reason, saying “most researchers think genetics could be involved” means the exact same thing as, “most researchers think the hereditarian hypothesis could be right”.


 * And you still haven’t addressed my point about the 2005 publication. I know they’re actively disputed by other researchers, but that has nothing to do with my point.  If you want to dispute my conclusion about this, address the point that I actually made about it. --Captain Occam (talk) 22:12, 8 October 2009 (UTC)


 * Yes, the hereditarian hypothesis is that genetics play a significant role in determining the shape of IQ test curves for racial populations. "genetics could be involved" != "hereditarian hypothesis could be right".  WRT to the 2005 publication, you seem to be saying "because it was published, it MUST be a mainstream hypothesis".  That sort of leap is awfully close to original research.  The hereditarian hypothesis is a minority/fringe hypothesis will very little (no?) genetic data to support it.  Aprock (talk) 22:23, 8 October 2009 (UTC)


 * No, that’s not what I’m saying. I can’t believe I need to explain this again.  I’m just going to quote my earlier comment about this:


 * “This issue of Psychology, Public Policy and Law contains papers by seven authors. Three of them argue for the hereditarian hypothesis, two of them argue against it, and two of them offer a combination of criticism and qualified support. While this is obviously a pretty small sample, I maintain that the fact that a well-respected peer-reviewed journal chose to frame the issue in this manner is an argument that the psychology community views this as a valid hypothesis.”


 * And then again:


 * “You’re missing my point. The indication is just the fact that a well-known, well-respected psychology journal chose to present the issue in this particular way. For something like creationism or the flat-earth view, which is regarded as truly fringe, you would never see a professional journal attempting to present the controversy about it in a balanced manner like this.”


 * In response to this, you disputed whether creationism was presented in a balanced way by peer-reviewed journals in the 1920s, which is irrelevant for reasons that I explained. This is what you need to address if you want to address my point, and which so far you’ve been ignoring.


 * The other point is incredibly simple logic. If genetics are involved in causing the IQ difference, then the hereditarian hypothesis is right.  Therefore, any statement that refers to possibility of genetics being involved in causing the IQ difference is, by proxy, referring to the possibility of the hereditarian hypothesis being right.  This is because genetics being involved in causing it is what the hereditarian hypothesis says.


 * I’m not going to explain this again. If you continue to just claim that I’m wrong without acknowledging either of these points, I’m going to just refer back to this comment, and point out that you’re continuing to ignore my point no matter how many times I make it. --Captain Occam (talk) 22:36, 8 October 2009 (UTC)


 * I've acknowledged these points, and explained to you why those points aren't valid. Allow me to try one more time (1) publication does not indicate anything other than the articles were worthy of publising. (2) genetics being involved != hereditarian hypothesis.  Aprock (talk) 22:42, 8 October 2009 (UTC)


 * Hey, just as long as the article clearly indicates that the majority view is that genetics may play some role in racial differences in IQ... Fixentries (talk) 22:44, 8 October 2009 (UTC)


 * Jagz, please shut up before I turn you in for evading your block.--Ramdrake (talk) 12:50, 9 October 2009 (UTC)


 * Whether you want it or not, genetics is clearly a factor in IQ differences. Just think of certain people with mental retardation. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.29.241.123 (talk) 22:47, 8 October 2009 (UTC)


 * 1: I’m not talking about the fact that it was published. I’m talking about the fact that a professional journal devoted an entire issue to this controversy, with a collection of papers arguing both for and against this position.  This is something you would not see if they didn’t take it seriously as a hypothesis, which is why you don’t see it for things like creationism.


 * Claiming that my argument is just based on the fact that it’s been published is a strawman.


 * 2: The hereditarian hypothesis is that genetics is making enough of a contribution in the IQ difference to be considered significant. How is this different from saying that genetics is “involved” in causing it?  The only difference is a semantic one, so if you aren’t willing to equate the two, you’re splitting hairs. --Captain Occam (talk) 22:51, 8 October 2009 (UTC)


 * I see that you have once again not understood what I wrote. This looks like a good time to take a break.  Aprock (talk) 22:56, 8 October 2009 (UTC)


 * There is a good amount of evidences suggesting that intelligence is inherited; however, saying that genetics is playing a major role in racial differences in IQ is another thing--although there are more evidences suggesting it is effectively the case. If it wasn't the case as Aprock suggests, scientists would not widely use psychometrical data in conjunction with biological data to assess heredity of intelligence in its different aspects. Even the slightest knowledge in physiology is enough to suggest that intellectual potential is determined by genetics as within a group there is a wide variety of brain morphology. Now, if that is the case, the hereditarian view is quite clearly acknowledged as not being a minority/fringe hypothesis, while lacking, or seeming to lack, public acknowledgment for obvious reasons. There are perhaps two confounding factors to genetics, namely, decisional and environmental factors. http://www.jneurosci.org/cgi/content/full/28/41/10323 http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6WNP-4CTN475-2&_user=10&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&_docanchor=&view=c&_searchStrId=1040556075&_rerunOrigin=scholar.google&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=821d19ec33c5f391c5dd9bae43fb160a —Preceding unsigned comment added by Aerain (talk • contribs) 23:36, 8 October 2009 (UTC)


 * To clarify, I have not suggested that IQ performance is not genetically heritable. I've only noted that intelligence determined by racial genes is a minority/fringe theory. Aprock (talk) 23:50, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

(Outdent) Aprock, I can’t assume good faith about you here anymore. Nobody could have the same thing pointed out to them so many times, in so many different ways, and still believe the other person to be saying something other than what they actually are. I think you know that Wikipedia’s policy dictates nothing significant can be changed in the article without obtaining consensus, and that by continuing to stonewall like this you can prevent any kind of consensus from being reached, logic be damned. That seems to be the only thing you care about here.

I can’t stop you from doing this, but you need to realize (regarding your recent edits) that in this respect you can’t have your cake and eat it too. If you’re going to resist allowing any kind of consensus to be reached in the discussion here, so that I can't remove the tags from the article, that means none of your recent edits to the article are allowed to stay either.

Ramdrake, Slrubenstein, is this what you wanted? I know you care about the tags remaining in the article, and I also notice you’ve dropped out of this discussion. Are you satisfied with Aprock continuing to stonewall so that no consensus can be reached, and nothing in the article can ever be changed? --Captain Occam (talk) 00:29, 9 October 2009 (UTC)


 * If that is so, there is hardly any reason to say that the "hereditarian" view is minority/fringe. First of all, you cannot attribute all of the group differences to environment. Secondly, "considerable" is a matter of debate, it can be anything from "10% or less to 50% or more". Thirdly, it is even less likely that group differences is entirely due to the environment (100%/0%) than to say the effect distribution is the same (50%/50%), or around mid-way (~75%/25%). It is also hard to explain with a purely environment model (100%/0%) why the gaps between groups are virtually the same among trans-racially adopted children. It is hardly arguable to say that the "hereditarian" view is minority/fringe —Preceding unsigned comment added by Aerain (talk • contribs) 00:35, 9 October 2009 (UTC)


 * Capt. Occam, as far as I can see, you seem to be the one stonewalling the discussion. You dismiss out of hand explanations that demonstrate the fallacy of your position (such as Alun's and Aprock's), and ignore the responses they give to your queries. This looks like it is going sooner or later into dispute resolution. Why not have an RfC and see where your position really stands? After all, WIkipedia is run by consensus.--Ramdrake (talk) 12:48, 9 October 2009 (UTC)


 * As far as I'm concerned, this section has veered way into OR territory, and Captain Occam, you have threated to disrupt Wikipedia to prove a point. A huge problem here is that there are fundamental differences of opinion that aren't even being discussed.  On one side we have

people saying that "race" (and to some even "intelligence") are so ill-defined/undefinable that the whole argument is meaningless (to wit, very few people are sufficiently genetically different from each other for between group differences to mean very much--racial designations are usually self-reported--, and intelligence is such a culturally biased concept that it's nearly impossible to control all the independent variables). On the other hand we have people saying that because of observed differences in IQ scores of various populations that look different from each other, (and given the fact that with-in groups it is possible to show a link between parents/offspring IQ) it is possible to infer some population-wide genetic basis for IQ scores.


 * Correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems that these are the two view points we should be comparing. It is certainly the way I perceive the argument to be phrased by the likes of Gould and Gardner, as well as in education psychology literature and basic psychometric theory.  Certainly the concessions given by so-called hereditarians seem to follow these socio/anthropological lines, and concessions from non-hereditarians seem to refer to statistical/genetic reasoning.  The real question raised in this section should be, laying the spectrum out as I just did (and given the tacit assumption that most academics do favor the socio/anthropological side of the spectrum), is the other side of the spectrum (favored by Jensen etc.) considered minority/fringe. T34CH (talk) 01:26, 9 October 2009 (UTC)


 * As far as I can tell what that all meant (after reading it 3 times), you seem to be restating exactly what is being discussed. Fixentries (talk) 01:40, 9 October 2009 (UTC)


 * How have I threatened to disrupt Wikipedia? I've accused Aprock of stonewalling, and said that if he prevents consensus from being reached, that means the article can't be improved.  That isn't disrupting Wikipedia; that's simply restating Wikipedia's policy.  If there's anyone here who's disrupting Wikipedia, it's him.


 * I agree that the things you're mentioning would be worthy of discussion, and we can discuss it if you like. Something to keep in mind, though, is that we don't need to actually determine which of these viewpoints is correct.  Since both viewpoints exist, NPOV policy states that we should simply present both of them without taking sides. --Captain Occam (talk) 01:52, 9 October 2009 (UTC)


 * The POINTY part I was referring to was the reversion of his edits simply because he didn't ask permission first. Aprock certainly has permission to change things, and you certainly have permission to revert, but BRD also has a very important D at the end.  I respectfully request that you either self revert or start a new section specifically addressing your problems with his changes.


 * NPOV policy: now we're getting back to a very important point... significant minority viewpoints should be mentioned, but the article should spend give each side space proportionate to the weight each side holds in the academic world. We need to be on the same page here.  If the academic world is most interested in and persuaded by the socio/anthropological explanations, most of the article should be about that.  Right no that's not the case.  T34CH (talk) 02:02, 9 October 2009 (UTC)


 * I guess I'll mention here what problem I had with Aprock's edits: he removed one properly sourced sentence that he claimed was original research even though it was supported by the source, and he also added a new paragraph that was POV. Although the article should give more space to the environmental hypothesis than to the hereditarian one (as it currently does) making a statement like that in the lead paragraph suggests the issue to be more resolved than it is.


 * I don't think pointing this out deserves a new section, though, for two reasons. First, I'm already discussing with Aprock the same viewpoint of his that these edits were based on, and his desire for it to be in the article.  In fact, he edited the article in the middle of my discussion with him, in order to make it conform to his viewpoints which I was in the process of disputing.  And second, Aprock has already demonstrated a lack of interest in working towards consensus on this topic.  He's welcome to discuss this issue with me again in the context of his new edits, but I don't expect this to accomplish anything.


 * Anyway, I agree with what you're saying about NPOV, and I think you can see from my earlier comments what my perspective is about this. The hereditarian perspective is a minority viewpoint, but still a significant minority; significant enough that a peer-reviewed journal was careful to present the arguments for and against it in a balanced way, and also significant enough that a majority of researchers acknowledge the possibility of it being correct, even if most of them don't personally agree with it.  With these things in mind, I think it receives about as much coverage in this article as is appropriate.  Aprock didn't appear to understand my point about this, but if you do, I'd appreciate knowing what you have to say in response. --Captain Occam (talk) 02:44, 9 October 2009 (UTC)


 * BTW, I think what is happening is not so much stonewalling as it is a bunch of semantic arguments. It looks like terms such as "valid", "meaningful", and "broad support" are being used in slightly different ways.  I suggested the format of a continuum because it avoids such semantic issues (though it may oversimplify the sides at times--something we can address later).  T34CH (talk) 02:08, 9 October 2009 (UTC)


 * Look at my points, and his responses. I described several times how Psychology, Public Policy and Law presented this topic, with an entire issue devoted to it, a collection of papers arguing both sides about it, and the issue’s featured paper one that argues in favor of the hereditarian view.  Each time that Aprock replied to this, he claimed that my point was simply that a paper about this had been published: “publication does not indicate anything other than the articles were worthy of publising.”  No, that was not my point; my point was that the journal that published about this considered the controversy significant enough to devote an issue to it, and was careful to present this controversy in a balanced way.  But no matter how many times I pointed this out, Aprock claimed that I was the one misunderstanding him.


 * This isn’t a matter of semantics. There is an inherent difference between simply arguing from the fact that a paper was published, and the point I’m making about the balanced way that this journal chose to present the topic in their issue devoted to it.  I think Aprock is aware of the distinction between these two points, and just isn’t willing to acknowledge it. --Captain Occam (talk) 02:44, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

Updating and cleaning up article
It's clear from the recent discussion that there is some interest in addressing some of the issues related to the current tags. Instead of delving into another deeply nested conversation about what exactly it means for a viewpoint to be a minority one, I'd like to take the time to list some of the main issues with the article, and hopefully resolve one or more of them.


 * It is not clear what is meant by Race in this article. Generally, the article deals with race as a social construct, primarily because the ability to genetically determine race is still in its infancy and very little (any?) research has been done which links racial genetics and intelligence.  Many of the studies that have been done have used self identification as the determinant of race, not genetic race.  This becomes a significant issue when people of mixed ancestry identify with a single race, whether through limited choice, or through ignorance of their own ancestry.  Race as a social construct may correlate with genetic race, but it's important to be clear on how race is being used in the article, and in the citations that are referenced.


 * It's also not clear what is meant by intelligence. Most of the article uses various psychometric studies to infer intelligence of populations identified with a particular race.  This is a fairly minor issue, but need to be addressed early in the article.


 * Most of the conclusions that are made by researchers about the relationship between genetic race and human intelligence are, by necessity of current methodologies, correlational inferences, and do not represent actual data relating population genetics and psychometrics.


 * It's not clear what this article is trying to be about. Currently it is a hodge-podge of various trivia.  A lot of the prose in the article is just baggage which has accumulated over years of various editor dropping in whatever reliably cited information they could find into the article.  This causes a lot of duplication with other (better written and organized) wikipedia articles.  Ideally, summaries of the other WP articles would replace the currently clumsy mish mash that there is.  Finally, a decision needs to be made as to what this article is trying to be.  Is it ... ?


 * 1) a summary of the history of various efforts to try and measure the relationship
 * 2) a summary of current scientific understanding
 * 3) a discussion of testing methodologies and results

In the end, I think much of the article could be cleaned up by using the summary technique, possibly augmenting it with new sub-articles for sections where there is no useful reference already on wikipedia. When that is done, a reorganization and redirection of central topic might be easier. As a point of comparison I'll refer to the IQ page which manages to be much more organized with another hotly debated topic. Aprock (talk) 04:31, 9 October 2009 (UTC)


 * Nice summary of the article there. I think that this sort of article will always be a magnet to those who want to promote a specific point of view. For example the talk page nearly always descends into a discussion of the evidence rather than a discussion of the article. The article cannot really have a good focus because it does not really deal with a specific subject, it deals with a plethora of subjects (1) the validity of race (genetics indicates that humans are not divided into anything like discrete genetic populations) (2) the validity of cognitive testing (e.g. cultural bias) (3) the utility of heritability estimates (they do not measure genetic causation) (4) the lack of any direct evidence (no genes have ever been discovered that directly affect intelligence, despite lots of people looking for them). The article has been put up for deletion several times, but the fact is that there is clearly a body of academic work covering this subject. But all of the work covering this subject is not equal, much of the work cannot be considered proper academic work, e.g. The Bell Curve was not written by people who could be considered experts. This subject was pretty much put to bed in the seventies by Montague's book "Race and IQ", which comprehensively debunked the proposition. In the nineties it was brought again to the fore by "The Bell Curve", but this is a political ideology, and not a scientific book, currently the proposition is promoted by those espousing right wing economic policies, there's no more evidence for this belief system than existed in the seventies, it's still based on conflating heritability with heredity and pretending that "race" is a simple easily definable, tangible thing, and it is still full of the same basic flaws that Montague et al. dealt with in the seventies.
 * So I recommend summary style. We can have a brief discussion of the validity of "race" and link to the main article. Another section about cognitive testing, and link to that article etc. etc. If it needs a history section dealing with the misuse of cognitive tests by past eugenicists, then I'm happy with that. Alun (talk) 06:14, 9 October 2009 (UTC)


 * Aprock, I agree that in principle, the article would benefit from cleanup. However, your history of edits and comments makes me necessarily mistrustful about your ability to overhaul the article in an NPOV manner.  If you want to make major changes to the article, what I would recommend doing is showing us your proposed edits first, either here or in your userspace, in order to build a consensus for them before you change the article itself.


 * If you decide to do this, something that might be useful to you is this, an explantion of the hereditarian perspective that was posted on the discussion page last year, with the intention of being included in the article in some form.  It’s rather unfortunate the way this went:  although that explanation is probably too long to go in the article in its entirety, the idea was to summarize it and put the summary of it in the article.  What happened instead is that certain sections were included almost verbatim, while others were omitted entirely.  And as a result, while our current article devotes about as much space to the hereditarian hypothesis as is appropriate, its explanation of this theory is not very informative.


 * Alun, it’s important that we present the science on this topic as it currently stands, not as it was in the 70s. Of particular importance with regard to the concept of race is Cavalli-Sforza’s 1994 study about genetic populations, whose results are described  here.  As can be seen from the chart there, genetically-defined populations based on continental origin do exist; the reason why race is a sociological as well as biological concept (rather than purely biological) is because people do not always self-identify with the race associated with the population to which they belong, and their ancestry also usually isn’t 100% pure.  But as Aprock pointed out, the sociological concept of race correlates with the genetic populations that it’s based on, so it’s important for the article to not dismiss race as biologically meaningless. --Captain Occam (talk) 06:54, 9 October 2009 (UTC)


 * I don't know what you mean by "genetically-defined populations". Can you expand? Can you specifically say why what you call "genetically-defined populations" are the same as "races"? Who makes this claim? My degree is in genetics, and it is my understanding that any population of any size can be "genetically defined". In fact you can "genetically define" the population of England as different to the population of Wales, if you want to, certainly the distribution of Y chromosomes in these two countries are different, and we could certainly use statistics to show that the difference is not due to chance (i.e. is significant). Does this "prove" that English people and Welsh people are different "races"? Apparently you believe it does. In population genetics a population is a theoretical entity, all we can do is sample organisms from a geographical region and theorise that they belong to a "population". But a population is a theoretical entity, it is not a discrete group of organisms. Anyone who makes this claim simply is ignorant of genetics. Indeed there's a very good paper about this called What is a population? An empirical evaluation of some genetic methods for identifying the number of gene pools and their degree of connectivity The fact is that population geneticists have used small island models to try to understand genetic variation, and these have worked relatively well. The idea of "populations" is based on this model, but no one has ever claimed that these theoretical populations represent real discrete subdivisions of organisms. In fact most population geneticists would agree that in truth organisms are isolated by distance, and not distributed into discrete groups.
 * The reason why "race" is a nonsense is because it doesn't make any sense when we look at human demographic history. To put it another way, all non-Africans represent a sub-population of Africans, or Africans are a paraphyletic group to non-Africans. What we actually see is a gradual diluting of African diversity as humans move away from Africa, what we don't see is any well defined bounded groups, we don't see separate human clades, and we don't see any subspecific division.
 * We don't include original research in Wikipedia, what you seem to be saying is that you believe that Cavalli-Sforza’s work proves that races are real. But if I can be frank, Wikipedia doesn't exist to promote your personal interpretations of Cavalli-Sforza’s work. Indeed Cavalli-Sforza himself makes the opposite claim to you, that his work disproves that "races" are real. You can promote the opinions of reliable sources if you like, but if you want to claim that this work "proves" that humans are divided into well defined subspecies, then you need to find an anthropologist who says this, or at least a well respected taxonomist.
 * Who say that "the sociological concept of race correlates with the genetic populations that it’s based on"? The only claim I saw here was that on average African-Americans have ~80% of their ancestry from Africa. That's not a definition of "race" is it? I don't think so. For example there are African Americans who have a majority of their ancestry from Europe, but they are still African Americans, no? So being African American is a cultural marker, no? To be African American means to subscribe to African American culture, it is not to belong to a genetically "defined" group, because clearly African-Americans are a genetically heterogeneous group. Likewise the idea that in Africa there is genetic homogeneity is absurd, there is about twice as much genetic diversity in Africa than there is in the rest of the world combined. Indeed, if there is any sensible way to genetically divide the global human population, it is between Africans and non-Africans, and that is only based on the much reduced diversity seen outside of Africa. Loo at it this way, as Long and Kittles say, about 100% of global human genetic diversity can be found in an African village, whereas only about 70% of the global human genetic diversity can be found in New Guinea. In Europe we are closer to Africans in our diversity, but still much reduced.
 * Besides, the truth is that the debate is identical to the seventies. The debate is not about the existence of "race", there is greater consensus from experts today that "race" is biologically meaningless than there was thirty years ago, so the academic world is going in the opposite direction to you. But more importantly, the fallacy that the measure of the proportion of test score variance within group that is due to genetics (i.e. heritability) can tell us anything about the causation of between group average score was dealt with decades ago, and it hasn't changed. See esp. Lewontin and Lazer papers in Montagu's book "Race and IQ". The claim has been comprehensively debunked as a fallacy. Indeed this article should concentrate n the fact that these claims are fallacious. The claims are based on confusing heritability with heredity, and they have become a matter of faith to so many people that it has become impossible to have a decent article here, we always have to pretend that this fallacy is somehow scientifically valid. Alun (talk) 10:31, 9 October 2009 (UTC)


 * I’m aware that you can view any interbreeding group of humans as a population, and there’s no biological reason why we use the term “race” for the some populations but not others. That distinction is purely a sociological one.  The point is simply that when you look at the ancestry of groups of people who consider themselves “races”, their ancestry tends to correlate with certain genetic groups shown on that chart.  (Such as “Black” with sub-Saharan African, “White” with Indo-European, and “Oriental” with East Asian.)  The reference for the Race and genetics article mentioning this is from Arthur Jensen, and Aprock made this point also.


 * I’ve seen your comments on this article’s talk page before, and I’d like to politely point out something that you ought to be aware of by now. When you post a huge block of text like this that’s laden with ad hominem, claims about what the overwhelming majority of researchers believe but without any citations for these claims, and so many questions that it would require a post several times the size of yours to answer them all, you aren’t likely to get a very detailed response.  And sure, you can claim that you won the argument by shouting down the opposition, but it won’t by any standard be a consensus.  So if you have any interest in actually improving the article, I’d advise that you change your tactics. --Captain Occam (talk) 10:56, 9 October 2009 (UTC)


 * "there’s no biological reason why we use the term “race” for the some populations but not others." That's the crux of the matter.  If race is defined here more by social constructs than by biology, then that needs to be clear.  Non biological definitions of race are going to be fundamentally flawed when applied to the problem of racial genetic determinism. Aprock (talk) 16:43, 9 October 2009 (UTC)


 * Actually you can view any group of organisms of the same species living in the same geographical region that can interact with one another as a population, e.g. the population of Chicago. Who says populations have to be breeding? Take a look at the paper I link to above, they discuss at least three different concepts of biological population. The term "race" is not "applied to some populations and not others". Who says it is? What is the source of this claim, or is it simply your opinion? As a geneticist I don't think one would ever call a "race" a population. For one thing a breeding population would at least have to include individuals with a very good chance of meeting and interbreeding, that hardly applies to, say the African American population of the USA. Indeed it hardly applies to someone from Cape Town and someone from Addis Ababa.
 * As for the claim that the genetics of people with ancestors from geographically close regions correlates, that's not rocket science, neither is it relevant to concepts of "race". If the Race and genetics really has a definition from that non-expert Jensen, then clearly it needs a major overhaul, if it had contained such non-genetically valid povs when I was editing it regularly I would have removed them. Jensen is neither an anthropologist nor a geneticist. In fact as far as I can see his only contribution to any conception of race is to demonstrate that he is truly ignorant of the basics of both biology and anthropology. If you take Jensen's pronouncements on race with any seriousness then you really are gullible.
 * I didn't make any ad hominem attacks, if you're going to say I did, then at least have the decency to point them out. As for "winning the argument", seriously? Do you really think that is what it is all about? I thought it was about improving the article.
 * The fact is that I've been contributing to population genetics articles on Wikipedia for four years or so, I have read extensively around the area, and when you claim that the vast majority of expert on human genetic variation support the concept of "race", then I can only conclude that you haven't read any of the serious scientific literature.
 * It's simply true that those who have a deep belief in "race" see any evidence of genetic and phenotypic variation as supporting this belief. It doesn't matter that this variation is not distributed in anything like a fashion that supports this concept. It doesn't matter that the overwhelming majority of geneticists and anthropologists have proven again and again that "biological race" is a meaningless concept, the only thing that matters is their belief.
 * Seriously, you'll have to do better that the argument "race is real because there is genetic variation" because I can cite numerous papers about population genetics that say the exact opposite. Alun (talk) 16:56, 9 October 2009 (UTC)


 * I am uncomfortable with all the claims made in this article. The entire topic is questionable.  Not because I don't believe there are population differences in intelligence, but because the science is too immature.  We haven't identified the specific genes that may offer intellectual advantages.  We don't know what mutations are involved or when they may have happened.  Both sides of this issue seem to rely largely on speculation.  Fixentries (talk) 17:01, 9 October 2009 (UTC)
 * There is no speculation with regards to the distribution of human genetic diversity. The consensus is that "races" derive from folk concepts of heredity, they are social constructs and do not conform to the distribution of genetic variation as observed experimentally. This is well understood by physical anthropologists who long ago found that the more metrics they take, the more "races" they get, currently molecular biologists find the same thing. When one samples in discontinuous regions one finds "discrete groups", but when one samples on a continuous basis, one gets clines of variation. See e.g:"Early anthropologists and human geneticists focused on defining “biological races” of humans. This treated races as fixed, naturally derived, categorical entities in our species, which was odd because it was always known that each individual is biologically unique. The classical definitionwas that races differ in the frequencies of at least some genes (10, 100). This makes race inherently a population concept. In practical terms, this also means that results depend upon one’s choice of sampling or inferential frames of reference. But not everyone agrees on what these should be. Kittles and Weiss 'RACE, ANCESTRY, AND GENES: Implications for Defining Disease Risk' (2003) Annu. Rev. Genomics Hum. Genet.""Anthropologists long ago discovered that humans’ physical traits vary gradually, with groups that are close geographic neighbors being more similar than groups that are geographically separated. This pattern of variation, known as clinal variation, is also observed for many alleles that vary from one human group to another. Another observation is that traits or alleles that vary from one group to another do not vary at the same rate. This pattern is referred to as nonconcordant variation. Because the variation of physical traits is clinal and nonconcordant, anthropologists of the late 19th and early 20th centuries discovered that the more traits and the more human groups they measured, the fewer discrete differences they observed among races and the more categories they had to create to classify human beings. The number of races observed expanded to the 30s and 50s, and eventually anthropologists concluded that there were no discrete races (Marks, 2002). Twentieth and 21st century biomedical researchers have discovered this same feature when evaluating human variation at the level of alleles and allele frequencies. Nature has not created four or five distinct, nonoverlapping genetic groups of people. Ossorio and Duster 'Race and Genetics Controversies in Biomedical, Behavioral, and Forensic Sciences' (2005) American Psychologist""..genotyping to estimate biogeographical ancestry can be a better control for population substructure than self-identified race, ethnicity, or ancestry... labels such as “Hispanic,” “Black,” “Mexican American,” “White,” “Asian,” “European,” or “African” can have ambiguous or contradictory meanings among researchers, research subjects, and the general public. Use of such broad labels without careful definitions can impair scientific understanding and imply that distinctions between socially defined populations are genetically well established. Race, Ethnicity, and Genetics Working Group, National Human Genome Research Institute, Bethesda 'The Use of Racial, Ethnic, and Ancestral Categories in Human Genetics Research' Am. J. Hum. Genet. 77:000–000" I could quote many many more examples. But this is not speculation. Anyone claiming that human populations are "genetically defined" does not know what they are talking about. Alun (talk) 17:46, 9 October 2009 (UTC)


 * I agree with your cited material, but you’re drawing an inference from it that isn’t warranted. Let’s look at the part that addresses your point specifically:


 * “labels such as “Hispanic,” “Black,” “Mexican American,” “White,” “Asian,” “European,” or “African” can have ambiguous or contradictory meanings among researchers, research subjects, and the general public. Use of such broad labels without careful definitions can impair scientific understanding and imply that distinctions between socially defined populations are genetically well established.”


 * I agree with this, and I think it’s best to view ethnic differences in IQ in terms of differences between “populations” rather than “races”, and break it down according to the groups on the chart that I linked to. This is the way Arthur Jensen breaks it down in The g Factor.  However, even though it’s less precise to view human groupings in terms of socially defined “races” than in terms of populations based on area of ancestry, none of the material you’ve cited supports your assertion that there’s no correlation between the two, or that it isn’t possible to define certain populations in a genetic sense.  If Indo-Europeans are more genetically similar to one another than they are to any other group (as can be seen from the chart), and people who self-identify as “White” tend to have predominantly Indo-European ancestry, then this “race” can still be defined biologically in a statistical sense.


 * The reason why the article is called “race and intelligence” rather than “population and intelligence” is because most of the data available about this topic is based on statistical races, rather than genetic populations. Most people have a self-identity of what “race” they belong to, but not a precise idea of their genetic ancestry, so it’s necessary to use the first as an (albeit imprecise) proxy for the second.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Captain Occam (talk • contribs) 18:15, 9 October 2009 (UTC)
 * What are you talking about? You say you agree with the papers I cite, then go an and make the same erroneous claim that I just showed is wrong. You don't even have a definition of a population, except to say that "race" is a population, which is clearly not correct, and you won't find any scientific support for any such claim. What you are saying is that you want to replace the word "race" with the word "population" as if that solves the problem. This is about more than just the use of a word. The whole argument about populations is just incorrect. Any group can be a "population". In genetics we can define our population as the inhabitants of New York, and we should almost certainly show that this population in New York is "genetically different" to the population of Los Angeles. We could also show, that these populations have different average IQ scores. But you want to pretend that "population" can be used as a synonym for "race". Your argument is not only not convincing, it is confused and without any sound footing. Indeed it does not derive from any anthropological or population genetic perspective. You'd be laughed out of any taxonomy meeting with this sort of logic. Besides it's clearly OR and synthesis. We're here to describe the work published in the literature, and that is about "race" and not "populations" Jensen is not a population geneticist. You continue to claim that Jensen's "populations" are "genetically defined" but they are not populations, and are not genetically defined. Jensen has done no genetic work, and is not a geneticist. Where is the genetic analysis of his research subjects? I wish you'd stop talking about Jensen when you talk about population genetics, the guy is not an expert and clearly doesn't know what he's talking about. Your claims about correlation between genetics self defined ethnicity is irrelevant, all people are genetically more similar to those who derive from a geographically close region. That's got nothing to do with "race" or "population". Humans are not divided into "populations" in any natural way, simply populations are a convenient theoretical framework for geneticists to think about how diversity is distributed. Jensen seems to have latched on to this in a despetrate attempt to cling to his archaic ideas about "race". How do you know that "most people have a self identity about what 'race' they belong to"? Who says this? Again, it's just you giving your opinion. I can't help but feel that mostly you're here to justify a single point of view, much of it your opinion, and much of it unsupported by any reliable source. This whole argument you've got about "populations" does not derive from a reliable understanding of population genetics. I again suggest that you go and read the paper What is a population? An empirical evaluation of some genetic methods for identifying the number of gene pools and their degree of connectivity, because you are claiming some sort of deeper insight into this subject than even academic geneticists, taxonomists, ethologists and ecologists. In effect you are saying that you know what a "genetically defined population" is, when this is the subject of heated debate in the field of biology. Alun (talk) 04:13, 10 October 2009 (UTC)


 * Alun, you didn't respond to what I said. Please re-read it.  I was talking about this topic of this article.  I didn't say I thought your statements were speculation, you are right.  You do seem to be harping on a pet topic with a hair trigger though.  Please be more careful to read what people actually say, and let's stick to the topic of this article.  Fixentries (talk) 18:43, 9 October 2009 (UTC)


 * To an extent I agree with wobble, that there is only one solid and objective biological distinction to be made, between Sub-saharan Africans and non-Africans (see Haplogroup F (Y-DNA) and related). There are a few other groups that also seem to have a very homogeneous background but they are limited in number, and aren't mentioned in this article that I have seen.  However, the topic of the article has a meaning that is understandable to any reader, and the statistics only claim to based on self-reported or apparent ethnic background.  This article should have some mention of the dispute over the definitions of race, and possible ambiguities.  It doesn't invalidate the article or require a detailed explanation.  We can refer the reader to the appropriate articles.  Fixentries (talk) 16:54, 9 October 2009 (UTC)


 * Well, whether or not we consider race as a social construct, it does not matter at all; in fact, if we were to accept such a claim, it would merely result in an insignificant semantic shift, that is, A, B, C, D have higher IQ than E, F, G, H instead of Z has higher IQ than Y. Whether we consider ethnicities instead of races, we need to explain why differences occur. IQ is certainly an imperfect measure of intelligence, it ignores the multi-aspect nature of intelligence, such reduction don't give us information on how deep test-taker A understanding of concept B is, nor how effective his cognitive processes are, and so on; however, it correlates with too many life-history and biological variables to dismiss it as meaningless.--Aerain (talk) 21:58, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

intro edit
I removed the last sentence of the first paragraph: "The only consistent claim of consensus on this issue is that as of yet no one knows what causes racial group difference in cognitive ability because no single answer is widely supported ."

The citation is unclear as to the source, but I assume it is referring to Volume 37 of Intelligence. The article on pages 1-2 can be found here. The book review authored by Hunt can be found here: Book Reviews. Neither article makes a mention of there being "claim of consensus" in this regard. Aprock (talk) 15:49, 9 October 2009 (UTC)


 * I think this sentence needs to be in the article, because the intro section ought to make readers aware of what the currently prevailing attitude among researchers about this is. If you don’t think the source that was cited for this claim supports it specifically enough (it appears to imply this, but without stating it outright), I think it’s better to keep this sentence but use a difference source for it.  I’ve added it back, but now cited to the APA’s statement on race and intelligence.  Their report states:


 * The differential between the mean intelligence test scores of Blacks and Whites (about one standard deviation, although it may be diminishing) does not result from any obvious biases in test construction and administration, nor does it simply reflect differences in socio-economic status. Explanations based on factors of caste and culture may be appropriate, but so far have little direct empirical support. There is certainly no such support for a genetic interpretation. At present, no one knows what causes this differential.


 * That’s basically the same thing that the sentence in the article is saying: that nobody knows what causes this difference between groups, because of the paucity of support for any single hypothesis about it.  I hope that change is acceptable to you. --Captain Occam (talk) 16:48, 9 October 2009 (UTC)


 * I'm fine with a summary of the APA statement, the current phrasing does not reflect the statement. I'll change the wording to reflect the APA statement. Aprock (talk) 17:00, 9 October 2009 (UTC)


 * I think you’re misrepresenting what the APA statement says. Where in their statement do they say that environmental factors can account for this difference?  They seem to state the opposite: that there are no known environmental factors which could have this effect, but genetic explanations lack direct support also. --Captain Occam (talk) 17:35, 9 October 2009 (UTC)


 * Page 94. Aprock (talk) 17:45, 9 October 2009 (UTC)


 * You'll need to be more specific about what portion of the statement says this if you want this claim to be included in the article. Page 94 introduces socio-economic status and caste-like minorities as possible environmental explanations, but the paper later points out the problems with these explanations, and concludes that they are inadequate. --Captain Occam (talk) 17:49, 9 October 2009 (UTC)


 * Page 94:
 * Interpreting Group Differences If group differences in test performance do not result from the simple forms of bias reviewed above, what is responsible for them? The fact is that we do not know. Various explanations have been proposed, but none is generally accepted. It is clear, however, that these differences -- 'whatever their origin -- are well within the range of effect sizes that can be produced by environmental factors. The Black/White differential amounts to one standard deviation or less, and we know that environmental factors have recently raised mean test scores in many populations by at least that much (Flynn, 1987: see Section 4). To be sure, the "Flynn effect" is itself poorly understood: it may reflect generational changes in culture, improved nutrition, or other factors as yet unknown. Whatever may be responsible for it, we cannot exclude the possibility that the same factors play a role in contemporary group differences.


 * (emphasis added) Aprock (talk) 17:55, 9 October 2009 (UTC)


 * OK, I see where the problem is. The APA is saying that the size of the IQ difference is within the range of what environmental factors could produce, although no one has yet identified a specific environmental factor that could account for this. But your paraphrase of this makes it sound as though specific environmental factors have actually been identified that can explain this difference, which the APA specifically says is not the case. Do you see how your explanation of this is imprecise?
 * I’m going to change this sentence to make it clearer what the APA’s statement actually says. --Captain Occam (talk) 18:22, 9 October 2009 (UTC)


 * Your edit does not properly reflect the paper. Specifically, you write "no one has yet identified a specific environmental effect which could cause them" which is not the case.  Environmental effects have been found that could cause the difference, but no one has determined that any specific or combination of environmental effects are the actual cause.  If you could update the text, that would be great.  Aprock (talk) 18:34, 9 October 2009 (UTC)


 * I think you're misconstruing their position. Let's look at this quote again:


 * The differential between the mean intelligence test scores of Blacks and Whites (about one standard deviation, although it may be diminishing) does not result from any obvious biases in test construction and administration, nor does it simply reflect differences in socio-economic status. Explanations based on factors of caste and culture may be appropriate, but so far have little direct empirical support. There is certainly no such support for a genetic interpretation. At present, no one knows what causes this differential.


 * So all of the specific potential environmental factors that they consider--test bias, socioeconomic status and caste-like minorities--are dismissed as lacking evidence. (And so is genetics).  They conclude that nobody has yet identified the cause of the IQ difference.  This is the single most common position about this, held by people such as James Flynn: that the cause is environmental, but that no existing environmental explanation is adequate, so it is caused by some as-yet undiscovered environmental factor.


 * the part of their statement that you quoted only refers to the size of the difference being within the range of what could be caused by environmental factors. It isn't making a statement about any such factors having actually been identified, and the later part of the article rejects that assertion. --Captain Occam (talk) 18:43, 9 October 2009 (UTC)


 * They are not dismissed. Regarding socioeconomic factors: "Several considerations suggest that this cannot be the whole explanation... no model in which "SES" directly determines "IQ" will do.".  Regarding caste-like minorities, there is no indication in the article that that environmental factor can be dismissed.  The statement I summarized specifically says: "If group differences in test performance do not result from the simple forms of bias reviewed above, what is responsible for them? The fact is that we do not know."  None of the environmental causes are dismissed.  But we do not know which environmental factors are responsible, and we do not know if there is (or is not) a genetic component at play here.  I'll ask that the wording be changed to reflect the article being quoted. Aprock (talk) 18:54, 9 October 2009 (UTC)


 * All right, I changed it slightly. Is the new version acceptable to you? --Captain Occam (talk) 19:09, 9 October 2009 (UTC)


 * It looks great. Aprock (talk) 19:11, 9 October 2009 (UTC)


 * “While these differences are of a size that could be accounted for by environmental factors, no specific environmental factors have been identified as definitive causes, and genetic factors cannot be ruled out.”


 * Frankly, I think all this minority/fringe hypothesis nonsense has birthed the above nonsensical sentence. If we were actually considering the scientific data, we would rather say—to be completely objective: “...no specific factors have been identified as definitive causes, and genetic and environmental factors may play important roles.” Even if the environment hypothesis was indeed the majority view, considering it as such does not take into account that factors other than pure and unbiased reason may play a role in the widespread acceptance of the theory.--Aerain (talk) 22:28, 9 October 2009 (UTC)


 * If you’re going to change the wording of this sentence the way you’ve suggested, you’ll need to find a reference for it other than the APA statement, since their statement doesn’t support this sentence the way you’ve worded it.


 * To be frank, I think the other editors here will probably have a problem with you changing this, but if you decide to edit this aspect of the article after it’s unprotected, I probably won’t try to interfere with this myself. I’m involved in so many separate disputes here that I’d rather not have to take on an additional one. --Captain Occam (talk) 00:13, 10 October 2009 (UTC)


 * This theory, the environment hypothesis, implies a very unscientific notion by stating that differences between groups are strictly environmental. This is a step backward toward indoctrination as I see it. By claiming what all-environment-explanation proponents claim, we also imply that there is a sort of good-hearted process in evolution that prevent any group from having an advantage over another in intelligence.--Aerain (talk) 01:35, 10 October 2009 (UTC)


 * You don’t need to argue with me about this. I personally think that the hereditarian hypothesis is probably better-supported than the environmental one, but I also think it’s important to follow Wikipedia’s policy about covering each theory about this in proportion to the amount of support it receives from researchers, even if the reason why this is a minority viewpoint may be because of something other than which viewpoint has the most evidence to support it.


 * If you want to edit the article to provide more coverage of the hereditarian perspective, you need to convince the editors here that this change is consistent with Wikipedia’s policy. As I’ve stated earlier, I think it probably receives about as much coverage in the article as is appropriate, but if you have an argument against that idea, I’m listening.


 * You should probably create a new section of the talk page if you want to debate this, though. --Captain Occam (talk) 01:58, 10 October 2009 (UTC)


 * I propose we say "We don't know what factors exactly account for these differences, some believe that environment play an important role or account for all of them, but genetic factors may play as big of a role" instead of "While these differences are of a size that could be accounted for by environmental factors, no specific environmental factors have been identified as definitive causes, and genetic factors cannot be ruled out." The reason why is that the fact that the environment hypothesis is more widespread does not mean that more scholars BELIEVE it is true, SAYING it is not the same thing as BELIEVING it.--Aerain (talk) 02:31, 10 October 2009 (UTC)


 * The fundamental issue is that it's not us who get to say. There has to be reliable sourcing of information.  This specific discussion is about the APA article, which may not be the freshest view, but reflects a broad base of researchers.  If you can find another broad survey of scientific understanding from which to draw information from, by all means offer it up.  As for inferring unsaid beliefs, I think I'll take a pass on that one.  Aprock (talk) 02:36, 10 October 2009 (UTC)


 * Then instead of making a non-factual claim such as "While these differences are of a size that could be accounted for by environmental factors, no specific environmental factors have been identified as definitive causes, and genetic factors cannot be ruled out" you should state that this claim comes from APA. For instance, you could say "A group of scientists concluded that while these differences are of a size that could be accounted for by environmental factors, no specific environmental factors have been identified as definitive causes, and genetic factors cannot be ruled out."--Aerain (talk) 02:50, 10 October 2009 (UTC)


 * That is, in effect, what is happening through citation. By citing the statement with that reference, credit to the statement is given to the reference.  We could replace all footnoted references with full expansion of quotes and references, but I suspect that would become unwieldy fast.  Aprock (talk) 03:01, 10 October 2009 (UTC)


 * Actually, I don't think so. A citation actually gives you a basis to think the statement made is true.--Aerain (talk) 03:06, 10 October 2009 (UTC)


 * This is probably a good time to review WP:CITE Aprock (talk) 03:31, 10 October 2009 (UTC)


 * "Opinions, data and statistics, and statements based on someone's scientific work should be cited and attributed to their authors in the text." Agreed.--Aerain (talk) 05:18, 10 October 2009 (UTC)


 * I think it is very reasonable to mention that it is the APA that is responsible for that position. Aprock (talk) 05:25, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

the 1990s debates
This section only discusses the book "The Bell Curve" and related work. I'd like to suggest that this section be retitled to "The Bell Curve" and replaced with a summary of the corresponding wikipedia page. Aprock (talk) 17:51, 9 October 2009 (UTC)


 * I think that calling this section "The Bell Curve" would present too limited a view of the debate. Although the Bell Curve was what initiated the 1990s controversy, many of the articles that were published as a result of this controversy (such as the APA statement) are arguably more significant than the book itself was.  This is the same reason why we don't refer to the 1970s debate under the name of Arthur Jensen's paper that initiated it. --Captain Occam (talk) 17:54, 9 October 2009 (UTC)


 * Currently the section is entirely about the book and the debate it created. If you read the Bell Curve entry, you'll find that there is nearly 100% coverage of the section there.  I'm fine with a more appropriate title, like "The Bell Curve debate", or something similar.  Aprock (talk) 17:56, 9 October 2009 (UTC)


 * Why can't we just call this "the 1990s debates"? That's at least as descriptive a term as anything referring to The Bell Curve specifically.  We refer to the debates in the 1970s as "the 1970s debates", and it's best to be consistent about this. --Captain Occam (talk) 18:33, 9 October 2009 (UTC)


 * We can call it whatever we want. However, since the section is essentially a summary of the entry on the book, replacing the section with a summary of the entry, and an appropriate title is sensible. Aprock (talk) 18:40, 9 October 2009 (UTC)


 * This section of the article includes a lot of topics than the article about The Bell Curve doesn't. The Bell Curve article talks about the "Mainstream Science" statement and the APA "Knowns and unknowns" statement, but it doesn't include the other 1990s statements from the APA that this article covers, or the coverage of the "Knowns and unknowns" statement in American Psychologist.


 * Some of these are only tangentially related to The Bell Curve. The coverage in American Psychologist was a commentary on the APA statement, which itself was only an indirect commentary on The Bell Curve.  As a result, referring to the American Psychologist coverage under the heading "The Bell Curve" is a bit of a stretch. --Captain Occam (talk) 18:51, 9 October 2009 (UTC)


 * This stuff is in The Bell Curve see: 4.1 American Psychological Association task force report. But I certainly agree that a better title would be "The Bell Curve debates".  [[User:Aprock|Aprock] (talk) 18:59, 9 October 2009 (UTC)


 * I already acknowledged that it mentions that report, but it doesn't mention any of the other APA reports that the race and intelligence article does, or the American Psychologist coverage. If you're going to dispute what I'm saying, please respond to my actual points, rather than a strawman of them.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Captain Occam (talk • contribs) 19:05, 9 October 2009 (UTC)


 * It does mention the AP coverage. From The Bell Curve: "The APA journal that published the statement, American Psychologist, subsequently published eleven critical responses in January 1997."  If you could be more specific about which reports are not mentioned, that might help.  Regardless, the issue isn't whether the content is a mirror image of The Bell Curve.  The issue is that this section is about the debates that publication of The Bell Curve produced.  Changing the title to "The Bell Curve debates" is an improvement over "The 1990s debates" Aprock (talk) 19:10, 9 October 2009 (UTC)


 * If you want its title changed, can you address my point about consistency? The section titled “the 1970s debates” is about the debate caused by Jensen’s 1969 paper about this in the Harvard Educational Review.  But the section about that debate is named after the decade during which it occurred, rather than the piece of writing which caused it.  If we don’t name that section after Jensen’s article, we shouldn’t name the 1990s section after The Bell Curve either. --Captain Occam (talk) 19:15, 9 October 2009 (UTC)


 * I don't see any reason to name two of the three sections after the decades in which they occurred. As it current stands, there is currently "The 1970s debates", "The 1990s debates", and "Policy debates".  Aprock (talk) 19:19, 9 October 2009 (UTC)


 * If we’re going to change the name of “the 1990s debate” to “The Bell Curve debate”, what name do you think should we use for the section about the debate that occurred during the 1970s? --Captain Occam (talk) 19:24, 9 October 2009 (UTC)


 * I think "The 1970s debates" is kind of clunky but I don't have any better suggestions at the moment. If you think there is a better title, I'm all ears. Aprock (talk) 19:25, 9 October 2009 (UTC)


 * I don’t have any better ideas either, and I also think it’s important to be consistent. If we’re going to name one of these sections after the decade in which it occurred, we should do that for both of them.  So I would suggest that we don’t change the title of the “1990s debate” section unless we can find a suitable new title for the “1970s debate” section also. --Captain Occam (talk) 19:29, 9 October 2009 (UTC)


 * Currently two subtitles are decades, one is not. I don't see any issue with maintaining consistency here.  And I don't know that it should trump more appropriate titles. Aprock (talk) 19:32, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

Analysis by bloggers
This statement in the article: However, in 2007 the New York Times reported preliminary results suggesting that some genes which influence IQ may be distributed unequally between races. Refers this NYT article. However this NYT article refers to a blog. Blogs don't qualify as reliable sources on scientific matters. I looked up some of the recent studies concerning the particular genes discussed in the blog, including According to the abstract of Kircher et al. "Results Significantly lower scores on the SPQ-B (p=0.0005) and the Interpersonal Deficit subscale (p=0.0005) in carriers of the A-risk allele were detected. There were no differences in any of the cognitive variables between groups". According to the abstract of Hashimoto et al. "This haplotype did not affect IQ and its sub-scores as measured by the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale-Revised in both groups."

In the genomic age, it is frequent to hear of genes for this and genes for that. As long as it is a single gene/SNP I think it can be treated with some degree of skepticism. I believe the Robert Plomin group do the most comprehensive genome scans for IQ traits, and as yet they admit to not finding any single trait that associates with IQ. Such traits may be found in the future, but currently there doesn't seem to be any reliable DNA association. Genes have been identified that depress IQ due to diseases such as schizophrenia, but no gene that affects IQ in healthy populations. Wapondaponda (talk) 18:24, 9 October 2009 (UTC)


 * It doesn't matter whether this issue was originally reported in a blog; the only thing that matters in a Wikipedia article is what source is actually being used on Wikipedia. Otherwise, we could never include articles that are based on interviews with eyewitnesses to important events, which aren't (on their own) reliable sources either. --Captain Occam (talk) 18:31, 9 October 2009 (UTC)


 * The best thing to do would be to update the information to reflect current research. If the NYT article is of historic importance, it could be included in the history or contemporary issues sections.  Aprock (talk) 18:38, 9 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Well the blog entry has been shown to be misleading, these two 2009 studies show no association of the gene with IQ, as speculated by the blogger. We should cite peer reviewed scientific publications rather than an analysis done by a blogger. There plenty of peer reviewed scientific publications on DTNBP1, why should we rely on a blog. Wapondaponda (talk) 18:57, 9 October 2009 (UTC)
 * We aren't relying on a blog, any more than we're relying on the testimony of an eyewitness when citing an article based on an interview with them. What we're relying on is a New York Times article which won a pulitzer.  If you want to include the 2009 research about this gene in order to present another perspective about it, you're welcome to add that to the article, but we should include what was reported in the New York Times also. --Captain Occam (talk) 19:02, 9 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Yes it may be the times, but each article published by the times should be assessed individually, recall that scholarly articles in general are the most reliable per Rs. News sources are sub-standard to peer reviewed publications. Especially if the source is citing analysis done by a blogger. Wapondaponda (talk) 19:12, 9 October 2009 (UTC)


 * Actually, Wikipedia's guidelines dictate that we should rely on secondary sources as much as possible. The New York Times is a secondary source, while new findings that are first being reported in a journal are a primary source.


 * Regardless, I already said that you can add this new research to the article if you want, but there's no justification for removing the NYT coverage. --Captain Occam (talk) 19:18, 9 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Scholarly articles are in fact secondary sources, their data is the primary source. Most blogs are unreliable sources of information. This is why quoting the Times results in the dissemination of incorrect information. A software engineer who in his spare time decides to blog about the subject of race and IQ is hardly a reliable source. The race/IQ debate is a favorite of the blogs, but wikipedia is WP:NOTBLOG for us to entertain speculative theories promoted by bloggers. Wapondaponda (talk) 19:28, 9 October 2009 (UTC)
 * You still don't seem to understand the way sources work here. It isn't our job to evaluate what sources are being used for by The New York Times, and determine whether or not those sources are reliable.


 * You could raise the exact same objection to most news articles. When an article about an event is based on the account of a person who witnessed it, how do we know that this witness in particular is a reliable source?  We don't, any more or less than we do with a blog.  But what matters is that The New York Times has a good reputation for fact-checking, so when they report anything that would not have been a reliable source on its own, the fact that a reputable newspaper is reporting it makes it reliable by Wikipedia's standards.


 * This policy isn't negotiable. If it were, large portions of articles about current events would be subject to removal, because they're sourced from news articles whose original sources wouldn't be considered reliable on their own. --Captain Occam (talk) 19:38, 9 October 2009 (UTC)


 * Looking at the specific text in the article that is mentioned it reads like weasel words to me: "... reported ... preliminary ... may be ...". It would be better to replace this report of preliminary results with a reference to the actual results. Aprock (talk) 19:47, 9 October 2009 (UTC)


 * The thing is, the New York Times expressed a similar amount of uncertainty about these results in their own article. If I remove those words, I'll make it sound as though the author of this article considered the results more certain than she did.


 * Also, as I mentioned earlier, what they're reporting wasn't a formal study. It was a widely-publicized analysis performed by a blogger, which wouldn't be a reliable source on its own, although as I mentioned earlier, the NYT article is a reliable source even if the original blog isn't.  So this is a case where citing the original results isn't possible. --Captain Occam (talk) 19:58, 9 October 2009 (UTC)


 * Here is the paragraph that I think is being referenced: "Nonscientists are already beginning to stitch together highly speculative conclusions about the historically charged subject of race and intelligence from the new biological data. Last month, a blogger in Manhattan described a recently published study that linked several snippets of DNA to high I.Q. An online genetic database used by medical researchers, he told readers, showed that two of the snippets were found more often in Europeans and Asians than in Africans." If that's the case, then the phrasing "nonscientists" and "highly speculative" should probably be included. Aprock (talk) 20:01, 9 October 2009 (UTC)


 * The purpose of the "weasel words" was to communicate the speculative nature of the results. (I know this because I'm the one who added that sentence to the article.)  If you'd rather remove the weasel words and replace them with the phrase "highly speculative", that's acceptable also, although you'll have to wait until an administrator un-protects the article first. --Captain Occam (talk) 20:08, 9 October 2009 (UTC)


 * Regarding your edit to your comment: I think mentioning the fact that it was performed by a non-scientist would skew the NPOV nature of the sentence, unless we include several other details also. The analysis he performed was so simple that virtually anyone could have done it, so the fact that he wasn’t a scientist doesn’t actually make much of a difference.  However, if we mention the fact that he wasn’t a scientist without mentioning what the analysis actually involved, that creates the impression that the analysis was done by someone who wouldn’t have had the ability to perform it accurately.


 * If we’re going to mention that he wasn’t a scientist, we need to also mention how the analysis was performed. Or alternatively, we could avoid mentioning either of these things. --Captain Occam (talk) 20:15, 9 October 2009 (UTC)


 * As far as I can tell, the only material we can work with is what was included in the NYT article, which I believe is only the paragraph quoted above. Any edit you can make which better represents that paragraph is welcome. Aprock (talk) 20:28, 9 October 2009 (UTC)


 * All right, I’ll try doing that whenever the page is unprotected.


 * Are you satisfied with these proposed edits, along with the ones we’ve made already? Since the page is currently protected until our editing dispute can be resolved, we’ll need to both be satisfied with the changes being suggested before it can be unprotected.


 * If you are, then the NPOV and unbalanced tags ought to be removed also. According to WP:TAGGING, the tags should only remain there as long as there’s a current dispute about these aspects of the article, so they shouldn’t stay there if we’ve resolved this. --Captain Occam (talk) 20:58, 9 October 2009 (UTC)


 * Please see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Race_and_intelligence#Updating_and_cleaning_up_article for my thoughts on what needs to be done to resolve the various issues with the article. Aprock (talk) 21:06, 9 October 2009 (UTC)


 * I stand by what I said there: I don’t think it’s a good idea to do a major overhaul of the article like this without first obtaining consensus about it.  You know I’m bound to have at least some problems with your edits, and will most likely revert them; and then we’d get to the “D” part of the BRD cycle, where we would have to discuss all the edits you made during this overhaul.  For a proposed change that’s this large, it’s going to save us some effort if we can look at and discuss your proposed changes before making them, rather than having to keep editing and reverting dozens of them at a time.


 * Considering the article is now locked, and will most likely remain locked until this dispute is resolved, creating a revised version in your userspace is probably the only way to proceed at this point anyway. Do you approve of that suggestion? --Captain Occam (talk) 21:21, 9 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Captain Occam. You are simply dead wrong. The NYT is not a reliable source for science. Furthermore, they are reporting on something produced by someone who is clearly not a scientist or an expert. You are wrong about our policies. They are very clear, but you are confused about them. Firstly your claim about using articles based on eyewitness accounts is a fallacious analogy. If a specific news event is being covered by a newspaper, then they will use an eyewitness account, but that's a news story, it is not science. Newspapers are not reliable sources for science, indeed we have explicit policies that say that for science we should use sources published by reputable scientific journals or by reputable scientific/academic publishing houses. Go and read our policies.
 * Reliable sources (medicine-related articles)-"The popular press is generally not a reliable source for science and medicine information in articles."
 * Reliable sources- "information about academic topics, such as physics or ancient history, scholarly sources are preferred over news stories. Newspapers tend to misrepresent results, leaving out crucial details and reporting discoveries out of context"
 * Wikipedia Signpost/2008-06-30/Dispatches- "the most reliable sources in medicine and biology are peer-reviewed publications in scientific journals."


 * Frankly any claims that blogs, or that newspapers reporting about blogs about science, are reliable for scientific articles are, quite frankly erroneous. Go and think again, you have not got a leg to stand on, this informations should not be in the article, it is unreliable from at least two of Wikipedia's content guidelines. This information might have a place in an article about non-scientists who retrieve scientific data from the internet and try to interpret it in their own way to promote their own whacky theories. But reliable science it aint.


 * BTW you accused me of making ad hominem attacks, I can see none in any of my posts. Could you point these out to me? If you can't then I'll just assume that you were simply trying to discredit me because you don't have any answers to the points I made. Alun (talk) 03:45, 10 October 2009 (UTC)


 * I’d say that calling me gullible, telling me what my own point is, and saying that anyone who disagrees with you doesn’t know what they’re talking about are all examples of ad hominem. I could go on, but once again you’re introducing irrelevant topics which distract from anything that could actually improve the article.


 * If you view your quote from the medicinal RS policy page in its proper context, it’s clear that it’s discussing sources for healthcare related articles, and the reason why newspapers aren’t reliable sources for those is because they tend not to accurately report risks. That isn’t applicable in this case.  The general RS page explicitly allows newpapers, and mentions the New York Times by name.  The third page you linked me to isn’t a policy page, but a Wikipedia newsletter of some sort.


 * What you’ve provided here is your own interpretation of Wikipedia’s policy, which other editors may or may not agree with. And it doesn’t really matter at this stage, because Aprock and I have already established a consensus about what the article should say.  The pre-existing consensus is what will need to be followed if you aren’t able to reach a new consensus with us, which I don’t realistically see happening, based on your conduct here thus far.


 * If you really want to change whether this article can be regarded as a reliable source, you should bring this up on the reliable sources noticeboard. Otherwise, what’s going in the article probably isn’t something you can expect to change at this point. --Captain Occam (talk) 04:17, 10 October 2009 (UTC)


 * I'd say those things were ad hominem attacks, but I have done none of them. Look again at what I said will you. Quote what I said, and tell me how it is an attack on you.


 * No, the quotes are clearly for science and medicine. Look at them., for science newspapers are not reliable, that's just the way it is. Besides this is not even a newspaper article about a science, it is a newspaper article about a blog post, so it's doubly unreliable.


 * I don't see how quoting text can be "my own interpretation". That just doesn't make sense Captain Occam.


 * If there is no consensus to remove it, then I will bring it up at the RS notice board. I was rather hoping that you would accept the evidence of your eyes and not be beligerant about it. Clearly you're prepared to ignore the fact that this is obviously utterly unreliable because it supports the point of view you want to push. I have a deep suspicion that you are in fact Legalleft. That's OK, there is no general rule about having multiple accounts, and Legalleft was never blocked. Alun (talk) 04:28, 10 October 2009 (UTC)


 * Telling me what my own belief is: “Does this "prove" that English people and Welsh people are different "races"? Apparently you believe it does.”


 * Calling me gullible: “If you take Jensen's pronouncements on race with any seriousness then you really are gullible.”


 * Claiming that anyone who disagrees with you doesn’t know what they’re talking about: “Anyone who makes this claim simply is ignorant of genetics.”


 * And then again: “Anyone claiming that human populations are "genetically defined" does not know what they are talking about.”


 * And now here’s your newest ad hominem: “Clearly you're prepared to ignore the fact that this is obviously utterly unreliable because it supports the point of view you want to push.”  If you don’t see how this is a personal attack, you need to familiarize yourself with what’s considered a personal attack here.


 * And now back to the point: none of the policy pages you’ve linked to say that newspapers are inadmissible as sources about science articles.  They say that they’re inadmissible as sources for healthcare articles, which this is not.  For science articles in general, they say that academic literature is preferable but that newspapers are acceptable also, mentioning The New York Times by name.


 * I find it kind of strange that you’re needing to accuse me of being another user now. I’ve seen some of Legalleft’s comments on earlier versions of the talk page, and I don’t find his writing style particularly similar to mine. --Captain Occam (talk) 04:56, 10 October 2009 (UTC)


 * I didn't "tell" you anything, I asked you a question, then speculated what your answer would be based on your previous statements. So clearly not ad hominem, but a fairly straight forward argument.
 * I didn't call you gullible, I stated clearly that if you take the statements of a non-expert at fact value without criticism (or indeed seeking to confirm it's veracity from real experts), then you are gullible. A qualified opinion on my part. I don't know how English is used where you come from, but this statement could just as easily have been written “If one takes Jensen's pronouncements on race with any seriousness then one really is gullible.”
 * Again, I didn't say that anyone who disagrees with me doesn't know what they are talking about. I said that anyone who makes a specific claim about genetics is ignorant because that claim is wrong. The quote you give doesn't say what you claim it says, and that's there for anyone to see, so you are clearly misrepresenting what I have said, and anyone can see that by reading the quote you provide. Your evidence doesn't even support your claims. How is this ad hominem, it doesn't even mention you.
 * Ditto
 * It's not a personal attack when it is clear that you are ignoring policy to try to include something that is unreliable. On wikipedia we are encouraged to "call a spade a spade", and we are encouraged to assume good faith. When I say that I think someone is ignorant, then that is assuming good faith, because I am assuming their edit has been made out of a lack of knowledge or understanding, rather than out of malice. On the other hand you are trying to claim that when someone provides evidence that you are wrong, then that's a personal attack. Come on. So understand the difference, a personal attack would be "you are wrong because you are stupid", whereas it is not a personal attack to say "you are wrong because you don't understand what you are talking about" (especially when an explanation is given as to what that lack of understanding is).
 * "none of the policy pages you’ve linked to say that newspapers are inadmissible as sources about science articles. They say that they’re inadmissible as sources for healthcare articles"
 * Not true, read the quotes:"Reliable sources (medicine-related articles)-'The popular press is generally not a reliable source for science and medicine information in articles.'""Reliable sources- 'information about academic topics, such as physics or ancient history, scholarly sources are preferred over news stories. Newspapers tend to misrepresent results, leaving out crucial details and reporting discoveries out of context'""Wikipedia Signpost/2008-06-30/Dispatches- 'the most reliable sources in medicine and biology are peer-reviewed publications in scientific journals.'" So clearly what you say is utterly untrue, they are not about medicine alone (and one does not even mention medicine). As I say, you appear to be prepared to misrepresent anything I say and portray it as an "attack", and contradict Wikipedia guidelines, even when it's clear the quotes I give do not support your claims, originally you stated that I was "interpreting" these guidelines even though I had quoted them (should I call that a personal attack I wonder?)
 * I didn't accuse you of being Legalleft, I said that I am suspicious that you are (suspicion and accusation are not the same, at least they weren't where I come from, an accusation would be "you are Legalleft", see the difference?). I also said there's no rule against starting a new account with a new username. The reason why I'm suspicious is because he also used to think that anyone who thought he didn't know what he was talking about was "personally attacking" him and get all offended for the flimsiest of reasons. Alun (talk) 06:07, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

← Note that I have shortened the length of the full-protection from 24 hours to 12 hours. I felt that perhaps 24 was perhaps a bit much for something like this. The one thing I ask is that everyone keeps a cool head and try to rationally discuss changes here between now and then. MuZemike 21:46, 9 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Wikipedia should not be a venue for speculative and unpublished scientific claims. This blogger does not meet the WP:PROF test. Anybody can go on wordpress or blogspot and write almost anything they please. Unlike peer reviewed publications, there is no system of accountability on a blog. That some NYT reporters patrol the blogs is irrelevant to the actual science. This blogger stated something like one version of DTNBP1 results in a drop of IQ by about 8 points. Well the actual peer reviewed publications cited above found no such association with IQ. Herein lies the danger with following blogs. It would be irresponsible of us to allow such information on Wikipedia. Wapondaponda (talk) 08:58, 10 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Well, Wapondaponda is 100% right. Earlier, Captain writes, "You still don't seem to understand the way sources work here. It isn't our job to evaluate what sources are being used for by The New York Times, and determine whether or not those sources are reliable."  Well, this muddles the issue.  We cannot use the blog as a source, period. Blogs are unreliable sources.  This is not a matter of telling the NYT what to do, it is not as Captain says our business to tell the NYT what to do. But what sources we consider reliable for Wikipedia is our job and blogs are not reliable.  Now, the New York Times is a reliable source for some things.'  Part of complying with RS is applying it appropriately.  The NYT is not a good source on science.  It is a good source on the news.  In this case, it is news about popular perceptions.  If we want an article on the science of race and intelligence, we should (like the Evolution article stick to pee-reviewed scince articles (which science depends on whether we are talking about race - sociology and anthropology - heritability - population genetics - or intelligence - psychology).  If we want an article on popular beliefs about race and intelligence (as there are other articles relating to evolution that are not about evolutionary science) we can use the NYT for that. The question is, "what is it a reliable source for?" Slrubenstein   |  Talk 10:18, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

Slrubenstein, since when is "race" a topic of science? This article isn't "genetics and intelligence", in which case you would be right that only geneticist sources would be permissible. But as we both know, race is a social construct only partially based on genetics, and the "race and intelligence" debate is very much a sociological question just as much as a genetic one, so that it is perfectly permissible to use a wider range of sources, including major newspapers. --dab (𒁳) 11:39, 10 October 2009 (UTC)
 * dab, typically, did not read what I wrote, specifically the antepenultimate sentence (concerning the scientific study of race) and the rest of the contribution (on why I think we can use newspapers). You have accused me of misrepresenting your position; here you are clearly misrepresenting mine.  Did you just come here to pick an argument, or do you have a useful comment to make? Slrubenstein   |  Talk 14:08, 10 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Please stop being rude, not assuming good faith, whatever you want to call it. It's not appropriate to always be accusing people of doing something inappropriate because they have the audacity to question what you've said.  Fixentries (talk) 17:21, 10 October 2009 (UTC)


 * Slrubenstein, the most important thing that needs to be established here is that WP:RS does not actually say articles from high-end newspapers are inadmissible about science topics. As you say, it is a matter of applying this policy appropriately, and determining whether the NYT is a reliable source for this particular topic.  The default assumption from the RS policy page is that it is a reliable source, so that’s what we need to assume unless a convincing case can be made to the contrary.


 * As I said before, the fact that what’s being reported originally came from a blog (and blogs are not reliable sources) is not an argument against this NYT article being a reliable source, because by that standard no article based on eyewitness testimony would be a reliable source either. Neither (on its own) is the fact that this is an article on a scientific topic, because Wikipedia’s policies specifically allow news articles as sources about science topics, even though academic literature is preferable.  Your argument here seems to be that because this NYT article is about a science topic and it’s reporting something that originally came from a blog, that presents a special case in which the New York Times not a reliable source.


 * Keep in mind that WP:RS says nothing of the sort, so this is a speculative interpretation of Wikipedia’s rules on your part. Therefore, your opinion certainly is not the only possible valid one about this.  My opinion is that the NYT is being cited appropriately here, for the following reasons:


 * The analysis performed by this blogger was incredibly simple. It compared information from two readily available sources, and anyone who doubts this blogger’s methods can perform the analysis for themselves.  These results certainly are not by any means conclusive about genetics playing a role in causing the IQ difference, but it is easy to verify that there was nothing wrong with the blogger’s methodology.
 * Since the New York Times has a good reputation for fact-checking, including about science articles, it is reasonable to assume that the author of this article examined the results for herself and determined that they adequately supported what she was reporting about them. (Which is that they exist, not that they’re conclusive.)
 * As is evident by the URL at which the NYT article is cited, it won a Pulitzer. The Pulitzer Prize committee has their own standards of evaluating an article for this prize, which include accurate and reliable reporting.  This provides an additional way to ensure that the article is a reliable source on the topic it’s covering.


 * With these points in mind, I do not think this article presents a special case in which the New York Times is not a reliable source. In fact, I would expect that criteria of reliability which are necessary for an article to win a Pulitzer are considerably more stringent than Wikipedia’s criteria for determining when the New York Times is a reliable source.  Only one article out of every several thousand receives a Pulitzer, whereas the default assumption is that NYT articles about science are reliable sources by Wikipedia’s standards, unless there is a specific problem with them.  Therefore, if this article is reliable enough to pass the first test, it is difficult to imagine that it cannot pass the second.


 * I think what probably needs to be done here is that the Wikipedia article should be edited to emphasize the speculative nature of these results, which is something Aprock and I had already agreed is appropriate. Now that the article is unprotected, I can do that now. --Captain Occam (talk) 17:35, 10 October 2009 (UTC)
 * The matter at hand, concerning genetics and intelligence, there are numerous peer reviewed publications on the search for a genetic link to IQ. The subject concerning genetics and intelligence is much broader than the race debate. All populations have a normal distribution of test scores, so the genetics/intelligence link has implications beyond race. One recent study
 * The study analyzed almost 8000 children (4000 twin pairs) including both those who scored high and low on IQ tests. A panel of over 500,000 SNPs were scanned for an association with IQ. The study could not find a single SNP that could account for more than 0.4%( approx 0.004 IQ points) of the variance of g. In other words, this study could not find any association between any specific DNA marker and intelligence. This is a very detailed analysis and it clearly illustrates that genetics of intelligence is extremely complicated. It is highly unlikely that any single gene acting alone contributes to intelligence, rather it must be several genes acting in concert. Epistatic and even possibly epigenetic influences along with environmental factors all contribute to intelligence. This clearly show that the blogger who was claiming that one gene is responsible for 8 IQ points was joking or just trying to get some attention. That some editors want to take a joke by blogger seriously is disappointing. Wapondaponda (talk) 18:06, 10 October 2009 (UTC)
 * The study analyzed almost 8000 children (4000 twin pairs) including both those who scored high and low on IQ tests. A panel of over 500,000 SNPs were scanned for an association with IQ. The study could not find a single SNP that could account for more than 0.4%( approx 0.004 IQ points) of the variance of g. In other words, this study could not find any association between any specific DNA marker and intelligence. This is a very detailed analysis and it clearly illustrates that genetics of intelligence is extremely complicated. It is highly unlikely that any single gene acting alone contributes to intelligence, rather it must be several genes acting in concert. Epistatic and even possibly epigenetic influences along with environmental factors all contribute to intelligence. This clearly show that the blogger who was claiming that one gene is responsible for 8 IQ points was joking or just trying to get some attention. That some editors want to take a joke by blogger seriously is disappointing. Wapondaponda (talk) 18:06, 10 October 2009 (UTC)


 * That study is from around a year after the blog post. The analysis by the blogger cited this study from Behavior and Brain Functions, which does link certain alleles of the gene DTNBP1 to a more substantial IQ difference.


 * his seems to be a case where the gene’s effect on IQ is currently disputed. The New York Times article already makes mention of that, and consequently of the speculative nature of the blogger’s conclusions about this.  This is another argument in favor of editing the Wikipedia article to emphasize how speculative it was, but I had been already intending to do that anyway. --Captain Occam (talk) 18:21, 10 October 2009 (UTC)


 * I think there should certainly be a preference for citing the published paper over the NYT article. Aprock (talk) 18:41, 10 October 2009 (UTC)


 * The problem is that the original paper doesn't explicitly mention race. It was the analysis by the blogger (and then the NYT article) which combined this information with another source about allele distributions between races, and concluded that the alleles which influence IQ appear to be distributed unequally between races.


 * We can’t point this out ourselves while just citing the paper, because that would be original synthesis. We need to cite a source that actually states this conclusion, hence citing the NYT article rather than the original paper. --Captain Occam (talk) 18:58, 10 October 2009 (UTC)


 * I am glad Captain Occam and I agree that the issue is how to use sources, even if we still disagree over how the NYT should be used. I agree entirely with Aprock's point - if we learn from the blogger that there is an article published in a peer-reviewed journal, by all means let us favor that source over the NYT.  Captain Occam's reply only supports my point: if the original paper does not mention race, then there is a good reason for that and if we are providing an account of what scientists think, we should indeed use that paper to make whatever point its authors are really making.  Now, if the blogger introduces race into the issue, it would be disingenuous to use the blog or the NYT to support any claim that scientists are talking about race, as far as this paper is concerned.  What the NT is a reliable source on is how the general public talks about race which is quite different from the science on race.  This is precisely the point I made, originally. Slrubenstein   |  Talk 19:42, 10 October 2009 (UTC)


 * "if the original paper does not mention race, then there is a good reason for that"


 * If you look at the paper itself, you'll see what the reason is: race is simply outside the scope of what this study is about.  The study is about how the same genes that influence risk for schizophrenia also influence intelligence, and the reason the paper doesn't mention race in it is the same reason why it doesn't mention autism, sexual orientation, or any other topic that could theoretically be related to this research but was not covered by this particular study.  You seem to be assuming that the fact that the paper doesn't mention race means something significant about how scientists feel about this, when in fact it just means this particular study didn't address it.


 * "Now, if the blogger introduces race into the issue, it would be disingenuous to use the blog or the NYT to support any claim that scientists are talking about race"


 * In its current form, the Wikipedia article does not claim that scientists are talking about race as pertains this particular study. The only claim it makes is about what the New York Times reported, which is accurate. --Captain Occam (talk) 19:58, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

(reset) I read your comments on phrasing, below, and do not take any particular issue with them. Slrubenstein  |  Talk 20:10, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

NYT/blogger information
If the NYT article is to be included, I think it's important to represent it correctly. Specifically, the results are mentioned in the context of: "Nonscientists are already beginning to stitch together highly speculative conclusions...". Aprock (talk) 18:26, 10 October 2009 (UTC)
 * I've edited the article to point out the speculative nature of the conclusions. However, as I said earlier, if we're going to mention that it was done by a non-scientist we need to make it clear how simple the analysis was, so that it's clear this analysis was not beyond what a blogger would be capable of performing.


 * I think that's probably too much detail to go into about this single piece of data, so in my opinion, just pointing out how speculative it was is sufficient. --Captain Occam (talk) 18:35, 10 October 2009 (UTC)


 * If you want to include content from the NYT article, then that content must come from the NYT article. And that content must be representative of what the article says. Aprock (talk) 18:42, 10 October 2009 (UTC)


 * I think it's also important to not muddy up the various sections. While the NYT article and the recent addition of the WSJ article may have a place in the entry, they do not belong in the "Genetic Hypothesis" section.  Aprock (talk) 18:49, 10 October 2009 (UTC)


 * I think my recent edit to the article accurately reflects what the NYT article says. If you think I'm misrepresenting it, you need to be more specific about how you think I am, and what needs to be changed.


 * Also, the the part about the WSJ article has been in the "genetic hypothesis" section for quite a while; I just moved it to a different paragraph of that section. If you think it belongs somewhere else in the article, you should be more specific about that also. --Captain Occam (talk) 19:03, 10 October 2009 (UTC)


 * Looking at your edit to the NYT content, could you quote the part of the article where they discuss comparison of allele frequencies? Aprock (talk) 19:17, 10 October 2009 (UTC)


 * The NYT article says, "Last month, a blogger in Manhattan described a recently published study that linked several snippets of DNA to high I.Q. An online genetic database used by medical researchers, he told readers, showed that two of the snippets were found more often in Europeans and Asians than in Africans."  "Snippets of DNA" is the term that the NYT is using for alleles here.  I think it's acceptable to paraphrase this term to a more precise one, especially when it's possible to look at the original blog post, and see that this is indeed how the term "snippets of DNA" is being used. --Captain Occam (talk) 19:34, 10 October 2009 (UTC)
 * As is evident the blogger is misusing the information from the article Behavior and Brain Functions. As previously mentioned, any gene associated with a congenital disease potentially depresses IQ. This has been the problem in that it is easy to find genes that lower IQ indirectly via some pathology, but it is much harder to find genes that account for the IQ differences between healthy individuals. The study found an association between DTNBP1 and shizophrenia, and it is in patients with schizophrenia that the IQ scores relate to. In other words, individuals with severe schizophrenia have lower IQ scores which isn't exactly rocket science. A strong link between DTNBP1 and severe schizophrenia not yet been established. The 2009 study that focused on 521 healthy individuals found no correlation with IQ. This isn't the first time that a speculative association with IQ has been made. A few years ago Bruce Lahn made headlines for speculating that microcephalin was responsible for IQ differences between Africans and Eurasians. However recent studies have failed to find any association, even Philippe Rushton himself published an article, No evidence that polymorphisms of brain regulator genes Microcephalin and ASPM are associated with general mental ability, head circumference or altruism, which found no association with IQ. There are a lot of peer reviewed publications concerning genetics and IQ, there is no need for a blog. Wapondaponda (talk) 20:05, 10 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Um, I don't think you're understanding what the study in Behavioral and Brain functions is saying. What it's saying is that certain genes which place a person at greater risk for schizophrenia can increase IQ, even among individuals who possess the gene but don't have schizophrenia.  The fact that certain hereditary diseases can correlate with higher IQ isn't news; this is already well-known for torsion dystonia, and was part of the basis for Cochran and Harpending's conclusions about a genetic basis for the above-average IQ of Ashkenazi Jews.  What this paper is saying is that there appear to be genes which do the same thing for IQ and schizophrenia.


 * If there is another study which disputes this conclusion, you can add that to the article if you like. But as I mentioned earlier, the New York Times already mentions the speculative nature of this conclusion because the relationship between these alleles and IQ is unconfirmed, and the Wikipedia article now makes reference to that uncertainty.  Adding another sentence about the uncertainty of this gene's association with IQ seems redundant. --Captain Occam (talk) 20:24, 10 October 2009 (UTC)
 * this is what the study states, "Patients with schizophrenia carrying a DTNBP1 risk haplotype previously identified by Funke [21], performed worse on a neurocognitive test battery including the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Test (WAIS)" so it is not true that susceptibility to Schizophrenia increases IQ. This is not the controversial heterozygote advantage proposed by Harpending et al. Basically, the blog is a bunch of nonsense by a joker. There are serious studies, that we can focus. I will include the peer reviewed material that relates directly to this subject. Though I believe the bulk of this discussion should be on the talk page of the article genetics of intelligence. Wapondaponda (talk) 21:05, 10 October 2009 (UTC)


 * Your edit isn’t acceptable. Look at the rest of the study, particularly the “results” section.  The part that you quoted is from the “background” information, which was known before the study was performed, but the actual study found that certain alleles of DTNBP1 both raised and lowered IQ.  For example, the allele rs2619538 is associated with an increase of several IQ points.


 * I suggest that you actually read the entire study in question, before removing information from the article based on what you think it says. --Captain Occam (talk) 21:47, 10 October 2009 (UTC)


 * Incidentally, here is one of the blog posts in which these results were analyzed. (The analysis takes place over several blog posts, but this one displays the actual data from the study.)  As you can see, most of the alleles mentioned there lower IQ rather than raise it, with five that lower it and only two that raise it.  But their distribution is still roughly consistent with what would be expected if there were a genetic contribution to the difference in average IQ between Africans and Europeans. --Captain Occam (talk) 22:01, 10 October 2009 (UTC)


 * I doubt torsion dystonia causes higher IQ. There are too many reasons to be skeptical about such bold claims. Can you cite all the researches that find a correlation between torsion dystonia and higher IQ, and all those that don't?--Aerain (talk) 22:52, 10 October 2009 (UTC)


 * I’ll quote Cochran and Harpending’s paper about this, which describes some of the researchers who consider there to be a correlation:


 * Ever since torsion dystonia among the Ashkenazim was first recognized, observers have commented on the unusual intelligence of patients. Flatau and Sterling (Eldridge, 1976) describe their first patient as showing “an intellectual development far exceeding his age”, and their second patient as showing “extraordinary mental development for his age.” At least ten other reports in the literature have made similar comments. Eldridge (1970, 1976) studied 14 Jewish torison dystonia patients: he found that their average IQ before the onset of symptoms was 121, compared to an averge score of 111 in a control group of 14 unrelated Jewish children matched for age, sex, and school district. Riklan and colleagues found that 15 Jewish patients with no family history of dystonia (typical of DYT1 dystonia) had an average verbal IQ of 117 (Eldridge, 1979; Riklan et al., 1976).


 * I’m not sure how I could identify all of the researchers who don’t hold an opinion, though. Most of those who don’t probably don’t publish about this topic.


 * It probably isn’t accurate to say that torsion dystonia “causes” higher IQ, but the two seem to be affected by some of the same genes. --Captain Occam (talk) 23:17, 10 October 2009 (UTC)


 * I don't find the evidences supporting the claim to be strong enough to justify it. Whether the relationship between IQ and torsion dystonia is claimed to be causal or of meaningful simultaneity, there are simply too few evidences.--Aerain (talk) 23:43, 10 October 2009 (UTC)


 * The only point I made is that there's a correlation between the two, and I think the paragraph I quoted shows that. If you don't think the evidence supports there even being a correlation, you'll need to be more specific why not. --Captain Occam (talk) 23:58, 10 October 2009 (UTC)


 * I didn't really read anything you said except what you replied to me. Without a large sample, you cannot conclude that there really is a correlation. Moreover, mere anecdotes are not meaningful in any way. Even if there was a correlation, the correlation may be completely meaningless.--Aerain (talk) 00:34, 11 October 2009 (UTC)


 * I simply assumed that your opinion was the same as that of Cochran, that is, torsion dystonia is associated with high IQ—I have not read thoroughly enough Cochran's paper to know whether he claims there is a causal or a meaningful relationship between the two variables. If I remember what that paper was all about, he does not demonstrate that there is any causal or meaningful relationship, he merely speculates that it is so.--Aerain (talk) 01:00, 11 October 2009 (UTC)


 * When a study compares two samples of 14 people each, that isn’t an “anecdote”.


 * I suggest that you actually read Cochran and Harpending’s paper, or at least the parts of it that relate to this topic. The part of it that’s speculation is the idea that the same genes which cause Ashkenazi Jews to have above-average rates of certain hereditary diseases (such as torsion dystonia) are also the cause of their above-average IQ.  Just the general fact that torsion dystonia is associated with above-average intelligence isn’t particularly controversial. --Captain Occam (talk) 01:22, 11 October 2009 (UTC)


 * "Flatau and Sterling (Eldridge, 1976) describe their first patient as showing “an intellectual development far exceeding his age”, and their second patient as showing “extraordinary mental development for his age.” At least ten other reports in the literature have made similar comments." Well, Flatau and Sterling's anecdote is an anecdote. There is a difference between correlation and causal or any other meaningful relationship.--Aerain (talk) 01:30, 11 October 2009 (UTC)


 * Okay, the comment from Flatau and Sterling is an anecdote. But read the rest of the quote.  This correlation has more than just anecdotes to support it. --Captain Occam (talk) 01:59, 11 October 2009 (UTC)


 * 14 people do not represent a targeted demographic statistically well, unless the demographic is equally small, or the sample is proportionally large; however, in the latter case, because of confounding variables, any correlation must still be greeted with skepticism.--Aerain (talk) 02:30, 11 October 2009 (UTC)
 * I think there is an article Ashkenazi intelligence that already deals with the Cochran/Harpending controversy. We can provide a link to the article and a brief discussion, but discussion should of the Cochran/Harpending controversy should take place on that article not here. .Occam's reading a lot into blogs, it is somewhat disturbing that a blog is what we are referring to. Occam is deleting information from peer reviewed studies and replacing them with a blog entry. This is POV pushing. I am all for the democratization of knowledge, but we need to refer to published studies that have been through rigorous tests that eliminate false positives. Anyone can find a correlation between two variables, but correlation does not imply causation as implied by How to Lie with Statistics. So any speculation by blogs at this stage is non-scientific and irrelevant until or unless a scientist publishes a peer reviewed publication. I have taken this to the reliable sources noticeboard . Wapondaponda (talk) 04:15, 11 October 2009 (UTC)
 * You were deleting information from a peer-reviewed study also; the one from Behavioral and Brain Functions, which is cited there directly in addition to the NYT aritcle. All I was doing was reverting your erroneous edit.


 * As I said before, if you want to add this new study to the article in addition to the information that’s there already, that’s fine. That’s what Peregrine Fisher recommended on the RS noticeboard.  But your deletion of properly sourced information from the article, in order to replace it with the (also properly sourced) information that you approve of, is not acceptable.  Unless you can provide a justification for why only reliable sources that you agree with are acceptable, I’ll revert your edit again if you keep trying to remove the reliable sources that you don’t like. --Captain Occam (talk) 05:27, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

Currently it reads:

''The New York Times has reported on an analysis of this study performed by a non-scientist blogger, which compared its results to an online database of allele frequencies in various ethnic groups, and claimed that the alleles of this gene which influence IQ are distributed unequally between races. The New York Times emphasized the speculative nature of these results, because the relationship between these alleles and IQ is unconfirmed.''

The NYTimes article does not identify any particular study that the blog post refers to, it only says "described a recently published study" (my emphasis). Linking it to a particular study would be synthesis.

Further, the NYTimes article did not "report" on any analysis or blog posts at all. It merely identifies an example of a blogger who has misrepresented a scientific study. The article itself is about how genetic studies are prone to misrepresentation to support racial discrimination. That's what the article is about. It's not a report on a blog.-- Nealparr  (talk to me) 15:06, 11 October 2009 (UTC)


 * I’ll change the citation to link to the article at the NYT website, which includes the URL of the original study, in order to avoid the synthesis problem.


 * The other point you're making is something I've been over multiple times with the other users here, both here and on the RS noticeboard. The users on the RS noticeboard in particular have already agreed that the NYT article can be cited for this. --Captain Occam (talk) 15:18, 11 October 2009 (UTC)


 * A) How many reverts do you get in a day? B) NYTimes can be a reliable source, yes, but the source still needs to support the statement here, and it doesn't. The NYTimes did not report on an analysis of this study. The NYTimes reported on how studies can be misrepresented to support racial discrimination. The blog post was only referred to as an example of this. If we use that source, our statement should be about what the article is about. The article isn't about the analysis performed by a 40 year old software developer. It's about how 40 year old software developers can misuse work by actual scientists. -- Nealparr  (talk to me) 15:27, 11 October 2009 (UTC)


 * As I said before, this has already been resolved at the RS noticeboard, which is the appropriate place for discussing issues like this. Please stop making POV edits that go against what the RS noticeboard has already established. --Captain Occam (talk) 15:40, 11 October 2009 (UTC)


 * That is not a POV edit. It neutrally reflects what the source says. The source, on the other hand, is POV against non-scientists making unscientific analysis. We don't exclude sources because of their point of view. We neutrally incorporate them into the article. We don't misrepresent the source, as your text does.


 * You'll have to point to where the RS noticeboard rubber-stamped your version of the text, because I don't believe a consensus would exist to misrepresent a source as the text currently does.


 * You'll also have to point to where WP:3RR doesn't apply to you, because frankly I'm confused at the number of reverts you've made on this article today. -- Nealparr  (talk to me) 15:46, 11 October 2009 (UTC)


 * I agree with NealParr that his rendition is far closer to the aim of the NYT article than yours, Captain Occam. Yours especially overlooked this very important part from the NYT article: No matter that (...) other high I.Q. snippets are more common in Africans, or that hundreds or thousands of others may also affect intelligence, or that their combined influence might be dwarfed by environmental factors. which clearly indicates that the authors of the articles are highly dubious about the results obtained by the blogger.--Ramdrake (talk) 15:51, 11 October 2009 (UTC)


 * I would also like Capt. Occam to self-revert before he gets reported for a very clear violation of WP:3RR.--Ramdrake (talk) 15:55, 11 October 2009 (UTC)


 * Then make that point on the RS noticeboard. That was where it was discussed whether the NYT article could be used as a source for the statements in our article, and the conclusion was that it could, as long as certain changes were made (which have been made already).


 * Unless the decision on the RS noticeboard changes, you and Nealparr are both going against their decision by removing this information. You've also violated 3RR yourself, and in this case you're going against the RS noticeboard's conclusion in doing so. --Captain Occam (talk) 15:59, 11 October 2009 (UTC)


 * Please take note that 1)you're again overinterpreting what the RSN said 2)the RSN has no executive power, only advisory. I read their advice as not going your way, in fact. Again, please revert, as you are in violation of 3RR nevertheless.--Ramdrake (talk) 16:02, 11 October 2009 (UTC)


 * What's the link to this RS "decision"?-- Nealparr  (talk to me) 16:04, 11 October 2009 (UTC)


 * Wait? This? RS/N. Oh, come on, seriously? That's the conclusion that supposedly doesn't allow edits to that part of the article without being reverted? -- Nealparr  (talk to me) 16:11, 11 October 2009 (UTC)


 * The bottom line here is that this is currently the consensus in the relevant place for discussing this issue, and in the absence of a new consensus about this (or even a new consensus about the article being changed from the way it was for the past several months), it should be left in its current state. I've probably gone overboard in trying to keep it in that state until a new consensus exists, but both of you have violated the 3RR also in trying to change this without obtaining a consensus first.  Ramdrake, I'll agree to revert my most recent edit if you revert your preceding reversion, and the information cited to the NYT remains in the article until consensus on the RS noticeboard has changed.  Alternatively, we could just forget about this issue, and follow their advice. --Captain Occam (talk) 16:17, 11 October 2009 (UTC)


 * I'm going to follow the advice of Peregrine Fisher on the RS noticeboard, all right? It won't be a revert, and this is the consensus from a neutral party in the specific place where such questions are intended to be discussed.  Both of you are kind of out on a limb saying we should go against this. --Captain Occam (talk) 16:21, 11 October 2009 (UTC)


 * The RS discussion, that you call "consensus", is ongoing. There have been posts made to it this very day. It also has nothing to do with the statement you have in the article, it's about whether the NYTimes is a RS, and whether a blog post the NYTimes references can be included. The RS discussion does not support misrepresenting the source. And count again. I have -not- made more than three reverts. Count my edits. One was a simple tagging and another was fixing my own typo. Now add up yours, and count your reverting. -- Nealparr  (talk to me) 16:34, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

NYT citation problems
Currently the NYT summary read: "'The New York Times has reported that comparisons of allele frequencies of this gene between ethnic groups has suggested that some genes which influence IQ may be distributed unequally between races. The New York Times emphasized the speculative nature of these results, because the relationship between these alleles and IQ is as-yet unconfirmed.'"This summary is based on the following paragraphs from the article Nonscientists are already beginning to stitch together highly speculative conclusions about the historically charged subject of race and intelligence from the new biological data. Last month, a blogger in Manhattan described a recently published study that linked several snippets of DNA to high I.Q. An online genetic database used by medical researchers, he told readers, showed that two of the snippets were found more often in Europeans and Asians than in Africans. No matter that the link between I.Q. and those particular bits of DNA was unconfirmed, or that other high I.Q. snippets are more common in Africans, or that hundreds or thousands of others may also affect intelligence, or that their combined influence might be dwarfed by environmental factors. Just the existence of such genetic differences between races, proclaimed the author of the Half Sigma blog, a 40-year-old software developer, means "the egalitarian theory," that all races are equal, "is proven false."

I believe the current summary misrepresents the content and context of the NYT article, which was using this situation as an example of non-scientists making unsupported and highly speculative claims. I also think this information does not belong in the section describing the genetic hypothesis. It may have a place in the Criticisms section, as this is really about the NYT criticizing the criticism of a non-scientist. It would be much better to replace any third hand reference to research such as this with a citation to the actual research. Aprock (talk) 05:15, 11 October 2009 (UTC)
 * I agree with much of Aprock's analysis. I also agree with Slrubenstein in that the NYT article would be best used in a "race and intelligence in popular culture" article or sub-section. It presents nothing new on the genetic hypothesis. Everything that is discussed in the NYT article is available in other peer reviewed publications. Wapondaponda (talk) 05:25, 11 October 2009 (UTC)


 * “I believe the current summary misrepresents the content and context of the NYT article, which was using this situation as an example of non-scientists making unsupported and highly speculative claims.”


 * If you read the entre article, you’ll see that its point is much more complex than that. The title of the article is “In a DNA era, new concerns about prejudice”.  Its main point is how genetics can reveal information about race-related topics that makes some people uncomfortable, and the analysis by this blogger is presented as one example of that.


 * In his last reply to me, Slrubenstein said that he no longer takes issue with how I’ve described the NYT coverage. Aprock, if you think I’m presenting this information in an unbalanced way, you need to be specific about what ought to be changed, while considering the subject of the entire NYT article, rather than just what two paragraphs quoted out of context appear to be saying. --Captain Occam (talk) 05:41, 11 October 2009 (UTC)


 * You are misrepresenting me. I said I did not take issue with how you represent the article in a specific section of this discussion. Slrubenstein   |  Talk 11:52, 12 October 2009 (UTC)


 * The first and foremost change I would make would be removing it from the section on "The Genetic Hypothesis" to the "Criticisms" section. Especially given the fact that the underlying article is about prejudice and not the genetic hypothesis.  Aprock (talk) 05:58, 11 October 2009 (UTC)


 * It sounds like you still haven't read the whole article. It isn't just about prejudice, it's about the fear that prejudice would result from genetics revealing empirical support for the genetic hypothesis.  As such, there's nothing wrong with this article's "genetic hypothesis" section talking about the lines of evidence that the NYT article mentions as having the potential to support this hypothesis. --Captain Occam (talk) 06:07, 11 October 2009 (UTC)


 * I've slightly reworded the text to specify that the author of the calculation was a non-scientist blogger, and not let anyone believe it might be a tenured researcher. I believe that is also important. I would also suggest reintegrating Muntuwandi's edits.--Ramdrake (talk) 13:01, 11 October 2009 (UTC)


 * He can add that if he wants to, but as I said before, I think doing so would be redundant. The article currently cites a paper in Behavioral and Brain Functions that concludes that there’s a relationship between DTNBP1 and IQ, and there’s also a sentence cited from The New York Times saying that this relationship is unconfirmed.  I can also provide other studies that found relationships between IQ and specific genes, such as this and this.  What would it add to cite an additional study that failed to find a relationship between several genes and IQ?  Assuming it included DTNBP1 and CHRM2 (which it might not have), the only thing it would show is that the relationship between these genes and IQ is unconfirmed, which is already pointed out in the sentence cited to the New York Times. --Captain Occam (talk) 14:26, 11 October 2009 (UTC)


 * By the way, I've reverted your most recent edit. (Although the previous one was fine.)  Saying that no relationship has been demonstrated between these alleles and IQ implies that no research has been published that concluded there was a relationship, when in fact the study in Behavioral and Brain Functions cited earlier in that paragraph concluded that there is one.  Your phrasing also isn't supported by the NYT article being cited, which uses the word "unconfirmed" for this, rather than your words. --Captain Occam (talk) 14:34, 11 October 2009 (UTC)


 * No, I've read the article. The article is not about the genetic hypothesis as it relates to intelligence. Aprock (talk) 15:05, 11 October 2009 (UTC)
 * I suggest using this recent study
 * This study has compiled a list of all the candidate genes that have been purported as having a relationship with cognitive ability. This study is quite bullish on the genetic hypothesis. A few quotes from the study
 * So far, I believe this study is the most comprehensive assessment of gene/IQ debate out there is also quite recent. Wapondaponda (talk) 15:15, 11 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Okay, so this supports the statement that the relationship between these alleles and IQ should be considered unconfirmed at this point, which is already in the article and cited to the New York Times. Why is it necessary to have an additional citation for the unconfirmed nature of this relationship, when the NYT article being cited already points this out?
 * So far, I believe this study is the most comprehensive assessment of gene/IQ debate out there is also quite recent. Wapondaponda (talk) 15:15, 11 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Okay, so this supports the statement that the relationship between these alleles and IQ should be considered unconfirmed at this point, which is already in the article and cited to the New York Times. Why is it necessary to have an additional citation for the unconfirmed nature of this relationship, when the NYT article being cited already points this out?
 * So far, I believe this study is the most comprehensive assessment of gene/IQ debate out there is also quite recent. Wapondaponda (talk) 15:15, 11 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Okay, so this supports the statement that the relationship between these alleles and IQ should be considered unconfirmed at this point, which is already in the article and cited to the New York Times. Why is it necessary to have an additional citation for the unconfirmed nature of this relationship, when the NYT article being cited already points this out?


 * Aprock: look at the RS noticeboard, particularly the last comment there. The issue of what the NYT article can and can't be used as a source for has already been resolved there. --Captain Occam (talk) 15:25, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for bringing this information, however this is the wrong article for discussing the individual heritability of intelligence. Only sources that deal with group, ethnic or racial differences are really relevant. Everyone seems to agree that intelligence is heritable in individuals. Let's stay focused on discussing specific edits or changes that are directly relevant to the article. Fixentries (talk) 15:21, 11 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Fixentries, your actions smack more of trolling every day. Here you say that we should not talk about the link between individual genes and intelligence, but your only contribution to the article in several days has been to talk about the link between individual genes and intelligence.  T34CH (talk) 01:30, 12 October 2009 (UTC)
 * This is highly bizarre. I simply point out that you contradict yourself.  What explanation do you have?  What do you really believe?  Should we be concerned or not?  T34CH (talk) 01:58, 12 October 2009 (UTC)
 * No idea what you're talking about. Please stop making abusive remarks.  The contribution was reasonable and as fairly worded as I can possibly manage, and was meant to address this senseless focus on the tangential material.  Your ideas of consistency are I'm afraid beyond my grasp and don't merit further discussion.  Fixentries (talk) 02:03, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

T34CH, is this the kind of thing you mean? (The above are intented to indicate that I am quoting Fixentries). It certainly seems like, as soon as you have proven Fixentries wrong, he starts accusing you of doing what he had just been doing. Does this make you feel frustrated? Slrubenstein  |  Talk 11:55, 12 October 2009 (UTC)
 * This article is not about the heritability of IQ ... At least one of us is trolling Fixentries (talk) 18:15, 7 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Well let's look at a list of how many psychologists explicitly support the heredity position and how many explicitly oppose it. Fixentries (talk) 01:29, 8 October 2009 (UTC)
 * I agree that this information is more appropriate for the genetics of intelligence article. However, what always happens when a candidate gene is proposed, is that individuals will check to see whether there are an frequency differences between "races". Because none of these genes has managed to replicate an association with IQ, then the frequency distribution of these genes between "races" becomes is no longer important to the IQ race debate. Thus I believe that the whole NYT blog issue is no longer relevant because no gene has yet replicated an association with IQ. Wapondaponda (talk) 15:41, 11 October 2009 (UTC)


 * I agree that we need to not overstate the degree of support for a relationship between these genes and IQ, but as long as we don't, this information is notable. In fact, new and little-studied lines of data are arguably the most important for Wikipedia to cover, because science has the greatest amount to gain from them being studied in greater depth. --Captain Occam (talk) 15:47, 11 October 2009 (UTC)
 * I am honestly not being argumentative. I do not understand our reasoning here.  Can you spell out what you mean? Slrubenstein   |  Talk 20:25, 11 October 2009 (UTC)


 * If you're asking about my accusation of tag-teaming, you actually aren't one of the people I was thinking of when I said that. The main people who I think have been doing this are Ramdrake, Muntuwandi and Nealparr. --Captain Occam (talk) 23:09, 11 October 2009 (UTC)


 * I saw a dispute about the NYTimes reference, read the article under dispute, and tagged the article appropriately. Your fixation with that information, despite many editors considering it unreliable and inappropriate, is not tag teaming. Honestly, I don't know any of the other people who disagree with you. I only know that I disagree with you. -- Nealparr  (talk to me) 12:01, 12 October 2009 (UTC)


 * I explained what I meant by tag-teaming in the description of this in my user talk.


 * As an example of what I'm talking about, look at my exchange with Wapondaponda at the RS noticeboard. Every time I've added citations to the article from the studies in the peer-reviewed journals Behavioral and Brain Functions and Behavioral Genetics, which support the idea of a link between intelligence and specific genes, Wapondaponda removes them without explanation.  When I told him on the RS noticeboard that continuing to remove properly sourced information that he disagrees with is POV-pushing, he didn't respond.  In his most recent comment there, he said that the reason he wanted this information excluded is because the only sources claiming a link between specific genes and intelligence were newspapers and blogs.  So apparently, based on his assumption that only newspapers and blogs support this idea, he needs to remove citations from any peer-reviewed papers that support it.  What kind of logic is that?


 * That's the sort of thing I'm talking about here. Every one of these arguments has obvious holes in it, but there are a lot of you and only one of me.  So as long as you think you're in the right, or at least act like you are, you can keep removing whatever information you want from the article, and I can't add it back without violating 3RR.


 * Perhaps tag-teaming isn't the best term for this, but I hope you can understand how it's a problem. It reduces the decision of what can go in the article to one of mob rule, rather than anything to do with logic, or what Wikipedia's policy says. --Captain Occam (talk) 16:04, 12 October 2009 (UTC)


 * All I can recommend is to find reliable sources for the material you'd like to add, and then build support for inclusion. My issue was with the NYTimes article being used to support unreliable information and/or text that doesn't reflect the source. If you have other material, and reliable sources to support it, make the case for it. I can't speak for others but I'm a fair guy who only disputes what I feel doesn't mesh well with Wikipedia standards. -- Nealparr  (talk to me) 16:31, 12 October 2009 (UTC)


 * “If you have other material, and reliable sources to support it, make the case for it.”


 * I already have. The result was that my comments about this were ignored, the material was removed without explanation, and I couldn’t put it back without violating 3RR.  As of right now, there does not seem to be a solution to this. --Captain Occam (talk) 17:35, 12 October 2009 (UTC)


 * Problem is, it has already been explained to you why both of the sources you used cannot be considered reliable as per Wiki policy. You just didn't seem to want to hear it. Your comments weren't ignored: they were considered, discussed and rejected. End of story. --Ramdrake (talk) 17:40, 12 October 2009 (UTC)


 * This was pointed out for the NYT and Medical Hypothesis coverage, but that's not what I'm talking about here. What I'm talking about is the coverage in the peer-reviewed journals Behavioral and Brain Functions and Behavioral Genetics.  Those sources were repeatedly removed from the article also, even though there was never any explanation for why they can't be used. --Captain Occam (talk) 17:49, 12 October 2009 (UTC)


 * Incidentally, just to clarify, I'll mention what the one argument is that was raised against the use of these two studies: the fact that a newer study was published this year which goes against the conclusions of the earlier studies.  However, that isn't an argument against the earlier two studies being cited; NPOV would dictate that we should include both perspectives.  It was my comment about this which was ignored. --Captain Occam (talk) 17:57, 12 October 2009 (UTC)


 * If you want to focus discussion on those other sources, it might help to start a new section. Aprock (talk) 18:15, 12 October 2009 (UTC)


 * Since it's now been over 24 hours since the last time I reverted anything in this article, I've just tried once again to add the citations to these two peer-reviewed studies. (Although I've left out the NYT and Medical Hypothesis coverage.)  I notice that another editor had previously added a comment to the article saying that this paragraph in its previous state wasn't acceptable, so hopefully I've fixed this problem now.


 * The article now describes both perspectives about DTNBP1 and CHRM2: the viewpoint that they influence intelligence, and the viewpoint that they don't. In my opinion, NPOV requires us to include both of these perspectives.  I'm hoping other editors will agree, so that this won't need to be discussed any further, but they can create a new section if they think there's a reason why these two studies should not be included.


 * If anyone thinks the studies in Behavioral and Brain Functions and Behavioral Genetics should not be included, please post a new section explaining your reasoning, rather than just removing them without explanation. --Captain Occam (talk) 18:23, 12 October 2009 (UTC)
 * I went and summarized your addition, so that it's not any longer than the sentence after it which reports on researche which found no link.--Ramdrake (talk) 18:40, 12 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Simply waiting 24hrs before you start reverting again will still get you into trouble. wp:Consensus and wp:BRD are two policies you need to understand very clearly. As far as those two studies go, what does this have to do with between group differences? They are mutations of proteins which I assume are found across "races". We need to be very careful which studies we are talking about so that we don't cross over into wp:SYN. T34CH (talk) 18:48, 12 October 2009 (UTC)


 * Even though these studies don't discuss between-group differences, they're relevant to the topic of that particular paragraph, which is about whether or not specific genes which influence IQ have been identified.


 * As for whether this entire topic is relevant to the article, I think it is, since the article also states that when more IQ-influencing genes have been identified, comparisons of the rates of these genes between ethnic groups are the most likely way for questions about the cause of the IQ difference to be resolved. A few such analyses have been performed already, but the article currently doesn't include them, because most of the editors here don't think the sources which covered them meet Wikipedia's criteria for reliability. --Captain Occam (talk) 19:44, 12 October 2009 (UTC)


 * Um, thanks, I guess - for what it is worth - having watched Ramdrake and Muntuwandi edit a lot over the years, and not remembering ever having seen Nealparr, I think it is really implausible to say they are tagteaming. But no, actually, I was referring to this: "In fact, new and little-studied lines of data are arguably the most important for Wikipedia to cover, because science has the greatest amount to gain from them being studied in greater depth."  Clearly you think logic or policy actually supports the point you are making but I don't see it.  i am not disagreeing, because I do not even understand your argument (your line of reasoning).  Perhaps once I do I actually will disagree, but first, I would like to understand what you mean.  Can you spell it out/break it down whatever?  I am genuinely confused. Slrubenstein   |  Talk 11:10, 12 October 2009 (UTC)


 * I'd explain it, but I'm not sure it's relevant at this point. It doesn't have to do with the decision that's currently being made about this article, which is about how to deal with its various problems, not about which specific content ought to be included.  Once we get back to discussing specific content, though, I can explain it. --Captain Occam (talk) 16:13, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

I would recommend spinning Genetics of intelligence from Heritability of IQ. AFAIK, with the exception of Microcephalin and ASPM, no study has yet to implicate any of the other of candidate genes in the race/iq debate. So at the moment extensive detail is not required in this article, but would be appropriate in a genetics of intelligence article. Of course if a candidate gene consistently replicates for general intelligence, someone is bound to raise the race issue. Until that is done, I don't see the need for extensive discussion on this article as there aren't any peer reviewed publications. Wapondaponda (talk) 19:40, 12 October 2009 (UTC)
 * I missed a bit. What journal articles are now being used, that should be made clear in this record? Verbal chat  12:00, 13 October 2009 (UTC)