Talk:Richard Lynn/Archive 3

NPOV in the criticism section
I think this edit pretty clearly violates NPOV. The way it's worded makes it sounds like the article is expressing this point of view specifically (that Lynn's conclusions are incorrect, etc) instead of making it clear that these critiques are held by other professionals. The article should not take a specific stance either way. I also think that the way it was previously worded is generally more informative and clear to readers who might be interested. Therefore, I think this needs to be reverted. -Ferahgo the Assassin (talk) 04:42, 7 September 2010 (UTC)


 * I really don't understand your reasoning here. Your revert changes a perfectly clear and readable prose back into a mess.  If you think changing the word cited to criticised might help here, by all means go ahead and make the change.  I'll ask you to self-revert.  aprock (talk) 06:00, 7 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Well, the way that your critiques of Lynn were presented (saying THE unsystematic methodology, THE resulting distortion, and THE incorrect conclusions) gives the impression that these things are definite truths, and the lack of detail oversimplifies the issue. But at your suggestion I've tried rewriting the sentence to fulfill your need for conciseness and mine for NPOV. Let me know if you think it's acceptable now. -Ferahgo the Assassin (talk) 06:30, 7 September 2010 (UTC)
 * I agree that the word the was overused. I would also drop the "extremely poor and limited samples" as that is just a special case of "unsystematic methodology".  Additionally, I think most of these criticisms are about his "reviews" not his other research, so I would include that again. aprock (talk) 06:45, 7 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Ok, done. -Ferahgo the Assassin (talk) 06:54, 7 September 2010 (UTC)


 * It's perfectly consistent with all Wikipedia policies for Wikipedia articles to speak in the voice of Wikipedia on issues that are clearly supported by the main reliable sources on a subject. Not all points of view get "equal time," as that in itself would not be neutral point of view. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk) 03:13, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

External Links and Further Reading
The four sources in further reading and external links you've decided to add and keep - other than the official website - have created an NPOV problem. You got rid of all of the neutral or positive links and the four remaining ones are extremely critical of Lynn.

I agree that some of the old links should go. I didn't undo your removal of a few that are obvious problems, like a random blog and a pubmed search. I also replaced the dead-link article with one that works. I suggest you discuss here which other links should be removed or added and why before making any major changes to them. Adding a "further reading" section would be okay, but we need to make sure it doesn't have any NPOV issues either. For the only book in the further reading section to be one that's very critical of Lynn is a problem. -Ferahgo the Assassin (talk) 16:15, 29 September 2010 (UTC)


 * You are invited to find some sources that are actually used by academics who engage in research on the issues that Lynn says he researches, and good luck finding a book-length work by anyone who doesn't receive funding from Lynn's funding sources that praises his writings. I'll check the latest diff to see what needs to be done to make sure neutral point of view in light of reliable sources is achieved by this article. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk) 16:59, 29 September 2010 (UTC)


 * I have fully restored my edit from earlier today as a first step in bringing this article in the direction of genuine neutrality of point of view and comformity with Wikipedia policy on the basis of reliable sources. Of course all Wikipedians are welcome to discuss further improvements to the article. Administrators looking on are invited to check the Arbitration Committee discretionary sanctions that apply to this article and related articles to understand my basis for this edit. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk) 17:11, 29 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Ferahgo the Assassin; WP:EL says "No page should be linked from a Wikipedia article unless its inclusion is justifiable according to this guideline and common sense. The burden of providing this justification is on the person who wants to include an external link." I scanned the links you wish to include. At least one violates WP:ELNEVER; I see no evidence that the National Review article (“Why Johnny Can’t Read, but Yoshio Can”) is posted with permission. The Jason Malloy review is a blog post. It would be hard to justify its use as a reliable source. It certainly doesn't satisfy the external links criteria. Walter Siegmund (talk) 17:56, 29 September 2010 (UTC)
 * I don't think the other pages pass the EL criteria either - they are basically random news stories that include a mention of Lynn, one isn't even that its the APA report that simply mentions Lynn's work.·Maunus· ƛ · 18:24, 29 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Well, this solution works for me too. I agree that some of the remaining sources had problems, and getting rid of all of them certainly solves the NPOV issue. -Ferahgo the Assassin (talk) 21:41, 29 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Weiji is doing the same thing on the J. Philippe Rushton article now. Like before, which links he decided to keep and delete looks totally arbitrary to me, other than its relationship to what supports his point of view. He deleted the link to Rushton's curriculum vitae at his personal website, but added and kept several links to random articles criticizing Rushton (as well as moving some links from "external links" into "further reading"). Maunus, do you think this is okay, or is this another example of selective inclusion and removal? -Ferahgo the Assassin (talk) 19:51, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

Biographical article guidelines
I'll be revising this article in accord with Manual_of_Style_(biographies) and reviewing the tips in WikiProject_Biography. You can help by suggesting a broader set of sources for updates to this article. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk) 13:01, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

Since we're discussing how to make sure sources used by this article are fine for BLP articles, there's one source in this article that I think isn't:


 * Wicherts, J.M. (2007). Group differences in intelligence test performance. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Amsterdam., p. 130.

WP:BLP states that "any material challenged or likely to be challenged must be attributed to a reliable, published source using an inline citation." This is an unpublished paper, and the part of the article that references it is about how Lynn's IQ data intended to represent equatorial Guinea is actually from Spain, which I think is a statement likely to be challenged even if it's true. I think that under BLP policy this statement shouldn't be in the article without a published source. Does anyone object to it being removed until we can find one? -Ferahgo the Assassin (talk) 22:12, 1 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Replaced with a published ref. Professor marginalia (talk) 16:53, 2 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Looks good now, thanks. -Ferahgo the Assassin (talk) 17:00, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

Citation to Lynn book review in Irish Journal of Psychology
I have access to a library with a complete set of issues of the Irish Journal of Psychology, the place of publication of some of Richard Lynn's earlier works. I've seen an online version of Richard Lynn, "Review: A New Morality from Science: Beyondism." by R.B. Cattell. Pergamon Press, New York, 1972. Pages xvii and 482. Irish Journal of Psychology 2 #3 (Winter 1974) in an online source, and I think I'll check that and other citations to that journal I have seen sometime pretty soon, for context on Lynn's views. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk) 03:52, 3 October 2010 (UTC)

Richard Lynn links

 * Interview with Richard Lynn in Right Now! magazine
 * Interview with Richard Lynn at Corrupt.org
 * An Interview with Richard Lynn
 * Richard Lynn, Fearless Champion of Truth

I posted those as links to the Richard Lynn article. They're appropriate. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.182.37.118 (talk) 17:02, 22 November 2010 (UTC)


 * Some bot (a different bot from the bot that signed your talk page comment) disagreed with your edit. I think this is the first time I've had occasion to say that I think I agree with the bot's editorial judgment, per the Wikipedia external link guidelines. But welcome aboard. I hope you enjoy editing Wikipedia. I look forward to discussing further edits with you. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk, how I edit) 05:44, 23 November 2010 (UTC)
 * I also agree that those links aren't all that helpful.·Maunus· ƛ · 05:46, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

Note, we are not writing a linkfarm or whatever, but an encyclopedia. There is no need to link to any possible interview with a subject in external links sections. If there is information in these links that is of interest, use the information, and add these as references. --Dirk Beetstra T C 07:32, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

Request for comment
How should the lead section of the article characterize the scholarly opinion and analysis of Lynn's work?

One user suggests that |this version of the lead is appropriate, with one line of praise (His scientific style has been described as tenacious, creative and intuitive.[4]) in the first paragraph, and mentions of his work being "controversial" in the final paragraph- which also contains references of Lynn's strong affiliations with organizations that have been called "racist. (|There already is a full paragraph about his critics in the lead already.")

I believe that such a lead does not "fairly, proportionately, and as far as possible without bias, [represent] all significant views that have been published by reliable sources." and that something like |this version with both a positive and negative critique of his work combined in a single paragraph ("His scientific style has been described by some as tenacious, creative and intuitive[4] with others calling his work "misguided at best and quite dangerous if taken seriously."[5]") is more representative, presenting a fuller view of how his work is viewed in the world scientists and social scientists.

submitted for discussion by me. 75.73.44.170 (talk) 01:53, 21 February 2012 (UTC)


 * Hello all. I've been asked to comment here.  I've done some preliminary work on this topic and I've not decided how in depth I will or should get here.  Right now I'll throw something out there about the lead.  From an encyclopedic standpoint and for style reasons I'd consider leaving out opinions of his work in the lead and leave that for the body of the article. First of all we have a living person and we should be very sensitive to what is written here.  The lead doesn't have to be very long and may only be a summary leaving citations and balancing POVs later in the article.  I'm not certain the first thing a reader needs to here is who are his advocates and opponents and for what reasons.  Let's remember we have a lot of opinions about what he means by his opinions.  Discuss please.


 * As far as his review of Cattell, he is very clearly reviewing his opinion of what Cattell is saying. No where does he state Cattell's opinions echo his.  While that may be the case or not it is OR and SYN to state otherwise.  If there are quotes by him that are similiar to Cattell then these should be cited as evidence at some point he and Cattell agreed on 'X' topic.Jobberone (talk) 10:10, 24 February 2012 (UTC)
 * I am fine with removing all analysis of his work from the lead. But if we have "his scientific style has been described as tenacious, creative and intuitive", it certainly needs to be balanced by including the prevailing views which have a distinctly different opinion. 75.73.44.170 (talk) 14:27, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

discussion

 * as the submitter of the RfC, I am pretty sure that even the second version doesn't go far enough in proportionately showing how main stream academia views this guy's work as being just plain propaganda rather than anything approaching actual science.  75.73.44.170 (talk) 13:27, 22 February 2012 (UTC)
 * The lead is a summary of the main page. It doesn't lose anything by leaving out both praise and criticism. SD (talk contribs) 00:38, 27 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Response to RfC. The lead, as it reads March 10 a.m. seems balanced enough. There is a mention of controversy, enough for readers who don't know Lynn to become aware. drs (talk) 12:27, 10 March 2012 (UTC)
 * The lede as it stands at the moment 2012/3/11 AM, is IMO bloated with material that belongs in appropriate sections of the body, if anywhere. Some folks have a mystical idea of a lede being of a size to "balance" the size of an article. The objective value of the lede is to enable the reader, whether someone looking in, or hovering his mouse cursor over a link, to decide whether to read further. For example, the first paragraph of the current lede, plus the pro+con version of the suggested text would be plenty. That would suffice to tell browsers that the fellow is a psychologist of notoriety with controversial published views on i.a. ethnic correlations with IQ. Some praise his work, others hate it. That's about it, Mr Reader. You want details? Read the article; that's what it's for. Where he was educated, how many times he or his parents divorced, what he wrote, short of blockbuster titles such as "Sociobiology" or "The Selfish Gene" or "On the Origin...", don't do anything useful in the lede. Someone cited him? Do tell. Read the body; it has a table of contents after all. Someone has already indicated that a certain section is too long and makes heavy reading. Maybe so, maybe not, but inserting more headings and making sure that they are helpful would do much more good than adding a still longer text to the lede. JonRichfield (talk) 10:01, 11 March 2012 (UTC)

Criticisms of Lynn
Richard Lynn has long been criticized for his controversial studies on intelligence, but this latest series of criticism might just be the final nail in his coffin. Focusing on his much-condemned African IQ studies, it reveals serious flaws in his methodology and calls him out on manipulating and falsifying data, which has wider implications that make his entire body of work (and that of his associates) untrustworthy. It begins with Wicherts et al. 2010:


 * Although these estimates of national IQ are claimed to be "highly valid" (Rushton, 2003, p. 368) or "credible" (McDaniel, 2008, p. 732) by some authors, the work by Lynn (and Vanhanen) has also drawn criticism (Barnett & Williams, 2004; Ervik, 2003; Hunt & Carlson, 2007; Hunt & Sternberg, 2006; Lane, 1994). One point of critique is that Lynn (and Vanhanen)'s estimate of average IQ among Africans is primarily based on convenience samples, and not on samples carefully selected to be representative of a given, targeted, population (Barnett & Williams, 2004; Hunt & Sternberg, 2006). Unfortunately, in many developing countries, such representative samples are lacking (McDaniel, 2008).


 * A literature review is necessarily selective. Despite Lynn's objective of providing a "fully comprehensive review of the evidence" (Lynn, 2006, p. 2), a sizeable portion of the relevant literature was not considered in both his own review, and in reviews with Vanhanen. Nowhere in their reviews did Lynn (and Vanhanen) specify the details of their literature search. Our own searches in library databases resulted in additional relevant studies that may be used to estimate national IQ. For instance, Lynn and Vanhanen (2006) accorded a national IQ of 69 to Nigeria on the basis of three samples (Fahrmeier, 1975; Ferron, 1965; Wober, 1969), but they did not consider other relevant published studies that indicated that average IQ in Nigeria is considerably higher than 70 (Maqsud, 1980a,b; Nenty & Dinero, 1981; Okunrotifa, 1976). As Lynn rightly remarked during the 2006 conference of the International Society for Intelligence Research (ISIR), performing a literature review involves making a lot of choices. Nonetheless, an important drawback of Lynn (and Vanhanen)'s reviews of the literature is that they are unsystematic. Unsystematic literature reviews do not adhere to systematic methodology to control for potential biases in the many choices made by the reviewer (Cooper, 1998; Light & Pillemer, 1984). Lynn (and Vanhanen) failed to explicate the inclusion and exclusion criteria they employed in their choice of studies. Such criteria act as a filter, and may thus affect the estimate of national IQ. Lynn (and Vanhanen) excluded data from several sources without providing a rationale. For instance, they used IQ data from Ferron (1965), who provided averages in seven samples of children from Sierra Leone and Nigeria on a little-known IQ test called the Leone. For reasons not given, Lynn (2006) and Lynn and Vanhanen (2006) only used data from the two lowest scoring samples from Nigeria. Most of the remaining samples show higher scores, but those samples were not included in the estimation of the national IQ of Nigeria and Sierra Leone. Likewise, Lynn (and Vanhanen) did not consider several relatively high-scoring African samples from South Africa (Crawford Nutt, 1976; Pons, 1974). It is unfortunate that Lynn (and Vanhanen) did not discuss their exclusion criteria. In some cases (Crawford Nutt, 1976; Pons, 1974), the Raven's Progressive Matrices was administered with additional instruction. Although this instruction is quite similar to an instruction as described in the test manual (Raven, Court, & Raven, 1996), some have argued that this instruction artificially enhances test performance (cf. Rushton & Skuy, 2000). Given the likely differences in opinion on which samples to include or exclude in a review, inclusion and exclusion criteria should be explicated clearly and employed consistently. It is well known that unsystematic literature reviews may lead to biased results (Cooper, 1998; Light & Pillemer, 1984). Another problem is that the computation of statistics in literature reviews is quite error-prone. Indeed Lynn's work contains several errors (Loehlin, 2007).

Lynn responded, attempting to defend his work, and Wicherts et al. fired back immediately with an even stronger rejoinder, repeating their previous criticism of his methodology and flat out accusing him of cherry-picking data that supports his position while ignoring the rest:


 * In this rejoinder, we criticize Lynn and Meisenberg's (this issue) methods to estimate the average IQ (in terms of British norms after correction of the Flynn Effect) of the Black population of sub-Saharan Africa. We argue that their review of the literature is unsystematic, as it involves the inconsistent use of rules to determine the representativeness and hence selection of samples. Employing independent raters, we determined of each sample whether it was (1) considered representative by the original authors, (2) drawn randomly, (3) based on an explicated stratification scheme, (4) composed of healthy test-takers, and (5) considered by the original authors as normal in terms of Socio-Economic Status (SES). We show that the use of these alternative inclusion criteria would not have affected our results. We found that Lynn and Meisenberg's assessment of the samples' representativeness is not associated with any of the objective sampling characteristics, but rather with the average IQ in the sample. This suggests that Lynn and Meisenberg excluded samples of Africans who average IQs above 75 because they deemed these samples unrepresentative on the basis of the samples' relatively high IQs. We conclude that Lynn and Meisenberg's unsystematic methods are questionable and their results untrustworthy.

Then in a later paper, Wicherts et al. dug even deeper, finding that in addition to picking and choosing, Lynn actively seeks out and uses data that's not reliable or representative:


 * The samples, considered by Lynn (and Vanhanen), but discarded here, are given in the Appendix. Besides the two samples described above (Klingelhofer, 1967; Zindi, 1994), these are Wober's (1969) sample of factory workers, and Verhaegen's (1956) sample of uneducated adults from a primitive tribe in the then Belgian Congo in the 1950s. Verhaegen indicated that the SPM test format was rather confusing to the test-takers, and that the test did not meet the standards of valid measurement. In Wober's study, the reliability and validity were too low (Wober, 1975). In three of the samples in Table 1, the average IQ is below 70. These are Owen's large sample of Black South African school children tested in the 1980s, the 17 Black South Africans carefully selected for their illiteracy by Sonke (2001), and a group of uneducated Ethiopian Jewish children, who lived isolated from the western world in Ethiopia and immigrated to Israel in the 1980s (Kaniel & Fisherman, 1991). The last two samples cannot be considered to be representative.


 * [...]


 * Our review of the literature on the performance of Africans on the Raven's tests showed that the average IQ of Africans on the Raven's tests is lower than the average IQ in western countries. However, the average IQ of Africans is not as low as Lynn (and Vanhanen) and Malloy (2008) maintained. The majority of studies on IQ test performance of Africans not taken into account by Lynn (and Vanhanen) and Malloy showed considerably higher average IQs than the studies that they did review. We judge the reviews of Lynn (and Vanhanen) and Malloy to be unsystematic. These authors missed a large part of the literature on IQ testing in Africa, failed to explicate their inclusion and exclusion criteria, and made downward errors in the conversion of raw scores to IQs (Wicherts, 2007). Lynn (and Vanhanen)'s estimate of average IQ of Africans of around 67 is untenable. Our review indicates that it is about 78 (UK norms) or 80 (US norms). These means are somewhat lower than the means of Africans on other IQ tests, which lie around 82 (Wicherts et al., 2010). These results undermine evolutionary theories of race differences in intelligence of Lynn (2006), Rushton (2000), and Kanazawa (2004) (Wicherts, Borsboom, & Dolan, 2010a; Wicherts et al., 2010b).

Lynn responded to that too, accusing Wicherts et al. of deriving their higher estimate of average African IQ from elite samples, but they once again showed that his lower estimate results from the unsystematic use of samples that are not random or representative. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.109.202.64 (talk) 03:30, 10 March 2012 (UTC)
 * What exactly is the point of the foregoing exchange? It does not seem to do anything for the article. It all might be very interesting in a blog if that is the sort of thing one finds interesting, but that is not the point of the talk page unless you are discussing what is to go into the article, which does not seem to be the case. Remember? JonRichfield (talk) 10:08, 11 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Agreed. The title itself is a BLP violation. Any admin's watching this? Action needs to be taken.--Anthon.Eff (talk) 18:39, 11 March 2012 (UTC)

Dysgenics and eugenics
There is a template basically saying that the section should be split, yet we've already had extensive discussion of the book's notability and most agree that it should not have its own article. This doesn't really leave anywhere to go here, so should this banner not be taken down? The section is pretty poor, but it doesn't look as if expanding on it is an option, except perhaps in a non-Lynn specific article like eugenics. Richard001 (talk) 02:39, 1 November 2008 (UTC)
 * It was added by Ramdrake in August. Walter Siegmund (talk) 23:51, 26 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Or just cut it down a bit. It's a bloated section that at best overstates the importance of the book. It reads more like a review than a summary. I'm also a little concerned by the tone, e.g. "Lynn discusses dysgenics in modern societies", but that's not accurate at all, it implies that Lynn is discussing a well accepted scientific theory. What he is really doing is producing his own hypothesis and providing what he believes in evidence to support that hypothesis. But this is far from a consensus point of view in science, and I think we should avoid discussing it as if Lynn is merely writing a popular science book about a well known subject. Alun (talk) 09:24, 27 December 2008 (UTC)

The Article misquotes the Nature-Magazine: The referred Article did not "praise" Lynns work as "a "comprehensive histor[y]" and a welcome one, "given the importance of the topic" of dysgenic trends"... Instead, it says: "Given the importance of the topic, there should be good data on the reproductive patterns of contemporary human populations, but there are not." Check it at: http://genepi.qimr.edu.au/contents/p/staff/CV312.pdf I will therefore delete the Reference to Nature Magazine. Please be more careful with references! I am also suspecting the article of misquoting David Lykken, but I cannot get access to the referred article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Xiaodongwu2 (talk • contribs) 11:17, 13 October 2012 (UTC)

Reviews of books by Lynn
I realized that now that I am a subscriber to the Journal Intelligence, I have a lot of access to back issues of the journal, including book reviews of most books about intelligence published over the last several years. I will collect reviews of books by Richard Lynn here in this talk page section, for your reference use. I'll be adding to this section over a while, and may eventually find some reviews from other publications.







-- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk, how I edit) 21:52, 4 September 2013 (UTC)

Genetics of Italy
This wiki article references a couple of older genetic studies regarding italians, yet when I attempted to add a newer one showing the affinities of Southern Italians with Middle Easterners, my edit was undone.

My edit was this:

This is the source I cited:

An Overview of the Genetic Structure within the Italian Population from Genome-Wide Data, PLoS ONE|url=http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0043759 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.54.31.235 (talk) 21:49, 14 September 2013 (UTC)


 * Remember that this is the biography article about Richard Lynn. So what do reliable sources say this has to do with Lynn's writings or career? -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk, how I edit) 22:06, 14 September 2013 (UTC)
 * The IP is right that the two other studies mentioned also do not mention Lynn, and thus do not merit inclusion here. I have removed them.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 00:17, 15 September 2013 (UTC)

Weasel words and untrustworthy sources in lead paragraph
The final sentence in the lead paragraph reads "Lynn sits on the boards of the Pioneer Fund, an organization that has been described as racist in nature, and of the Pioneer-supported journal Mankind Quarterly, which has been called a white supremacist journal." "...Has been described..." is words at their weasliest, and should be rewritten or omitted. There are a few different things going on here. One is that Prof. Lynn is being directly linked to the alleged racism of Wickliffe Draper, through their (non-contiguous) directorship of the same fund. Another is that any group can be "described" or "called" anything, by any individual or group. If an individual writes a book in which they assert that the Catholic Church practices institutionalized pedophilia, does that claim get added to the lead paragraph on the Catholic Church Wiki? If a group claims in a book that Jews are actually behind the majority of the world's ills, does that show up in the lead of the Wiki on Judaism? Of course not, even though countless books have been published which make those very assertions!. So what's really at work are a deliberate conflation of Lynn and Draper through the Pioneer Fund, and a claim that those two sources that connect them are objective and factual. The primary sources that are cited are as follows: "Measured Lies: The Bell Curve Examined" and "The Funding of Scientific Racism: Wickliffe Draper and the Pioneer Fund". (FWIW, the reviews of "Measured Lies" on Amazon.com are dire, and it "has been described as 'Laugh out loud bad'" and it "has been called PC Rubbish".) Nor does "Measured Lies" seem to meet WP:N; its Amazon Best Sellers Rank is just #1,070,020, and Google Books could find no reviews of it in their usual sources. "The Funding of Scientific Racism" fared even worse; not only could Google Books not find any reviews of it, the Amazon rank was #2,385,482! ("The Bell Curve"'s rank, in contrast, is #32,091 (paperback) and #89,185 (hardcover), and Google Books finds no fewer than 33 reviews.) In light of all of this, I think that the entire sentence should be removed. If it must stay, it must be made objective and all sources must conform to WP:N Bricology (talk) 07:22, 26 July 2013 (UTC)


 * Richard Lynn is of course a living person, and thus this article must conform to WP:BLP. On the other hand, some of the criticism of sources here seems misplaced. Lynn has a highly documented life, having published in a variety of journals over the years, having accepted many press interviews, and having published a few books. Balance, as always, is a key issue about a controversial figure. As for the source, it is a very thoroughly documented source, based on archival materials including personal letters among many of the key people who conducted Pioneer Fund activities over the years. I have that book at hand in my office (and recommend it to everyone reading Wikipedia), as I have several books including chapters by Lynn. (I have had some of the books by Lynn, including his full-length book about the Pioneer Fund, in my office from time to time, but those are currently returned to the academic libraries from which I obtained them.) There are plenty of sources to consult, and as long as they are read thoughtfully and digested thoroughly by editors of this article, all will be well in the end. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk, how I edit) 12:23, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

Yes, I agree that when serious allegations are made against the characters of living persons, or even dead ones, you should always explicitly identify the accuser(s). The lead uses weasel words, and should be reworded. I also agree that very little space should be given to clearly politically motivated "anti-racist" writers who just smear opponents and don't contribute anything to the scientific debate.--Victor Chmara (talk) 13:06, 26 July 2013 (UTC)
 * I think that characterization of what I presume to be a couple of scholars with whom you disagree is quite problematic. Weight should be based not on whether you find authors to be contributing to the scientific debate or what you consider their motivations to be, but to the relative weight of their views within the field. The critical view of the Pioneer fund and of Mankind Quarterly is clearly and unequivocally the majority view in the field - and characterizing them as such in the lead is not weasel words. IF anything the lead is much too uncritical of Lynn as in fact it doesn't include any of the major criticisms of his scholarship, but only his membership of scientifically and politically problematic organizations. The criteria that bricology uses to evaluate scholarship by are absurd - academic literature is not evaluated by its Amazon rankings or made invalid because of anonymous amazon reviews. User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 13:12, 26 July 2013 (UTC)
 * User:Maunus wrote "The criteria that bricology uses to evaluate scholarship by are absurd - academic literature is not evaluated by its Amazon rankings or made invalid because of anonymous amazon reviews". You might have a point, if those were my criteria for evaluating scholarship.  They were not, and an attentive reading of my post makes that clear.  I simply mentioned them to point out the weakness in the notion that any published work automatically carries authority.  In these days of self-publishing, anyone can write a screed, pay for it to be published, get an ISBN for it and have it show up on Amazon.  Does that qualify it for being cited as a source on WP?  Apparently, some people think so.  Does that confer authority?  Of course not.  Dianetics by L. Ron Hubbard is a published work ("#154,230 Bestseller in Books on Amazon"), but does that make it an authoritative source about the psychology profession?  Would Scientology's criticisms of psychology be appropriate to mention in the lead of Psychiatry?  Of course not, because a book simply being published does not confer scholarship.  WP:RS again and again uses the phrase " reliable, third-party, published sources".  The two books the article cite are without a doubt "third-party" and "published".  But are they reliable?  I would have to say "no".  They seem to be subjective and written with an agenda in mind.  That would preclude them from being used as sources.  And this is not just my opinion; clearly, others share this view. Bricology (talk) 09:16, 26 September 2013 (UTC)
 * I cannot agree with your characterization of the book by William Tucker, which I currently have at hand, which is thoroughly documented with meticulous citations to publications and archival sources. The several favorable reviews of that book that you can easily find as JSTOR references should be a reason for all the editors here to read and ponder that book while proceeding with further editing of this article and related articles. You are entitled to your own opinion, but you are not entitled to your own facts, and Tucker, precisely because he supports freedom of scholarly inquiry, is careful to be factual as he describes scholarly movements and the scholars who participate in them. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk, how I edit) 17:39, 26 September 2013 (UTC)
 * As I've explained before, the fixation on the Pioneer Fund (or Mankind Quarterly, or whatever) is found solely in those "anti-racist" authors who contribute nothing to the scientific debate. For example, I don't think any of the major review articles or books used in Race and intelligence even mention Pioneer. There's a clear divide between those who do actual research on these topics and those who just want to impose ideological orthodoxy by blackballing academic opponents. Actual researchers know that the issues are complicated and find the ideological approach unhelpful. From a purely scientific or technical perspective, the research funded by Pioneer is not any different from that funded by others, so it would be unscholarly for researchers to focus on this issue. On the other hand, those with no scientific reputation to maintain of course have no scruples about using unscholarly tactics to attack hereditarians. If Pioneer is absent from the most important sources discussing race differences, why is it given such a prominent role in many Wikipedia articles on the topic? Regarding the Amazon rankings and reviews, I agree, of course (although "Measured Lies" really is comically bad).--Victor Chmara (talk) 13:39, 26 July 2013 (UTC)
 * Your opinion about who contributes to what is utterly irrelevant. It is a significant part of the literature about the fund and the journal, and about Lynn. Your claim about Pionjeer funded research being no different is belied by reality, by the literature and by the statements of the fund itself.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 16:01, 26 July 2013 (UTC)


 * As in all such issues, in the end we will have to go to the sources to figure out what to say with the voice of Wikipedia here. Historically, the problem with most of the articles that have the same discretionary sanctions tag that this one has is that few Wikipedians have ever used any academic sources of any kind. The Tucker (2007) book is one such source, and the several handbooks of intelligence we are referring to in some other articles are other reliable sources. James R. Flynn also has something to say about Richard Flynn in his latest book, which I think should be mentioned in this article. Some of the articles by Jelte Wicherts are review articles (hence reliable sources) that mention various aspects of Lynn's research and research practices. As we dig into the sources, we will gradually reach consensus here, or at least that is my hope. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk, how I edit) 16:32, 26 July 2013 (UTC)


 * Maunus, if my opinion is irrelevant, perhaps we should rely on yours? On the R&I discussion page, you recently listed sources that you personally think should be used to establish whether some viewpoint is notable and not given undue weight. As far as I can check, NONE of your sources mention ANY criticisms of the Pioneer Fund or The Mankind Quarterly (although studies funded by the former and published in the latter are cited), let alone attribute to them or to the attacks against them the sort of important role in this debate that you seem to be arguing for. So, going by your own criteria, your edits violate WP:NPOV. Please revert them yourself.--Victor Chmara (talk) 18:40, 26 July 2013 (UTC)
 * The article about Lynn should be weighted in accordance to sources that discuss Lynn and his works, not general sources about the R/I controversy.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 20:07, 26 July 2013 (UTC)
 * Yes, of course there is a different topic here, and possibly a somewhat different list of best sources. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk, how I edit) 20:33, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

More than 2 months has past, and the weasel words discussed above are still in the intro. Should someone get around to removing them? 110.32.151.122 (talk) 10:15, 7 October 2013 (UTC)
 * One source is Tucker and it is cited with a page number. WeijiBaikeBianji above discusses it above. It satisfies my reading of WP:RS. Please read WP:WEASEL which says, "... views which are properly attributed to a reliable source may use similar expressions if they accurately represent the opinions of the source." --Walter Siegmund (talk) 20:21, 7 October 2013 (UTC)

December 2013 comment
WHY IS THE WORLD LISTENING TO THIS MAN! EVEN IN CONFERENCES HE IS A EVIDENT UN--SHYMPATETIC RACIST! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 189.172.142.88 (talk) 20:29, 6 December 2013 (UTC)


 * This article here is a biography of a living person, and as such it should be very carefully edited based on  reliable sources. Do you have any sources about Lynn's life or work to suggest? -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk, how I edit) 21:20, 6 December 2013 (UTC)

Good further reading reference


There are significant mentions of Lynn's earlier career in this book, by the same author as a later book already cited in this article. The endnotes to sources are meticulous. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk, how I edit) 21:43, 1 January 2014 (UTC)

Errors in Lynn's data
I'm not sure if this can be cited in the article, but those reading this might be interested to know that Jason Mallow, an erstwhile supporter of Lynn, has found that Lynn's books are riddled with errors, some of them damning with regard to his honesty:


 * I just spot-checked the article here, and there are reliable sources about Lynn's use and sharing of data that have not been used in the article yet, but are well cited in the reliable professional handbooks and graduate textbooks on the topics that Lynn researches. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk, how I edit) 00:02, 10 January 2014 (UTC)


 * If there are notable and well-sourced criticisms of Lynn not already included in the article, feel welcome to add them, as long as you remove those that aren't reliably sourced. --Prmct (talk) 01:44, 10 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Lynn's relationship to good data has never been one of the things he was notable for. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom  02:45, 10 January 2014 (UTC)

Part of the confusion is Lynn corrects the data for the Flynn Effect (subtracting points from people who were tested years after the test's publication date). Lynn also corrects scores if the test norms included non-whites, so IQ scores on the WAIS for example are lowered by 2 points because the standardization sample includes minorities. He explains all this in his book Deliselectsub (talk) 19:14, 9 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Agreed. As TRPoD notes above, F -Llynn is renowned for taking liberties with data.  When research books don't pass through peer review, their results tend to be less reliable. aprock (talk) 21:51, 9 February 2014 (UTC)
 * I think you mean Lynn and not Flynn, just for the record.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 23:47, 9 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Doh! corrected. aprock (talk) 00:32, 10 February 2014 (UTC)

Apparent mistake in the article
″Lynn goes on to present evidence that socio-economic status is negatively correlated with indicators of conscientiousness such as work ethic, moral values and crime.″

Now this is a really interesting sentence. At first glance it is nonsensical. Why should both crime AND conscientiousness be negatively correlated with socio-economic status? Based on Lynn's general work, one would clearly expect the crime to be correlated negatively with socio-economic status and conscientiousness correlated with it positively. There's no evidence for the sentence as it currently stands (I googled it). This is esp. surprising since the unsourced sentence is here since around 2008 (I was checking page history but failed to find the exact time this was added).Lokalkosmopolit (talk) 19:07, 15 February 2014 (UTC)

Changed it. if you object to the change, please remove the paragraph from the article but to not revert to the unsourced unlikely claim as it used to be before my change.Lokalkosmopolit (talk) 15:11, 14 March 2014 (UTC)