User:Itsmejudith

I'm reading An Adder at www.nettertonhall.com. Itsmejudith (talk) 21:22, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

Itsmejudith was on strike on 30 November 2011, with 2-3 million others. 



Awards

 * I don't know the mechanics of attaching a barnstar, but I would like to award a "barnstar of good grace" to Itsmejudith's response to a critical comment on the "Wittgenstein" page.

Hans Eysenck
Itsmejudith, I believe the following sentence you added to Eysenck's page to be factually incorrect:

'In his book "Vererbung, Intelligenz und Erziehung" [29] pulished in 1989, he argued that "amerikanische Neger" (American negros) are genetically less gifted than whites.'

"Vererbung, Intelligenz und Erziehung" is a translation of "Race, Education and Intelligence", which I have in front of me. There is no such statement. This is what he does say, and I quote verbatim:

"Given that these two positions [entirely environmental explanations vs. interactionist — PM] are being defended by various academic writers ranging from sociologists and psychologists to geneticists and other types of biologists, can we conclude that either position has been clearly and completely established, without any doubt whatever? The answer to suh a question, as already indicated on an earlier page, must inevitably be 'no'.  Science does not work with absolute certainty, and anyone claiming such certainty attaches to his postion is clearly more optimistic than wise. (p.115)

[...]

"Nevertheless, critics are perfectly right in saying that the genetic evidence existing at the moment is not conclusive.

However, it constitutes presumptive evidence which is quite strong, and cannot be disregarded" (p.118)

Note also that all of this refers only to performance on IQ tests, which is a long way from being less gifted in general.

I therefore ask you to modify this statement accordingly. Since we have competing assertions of misrepresentation here, I believe we must require verbatim quotations in context to comply with Wikipedia policy.

Also, I believe "far right" (and suchlike) to be POV terms that have no place in a factual article. Some people believe Maggie Thatcher to have been "far right" — and so she may have been, if that's construed to mean "anti-socialist". But does that mean she was a racist? Clearly not. "White supremacist" is a much more unambiguous term — if you think you can show it applies to Prof. Eysenck.

Regards,

Paul Magnussen (talk) 22:35, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

Dear Judith, I second the above, but agree that we need objectivity and not name calling. Years ago the journal of the Eugenics Society was highly regarded, however many of its articles did not meet the test of Scholarship. As this Talk continues, WSC, please let us have your frame of reference. My frame of reference (my background) has been in Science, in particulars Statistics and Experimental Design. Please let us know about yourself, as that may assist in understanding your support for the material in your edits. The items you have referenced may have appeared in a number of respected journals and other publications but they do not appear to meet the test of Scholarship --- "Scholarship demands thorough research; examining many conflicting sources then weighing the evidence and explaining how and why it was weighed as it was; also objectivity in assessing the validity of the material and attempting to present an unbiased credible summary with detailed citations."

May I suggest that all parties to this discussion read the Wikipedia article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Jensen It is well known that Eysenck's work followed that of Jenson. The Jenson article is an objective, well written presentation of Jenon’s work. If only WSC could find a way of presenting Eysenck’s work, instead of just placing labels such as “Racist” and "Extreme Far Right." Everyone, please follow what Itsmejudith has suggested, and then find a way of presenting the material objectively as in the Jenson article. Until then, nothing should be included in the actual Eysenck Article. Sirswindon (talk) 18:04, 23 September 2012 (UTC)