Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Zen-master/Workshop

This is a page for working on Arbitration decisions. It provides for work by Arbitrators and comment by the parties and others. After the analysis of evidence here and development of proposed principles, findings of fact and remedies please place proposed items you have confidence in on the Requests for arbitration/Zen-master/Proposed decision page.

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=Proposed final decision=

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Locus of dispute
1) The locus of this dispute regarding is Race and intelligence and its talk page, Talk:Race and intelligence.


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Zen-Master's position
2) opposes the positions taken in the article which he says "frames" the issues in terms which lack scientific consensus, his position is summarized in  which opposes selection of race and intelligence as a featured article. See also this conversation with  User_talk:Zen-master


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Accusations of racism
3) makes a number of posts which imply racism on the part of opposing editors   . He also attacks books and scholars which deal with the subject matter such as The Bell Curve . See this cited criticism, "Anti-racist students, workers, and professors must step up the fight against academic racism so there will be no sanctuary anywhere for the Nazi theorists of today." "The Bell Curve is no more scientific than Hitler's Mein Kampf" "we will allow no "free speech" or "academic freedom" for professional racists and neo-nazis, no matter how many letters of the alphabet trail after their names." "ONLY COMMUNISM CAN DEFEAT RACISM AND FASCISM" "Murray and Herrnstein, advocates of the Violence Initiative, and other academic racists offer us fascism as a solution to the profound crisis in contemporary capitalism."


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Edits by Zen-master
4) Edits by to Race and intelligence generally attempt to broaden the theoretical basis for explanation of differential intelligence between groups. This edit  is a reversion of changes Zen-master had made.


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Arguments presented by Zen-master
5) mixes reasonable objections to the tenor of the article such as this  with hysterical rants such as this  with the result that the valid objections he is raising to NPOV are not taken seriously by the other editors.


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Proposed remedies
Note: All remedies that refer to a period of time, for example to a ban of X months or a revert parole of Y months, are to run concurrently unless otherwise stated.

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Analysis of evidence
Place here items of evidence (with diffs) and detailed analysis

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Evidence presented by User:Zen-master
The neutrality dispute over race and intelligence and related articles is complex and multi-layered. I allege a handful of "pro" editors repeatedly: use psychologically subtle and tricky non neutral language, use an extremely biased method of presentation, and have obfuscated and/or mischaracterized valid criticicsms. Other issues include their mislabeling my complaint that the article does not use neutrality language as "novel POV pushing".


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Evidence "pro" race and intelligence editors use an extremely biased presentation method
As of July 24 2005, the first sentence of the race and intelligence article is not neutral on multiple levels, "Race and intelligence is an area of intelligence research and social science studying the nature, origins, and practical consequences of racial and ethnic group differences in intelligence". There is no scientific consensus for the conclusion that there are "group" differences in "intelligence". There is no scientific consensus on how to determine "group" or "race" based categories. There is no scientific consensus that IQ test results and related data objectively measure "intelligence". The word "consequences" is premature as nothing has been scientifically concluded. The word "origins" is premature or needs a caveat because the existence of "group" based differences in "intelligence" has not been determined with sufficient scientific consensus. (and see also scientific racism)


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 * "There is no scientific consensus for the conclusion that there are "group" differences in "intelligence"." This is an interesting statement when there is clearly a statistical divergence when different intelligence tests are administered to different groups. Is it being maintained that the intelligence tests don't really test intelligence, that there is no such thing as intelligence, or that the groups used are arbitrary and without meaning? Fred Bauder 18:55, July 30, 2005 (UTC)


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 * Responding to Fred, basically all of the above. There are data correlations, but there is no conesnsus that 1) just one way of looking at the data is the right way 2) that "intelligence" can be objectively measured 3) no agreement on method of "group" categorization (in fact genome scientists have come out against "race and intelligence" research) and 4) no support for the one sided language and framing of the subject. zen master T 20:58, 30 July 2005 (UTC)
 * ZM's contentions are belied by the existence of concensus statements and scholarly review papers on this subject. --Rikurzhen 01:38, August 27, 2005 (UTC)


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Editing by Zen-master reverted
On June 30 2005 I was reverted cleaning up what apparently was very suspicious emphasis. 


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Biased language
Words that have some connotation of "race", such as "culture", are excessively used to bias all possible environmental causes and also to presumptively induce readers into thinking about the issue only in terms of "race" (framed exclusively in terms of "race" so the issue is exclusively thought about only in terms of "race"). Note the unnecessarily suggestive section and sub article titles which should instead be labeled, using simple generic language, as "environmental causes":  Race and intelligence (Culture-only or partially-genetic explanation) We should decouple description of an issue with examinations of the cause that explains that issue (a one sided presentation and framing of the issue in this case seems to have lead to a one sided, unscientific, errant determination of "race" as the cause).


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Nutrition and intelligence
On June 16 2005, soon after I pointed out on the talk page that "nutrition and intelligence" is an equivalent way of looking at and presenting the issue User:Gracefool created a redirect from nutrition and intelligence to race and intelligence. This seems to fit a pattern amongst the "pro" editors on the talk page, their non neutral goal seems to be to force other possible causes for the alleged "IQ disparity", such as nutrition, to be mentioned only within the framework of describing the issue exclusively in terms of "race", never using their own terms. In other words, other causes are mentioned as a possibility, but the issue is only ever allowed to be described in terms of "race" and "intelligence" and is never allowed to be described using words from other possible causes such as "wealth" and "nutrition". [more evidence forthcoming]


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 * True enough, seems to be no excuse. One can imagine other articles intelligence and social class intelligence and education intelligence and wealth. Fred Bauder 19:00, July 30, 2005 (UTC)


 * It strikes me that Zen-master could create some of these articles and populate them with available information, . Fred Bauder 15:28, July 31, 2005 (UTC)


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Race and intelligence controversy
"Pro" editors of race and intelligence are also the primary editors of articles that seemingly criticize "race and intelligence" research. I assert this is evidence that the "pro" editors are sugar coating and mischaracterizing criticisms of "race and intelligence". As of July 24 2005 all but one of the edits to race and intelligence controversy were made by User:Rikurzhen. The controversy article does not mention criticisms against charges of generally unscientific research, nor the lack of consensus for most conclusions, nor how the "race and intelligence" research field exclusively frames the issue at a language usage level. 


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Test bias
As of July 24, 2005 IQ test bias is acknowledged as a possibility, yet the title and other parts of the article, notably the introduction, continue to conclude, without basis, that "intelligence" can be objectively measured and there are objectively "group" differences in "intelligence". Also note the same excessive use of the word "culture". If there are valid allegations of test bias why is the article titled "race and intelligence" and why does the article conclude so many things without consensus?


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Evidence "pro" race and intelligence editors obfuscate or mischaracterize
On June 27, 2005 I asked for an explanation for exactly how promoting neutral language and/or fair and scientific presentation is "original research" or "POV pushing", I am still waiting for a response. I believe this is evidence of "errantly citing wikipedia policies to stifle or mischaracterize criticisms". and later on July 1st


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On June 23, 2005, through a long series of edits described as "archiving", most of my entire core criticism discussions up until that point were deleted from the talk page without any archiving, or readability and organization was damaged. Here is the deleting or incomplete and unorganized archiving of numerous core criticism discussions (presumably under the banner of "starting the discussion over without personal attacks"), note the time stamps of discussions that had been active less than three hours before. Here is my subsequent restoration of the completely deleted talk page comments


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Mid to late June 2005 apparent "name calling" or "personal attacks". I ask that the arbitration committe and/or the wikipedia community help clarify (and have an official process for determining) exactly what constitutes a "personal attack" because the ability for some editors to outright delete lengthy sections because of some apparent "personal attacks" (see section immediately above) is a very dangerous precedent as far as preserving critical talk page discussions is concerned. Given the complex details of the lengthy race and intelligence neutrality dispute discussion, and especially because of what I saw/see as repetition used to perpetuate language confusion, I don't believe my use of the terms "nazi" (later rephrased to "nazi-esque") or "racist" to describe some "pro" editors talk page statments, repetition of language confusion (apparent propaganda), and one sided method of presentation was unwarrented.


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On June 29 2005 (and subsequently edited on July 5 2005) User:Arbor created 2 archives with misleading titles: "Archive 8 (mediation by Uncle Ed)" and "Archive 9 (inherent language bias)". I consider User:Ed Poor also not neutral on this issue and is a party to this RFA and to my knowledge was never officially made the mediator of this dispute. Also, I am not arguing that the language used in the article and on the talk page has some sort of "intrinsic" bias (not "inherent language bias"), I am arguing that the language is either needlessly ambiguous and unnecessarily confusing, or, was intentionally designed by biased people to be confusing to advance a decidedly non neutral political agenda. In either case it should be cleaned up. All previous talk page archives (one through seven) in this article were not given any "extra" title


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General discussion

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