Talk:Race and intelligence/Archive 86

Archive 80

←

Archive 84

Archive 85

Archive 86

Archive 87

Archive 88

→

Archive 90

Some estimates of h² of IQ

By request of other editors, here are a few of several possible citations to reliable secondary sources on heritability of IQ:

• Plomin, Robert; Petrill, Stephen A. (1997). "Genetics and intelligence: What's new?". Intelligence. 24 (1): 53–77. doi:10.1016/S0160-2896(97)90013-1. ISSN 0160-2896. (p. 59) Model-fitting analyses that simultaneously analyze all of the family, adoption, and twin data yield heritability estimates of about 50% (Chipuer, Rovine, and Plomin, 1990; Loehlin, 1989), suggesting that about half of the variance of IQ scores in these populations can be attributed to genetic differences among individuals.

• Kaufman, Alan S. (2009). IQ Testing 101. New York: Springer Publishing. pp. 185–186. ISBN 978-0-8261-0629-2. Based on Falconer's (1960) simple formula for determining heritability, the correlations for identical versus fraternal twins reared together (.86 and .55 respectively; see Table 6.1) computes to 62%. However, the value of 50% that I mentioned earlier is still the best estimate when adoption studies are added to the equation and more complex formulas are used: The well-respected behavior geneticists Plomin and Petrill (1997) state that the value of 50% derives from 'Model-fitting analyses that simultaneously analyze all of the family, adoption, and twin data' (p. 59) {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help); Unknown parameter |laydate= ignored (help); Unknown parameter |laysummary= ignored (help)

• Anholt, Robert R. H.; Mackay, Trudy F. C. (2010). Principles of behavioral genetics. Academic Press. Box 7.2. ISBN 978-0-12-372575-2. Devlin et al. (1997, Nature, 388, 468–471) performed a meta-analysis of 212 studies on human IQ. . . . The h² of IQ was estimated to be about 1/3. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help); Unknown parameter |laydate= ignored (help); Unknown parameter |laysummary= ignored (help)

There are other sources, which I will have typed up in the next few days. Other editors have written that they have seen different figures, and I would be glad to discuss what sources have published those. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk) 04:12, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

Those studies include samples of children. Above, we were discussing the heritability of IQ in adults. It is well known that heritability increases with age. According to [1], "[t]he heritability of general cognitive ability increases significantly and linearly from 41% in childhood (9 years) to 55% in adolescence (12 years) and to 66% in young adulthood (17 years) in a sample of 11 000 pairs of twins from four countries, a larger sample than all previous studies combined". The figure is even higher (80% or so) in later adulthood.--Victor Chmara (talk) 11:55, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

As Victor has mentioned the heritability of children's IQ test would be considerably lower than adult IQ tests. Approximately .40 at 7 years of age to over .80 in adulthood. My request was for sources that list individual adult IQ as below 50% heritability. BlackHades (talk) 16:42, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

So what it the point regarding this article? Current heritability figures in the US are not evidence regarding what causes the race differences in the US.Miradre (talk) 17:05, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

The point was the lead currently lists individual IQ and only mentions that environment factors affect it. If individual IQ is mentioned in lead, the correct neutral position of it should be given. BlackHades (talk) 17:20, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

This is a fine point. Unfortunately, you can't add tangential content to restore neutrality. To the extent that the environmental factors address the racial intelligence gap, they are relevant. If they are not discussing that gap they are not relevant. That's not to say that articles which discuss general environmental effect on intelligence could not be summarized and linked to in the body of the article. Rather, tangential material is not appropriate for the lede. The same holds for genetic factors as well. aprock (talk) 20:07, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

"has remained relatively stable in the US since IQ testing began"

Certainly no agreement in the scholarly literature regarding this so this should not be stated in intro.Miradre (talk) 17:24, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

One example.[2]Miradre (talk) 17:35, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

That's an interesting article from SSRN. (Many articles from SSRN are quite interesting.) Anyway, this replicates reports based on other tests that can be found in current secondary sources, so the statement of the fact definitely belongs in article text (and will be the basis for some substantial alterations of previous article text). The narrowing of the IQ gap by birth cohort is a robustly replicated observation now. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk) 03:06, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

"views on research"-section

could we please improve the "views on research"-section? the length of this section and all the quotes, are quite annoying.-- mustihussain (talk) 19:59, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

Well, this is was what I proposed when it was discussed last time:

Hunt and Carlson (2007) have identified four contemporary positions on the topic of racial differences in intelligence:

1. "There are differences in intelligence between races that are due in substantial part to genetically determined differences in brain structure and/or function"
2. "Differences in cognitive competencies between races exist and are of social origin"
3. "Differences in test scores that are used to argue for differences in intelligence between races represent the inappropriate use of tests in different groups"
4. "There is no such thing as race; it is a term motivated by social concerns and not a scientific concept"

Rushton and Jensen (2005) suggest that the debate has remained unresolved for so long because of "the difficulty of the subject matter, the political issues associated with it and the emotions they arouse, and the different meta-theoretical perspectives of the experimental and correlational methodologies". They argue that there are two general approaches to the question of racial differences in intelligence, hereditarian heuristics and culture-only heuristics. The former, their own approach, include "constructing better tests, developing better techniques for measuring mental abilities, and discovering biological correlates... of these tests", and "examining the similarities of the scores among people whose varying degrees of genetic resemblance can be predicted from Mendelian theory". The latter approach begins with the assumption that if two groups differ in mean IQ, this must be because the lower scoring group has been exposed to a worse environment than the higher scoring group, or because the tests used are not valid measures of cognitive ability for all groups. Contrary to the hereditarian approach, culture-only theorists are skeptical that genetic factors have an independent role in explaining group differences.

In 1994, in the wake of the controversy surrounding The Bell Curve, the American Anthropological Association published a statement arguing that 'race' is not a biologically meaningful concept, and that it cannot be used to explain variation in intelligence. Many scientists have criticized research on race and intelligence along similar lines. For instance, Sternberg, Grigorenko and Kidd (2005) argue there is no agreed-upon definition of intelligence, making its relationship to other constructs such as race "tentative at best", and that research into the relationship between race and intelligence is not in the purview of science, because race is "a social construction with no scientific definition". Furthermore, they suggest that behavioral genetic research on heritability is inadequate to answer questions about genetic influences on intelligence, and point out that "no gene has yet been conclusively linked to intelligence". Rose (2009) views concepts like 'race' and 'intelligence' as ill-founded, arguing that any questions about their interrelationship are scientifically unanswerable and ideologically motivated, and that therefore no research in this field should be conducted. Several researchers have linked contemporary research into race and intelligence with historical experiences of racial intolerance and eugenics, suggesting that such investigations should have no place in science (e.g. Sternberg 2003, 2009; Gardner 1998).

In contrast, Hunt and Carlson (2007) have argued that research on race and intelligence is "scientifically valid and socially important". Citing recent research on racial self-identification and human genetic clustering, they also argue that it is "sensible to speak of race as a biological category while at the same time stressing that the concept is a fuzzy one, in the mathematical sense of the word". Rowe (2005) defended the use of race in scientific investigations on similar grounds. Williams and Ceci (2009) assert that even if race was an entirely socially constructed category with no biological underpinnings, it would be worthwhile to study its relationship to intelligence. Flynn (2009) has defended research on race and intelligence, maintaining that much important social-science research would not have been done in recent decades had the subject been off-limits to science.

Arguments supporting some genetic contribution to racial differences in IQ have often proved controversial. Ceci and Williams (2009) note that scientists arguing for the hereditarian view have been "demeaned, ostracized and occasionally threatened with tenure revocation". Similarly, Rowe (2005) pointed out that "many journal editors are reluctant to publish articles providing a genetic explanation of a racial difference", and that "[u]npopular opinions about race have also led to threats on persons and their careers". Rowe proposes that genetic and cultural or environmental explanations of racial differences be treated as equally plausible hypotheses. Pointing out the potentially great social consequences of research on race and intelligence, Hunt and Carlson (2007) advocate the use of stricter than usual standards of evidence in the field "regardless of whether or not [the studies] find for or against [race] differences".

--Victor Chmara (talk) 22:12, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

Peters had a hand in producing some of that article text, didn't he? It's getting time to read this article line by line as it continually iterates and decide on some article text issues here. I'm not sure I like all of the block of text above as to overall POV (it is cited to good sources, some of which I have already checked), but maybe it's an improvement over the status quo. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk, how I edit) 22:41, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

the initial draft you wrote in september is clearly better than this draft. although i prefer my own draft... your initial september draft is still an improvement compared to the current "views on research"-section. but i would like more views before you make the changes.-- mustihussain (talk) 23:35, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

Ambiguous statement

"If an unknown environmental factor can cause changes in IQ over time, then contemporary differences between groups could also be due to an unknown environmental factor."

I removed this because it appeared to be saying essentially nothing. After my edit was reverted I gave it a re-read, and I think I now understand what was meant. What was the original rationale for it? Would "If there is an unknown factor that is responsible for the Flynn effect, then that factor could be responsible for the contemporary differences between groups" be more clear? LewisWasGenius (talk) 22:59, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

I think that would be more clear yes.·Maunus·ƛ· 23:21, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

Oh, thanks for explaining what was puzzling about that statement. My reading of the literature on the subject is that the statement means (from many authors) "If there is an unknown factor that is responsible for the Flynn effect, then some equally powerful unknown factor could be responsible for the contemporary differences between groups." Is that clear enough? It's not decided by anyone whether the same factor(s) cause group differences as cause the score increases over time, but Flynn has suggested study designs (not yet fully carried out) that could help resolve that issue. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk, how I edit) 23:40, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

It's time to update the data on score gaps.`

A lot of new data sets have been produced since the mid-1990s, but I still see a lot of the article sourced to remarkably old sources. It would be good to check statements about score gaps against the most recent available reliable secondary sources. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk, how I edit) 23:12, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

The 2001 meta-analysis by Roth et al.[3], which is cited a couple of times in the article, found an average b-w gap of 1 SD, while the white-Hispanic gap was somewhat smaller. Their data cover several decades, so it is not necessarily any more recent than those 1990s sources, though. Then there's the study of standardization samples by Flynn and Dickens[4], which suggested b-w convergence, but this finding was criticized by Jensen and Rushton[5], and contradicted by Murray's analysis of NLSY data[6]. And, as I've pointed out before, the b-w gap is larger in the WAIS-IV (2008) standardization sample than in the WAIS-III (1997) one, which further makes Flynn's claims dubious.--Victor Chmara (talk) 22:25, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

Claims that the b-w gap has narrowed have been made recently, but these are not necessarily widely accepted, so this is not different from the 1996 APA report that also said there may or not be any narrowing. I restored the SES/IQ/race image, because there is no data to contradict it.--Victor Chmara (talk) 22:25, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

The critique by Jensen and Rushton is pretty oblique - it doesn't really suffice to make Flynn and Dickens' conclusions "dubious". ·Maunus·ƛ· 22:33, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

Murray in his discussion does not state that his study necessarily contradicts Flynn and Dickens. His view seem to be that the gap initially narrowed from an initial 18-16 points by about 3-6 points. But that the gap has stopped narrowing.[7]Miradre (talk) 23:01, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

The Jensen and Rushton paper is rather straightforward. It points out, among other things, that Flynn and Dickens omitted samples that showed few/no/negative gains by blacks, that F & D wrongly assume that the gap does not vary with age (see here[8] for a good graph on this), and that standardization samples are not necessarily representative. The consensus of a 1 SD gap is based on very large data sets (e.g. the Roth et al. meta-analysis), and it has been reported in "consensus statements" like the APA report and the Mainstream Science editorial. Flynn and Dickens's results should be mentioned in the article, but they certainly should not supersede the older results, which is what WBB seems to be advocating.--Victor Chmara (talk) 23:06, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

You can hardly claim a consensus if there are none among recent studies and researchers. It is not our job to decide if Dickens/Flynn or Rushton/Jensen are correct. Murray seems to side with Dickens/Flynn.Miradre (talk) 23:12, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

I think newer studies do trump older ones - as Miradre says we're not supposed to judge this ourselves. It is enough to say that these are the newest studiest and that x and y agrees with them and that z disagrees.·Maunus·ƛ· 23:15, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

Well, Flynn and Dickens' results are certainly not accepted by a consensus. My position is simply that the older results (APA 1996, Roth et al. 2001 etc.) should be discussed in the article, contra WBB's apparent suggestion that they are outdated and should be removed.--Victor Chmara (talk) 23:23, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

The Kaufman and Lichtenberger practitioner's manual and the new WAIS-IV clinical interpretation volume are both better sources (and more recent) than the sources now most prominent in the article. The facts aren't standing still on this issue, so current reliable secondary sources would do much to improve the article. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk, how I edit) 00:00, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

Test manuals are somewhat dubious as being commercial products with an interest in presenting the tests in as good a light as possible and avoiding as much as possible anything controversial.Miradre (talk) 00:38, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

This sort of statement is meaningless. As a general rule, one might expect all sources to present themselves in a good light. aprock (talk) 05:17, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

Miradre, you wrote, "Test manuals are somewhat dubious as being commercial products with an interest in presenting the tests in as good a light as possible and avoiding as much as possible anything controversial." But the general bias all writers have to make their own writing look good, pointed out by Aprock, is why we prefer secondary sources to primary sources here on Wikipedia. And in fact the two publications I mentioned, neither of which is strictly speaking a "test manual" (because both are available to the general public in academic libraries, as scoring manuals of current tests generally are not) are carefully edited publications that include secondary literature reviews on many controversial issues. Don't assume that much about a source until you have read it. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk, how I edit) 11:27, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

Not sure exactly what volume you are referring to but racial differences are only briefly mentioned in "WAIS-IV Clinical Use and Interpretation: Scientist-Practitioner Perspectives": [9].Miradre (talk) 13:16, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

Looks like not a single research paper has cited it despite it being 4 years old.Miradre (talk) 13:20, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

i agree with wbb. the use of secondary sources is a core policy at wikipedia. if we have allowed the use controversial, dubious primary sources (lynn, rushton and others) then the secondary sources mentioned by wbb should be allowed as well.-- mustihussain (talk) 14:48, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

Dubious that commercial test manuals can be considered reliable secondary sources for a scientific field. If like, say, claiming that a test manual produced by a commercial company making cholesterol tests is a reliable source regarding the state of cholesterol research.Miradre (talk) 15:00, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

You're the one who regularly argues that random primary sources should be included. Maybe you've changed your position, and you should update your edits accordingly? aprock (talk) 16:37, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

Not sure what you stating. Just pointing out that commercial test manuals are not particularly good sources of information for research in this field.Miradre (talk) 18:47, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

You've given no indication why those primary sources should be regarded less than any other primary sources, which unfortunately dominate this article. aprock (talk) 21:10, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

Classifying that test manual as primary or secondary is likely difficult. Sometimes is it contains original material relating how to use the tests, sometimes it only cites other sources regarding research done using the test.Miradre (talk) 08:24, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

WBB, what do those manuals say about the magnitudes of the gaps?--Victor Chmara (talk) 11:06, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

A couple of points about Flynn and Dickens's paper. Firstly, the 4-7 point reduction in the b-w gap that they report is not a realised gain but a projected gain based on the assumption that the trends they have observed in the data, mostly in tests of children, will continue into the future. The realised gain is 3.44 points. Secondly, they say that the "current" (2006) gap between white and black adults is 1.1 SDs, and that the reduction can be seen only in younger cohorts.

There's another paper[10] by Murray on the b-w gap. He concludes that the b-w gap on the Woodstock-Johnson test reduced substantially in successive cohorts born from the 1920s to the 1960s, but after that, in cohorts born since the 1970s, the gap has somewhat grown and is currently 0.98 SDs.

In the article, we should discuss both the trends over generations and the fact that the gap is narrower in children and adolescents than adults.--Victor Chmara (talk) 07:46, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

SES

The SES section is based solely on the APA report and it ignores recent contradictory studies such as Nisbett 2009 (Intelligence and How to Get It: Why Schools and Cultures Count) and Flynns more recent books.·Maunus·ƛ· 23:40, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

Can you be more specific?--Victor Chmara (talk) 23:13, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

From reading the section you would think that noone disagrees with the statement that socio-economic factors alone cannot possibly account for the entire gap. This is false - many, many scholars say that it can and that it probably does. (Robert Sternberg, Richard Nisbett, Audrey Smedley, Jonathan Marks, Alexander Alland jr., Steven Rose, Richard LEwontin, Leon Kamin, Stephen Jay Gould would all disagree with this conclusion and their opinions and arguments should of course be included)·Maunus·ƛ· 23:17, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

Can someone explain to me where in the SES section it implies that there is no disagreement that environmental factors can't account for the entire gap? All the section talks about is that SES on its own can’t account for the gap. It doesn't say anything about environmental factors other than SES.-SightWatcher (talk) 00:15, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

I have changed "environmental" to socio-economic in my previosu post to make that clear.·Maunus·ƛ· 00:19, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

Neutrality and disputed tags

A while ago someone added tags claiming that the article suffers from systematic bias and factual inaccuracies. Who added them, what were the grounds for it, and is there any reason to still have them in the article? There is much to improve in the article, but I don't think there's a need for those tags.--Victor Chmara (talk) 15:52, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

I think it is wise to keep them. When an article isn't tagged that often means that editors pay less attention to improving it and that readers are less aware of problems with its content. I think it would be much better to keep the tags and keep imoproving the article and remove them when we all agree the article is free from bias and is as good as it should be.·Maunus·ƛ· 17:16, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

There's no evidence that the tags have made editors pay more attention to the article -- not least because it is nowhere articulated what exactly it is that is supposedly biased or inaccurate about it -- and I don't think we will ever agree that the article is as good as it gets.--Victor Chmara (talk) 17:24, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

This is a controversial topic - I don't see how it can not have a tag untill there is a consensus that the presentation of the topic is completely neutral, and gives neutral treatments of the crucial part of the topic. Quite possible that time will not come. Then the tags are there to make readers aware of that fact. There is no good reason to removing tags from an article the quality of which is under dispute.·Maunus·ƛ· 17:44, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict with Victor's reply to Maunus) I agree with Victor that there is much to improve in this article, and I thank him for his efforts in bringing about improvement. I think the "systematic bias" tag is most often placed on articles by members of the WikiProject on that subject. On my part, I am still not sure what the difference is between systematic bias and unsystematic lack of neutral point of view, so I don't think I have ever applied that tag to an article. I agree with Maunus that we are on a path to being able to remove the tags from the article, but I don't think we are all the way there yet. There are still large sections of the article that have hardly had any substantive edits since full protection was removed after the end of the ArbCom case. Several editors are contributing good work here, but I am persuaded by Maunus's statement that the current placement of the tags supports further good work by multiple editors, and thus is appropriate at this moment. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk, how I edit) 17:28, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

Views on Research Section

I think we should discuss whether Victor Chmara’s change to the Views on research section is an improvement. The previous version of this section was too long and disorganised, had a lot of difficult-to-understand quotes, and I think shorter is better. I also don’t understand the basis for Ramdrake’s complaint that the new version puts undue weight on the hereditary hypothesis. Victor’s version provides one of its four paragraphs to Jensen and Rushton, about a fourth of the total space, which is actually less than the fraction of the current section that’s taken up by quotes from Jensen, Rushton and Gottfredson. Can anyone please elaborate on how Victor’s change to this section was a problem? --TrevelyanL85A2 (talk) 01:39, 8 November 2010 (UTC)

Its a problem because we've discussed it before and there was no consensus that it was an improvement. On the contrary several editors thought it was more weighted towards the hereditarian argument than they were comfortable with. Several other versions were also discussed, some of which had more support than Victors meaning that it makes no sense to try an get it in sideways at this point without reviving the discussion on the talk page first and see how it could be improved so that a wider group of editors would support its inclusion.·Maunus·ƛ· 01:49, 8 November 2010 (UTC)

Which versions got more support than mine? There was an attempt to revive the discussion about the section above, but there were no takers. I added my version to the article, because nobody was doing anything to improve the section. Now that my version is removed, nothing will happen to the section, and the old crappy version lives on. There are plenty of ways to change my version to better match everyone's sensibilities, but from experience we know that it won't happen if we don't add it to the article.--Victor Chmara (talk) 10:37, 8 November 2010 (UTC)

Ok on couning it seems all versions had the same amount of support. I prefered mustihussains and my original version over yours. Future bird prefered my original version over yours and mustihussain's. Rafrye prefered your version over mustihussains. You obviously prefered your own version. No one else participated in the discussion. That gives each versison two supporters. Certainly no consensus to unilaterally introduce one of the versions.·Maunus·ƛ· 22:40, 8 November 2010 (UTC)

It's not about how much support any version had, but about the fact that nothing will happen to the section unless someone takes the initiative. The section was discussed above, with WBB cautiously supporting my version, and mustihussain opposing it though agreeing that it was an improvement over the current mess. Then there were no more comments, and nothing happened. This article is all about endless jabbering on talk page while nothing happens to the article.--Victor Chmara (talk) 23:08, 8 November 2010 (UTC)

You could try to write a version that takes othereditors suggestions and reservations into account. ·Maunus·ƛ· 00:23, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

If there were some specific suggestions instead of blanket statements ("it's too hereditarian") it would be easier to improve it.--Victor Chmara (talk) 11:58, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

Well, I removed the Rushton & Jensen bit. What do you think:

Views on research

Hunt and Carlson (2007) have identified four contemporary positions on the topic of racial differences in intelligence:

1. "There are differences in intelligence between races that are due in substantial part to genetically determined differences in brain structure and/or function"

2. "Differences in cognitive competencies between races exist and are of social origin"

3. "Differences in test scores that are used to argue for differences in intelligence between races represent the inappropriate use of tests in different groups"

4. "There is no such thing as race; it is a term motivated by social concerns and not a scientific concept"

In 1994, in the wake of the controversy surrounding The Bell Curve, the American Anthropological Association published a statement arguing that 'race' is not a biologically meaningful concept, and that it cannot be used to explain variation in intelligence. Many scientists have criticized research on race and intelligence along similar lines. For instance, Sternberg, Grigorenko & Kidd (2005) argue there is no agreed-upon definition of intelligence, making its relationship to other constructs such as race "tentative at best", and that research into the relationship between race and intelligence is not in the purview of science, because race is "a social construction with no scientific definition". Furthermore, they suggest that behavioral genetic research on heritability is inadequate to answer questions about genetic influences on intelligence, and point out that "no gene has yet been conclusively linked to intelligence". Rose (2009) views concepts such as 'race' and 'intelligence' as ill-founded, arguing that any questions about their interrelationship are scientifically unanswerable and ideologically motivated, and that therefore no research in this field should be conducted. Several researchers have linked contemporary research into race and intelligence with historical experiences of racial intolerance and eugenics, suggesting that such investigations should have no place in science (e.g. Sternberg 2003, 2009; Gardner 1998).

In contrast, Hunt and Carlson (2007) have argued that research on race and intelligence is "scientifically valid and socially important". Citing recent research on racial self-identification and human genetic clustering, they also argue that it is "sensible to speak of race as a biological category while at the same time stressing that the concept is a fuzzy one, in the mathematical sense of the word". Rowe (2005) defended the use of race in scientific investigations on similar grounds. Williams and Ceci (2009) assert that even if race was an entirely socially constructed category with no biological underpinnings, it would be worthwhile to study its relationship to intelligence. Flynn (2009) has defended research on race and intelligence, maintaining that much important social-science research would not have been done in recent decades had the subject been off-limits to science.

Arguments supporting some genetic contribution to racial differences in IQ have often proved controversial. Ceci and Williams (2009) note that scientists arguing for the hereditarian view have been "demeaned, ostracized and occasionally threatened with tenure revocation". Similarly, Rowe (2005) pointed out that "many journal editors are reluctant to publish articles providing a genetic explanation of a racial difference", and that "[u]npopular opinions about race have also led to threats on persons and their careers". Rowe proposes that genetic and cultural or environmental explanations of racial differences be treated as equally plausible hypotheses. Pointing out the potentially great social consequences of research on race and intelligence, Hunt and Carlson (2007) advocate the use of stricter than usual standards of evidence in the field "regardless of whether or not [the studies] find for or against [race] differences".

--Victor Chmara (talk) 14:31, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

I actually think that Jensen and Rushton do fit in and are prominent figures in the debate. I don't think they should be left out entirely. I also think that the sections should try to fit the debate into an historical context as well (User:Futurebired) also found this important. I also think that it would be relevant to mention how standpoints are divided between disciplines - in some sense this is a debate on the intersection between anthropologists and psychologists because issues of how to understand race has been a hotly debated issue in anthropology and IQ has been a hotly debated topic in Psychologyt over the years. A part of the issue is that consensus on race in Anthropology is against its existence as a biologically meaningful category while consensus in Psychology is that IQ is a meaningful category. Psychologists that relate IQ to race are then using a definition of race that is disputed by Anthropologists. There are sources that describe how this has played out between the disciplines. I think mentioning the Boasian and Galtonian traditions and how they have influenced and been influenced by social discourses and historical events in the mid twentieth century would also be good. I think providing more context is essential. 17:22, 9 November 2010 (UTC)·Maunus·ƛ·

Does anyone have this source at hand?

I'll list some sources here, and update it by edits from time to time.

• Kenny, Michael G. (2002), "Toward a Racial Abyss: Eugenics, Wickliffe Draper, and the Origins of The Pioneer Fund", Journal of History of the Behavioral Sciences 38: 259–283 [11]

SES image

Victor Chmara has now twice inserted the SES-image from the Bell curve after it has been removed by WeijiBaikeBianji, without starting a discussion about it here on the talkpage. It is the inclusion of the image that requires arguments and consensus, not the other way round. I think victorchmara should undo his removal and present his arguments for why it is important to include that image in the article. I would add that I agree with WeijiBaikeBianji's removal as the image gives undue weight to a particular interpretation of the relation between SES, race and IQ that is not universally accepted. ·Maunus·ƛ· 22:21, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

The SES chart from the Bell Curve has been in the article for many years[12] without being challenged, so why is it suddenly that its inclusion must be specifically justified, while its exclusion needs no justification? To me, it's clear that something that has so long been accepted as a part of the article cannot be removed just like that.

Wikipedia does not require that its content be "universally accepted". If it did, we'd have to blank this article. WP:NPOV means that we must report all significant views, and that of Murray and Herrnstein is certainly one. If you have sources that refute Murray and Herrnstein's analysis, you can include them in the article.--Victor Chmara (talk) 22:53, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

Not all views have to be represented with graphs - and it is subject to consensus how to represent views. Exclusion generally doesn't need justification but inclusion does. That is a pretty basic principle here in wikipedia where inclusion of data has to be supprted by reference and consensus. Exclusion also needs to be supported by arguments, but I think it is generally better to err on the side of caution when dealing with inclusion of controversial material in articles under arbcom restrictions. I wish you had showed good faith by selfreverting. ·Maunus·ƛ· 23:31, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

Let's see. You are opposed to the inclusion of the graph because it is contradicted by PRECISELY ZERO SOURCES YOU HAVE BROUGHT UP. That's right: the graph is wrong, because it is contradicted by ABSOLUTELY NO SOURCE. In other words, your reason for removing the image is that you just don't like it. Do you understand you have to offer evidence that the graph is not significant? Just asserting so is not enough. If I now start removing all sorts of stuff from the article, including material that's been there for years, claiming it to be "controversial" without presenting any evidence for my view, will you accept it? I expect you won't protest it because it's "better to err on the side of caution when dealing with inclusion of controversial material", isn't it?!--Victor Chmara (talk) 23:56, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

It is not about contradiction. Lots of things aren't contradicted, that doesn't mean that the inclusion of an image about them aren't subject to normal processes of discussion and consensus. You know full well that Murray and Herrnstein's conclusions about those data are not generally accepted - including an image containing their data makes it look as if they are. Whether or not the data is right is besides the point - the point is what the image means, and about that there is less agreement.·Maunus·ƛ· 00:02, 8 November 2010 (UTC)

No, I don't know that Murray and Herrnstein's conclusions are not generally accepted. On the contrary, according to my reading, their conclusions are completely mainstream among intelligence researchers -- look at the Mainstream Science statement or the APA report, for example, both of which agree that SES differences do not explain the b-w IQ gap. Please present sources that contradict Murray and Herrnstein's analysis of race, IQ, and SES. If you can't, your opposition to the graph is based just on your personal opinion, which is worthless in Wikipedia. If you can present such sources, we can begin discussing which graphs should or should not be included in the article. Until then, the removal of the graph constitutes pure censorship.--Victor Chmara (talk) 00:13, 8 November 2010 (UTC)

I guess pleading ignorance is ok at this point, I apologize for having assumed you were familiar with all the scholarship (even though I have pointed to a lot of it in a previous section just a little bit above this one). Nisbett, in "Intelligence and how to get it", spends a rather large chapter discussing the problems with Murray and Herrnsteins (and others') arguments for interpreting the SES data as conclusively showing that the effect of SES on the gap is negligible. So does Jencks and Phillips in the introduction to "the black white test score gap", and Nisbett in his chapter in the same book. I have mentioned this in another section already. The main drift in both cases is that there are too many possibly contributing factors that have not (can not been controlled) for simply accepting that Murray and Herrnstein adequately "have controlled for SES". the conclusion then becomes that the data is inconclusive whereas the graph clearly goads the reader towards a particular conclusion. ·Maunus·ƛ· 00:30, 8 November 2010 (UTC)

I am familiar with the relevant studies, but it seems that you are not. Did you even read those books?

Jencks et al. 1998 does not refute Murray and Herrnstein's SES-race-IQ analysis. On the contrary, they reproduce it with different data sets, confirming the validity of Murray and Herrnstein's conclusions. Quote from p. 120: "Tables 4-2 through 4-4 indicate that common explanations for the test score gap do not work very well, at least for five- and six-year-olds in the CNLSY. These results support Herrnstein and Murray’s contention that socioeconomic factors cannot be much of the explanation for the gap." And p. 137: "Herrnstein and Murray claim in The Bell Curve that socioeconomic status explains about a third of the black-white test score gap. Larry Hedges and Amy Nowell reach the same conclusion in chapter 5 of this volume. Such estimates seem to be roughly correct when we define socioeconomic status in strictly social and economic terms." In other words, if we use the same traditional sociological definition of SES (i.e. parental income + education) that Murray and Herrnstein used, their analysis is 100 percent correct even according to these "environmentalist" scholars. In the same chapter of the Jencks et al. book, there is a rather ridiculous exercise where they create a model with dozens of "environmental" variables. Even this silly model (which certainly does not correspond to SES!) accounts for just about two thirds of the b-w gap. To their credit, the authors admit (p. 133) that their model suffers from what Jensen called the sociologist's fallacy, i.e. it disregards the fact that the "environmental" variables in it are partially genetically determined.

As to Nisbett 2009, he admits that he has no data to counter Murray and Herrnstein's race-IQ-SES analysis, and therefore explicitly concedes their point (p. 96): "We do know that blacks have lower IQs than whites at every level of SES, so SES cannot be the full explanation of the black/white IQ difference." Then he goes on to speculate about various non-SES "X factors" that could cause the gap, but his discussion of these is not only old-hat (mainly well-known studies from the 60s and 70s) but also dishonest (no mention that heritability rises with age, for example).

In short, the books by Jencks et al. and Nisbett contain nothing that contradicts the graph from The Bell Curve. There is no legitimate reason for its removal. As you still have not presented any evidence against it, I will restore it. Perhaps we could mention in the caption that some scholars think that traditional SES measures do not capture important differences in environment between blacks and whites (which is possible, but does not disprove the point of the graph, that is, the fact that, contrary to what many people believe, controlling for parental income and education fails to close the gap). I note also that you have not tried to remove the heritability and lead levels pics, even though they "clearly goad the reader towards a particular conclusion" -- I wonder why that is...--Victor Chmara (talk) 10:04, 8 November 2010 (UTC)

You are edit warring - that is bad. I reiterate that I do not need to provide any evidence against it. Just because the data is correct doesn't mean that the image cannot be removed from the article by a consensus. I respect that Wiji and I do not form a consensus on our own - but neither do you. I will not remove the image again - but if someone else removes it and you reinstate it a third time I will report you to the ArbEnforcement for editwarring. Secondly - you are twisting facts - the quote form Jencks that you present say Herrnstein and Murray claim in The Bell Curve that socioeconomic status explains about a third of the black-white test score gap. Larry Hedges and Amy Nowell reach the same conclusion in chapter 5 of this volume. Such estimates seem to be roughly correct when we define socioeconomic status in strictly social and economic terms."" They then go on to explore dozens of other ways in which social and economic factors that have not been included by M&H can influence the IQ gap. So obviously that "when" is a pretty big caveat since exploring alternatives to it is pretty much the point of the book. (Your mention of their mention of the "sociologists fallacy" is a red herring - it doesn't invalidate their model it only complicates it - it works both ways for example SES also influences IQ - while SES cannot account for the gap but that doesn't mean that it doesn't influence IQ at all) About Nisbett he does say that SES cannot account for the whole gap but he clearly doesn't agree with M&H conclusion that lack of SES as determining factor points directly to heritability - the argument of his entire book is that schooling matters for IQ which is in direct contradiction to M&H and to the image. Whether you think its "old-hat" and "dishonest" is completely irrelevant. ·Maunus·ƛ· 12:35, 8 November 2010 (UTC)

Firstly, there was no consensus about removing anything, so your arguments are irrelevant. You removed sourced content, and have not presented even one bit of evidence for your assertion that M & H's analysis is "controversial" (not that being controversial would be grounds for removal of content). Secondly, the graph from the Bell Curve is entirely compatible with the hypothesis that the b-w gap is 100 percent environmentally caused (by unknown "X factors"). So, whether or not Nisbett agrees with M & H regarding heritability is immaterial. Neither Jencks et al. nor Nisbett dispute that M & H's analysis regarding SES, as it is traditionally defined, is correct; in the Jencks book, they get very similar results as M & H using data from another source. To "define socioeconomic status in strictly social and economic terms" is exactly the way it is usually defined; socioeconomic means social and economic. Nisbett says in the Jencks book that "the results presented in chapter 4 suggest that the IQs of black and white children differ for reasons related to child-rearing practices that are somewhat independent of socioeconomic status"; the variables that explain some of the b-w gap are in many ways cultural and not that much related to income or education. The big regression model introduced in the Jencks book does not invalidate M & H's analysis; at best, it complements M & H.

I repeat my suggestion that we describe in the picture caption what M & H mean by SES, and perhaps mention that some scholars think that b-w differences in environment are not captured by traditional SES measures such as M & H's.--Victor Chmara (talk) 14:15, 8 November 2010 (UTC)

If a similar chart with a similar caption or explanatory text does not appear in "The Bell Curve", I would be inclined to remove the image as synth. Can someone verify that such a chart is in the book? aprock (talk) 17:55, 8 November 2010 (UTC)

It's on page 288 of the book, in a chapter named "Are the Differences in Overall Black and White Test Scores Attributable to Differences in Socioeconomic Status?". The caption is "Black IQ scores go up with socioeconomic status, but the black-white difference does not shrink".--Victor Chmara (talk) 21:44, 8 November 2010 (UTC)

So you removed the lead levels pic, too? It seems that soon we'll have no pics in this article at all.--Victor Chmara (talk) 22:01, 8 November 2010 (UTC)

The lead level image was removed because it didn't follow summary style guidelines. see WP:DETAIL. aprock (talk) 22:32, 8 November 2010 (UTC)

I checked the chart, and the one in the book is different, indicating some sort of WP:SYNTH. The axes have been switched and the units changed, the labels have been simplified ambiguously. The IQ scale has been incorrectly shifted and the white IQ line has been added. Additionally, the data is clearly different between the charts (e.g. see b-w delta for 7th percentile). The image appears to have been added [13] as a proxy for this disputed homemade image [14] created by the same user Quizkajer/Rikurzhen. Likewise the problems of pairing the image derived from The Bell Curve with text from the APA have been discussed before: [15]. At the very least this chart should be corrected to the source. More generally, there does not appear to be sufficient content or context in the article as it stand for using this image without treading on concerns for undue. Unless a strong case for inclusion of this particular image can be made, I see no reason to retain the vestige of an edit war four years gone. aprock (talk) 09:17, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

I'm opposed to including images from The Bell Curve, which was a controversial book taking a marked position, and which wasn't a clearcut case of a scholarly text either, being aimed at a popular audience. Certainly it would be wrong for this article to contain any graphs or charts that had been altered from the source except in the most minor way, because that would constitute OR. Itsmejudith (talk) 09:25, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

I don't think the unit change (from SDs to IQ points) is a problem, but I hadn't actually noticed that the white IQ line has been added. The latter is indeed a problem. The pic should be corrected. However, the fact that The Bell Curve has been controversial in some academic circles certainly does not mean that we cannot use it as a source. What's more, Murray and Herrnstein's SES/IQ/race analysis has been replicated using other data sets as reported the the Jencks et al. book. I think the SES section could be expanded to include material from e.g. The Bell Curve and the Jencks book.--Victor Chmara (talk) 11:55, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

I think someone should make a new version of the chart which fixes the problem of the current chart including data that isn’t in the book. Does anyone want to do that? --TrevelyanL85A2 (talk) 01:03, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

I haven't been convinced yet that a chart of this nature adds a lot of value to the article. I see that there has been editor discussion here of sources, which is good, and I think some of the most current sources might be tricky to boil down to that format. But I'm willing to hear other editor discussion about what is really the main issue, how stratified views of parental socioeconomic status influence current hypotheses on causation of the racial score gap. The crucial thing is to find good mainstream sources on that issue. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk, how I edit) 02:13, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

The extent that there should be some graphic illustration describing SES issues is really a function of what is covered in the article. The previous state is that an illustration from a mid-90s book was being used in conjunction with a mid-90s review which was written to address issues with the book. At this point, both of those document serve history better than current understanding. A more sensible approach would be to update the section to conform with more recent sources. I'm working on reading sources, but my time is limited and most of the sources I'm currently reading are only indirectly related to R&I. aprock (talk) 02:44, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

Ongoing edits

Since the decision of the Race and intelligence case before the Wikipedia Arbitration Committee, which leaves this article and dozens of related articles under active arbitration sanctions, various newly registered editors, as well as other editors who have been on Wikipedia for years, have joined the editors who happened to be editing this article during the consideration of the case. Back in June and July 2009, I was writing a working paper on IQ testing that prompted me to visit this article and several related articles on Wikipedia. At the time I thought, "Someone should update those articles with better sources," but I gathered sources for my own paper and communicated findings with local researchers in person and with researchers around the country by email lists, not supposing that I would get involved in Wikipedia editing. Reading the books How Wikipedia Works and Wikipedia: The Missing Manual early in 2010 convinced me to become a wikipedian, and I happened to start editing here just before the Arbitration Committee case began. While the case was still being decided, I announced an intention to fix the related articles after the case was decided, and I've begun fixing this article or that article, as I have sources at hand and occasion to engage in the intellectually stimulating project of building an encyclopedia. There is still much to be done. The best way to fix almost any of the 6,821,552 articles on Wikipedia is to find reliable sources to ensure the verifiability and neutrality of point of view of each article. Any wikipedian is welcome to suggest sources to add to the source lists that can help make that possible. I'm glad to see that several editors are doing the careful detail work of checking references in the existing articles (many of which need to be verified, updated, or replaced) and checking new article edits as they proceed for adherence to the Wikipedia core principles. I'll keep watching this talk page and the talk page of the related articles for comments from other editors as the editing continues. All members of the Wikipedia community are invited to use my user talk page to comment about specifics of my ongoing ongoing clean-up efforts. I look forward to seeing the articles improve substantially in content and format through the volunteer work of many editors. Thanks for watching, and thanks for your help. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk, how I edit) 12:26, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

Earl Hunt will have a big book on intelligence out in a month or two[16]. It will deal with group differences, too, and I expect it will be an excellent source for R&I articles as Hunt has been an impartial and perceptive observer of the hereditarian-environmentalist melee for a long time.--Victor Chmara (talk) 12:53, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the pointer Victor. aprock (talk) 16:26, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

Yes, thanks for letting everyone know. I've got Hunt's book on an online bookseller wishlist, as I recall, and I have been pinging local academic libraries for which will be purchasing it. It should be a good literature review. Oh, and I somehow saw a notice that Sternberg's Handbook of Intelligence (2000) is going to go into a second edition, to be published within the year, although I don't yet see that listed as a forthcoming book on the publisher's website. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk, how I edit) 00:25, 13 November 2010 (UTC)

Douglas Detterman, the long-time editor of Intelligence is also writing a book[17]. Don't know when it will be published though.--Victor Chmara (talk) 10:57, 13 November 2010 (UTC)

Publisher's description of The Cambridge Handbook of Intelligence, the forthcoming (July 2011 publication) book I mentioned earlier. Some chapters are already available online on their authors' websites. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk, how I edit) 21:23, 14 November 2010 (UTC)

placebo effect

There should be some mention of the placebo effect, since an experiment did once show that when random people did a test, men and women got similar marks, but when they were told beforehand that men usually do better, the men did do better and the women did worse by quite a lot. The test was mentioned in a book titled Psychology(by Bernstein, Penner, Clarke-Stewart, and Roy) and executed by "Spencer S., Steele, C. M., & Qiunn, D." in 1997.173.183.69.134 (talk) 03:09, 12 November 2010 (UTC)

It's called stereotype threat, and there's a section on it in the article.--Victor Chmara (talk) 08:51, 12 November 2010 (UTC)

Human Intelligence Template

WeijiBaikeBianji just removed Template:Human intelligence from this article and five other articles: Genius, Flynn effect, Neuroscience and intelligence, Creativity, and Nations and intelligence. For some articles he tried to briefly explain his reason in the edit summary. For others he didn't, including on this article. He tried once before to remove this template from Nations and intelligence [18], Neuroscience and intelligence [19] And Flynn effect [20], and was reverted in all three cases. And hasn't tried to discuss this removal with either of the editors (Woodsrock and Miradre) who reverted him last time, before making this change again.

And he also removed the link to this article from Template:Human intelligence, and replaced it with a link to History of the race and intelligence controversy. This is the fifth time he has done this. Every other time his edits were reverted by Woodsrock or Miradre. He also has not attempted to justify this to either of them. He also replaced the link to this article with a link to the history article on Template:Race, Sociobiology, and a few other articles, reinstating his edits after they were reverted in those cases too. On the Sociobiology talk I tried to explain why I don't think these removals make sense- [21] and eventually he stopped commenting in that thread, but 3 days later he removed the link from the template yet again.

I see his removal of the template from this article and from Creativity have already been reverted. But there needs to be an open discussion about his changes to the template itself and all of the other articles. Can anyone else see a problem here? Other editors have openly disagreed with his changes and still he persists with them. To my knowledge no one even agrees with these particular removals and changes. He isn't even trying to seek a consensus about this and is disregarding the opinions of others who disagree with him.-SightWatcher (talk) 03:23, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

I have put a long post on talk:Creativity detailing the connection between creativity and intelligence; in trying to find sources to show the point, it became apparent that only someone pursuing a narrow definition of intelligence (for which consensus does not exist in RS) would remove such a tag. I don't know enough of the history of this on Wikipedia to say if removing this tag was probably a deliberate POV move or not. Simply that it creates POV, whatever the intention. If it's the fifth time this has happened, it might be worth bringing in an uninvolved admin to take a look.VsevolodKrolikov (talk) 04:48, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

Actually it's the ninth time he's removed it. Just now he removed it from six articles at once, and before he removed it from three of them. What he's done five times is remove the link to this article from the template.

Unfortunately, I and the rest of the people involved in this dispute haven't been able to get uninvolved admins to pay attention to this, though you can certainly try yourself if you want. Otherwise, an arbitrator suggested starting an RFC/U, so I'll likely try that soon. You can participate there too, if you want.-SightWatcher (talk) 05:18, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

Is it just this one user doing this, or are there two camps? VsevolodKrolikov (talk) 05:41, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

It's just WeijiBaikeBianji doing it, and at least three editors have been reverting him.-SightWatcher (talk) 05:47, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

I see. I've reverted all but Nations and intelligence, as that seems to be a problematic article anyway; the talk page reads like an AfD. How often has WBB been doing this (i.e. over what period of time)? Slow edit wars are actionable if a persistent pattern of behaviour can be established. The edit summary grounds for removal at Neuroscience and intelligence look notably pointy and pushy: only articles which are 100% exclusively about human intelligence should, the story goes, have the template. What is the ideological reasoning behind these reverts? Is it a particular school or author that motivates them? The removal at Flynn Effect seems bizarre, unless it's someone trying to cover up well-established issues with intergenerational and cross-cultural IQ testing. VsevolodKrolikov (talk) 05:57, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

WBB has a history[22][23] of erratic editing like this.--Victor Chmara (talk) 09:19, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

I think the template should be in all thoise articles - except maybe the one on genius and the one on creativity.·Maunus·ƛ· 12:24, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

Agreed--it should be included in those articles except the ones on genius and creativity.--Victor Chmara (talk) 14:35, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for opening discussion. Let's all assume good faith here and remember the Wikipedia rules about discussing edits rather than the editors who post them. Please note that my edits are not based on a position that no article among these several articles with more or less close topical relationship should have a shared navigation template. Rather, the edits are based on a concern that several of these articles have just come out of an Arbitration Committee case in which there were specific findings of POV-pushing (by editors now topic-banned) and edit-warring. I think some of the articles are hardly in shape today to be prominently linked by other articles (although appropriate in-text wikilinks may be helpful to readers). Moreover, the topic relationship has yet to be defined for the template. Is Creativity really a subject that the professional literature links to Race and intelligence, or are these two topics too remote from each other to belong on the same navigation template? The template was originally added to several articles at once by a bold edit preceding any consensus, and I am similarly boldly editing to determine what the sourced consensus is. Let's continue to discuss. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk, how I edit) 12:59, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

Creativity testing comes out of intelligence testing (and the concept of creativity out of genius), and the debate over creativity's relationship to intelligence (part of? a product of? the super category for? the same thing as?) continues - but to say categorically that it is not part of human intelligence is to insist on taking a narrow view of what human intelligence is (i.e. solely that which is measured by contemporary IQ tests), and to claim that that narrow form includes no meaningful creative thinking component. I am not saying that that narrow view is not correct, or the most reasonable. I am saying that the RS does not support that view as being consensus by any stretch of the imagination. The same goes for the inclusion of genius in the discussion of human intelligence. It is better, encyclopedically, to have a more inclusive definition of human intelligence, and have articles that explain the relationship better, including the disputes. I have a genuinely disinterested view of the debate about intelligence and creativity, but to divorce the two would seriously misrepresent the RS.VsevolodKrolikov (talk) 14:40, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

I know that e.g. Robert Sternberg sees creativity as a central and overlooked part of intelligence, I am not sure about genius - it can mean several different things and I guess it depends on how the concept is treated. I wouldn't remove the intelligence template from either of those articles unless there is a general consensus to do so. I agree that being inclusive is a better approach.·Maunus·ƛ· 03:15, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

Oh, and I think its a good idea to focus on edits rather than editors. Weiji hsn't done anything out of protocol here. BRD applies.·Maunus·ƛ· 04:08, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

(posted after edit conflict from rapid replies above) I appreciate VsevolodKrolikov bringing up what the sources say, which is always something we should consider as we edit Wikipedia. For quite a while [24] [25] I have been letting other editors know I think, based on the sources, that some of the article titles related to this topic are not the best match for the articles, that some of the terminology within the articles needs to be clarified whether or not a particular article title changes, and that the full breadth of professional literature on the topics has to be represented in the sourcing of the articles connected to the recent Arbitration Committee case. Taking care of those outstanding issues is far from finished. I'm glad that VsevolodKrolikov is identifying a topic (the study of creativity) in which being clear about the definition of the term "intelligence" is helpful for readers of Wikipedia who want to read an encyclopedia article as a guide to the professional literature. Every Wikipedia article ought to be encyclopedic in that sense, and make clear both the concepts and the terminology of professional scholars on the topic of the article. My friendly suggestion to all the editors here is that we should consider whether the term "intelligence" in many of the articles, and in the template under discussion, may have both narrower and broader definitions, which if distinguished would answer questions about how topics relate to "intelligence," and thus how articles relate to one another. I have more than once [26] [27] suggested that preexisting specialty encyclopedias on psychology or social science or relate subjects (there are several encyclopedias like these) can be good sources for sorting out terminological issues like this. Let's discuss what the sources say, and reach a consensus consistent with building an encyclopedia. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk, how I edit) 04:24, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

The sources don't agree. For example, someone like Howard Gardner is lauded by many educationalists, but disliked by others. I would argue that where there is a notable and due advocacy by academic sources of a topic being central to human intelligence broadly defined, it is included in the template. This means that multiple intelligence theory and emotional intelligence would also be included (I see that EQ has been added just recently), even if some people think it's a load of trash. Because this is the problem: a lot of people in the broad area think that a lot of other people in the broad area are writing varying degrees of trash, while their own allies doing methodologically trashy work tend to be given a free pass. We should provide the best possible opportunity to the user to find out about these disputes, rather than ring fence it.VsevolodKrolikov (talk) 14:44, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

WeijiBaikeBianji is still edit warring over the template. Earlier today he removed it from Evolution of human intelligence, [28], and also removed the link to this article from the template for the sixth time. [29] And he did this without responding to anyone here about the problems with continuing to remove it from articles. And he never addressed the points on the Sociobiology talk either, about why he shouldn't remove the links to R&I everywhere. Woodsrock has reverted him again, I see.

This rationale seems really weird to me. The reason he's giving both for removing the template from articles and for removing the link to this article from the template is because the race and intelligence article is "hardly in shape today to be prominently linked by other articles." If there's something wrong with the R&I article (which is just his own view to begin with) he should try to fix it instead of removing all of the links to R&I so that fewer people will come across it. The policy for problems on articles is to WP:SOFIXIT, not WP:SOHIDEIT. Since I've been watching this article he hasn't made much effort to improve it or suggest specific improvements to other editors, so at the moment it looks like Weiji's problem with R&I is simply WP:JUSTDONTLIKEIT.

To Krolikov- WeijiBaikeBianji has been removing the template and removing the link from the template for around a month. Based on his persistence with this, and his apparent indifference to the disagreement of other editors, I think this definitely can be considered edit warring.-SightWatcher (talk) 01:46, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

FWIW my preference would be to use an inclusive criterion in attaching the template. It's only a template, only there to help readers navigate. It shouldn't be taken, by us or by readers, to imply that we think that a topic is intelligence. It only implies that it, or some aspects of it, could fall in the general area. Either that, or we don't have a template due to the risk of people being drawn into time-consuming edit warring over it. Itsmejudith (talk) 10:06, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

What is the rationale for this navigation template being a top template rather than a bottom template? -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk, how I edit) 00:15, 21 November 2010 (UTC)

I'd prefer to see it at the bottom, and the headings in it could probably be reviewed. Itsmejudith (talk) 00:23, 21 November 2010 (UTC)

I don't know if there's policy on this, but I prefer things like this at the top. It encourages exploration of the topic, which is part of any general encyclopedia's mission. I don't see it as at all intrusive. VsevolodKrolikov (talk) 01:03, 21 November 2010 (UTC)

High IQ of Han Chinese due to separate evolution from the rest of humanity

I'm proposing that this article be updated with information pertaining to the separate evolutionary history of Han Chinese be included to explain the difference in East Asian anatomical brain structure resulting in differences in East Asian IQ scores when compared to other subspecies (aka. races) of the species Homo Sapiens Sapiens which includes Europeans, Middle Easterners, Africans and virtually everyone else except the Han Chinese. East Asia is heavily represented by the Han Chinese as they are the modern day Homo Erectus Pekinensis species with the largest population size close to 2.5 billion people.

Read these sources first:

1.) New Scientist Chinese evolved separately from rest of humanity

2.) Chinese Hominid Challenges Out-of-Africa Origin of Modern Man

3.) Chinese challenge to out-of-Africa theory

In case some critics are trying to dismiss this proposal, this is NOT some kind of fringe alternative belief, this scientific theory (not hypothesis) is based on numerous fossil and genetic evidence. Please take note that everything stated is supported by scientific studies that were published in peer reviewed scientific journals such as Oxford University's Oxford Journals, the Genetics Society of America's Genetics Journal, the BMC Biology Journal of Biology

1.) Genetics Society of America's Genetics Journal, "Testing for Archaic Hominin Admixture on the X Chromosome: Model Likelihoods for the Modern Human RRM2P4 Region From Summaries of Genealogical Topology Under the Structured Coalescent" by Murray P. Cox, Fernando L. Mendez, Tatiana M. Karafet, Maya Metni Pilkington, Sarah B. Kingan, Giovanni Destro-Bisol, Beverly I. Strassmann and Michael F. Hammer.

2.) Oxford University's Oxford Journals, Evidence for Archaic Asian Ancestry on the Human X Chromosome by Daniel Garrigan, Zahra Mobasher, Tesa Severson, Jason A. Wilder and Michael F. Hammer

3.) Oxford University's Oxford Journals Global Patterns of Human DNA Sequence Variation in a 10-kb Region on Chromosome 1 by Ning Yu, Z. Zhao, Y.-X. Fu, N. Sambuughin, M. Ramsay, T. Jenkins, E. Leskinen, L. Patthy, L. B. Jorde, T. Kuromori and W.-H. Li

4.) BMC Biology Journal of Biology "Y chromosome evidence of earliest modern human settlement in East Asia and multiple origins of Tibetan and Japanese populations" by Shi H, Zhong H, Peng Y, Dong YL, Qi XB, Zhang F, Liu LF, Tan SJ, Ma RZ, Xiao CJ, Wells RS, Jin L, Su B.

5.) National Geographic Society Peking Man (Homo Pekinensis) Lived in China 200,000 Years Earlier Than Previously Thought

6.) http://www.springerlink.com/content/26m138v171861478/fulltext.pdf

The previous "out of Africa" model is only partial correct, while evidence shows there was indeed an out of Africa migration of Homo Sapiens, it does NOT mean that all humans are descended from this small population of Homo Sapiens. In Europe, the archaic humans, Homo Neanderthalensis, existed independently and interbred with these African Homo Sapiens resulting in the 1%-4% genetic admixture of all non-Africans. And in the case of the Han Chinese, numerous scientific studies have been published showing both genetic and fossil evidence that the modern Han Chinese people possess a different nucleotide encoding in their DNA, which in simplest terms means the Han Chinese have genes and other DNA fragments which they inherited from their Homo Erectus Pekinensis ancestor. Additionally, fossil evidence unearthed at the Zhoukoudian archaeological site have shown Homo Pekinensis fossils to have a continuity of anatomical and morphological traits with many modern Han Chinese people. All of the archaic East Asian Homo Pekinensis and Homo Erectus fossils studied have shown a continuity of unique morphological and anatomical traits, such as flattened faces, small frontal sinuses, reduced posterior teeth, shovel-shaped incisors, and high frequencies of metopic sutures, which are virtually absent in modern day European, Middle Eastern, and African populations but widely present in the modern population of the Han Chinese.

98.122.69.172 (talk) 07:27, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

This theory has been discredited for a while now even in China, see Homo erectus pekinensis. There may have been a little interbreeding with earlier humans like there was with neanderthals in Europe but there is no real evidence of that to an appreciable extent. Anyway the evidence is homo erectus died out long long before homo sapiens arose so it woulddifference have to be some later species if any and would probably have to be as close as the neanderthals for interbreeding to have any success. Dmcq (talk) 11:34, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps I can put it in a more easily got way. There is less difference between Chinese and European people than there is between different tribes in Nigeria and the differences between the lot are quite tiny. Dmcq (talk) 14:42, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

To Dmcq, you are wrong, there is more similarity between Europeans, Indo-Europeans, Middle Easterners and Africans due to the fact that the majority of the humans living on Planet Earth today are descended from the same small group of African Homo Sapiens Sapiens that migrated out of Africa some 100,000 years ago while the Han Chinese are descended from a separate group of archaic humans (aka. Homo Erectus Pekinensis) that lived near what is now Beijing about 2 million years ago. Once the Homo Sapiens left Africa they interbreed with Homo Neanderthalensis to the point where today all modern Non-African humans possess up to around 70 unique genes in their DNA showing that the African Homo Sapiens did interbreed with another separate species of European archaic humans known as the Neanderthals (Homo Neanderthalensis. The Han Chinese are the exception because they are NOT descended from the same African Homo Sapien stock of humans that the rest of humanity are descended from, but rather are descended directly from Homo Erectus Pekinensis. This is proven by both fossil and genetic evidence such as many unique genes possessed only by Han Chinese and no one else and the fact that modern day Han Chinese people still possess numerous identical anatomical morphological traits such as shovel shaped incisors and cranial shape which are traits that are unique to the Han Chinese and the other East Asian people's whom received some genetic donation from the Han Chinese. It well known that no other population of humans possess shovel shaped incisors, this was trait that is markedly visible in most of the Homo Erectus Pekinensis skulls that have been found dating back almost 2 millions in China's history. The scientific studies listed above have ALL been published in peer reviewed scientific journals such as Oxford University's Oxford Journals 98.122.103.183 (talk) 09:08, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

Drawing any connection between these articles and the topic of this article would appear (on its face) to be original research. Professor marginalia (talk) 16:20, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

NO, that would be incorrect given the fact that numerous scientific studies showing evidence that modern Han Chinese possess unique genes in their DNA and a continuation of anatomical morphological traits such as cranial shape and shovel shaped incisors which are the result of a direct evolutionary lineage with the prehistoric archaic Chinese people known as Homo Erectus Pekinensis. These evolutionary differences and the difference in brain structure and the cranium inherited from Homo Erectus Pekinensis combined with many millenia of natural selection and culturally based artificial selection in the form of warfare, fierce competition in ancient Chinese civil service examinations, practice of Confucius based polygamy all the way up into the 20th century resulted in the huge population explosion of the Han Chinese and the evolution and propagation of superior intelligence as subsequently measured on IQ tests. All of the research showing evidence of a separate Han Chinese evolution have been recognized by the academic community and published in peer reviewed scientific journals such as Oxford University's Oxford Journals and other prestigious scientific journals. So this absolutely is NOT so-called "original research," that is just some people's way of trying to use "Wikipedia tools" to suppress this information which in turn would amount to POV pushing as well as a violation of Wikipedia's policy of Freedom of Speech and Freedom of Press. A word of note, if you go to either the communist People's Republic of China (PRC) or the democratic island country Republic of China (Taiwan), you will see that the official education system of both these two countries officially teach their students that the ancestor of the modern day Han Chinese is the indigenous prehistoric archaic Chinese Homo Erectus Pekinensis and NOT African Homo Sapiens Sapiens like the rest of humanity. 98.122.103.183 (talk) 09:08, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

Haven't you actually read any of your sources rather than just the headlines?, none of them actually supports what you say. Some reliable sources about them teaching that idea would be good. I'd heard there were some Chinese equivalents of creationists pushing that and I think it would make a good article. I've reduced the size of the title again as it was overlong. Dmcq (talk) 09:28, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

The sources I listed above are all published in peer reviewed scientific journals. Just to give you an example, read the

Oxford University's Oxford Journals, Evidence for Archaic Asian Ancestry on the Human X Chromosome by Daniel Garrigan, Zahra Mobasher, Tesa Severson, Jason A. Wilder and Michael F. Hammer

as it provides genetic evidence showing, at the very least, that East Asians possess unique DNA inherited from their archaic Homo Erectus Pekinensis ancestor. If we are to believe the politically correct propaganda that the Han Chinese are supposedly descended from African Homo Sapiens like everyone else then all humans would have the same DNA as the Han Chinese. But that is NOT the case, numerous scientific studies and the above listed is one of them shows that the Han Chinese do indisputably possess different DNA than the rest of humanity providing evidence of a separate evolution from Homo Erectus Pekinensis. And NO, the Han Chinese people are NOT creationists, the majority of them are NOT even Christian. This separate evolution is just a historical fact that is taught to the Han Chinese students and people in both the People's Republic of China (PRC) and the Republic of China (Taiwan). Whereas in contrast, the academics in the USA and other European countries tend to subscribe to a more politically correct but scientifically incorrect view that all humans are descended from the same small group of Homo Sapiens Sapiens that migrated out of Africa 100,000 years ago. They want to believe the fallacy that all humans have a common ancestor which is true for the majority of humans except for the undeniable fact that the fossil and genetic evidence shows that the Han Chinese are the exception due to the genetic and fossil evidence shows that they are descended directly from Homo Erectus Pekinensis. 98.122.103.183 (talk) 09:48, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

This should be covered in Multiregional origin of modern humans, but that article is tagged as in need of expert attention. I have posted on WP:FTN to help recruit an expert. Itsmejudith (talk) 09:38, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

Just so you know, as an anthropologist and university professor I am an expert in this field. 98.122.103.183 (talk) 09:53, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

Just so everyone else knows, this is clearly a blocked user (see here and here). I've put a note on the admin who blocked him the last two times asking if he can follow up with another block.VsevolodKrolikov (talk) 09:57, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

To VsevolodKrolikov, I am NOT a blocked user! You are just trying to use that excuse to try and suppress the information and scientific papers that I have presented showing a separate evolution of the Han Chinese. You know very well that the scientific documents I present show that East Asians and Han Chinese have different DNA than African descended humans such as Europeans, Middle Easterners and others, so you resort to some lame personal attack on me by trying to block me. I can assure you any block will have no effect on me whatsoever. This information is here to improve the article by showing how the separate evolution of the Han Chinese resulted in the current superior intelligence level of East Asians as measured on modern IQ tests.

Keep in mind Freedom of Speech and Freedom of Press apply here on Wikipedia, NOT "political correctness!" —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.122.103.183 (talk) 10:05, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

Uh, no they don't. This is a privately owned website, so you need to keep in mind that you can lose the privilege to edit here if you abuse it.— Dædαlus^{+ Contribs} 10:50, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

OK. I'll be the one to call it. This really looks like WP:FRINGE, and should be treated as such. HiLo48 (talk) 10:23, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

To HiLo48, did you even read the scientific papers I listed above? They are published in peer reviewed scientific journals and are legitimate in every way. They are NOT "fringe" or "alternative" at the very most they are simply just not politically correct. You simply just don't like the fact that the Han Chinese evolved separately from a different species of human beings and you want to continue believing the "politically correct" imaginary fallacy that the Han Chinese are descended from same African Homo Sapien ancestors as the rest of humanity when the scientific papers show otherwise...kindly read the scientific papers. 98.122.103.183 (talk) 10:28, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

You have no idea what I like or don't like, nor, interestingly, do you have any idea about my ancestry. Do be careful what you assume. I am also no fan of PC. Your approach to discussion seems to quickly become dangerously personal. I have read thousands of scientific papers in my life. The samples I have read from those above do not impress me. HiLo48 (talk) 10:44, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

The bit about "Just so you know, as an anthropologist and university professor I am an expert in this field. 98.122.103.183" tells me they're a troll rather than just someone misunderstanding a subject. Dmcq (talk) 13:58, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

Guys, just to be fair, we have to at least give this editor the benefit of the doubt instead of attacking him viciously without first studying the scientific articles the editor listed. I've read them and they do show legitimate genetic evidence that there was some hybridization, at least, with the Peking man and the Homo Sapiens resulting in a modern Chinese population that still retains some genes from the Homo Pekinensis. I say we have to at least give these scientific papers some credence given the fact that they were indeed published, as the editor stated, in some prestigious science journals.

You know, it all boils down to the fact there is still much unknown about human evolution and the interesting theory presented by this professor should be given the same considerations as the other theories of human evolution. 72.215.74.169 (talk) 06:35, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

I did read the citations and I saw nothing like that. At best I saw some typical sensational headlines with questions which were answered in the negative by the text. Give me just one single one where the text says anything like what you say. and I'll have another read. Dmcq (talk) 09:51, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

This topic is most interesting and should be researched more thoroughly, just the mere possibility that the Chinese could be a separate species amazes me as to how evolution works in our world. I think the most compelling genetic evidence that the Han Chinese are a separate species is the fact that only East Asians possess Shovel shaped incisors which I know as fact working in the dental field that only East Asians and possibly the East Asian derivatives like Native American Indians would possess this trait. And the scientific papers listed by the above editor specifically lists the different genes which the Han Chinese inherited from Peking Man that are unique to them only and no other group of humans. I was surprised that the scientific papers got so detailed in naming the exact genes that makes the Han Chinese uniquely different from other Homo Sapiens. The anonymous editor had listed the following scientific papers that specifically details the genes that were inherited by Han Chinese from their Peking Man ancestor, I've gone over and checked the validity of each scientific paper and both the scientific journals that published these papers as well as the academic authors are quite legit and definitely worth researching and looking into to greater degree:

1.) Genetics Society of America's Genetics Journal, "Testing for Archaic Hominin Admixture on the X Chromosome: Model Likelihoods for the Modern Human RRM2P4 Region From Summaries of Genealogical Topology Under the Structured Coalescent" by Murray P. Cox, Fernando L. Mendez, Tatiana M. Karafet, Maya Metni Pilkington, Sarah B. Kingan, Giovanni Destro-Bisol, Beverly I. Strassmann and Michael F. Hammer.

2.) Oxford University's Oxford Journals, Evidence for Archaic Asian Ancestry on the Human X Chromosome by Daniel Garrigan, Zahra Mobasher, Tesa Severson, Jason A. Wilder and Michael F. Hammer

3.) Oxford University's Oxford Journals Global Patterns of Human DNA Sequence Variation in a 10-kb Region on Chromosome 1 by Ning Yu, Z. Zhao, Y.-X. Fu, N. Sambuughin, M. Ramsay, T. Jenkins, E. Leskinen, L. Patthy, L. B. Jorde, T. Kuromori and W.-H. Li

4.) BMC Biology Journal of Biology "Y chromosome evidence of earliest modern human settlement in East Asia and multiple origins of Tibetan and Japanese populations" by Shi H, Zhong H, Peng Y, Dong YL, Qi XB, Zhang F, Liu LF, Tan SJ, Ma RZ, Xiao CJ, Wells RS, Jin L, Su B.

68.96.245.221 (talk) 21:34, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

Here is an interesting article about Asian vs Caucasian differences in cognitive information processing of the brain that most definitely would be the result of some genetic difference due to most East Asians inheriting Homo Erectus Pekinensis genes and Caucasians inheriting Homo Sapiens Sapiens genes:

ScienceDaily Asian brain vs. Caucasian brain differences]

68.96.245.221 (talk) 23:01, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

Here are some more scientific sources that show a possible correlation with East Asians (Han Chinese) having the largest brain size possibly due to the separate evolution from Homo Erectus Pekinensis:

1.) Beals, K. L., Smith, C. L., & Dodd, S. M. (1984). Brain size, cranial morphology, climate, and time machines. Current Anthropology 25, 301–330.

2.) Ho, K. C., Roessmann, U., Straumfjord, J. V., & Monroe, G. (1980). Analysis of brain weight: I and II. Archives of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine 104, 635–645. Johnson F. W. & Jensen (1994). Race and sex differences in head size and IQ. Intelligence 18: 309–33

3.) Rushton JP. (1997). Cranial size and IQ in Asian Americans from birth to age seven. Intelligence 25: 7–20.

4.) Rushton JP (1991). Mongoloid-Caucasoid differences in brain size from military samples [and NASA]. Intelligence 15: 351–9.

68.96.245.221 (talk) 23:47, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

A note for everyone here in case it wasn't already known..

There is no right to edit wikipedia. The 1st amendment of the US, or generally, Freedom of Speech applies to government censorship... it in no way applies to the wikimedia foundation, which is privately owned.— Dædαlus^{+ Contribs} 10:50, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

I'm having a hard time believing you're a scientist as you have shown to not be able to understand a very, very simple concept; the rules here apply to everyone, and you have no right to edit here. You also seem to misunderstand what you even write; this encyclopedia is free to read, but you can't say or do whatever you want, and it is by no means an democracy. It doesn't matter what it was founded for. What matters are the rules, and you don't have any right to edit here. Again, I suggest you read WP:FREE, and show us how smart you are by dropping this notion that you can say and do whatever you want here. Again, to make 'doubly' sure you don't miss it, you have no right to edit here, and the rules apply to everyone. WP:NOTFORUM and WP:SOAP are some of the core policies you have been violating today. I suggest you stop. By the way, your disruptive edit warring has been reported.— Dædαlus^{+ Contribs} 11:19, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

I agree with what you're saying Daedalus, and thank you for making it clear, but did you want to remove the shouting from your post? It will be just as clear and more effective. Itsmejudith (talk) 11:37, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

Sure, but we should probably archive this section anyway.. the IP is blocked for 2 days with talk access removed for soapboxing.— Dædαlus^{+ Contribs} 13:00, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

Has something been removed above? Daedalus seems to be talking to himself. Also this thread starts with some pretty whack and obviously false stuff. This article is a train wreck I don't want to be involved with. 72.228.177.92 (talk) 23:48, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

I have very strongly felt that same sentiment about the whole article for some time now, but I can't help myself watching and saying a few words from time to time. Train wrecks are like that. HiLo48 (talk) 00:19, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

It has only become wacky and fringe recently so you can't really say it was obviously false. The out of Africa theory has only really beaten off the opposition since DNA testing has been done and there's still room for a little intermixture as with the Neanderthals. Dmcq (talk) 00:42, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

(Adjusted your indent). Well the part about there being 2.5 billion Han certainly was. Also dunno if it's been noted in re the brain size issue, but Neaderthal actually had a larger brain than modern humans, showing conclusively, in this context anyway size doesn't in and of itself matter. 72.228.177.92 (talk) 01:18, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

I really, really loved the idea that the Chinese civil service exams provided an evolutionary selection mechanism to improve Han IQ. Years of hard study memorising Confucius so they can shag so many women it changes the genetic balance of the whole country. Mad. I've looked for sourcing for this theory, but it's not there. Pity. VsevolodKrolikov (talk) 02:00, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

---

Editors should be aware that the IP (98.122.69.172) is a long term POV pusher who has abused several talk pages and edit warred on various articles. For examples, see 71.68.251.54 and 68.222.236.154. The current discussion was actually removed twice at a time when only the IP had posted, once by me and once by another editor. When I next noticed, the IP had posted a third time and others had responded. My suggestion for the future would be a firm application of revert, block (when necessary), ignore. Johnuniq (talk) 01:15, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

Update for possible future cases: This issue was raised at WP:FTN ("evolved_from_Homo_Erectus_Pekinensis"_claim permalink) and 98.122.103.183 was blocked. Johnuniq (talk) 09:15, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

What are the core issues

There are two and we should stick with them. The first is that some recent paleoanthropological discoveries may support the multiregional hypothesis. Okay, maybe, but we hav enot seen any evidence that this has become a mainstream view. But even so, so what? The multiregional hypothesis was proposed a long time ago and like any paleoanthropological model, it is meant to explain the same data that the out of Arica model explains; these are two readings of the same basic body of evidence meaning evidence all paleoanthropolgists consider valid. Out of Africa versus Multiregional is really a debate about two different ways that speciation can occur. Anyone who does notknow this is too ignorant to discuss these recent discoveries. That's because both the proponents of Ouf of Africa and Multiregional agree that today all humans belong to th same species, H. sapiens sapiens. I know of no serious disagreement about this among anthropologists or evolutionary biologists. It's one species, meaning all members evolved to occupy the same basic niche. The Multiregional Hypothesis does not deny gene transfer among humans across huge distnaces; given that we have evidence for trade between China and Eastern Europe or North Africa for about as long as we have archeological evidence, any argumnt that Han Chinese are genetically isolated from other populations of H. sapiens sapiens bears a tremendous burden of proof. If they really were isolated, would thy not have evolved into a diferent species, rather than the same species? don't Han Chinese mate with sub-Saharan Aricans and bear fertile offspring? Same species, adapted to the same niche ... it is hard to see how this would explain diferences in IQ scores. If we are going to bring up the multiregional hypothesis, at least let's represent it accurately.

Second, is NOR. Even if the anonymous editor is an academic (and of course we have no real evidence for this), then the attempt to bypass the peer-review process by publishing in a major journals like The merican Journal of Physical nthropology or The Journal of Evolutionary Biology and instead try to use a wiki website to publish her novel theories is just shameful. A real academic would simply call our attetion to article published in prestigious peer-reviewed journals that make this argument or that indicate general scholarly acceptance of this view.

In response to PM's question about original research, the anonymous editor writes, "NO, that would be incorrect given the fact that numerous scientific studies showing evidence that modern Han Chinese possess unique genes in their DNA and a continuation of anatomical morphological traits such as cranial shape and shovel shaped incisors which are the result of a direct evolutionary lineage with the prehistoric archaic Chinese people known as Homo Erectus Pekinensis." But this quote is actually evidence that the anonymous editor is indeed violating NOR because she is using some very well-known facts that have NOTHING to do with IQ scores (like shovel shaped incisors) to support some hoeky argument about IQ. It is the worst form of logic, to suggest that because two people are diferent in one way (I have testes, she has ovaries; I have blue eyes, he has brown eyes; I have an epicanthic fold, he dows not - all inherited traits) as evidence that they are different in anothe way (I have a high IQ, she has a low IQ) is silly. All scientists know corelaqtion is not causality, this is axiomatic in the use of statistics in science. What we have here is not just originakl research, but pretty crappy research at that. Slrubenstein | Talk 12:55, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Hi everyone, I've taken an interest in this anonymous editor's posting, but in response to SLrubenstein this anonymous editor did actually post scientific papers that were indeed published in peer reviewed scientific journals. I've taken the liberty to repost the anonymous editor's scientific papers here again just to clarify the confusion, they show genetic evidence showing that modern East Asians (probably "Han Chinese" as this editor puts it) do indeed have some genes, at the very least, inherited directly from the separate archaic human species of Peking Man. Additionally, Slrubenstein mentioned that both the "out of Africa" and "multiregional" model of human evolution states we are all "Homo Sapiens Sapiens" but that is not accurate or entirely true. Take for example the Neaderthals of Europe, they were a separate species of humans who interbred with the Homo Sapiens after they arrived in Europe. There are numerous examples of two separate but evolutionarily related species interbreeding and producing viable offspring. Take for example, a dog and a wolf interbreeding and producing viable offspring. They are both classified as a separate species and yet they can still interbreed. And then the list of interspecies couplings goes on, you have interbreedings between tigers and lions producing ligers, check out this National Geographic video about the liger here:

National Geographic Liger video

Here are the anonymous editor's previous postings:

1.) Genetics Society of America's Genetics Journal, "Testing for Archaic Hominin Admixture on the X Chromosome: Model Likelihoods for the Modern Human RRM2P4 Region From Summaries of Genealogical Topology Under the Structured Coalescent" by Murray P. Cox, Fernando L. Mendez, Tatiana M. Karafet, Maya Metni Pilkington, Sarah B. Kingan, Giovanni Destro-Bisol, Beverly I. Strassmann and Michael F. Hammer.

2.) Oxford University's Oxford Journals, Evidence for Archaic Asian Ancestry on the Human X Chromosome by Daniel Garrigan, Zahra Mobasher, Tesa Severson, Jason A. Wilder and Michael F. Hammer

3.) Oxford University's Oxford Journals Global Patterns of Human DNA Sequence Variation in a 10-kb Region on Chromosome 1 by Ning Yu, Z. Zhao, Y.-X. Fu, N. Sambuughin, M. Ramsay, T. Jenkins, E. Leskinen, L. Patthy, L. B. Jorde, T. Kuromori and W.-H. Li

4.) BMC Biology Journal of Biology "Y chromosome evidence of earliest modern human settlement in East Asia and multiple origins of Tibetan and Japanese populations" by Shi H, Zhong H, Peng Y, Dong YL, Qi XB, Zhang F, Liu LF, Tan SJ, Ma RZ, Xiao CJ, Wells RS, Jin L, Su B.

5.) New Scientist Chinese evolved separately from rest of humanity

6.) Chinese Hominid Challenges Out-of-Africa Origin of Modern Man

7.) Chinese challenge to out-of-Africa theory

68.96.245.221 (talk) 21:19, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

So now we have a second anonymous editor endorsing the views of the first anonymous editor, and adding nothing new. If either of you anonymous editors was to register and show a more global interest in making Wikipedia a better global encyclopaedia, rather than obsessing over this single matter, your credibility would improve. HiLo48 (talk) 21:30, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

This article isn't about the multi-regional hypothesis vs the out of Africa hypothesis. Using these as references to any claims in this article would constitute WP:original research. The idea we can cite a handful of published studies of non-coding genes to imply some connection with race group disparities in IQ scores is a non-starter. This is the kind of inappropriate speculation that wikipedia does not allow cited to primary sources. It's a clear no-no. Professor marginalia (talk) 22:20, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

Hey guys, I just found an interesting article that shows differences in the way East Asians (i.e. Han Chinese) and Caucasians process cognitive information. This most definitely would be the result of the evolutionary differences from East Asians being descended from Homo Erectus Pekinensis or at least inheriting some genes from them as compared to their Caucasian Homo Sapiens Sapiens counterparts.

ScienceDaily Asian brain vs Caucasian brain differences

68.96.245.221 (talk) 23:01, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

A science magazine. The PhD student who conducted the study, not into how people process cognitive information but into how they scan faces, said it could be due to biological or cultural factors. I.e. it could be due to anything. Not one word about the multiregional hypothesis. Itsmejudith (talk) 23:09, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

(ec)@IP:No, it doesn't. Focus on secondary references that speak directly to this topic, exactly. They need to say it...we don't allow sources to be used on wikipedia as mere springboards to share our own conjectures in the articles. Professor marginalia (talk) 23:09, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

And by the way domestic dogs and wolves are classified as in the same species. Domestic dogs are just wolves that have been selectively bred for a long time. Dmcq (talk) 23:16, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

Hi guys, well the sciencedaily article show's difference in the way Asians and Caucasians scan faces. Scanning faces with eyes is coordinated by certain areas in the cerebral cortex of the brain, so these differences in behaviors are the result of some structural difference in the brain that makes the Asian brain different from Caucasian brain. And as for the dogs and wolves, I am well aware that all dogs are descended from the same ancestral wolf ancestor, but it used to be that the wolf and dogs were classified by biologists as two separate species, they only recently changed the "classification" which just shows you how accurate they really are. And by the way did you see the National Geographic video of the half lion half tiger hybrid....Liger? Watch the video and see for yourself, lions and tigers are confirmed to be two separate species and yet they can still interbreed. So even if Han Chinese are Homo Erectus Pekinensis and other humans are Homo Sapiens Sapiens both human species can still interbreed, as a matter of fact if a pure blooded Homo Neanderthalensis was still around any human could still interbreed with them without any problems despite all three types of humans being separate species. 68.96.245.221 (talk) 23:34, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

Here are some more sources showing that East Asians (i.e. Han Chinese) have larger brain size than other groups of humans, we can possibly speculate that this difference brain size may be attributed to the separate evolution of East Asians (i.e. Han Chinese) from Homo Erectus Pekinensis. Otherwise, if the East Asians are descended from the same Homo Sapiens Sapiens ancestors as everyone else they would have similar brain sizes with everyone else. But that's not the case, their brain sizes actually measure to be the largest of all humans which suggests to me some evolutionary difference in the way they were bred, whatever natural selection or artificial selective pressure caused them to evolve larger brain size has still not been established but remains to seen. Here are the sources:

1.) Beals, K. L., Smith, C. L., & Dodd, S. M. (1984). Brain size, cranial morphology, climate, and time machines. Current Anthropology 25, 301–330.

2.) Ho, K. C., Roessmann, U., Straumfjord, J. V., & Monroe, G. (1980). Analysis of brain weight: I and II. Archives of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine 104, 635–645. Johnson F. W. & Jensen (1994). Race and sex differences in head size and IQ. Intelligence 18: 309–33

3.) Rushton JP. (1997). Cranial size and IQ in Asian Americans from birth to age seven. Intelligence 25: 7–20.

4.) Rushton JP (1991). Mongoloid-Caucasoid differences in brain size from military samples [and NASA]. Intelligence 15: 351–9.

68.96.245.221 (talk) 23:47, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

This has been explained several times, and I've left a message on your talk page. But if you want this collapse reversed, I will close the discussion again by spelling it out here as directly as I can. You cannot use these kinds of references in this manner to source anything in this article. At all. We are merely editors here. We don't share our hypotheses born of tantalizing but extremely preliminary research studies. We don't supply new conclusions that are not directly made in the sources themselves. We cannot line up an assortment of different sources, put them together, and draw new conclusions with them. We are not going to talk about how these ideas might be true here, or how these sources might lend support to them. Unless you have a solid relevant authoritative secondary source that says that "Chinese have higher IQ scores because they inherited a unique myo gene from homo erectus in Asia" you absolutely cannot add it to the article, nor can the talk page be used to entertain a debate about such a wild conjecture. And I warn you that this is only the bare minimum, just one hurdle. Your analysis of these handful of studies is far too premature to be given serious consideration here. That's all there is to it. Professor marginalia (talk) 00:30, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

Well, do you not consider that the scientific studies showing the East Asian (Han Chinese) inheriting unique DNA to be quite compelling? It is undeniable that some East Asians have unique DNA inherited from Homo Erectus Pekinensis and the scientific papers posted by the above editor are legit.68.96.245.221 (talk) 00:43, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

Doesn't matter if you, I, or any other editor thinks it's "compelling". That's the point. Stick to what the authors say only. And none of them you've cited address this topic. Professor marginalia (talk) 00:47, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

68.96... - Compelling is the wrong word. Like a lot of other scientific work, I find the study of interest, but as Professor marginalia says, there is nothing in that work that is ready yet for publication in Wikipedia. Wikipedia doesn't work that way. Nor does it appear to be relevant to this article. HiLo48 (talk) 00:51, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

Actually, both the sources "Evidence for Archaic Asian Ancestry on the Human X Chromosome" and "Testing for Archaic Hominin Admixture on the X Chromosome: Model Likelihoods for the Modern Human RRM2P4 Region" have been previously published in highly respected peer reviewed scientific publications, respectively Oxford University's Oxford Journals and Genetics Society of America's Genetics Journal. The fact these scientific studies have been published in these prestigious journals qualifies them for wikipedia. If those sources had not been published in these scientific journals I would've said otherwise. But it's undeniable that these studies do indeed show quite convincing evidence that the East Asians (Han Chinese) have different DNA than the rest of us Homo Sapiens. 68.96.245.221 (talk) 00:59, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

What is the topic of this article? What do you think the article about? Professor marginalia (talk) 01:26, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

The professor is right. This stuff, while interesting, is irrelevant to this article. And, publication does not turn primary sources into secondary sources. An article in Nature, or something similar, might, but that still won't make it relevant. HiLo48 (talk) 01:29, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

The second anonymous user is just spamming. And lying. She writes that "That's because both the proponents of Ouf of Africa and Multiregional agree that today all humans belong to the same species, H. sapiens sapiens." She says I am wrong and brings of H s. neanderthalensis as proof. But wait ... is this person seriously suggesting that H.s.n. are alive today? Advocates of both hypothesies acknowledge the former existence of Neanderthals, but so what? My point is that both acknowledge that everyone today belongs to the same species. She then mentions that wolves and dogs canmate and have viable ofspring - so? is she comparing Chinese to wolves and everyone else to dogs? This is absurd and misses the point entirely: the cited articles are using genetic data to support the MRH. Fine. But that doesn't mean that Han Chinese and others belong to diferent species, nor does it have anything to do with race and intelligence. Slrubenstein | Talk 12:28, 21 December 2010 (UTC)ca s

And the only genetic evidence in those papers of genes outside of those from the most recent spread out of Africa is for the south of Asia, the Andeman Islands and Japan. Not the Han Chinese. Anyway just because all my family and relatives as far as I know are more intelligent than the average Chinese doesn't mean we evolved separately from the rest of mankind. Dmcq (talk) 13:51, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

What qualifies you to say that you have "higher IQ" than the average Han Chinese? Do you have any outstanding accomplishments? When I read more and more about China they are progressing at tremendously fast rate, they built the worlds fastest supercomputer surpassing the USA, they have their manned space program, they've built the fastest and most extensive railway line in the world. Their population size is so large that the number people who have genius level intelligence surpasses anywhere else in the world. Plus, they are educating and producing more Ph.D engineers, scientists and medical doctors than any other country on the face of the earth. This amounts to the highest amount of supremely intelligent people being concentrated in China for sole purpose of making their country a superior global superpower, if you think I'm joking just go read the book "When China rules the world" here is the link:

[30]

And just for the matter of discussion, I'm not Chinese or East Asian. As far as I know, I'm 100% Western European, although I suspect I do have some Eastern European slavic genes from some of my ancestors from Poland. But I admire the history of the Chinese and their accomplishments and ancient history but I'm also proud of what my European culture has produced. And also, another thing I getting the impression that some people coming on this page may have some "racist" beliefs. I've always been a person who respected other people based on both character and achievement, but in the event that some don't have high achievement then in that case I would respect them based upon their good personal character. So if a low achieving homeless person or somebody from a primitive Amazon tribe came up to me, and assuming that they are nice people, I would still respect them because in this situation I can't judge them based on their achievement but rather I have judge them by their personal character. I hope all people reading this will subscribe to a philosophy of NON-RACISM and of course I know that people are not same, that IQ's of different people or different species of humans are NOT same, but that is aside from the point of being a civilised gentile person. You can't go around the world acting like the Waffen SS, stupid Hitler or KKK. Try to be at peace with all people, even if you know that they may have been bred or evolved to have superior genes giving them superior intelligence. I learned a long time ago to just be happy with what I have and with what I can accomplish. Don't go trying to compare yourself to some 12 year old East Asian kid who happens to have an IQ 200 and is already attending the combined MD/Ph.D program in medical school.

Check out the link of this kid Sho Yano:

1.) 12 year old IQ 200 Asian boy genius attends medical school

2.) IQ 200 Asian boy genius recieves Ph.D at 18

3.) Asian boy genius with IQ 200

68.96.245.221 (talk) 22:22, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

@Numerous directly above, agreed, none of this has anything to do with race and intelligence. And, really, how often are we going to revisit brain size, et al.? PЄTЄRS J VЄСRUМВА ►TALK 16:48, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

Brain size has everything to do with intelligence, superior intelligence is the product of both complex neural connections as well as overall cranial size. In simplest terms, provided the individual inherited certain genes, a bigger brain allows more complex neural connections to be formed allowing a higher level of comprehension and cognitive thought processes to occur as compared to someone of a smaller less complex brain.

Watch this video by Chris Langan (IQ 200) "Smartest man in America"

Here is the link:

Chris Langan IQ 200 genius "Smartest Man in America"

68.96.245.221 (talk) 22:22, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

And regarding "And by the way domestic dogs and wolves are classified as in the same species. Domestic dogs are just wolves that have been selectively bred for a long time. Dmcq (talk) 23:16, 20 December 2010 (UTC)", agreed; furthermore, the real relevant point, were one to descend into such argumentation, is that despite the seeming infinite variety in canis lupus familiaris, they are all a single subspecies. That all said, let's at least appear to try to stick to applicable sources which discuss humans. PЄTЄRS J VЄСRUМВА ►TALK 16:59, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

Selective breeding is basically a type of artificial selection. So basically instead of allowing the natural environment of Earth to implement natural selection we humans, in this case Homo Sapiens actively select individual traits to breed (although Neanderthal and Homo Erectus Pekinensis may possibly have domesticated some animals). As the animal is selective bred, it evolves and this evolution is changing it's DNA over time so that after thousands and thousands of generations what was once one single species has now evolved into two separate species. I must remind you that all humans, regardless of whether you are Homo Sapiens or Homo Pekinensis, share a common ancestor with Pan Troglodytes (i.e. Chimpanzees) and Pan Bonobo (i.e. Bonobo) sometime in the prehistoric past around 5-7 million years ago. So if we are to use your reasoning, then would modern Homo Sapiens and Homo Erectus Pekinensis not still be considered to be a selectively bred "Chimpanzee"??? And just reemphasize my original statement that two separate species that have a common evolutionary origin can still interbred, you should watch the video of the alleged half-human half-Chimpanzee hybrid called "Oliver the Humanzee". And of course I know many scientists have tried to explain it away as just a genetically different subspecies of the common chimpanzee, but we must ask the question what if he really is a "Humanzee"?? Here's the link, watch it:

Human-Chimpanzee hybrid Humanzee

68.96.245.221 (talk) 22:22, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

It appears some people are misinterpreting my statements, I mentioned Homo Neanderthanlensis as only a hypothetical example that if they still lived they would be able to interbred fully with Homo Sapiens Sapiens to illustrate the point that the classification system created by Carl Linnaeus is not entirely accurate as to what represents a species because there are always going to be exceptions as the case with the lion and tiger interbreeding to create a liger, which is proven fact as shown in the National Geographic video I posted. And second, humans on this planet have not been "proven" to be the "same species" of Homo Sapiens Sapiens, what simply has happened due to socio-political reasons is that all humans are "assumed" NOT "proven" to be members of the same species, just wishful thinking not reality. Most people want to believe the myth that we are descended from the same species...that we are all the "same". When in fact past history and recent scientific research has shown conclusively that all Non-African Homo Sapiens Sapiens had interbred with Neanderthals, which means that every non-African living today has up to 70 different unique genes inherited from Homo Neanderthalensis, whereas Africans do not. Just the mere fact these two separate human species interbred renders the "out of Africa" model of human evolution inaccurate and incomplete. This suggests the additional possibility that Homo Sapiens Sapiens migrating out of Africa 100,000 years ago may also have interbred with other species of archaic humans like Homo Erectus Pekinensis in China and Homo floresiensis in Indonesia. I am including sources, please read them:

1.) National Geographic Society Homo Sapiens interbred with Homo Neanderthalensis

2.) National Geographic Society DNA proves Homo Sapiens interbred with Homo Neanderthalensis

3.) Daily Mail Homo Sapiens interbred twice with Homo Neanderthalensis

4.) Neanderthal interbred with Humans

68.96.245.221 (talk) 22:22, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

Back to brains for the moment, as it turns out, northern latitude heads are bigger not because northern people needed to be smarter but because larger heads simply better protected the brain against heat loss. Your contributions here illustrate the problem with taking general statements and applying them to specific circumstances. At this point we are just talking at each other and not focusing on the topic at hand (and any useful tidbits from the conversation above belong at articles other than this one). Perhaps someone can mercifully archive this thread. PЄTЄRS J VЄСRUМВА ►TALK 23:39, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

(restored comment)-I've attempted to close it several times now. The only reason the discussion is open is because the IP is edit warring to keep it here. Professor marginalia (talk) 23:50, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

Removal of tags

I have reinstated the tags removed by Dmcq, on the basis that they are still appropriate in my opinion. The fact that editors don't currently seem to have te time to finish addressing these concerns should not be taken for an implicit admission that the issue has been resolved. In my opinion, the issues are still very much there; however I, for one, cannot presently devote the energy necessary to work on them at the moment. If Dmcq disagrees, I would suggest he should set up a straw poll among editors. If after a reasonable amount of time the consensus of editors is in favor of removing the tags, I wll gladly bend to the will of the consensus. But I believe it necessary to gather the opinions of other editors first. Thanks.--Ramdrake (talk) 20:32, 28 November 2010 (UTC)

I questioned those tags a few weeks ago[31], and the two editors who replied essentially said that the tags are there to encourage people to make the article better. I don't think that alone can be a rationale for including the tags. Furthermore, it is clear that in practise the tags have not encouraged more editors to pay attention to the article.

If people want to keep the tags, they need to articulate the ways in which the article is biased or factually inaccurate. If the reasons for keeping the tags are not explained, no one knows how to work towards removing them, and they can be retained infinitely.

WP:AD suggests that the disputed tag should only be used when the factual accurary of the article is being actively disputed. As this is clearly not the case, the tag should be removed.--Victor Chmara (talk) 21:57, 28 November 2010 (UTC)

Literacy and IQ

The Flynn effect and racial IQ differences could both be an artifact of differences in literacy

David Marks hypothesizes that IQ differences across time, race and nationality are all caused by differences in literacy. Intelligence text performance requires literacy skills not present in all people to the same extent. In eight different analyses mean full scale IQ and literacy scores yielded correlations ranging from .79 to .99. Racial differences in IQ and the Flynn effect can both be explained in a similar way: literacy differences across race and across time could be the cause of both. Racial IQ differences are converging as the literacy skills within two populations become more equal. Thus racial differences have an environmental cause, just like the Flynn effect. Social justice requires more effective implementation of policies and programs designed to eliminate inequities in IQ and literacy.~~David F Marks 12 .5.10~~

Your research seems to have found little support or even interest in the scholarly community so far. WP:SECONDARY requires that claims cited in articles be reported in reliable secondary sources so as to establish notability and avoid misrepresentations. The use of primary sources is discouraged. For this reason, I don't think your findings can be discussed in the article for now.

On the face of it, your thesis sounds implausible for several reasons. For example, racial differences in IQ and the Flynn effect are present in pre-literate children, and on tests that do not require literacy (e.g. Raven's tests, ECTs). Structural equation modeling studies suggest that racial differences between contemporary groups (in the US) and cohort differences have dissimilar causes.--Victor Chmara (talk) 21:55, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

Added Lede Sentences

these are on my talk page in the thread notifying me of the Arbcom involvement in this article. As noted above, I don't want to wade into the mess here, did so inadvertently yesterday, and think I may have been involved a few years ago before it had reached the current level of controversy. I don't believe the excised text is inaccurate or in violation of any wiki policies known to me and do believe that it answers the action requested by the tags in restoring balance to the Lede. That the primary variation in genetics is within and not between groups, that the genetic contribution to intelligence is multi-focal, that there is more human genetic diversity in Africa than anywhere else, etc., are all "obviously" relevant to the phenomenon in question. Lycurgus (talk) 10:40, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

Noting that yes, I am well aware of the difference between genotype and phenotype, and for that matter between genetic and epigenetic characters. Nonetheless for a phenotypic trait to become associated with a physical as distinct from a cultural group it must be based on a difference in the genome. This isn't meant to encourage an immature or banned user but for completeness of my contribution to the important discussion here and so that a random reader will not assume the removed comment had value other than as venom. Lycurgus (talk) 12:32, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

Wait a second buddy. You wanted to edit war to insert this: "That there are differences in intellectual attainment between "racially" distinct populations is not disputed. However the modern scientific conception of "race", which shows that there is more genetic variation within than between race groups, casts doubt on the basis of these results.", which was unsourced, is not relevant to the phenomenon in question, and doesn't even make sense. Please stop trying to cover your ass, your pants are down, and we all saw. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.137.222.37 (talk) 14:20, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

Let me give you an example: "That there are differences in skin color between "racially" distinct populations is not disputed. However the modern scientific conception of "race", which shows that there is more genetic variation within than between race groups, casts doubt on the basis of these results." or "That there are differences in height between "racially" distinct populations is not disputed. However the modern scientific conception of "race", which shows that there is more genetic variation within than between race groups, casts doubt on the basis of these results." See how stupid that sounds? Same logic. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.40.189.197 (talk) 18:28, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

I have tagged the article with Globalize Tag...

I have tagged the article with Globalize Tag due to the primarily American View point. There is no such mention on Chinese Efforts to prove a race and intelligence nor the nazi view points in the historical. The Resident Anthropologist (talk) 00:21, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

Can you provide us with sources? I did not know that the Nazis used Stanford Binet, nor the Chinese. It is hard to make international comparisons when the data is not comparable. But if you know of comparabl data or studies, please, let us know about them. Slrubenstein | Talk 00:26, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

If we can get reliable sources describing any Chinese or Nazi research agendas around this topic, we could add something. The research doesn't have to be comparable with the North American/European research, we just have to have enough to say something meaningful. It doesn't have to be good research and we don't have to endorse its conclusions. Itsmejudith (talk) 21:50, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

I think the problem is that there is too much on studies in the U.S. where historical negative social and family circumstances (IMHO) are a major factor in poor academic performance, often aligned to groups scoring less well on standardized intelligence tests, much less on studies outside the U.S.. And, as mentioned, international studies are not necessarily comparable to U.S. ones. The article should be more than Debate over race and intelligence in the United States. Or maybe we actually do need to split off such an article--that might actually improve it; meanwhile a more "global" view could focus on comparative analysis of U.S. and international studies. Thinking out loud, again. PЄTЄRS J VЄСRUМВА ►TALK 23:49, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

The only problem with splitting off Debate over race and intelligence in the United States is that protagonists come from the UK as well as the USA. Probably also Canada too. Itsmejudith (talk) 00:26, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

Stop the Han Chinese edit warring

It is inappropriate and in violation of Wikipedia policies to keep edit warring like this and to keep trying to advocate a position or promote fringe theories using the encyclopedia. This text dump is also a violation of our talk page policy.

IP editor - this is not OK, and you need to stop doing this. Period.

I have blocked the latest IP address doing this for 48 hrs.

If you keep this up we will block further IP addresses if necessary, for longer periods of time if necessary, and in extremis can protect the page from editing by anonymous users.

You must abide by Wikipedia policy and attempt to get along with other editors here. This is not optional.

Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 02:23, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

I think I will add that I have this page (and others like it) on my watchlist and will instantly revert any re-additions of the material that I see. So, basic message, don't waste your time. HiLo48 (talk) 02:30, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

Additional note:

I am imposing a warning under the Standard Discretionary Sanctions finding of the Race and intelligence arbcom case against the IP editor who keeps adding this "Han Chinese" material.

For more details on the discretionary sanctions, see: Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee/Discretionary sanctions

To quote from that:

Authorization

Any uninvolved administrator may, on his or her own discretion, impose sanctions on any editor working on an article within the area of conflict (or for whom discretionary sanctions have otherwise been authorized) if, despite being warned, that editor repeatedly or seriously fails to adhere to the purpose of Wikipedia, any expected standards of behavior, or any normal editorial process. The sanctions imposed may include blocks of up to one year in length; bans from editing any page or set of pages within the area of conflict; bans on any editing related to a topic within the area of conflict or its closely related topics; restrictions on reverts or other specified behaviors; or any other measures which the imposing administrator believes are reasonably necessary to ensure the smooth functioning of the project.

I will be notifying the IP addresses on their respective talk pages as well.

Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 02:59, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

I think someone should look at this sequence of edits. [32] [33] [34] [35] [36] Slrubenstein, Professor Marginalia and Snowded worked together to remove this editor’s comments from the talk page, even though he wasn’t making personal attacks, and the SPI about him determined that he isn’t a sockpuppet. They weren’t archiving his posts, like was done with the Han Chinese material, they were just removing them. Then Professor Marginalia reported BT35 at the edit warring noticeboard, causing BT35 to be blocked for two days.

BT35 shouldn’t have editwarred to add his comments back when other editors were removing them, but I’m also concerned about the removing. Is it acceptable to cooperatively revert a new editor’s comments on an article talk page if it’s been determined that the new editor isn’t a sockpuppet, and the comments being removed don’t violate any policies? This looks like it goes against the principle WP:DONTBITE.Boothello (talk) 23:37, 31 December 2010 (UTC)

This article is Race and intelligence, not Race (classification of humans). Also if you want to complain about something like that WP:AN/I is the place to go. Dmcq (talk) 01:54, 1 January 2011 (UTC).

Straw Polls

Well lets just have a straw poll to see how much the article has come towards being neutral and accurate. I'd like to be able to copy over much of the leader to another article and put a link from there here but there's not much point if there are major problems here. There are two tags which haven't been discussed for a while but another editor wants kept until this is thrashed out - viz neutrality and factual accuracy.--Dmcq

Do you believe that the NPOV tags are still relevant now? Also how would the article have become any more neutral than when the tags were placed without anyone having done any editing of it? Whenever someone has tried to make any edits they have promptly been reverted by the other editors who disagreed and after a fruitless discussion everyone has resigned to status quo. This is simply the kind of article that is highly unlikely to ever make it to a sufficiently neutral state to no longer require the tags.·Maunus·ƛ· 01:44, 29 November 2010 (UTC)

Neutral point of view?

Do you think the article is reasonably neutral overall? Are there particular sections which you feel are not neutral?

Nope. 1. the history section doesn't actually provide a history of the issue - it only lists the most prominent pro-hereditarian publications and authors. It doesn't show that there has been a debate about the issue since the first reports of the gap.

2. the current debate section again summarises mostly the hereditarian arguments. It gives a laundry list of studies critiquing the bell curve but does not summarise the arguments other than mention the rather trivial peer review argument. It then spends the rest of the section summarising Rushton and Jensen and Lynn and Vanhanen. It mentions "ethical guidelines" but doesn't mention why many people think the research is unethical. The section in short is focused on presenting hereditarian viewpoints and arguments and only mentions that there are opposing viewpoints with out actually presenting them.

3. the grouop difference section presents an unproblematized list of what is largely accepted about IQ. It doesn't mention any of the problems that are often pointed out for some of these statements - e.g. "IQ is heritable" it doesn't say how much so and what that means, IQ predicts performance without regards to SES or racial background (perhaps because western education is based on IQ type tasks). In the test scores section it baldy states that self report has been shown to match up with racial/genetic clustering. This is based on very few studies and it is commonly contradicted as nonsense - since there is as much genetic variability inside of any racial group as there is without. It states that G-loaded tests show the highest gap - Nisbett criticizes this assumption stating that it is only partly true and that the gap diminishes for some highly g-loaded tests. It gives Rushton and Lynns estimated IQ numbers without mentioning that they have been severly criticized for being based on selective sampling and bad math. The views on research section mixes different statements together almost randomly. Completely incoherent, but with ample quitation space especially to hereditarians like Linda Gotfredson. It always gives the last word to the hereditarian pov. The section debate overview has been extensively criticized above from both sides of the argument.

4. the policy relevance section uncritically states the hereditarian counter claim without even providing any of the criticisms that they are responding to - it basically amounts to saying "Rushton and Jensen say that affirmative action is worse than what they are doing". All in all the article is clearly biased towards the hereditarian viewpoint and completely fails to give an adequate account of the many important arguments against it, it also fails to adequately put the topic into a social and historical context - which of course has to include an account of the social circumstances that lead the topic to become controversial - namely the context of institutionalized racial discrimintation in the US through out the 20th century. ·Maunus·ƛ· 22:24, 28 November 2010 (UTC)

Well, that was a mouthful. You should probably start separate discussions about some of those issues. And please use paragraph breaks! At this point, I will just point out that the correspondence between self-reported race/ethnicity and genetic clusters in America has been replicated a number of times, and is uncontroversial, whereas the idea that "there is as much genetic variability inside of any racial group as there is without" is known as Lewontin's Fallacy.--Victor Chmara (talk) 22:40, 28 November 2010 (UTC)

Its not like I haven't mentioned this before. Also please don't tout that Lewontin's fallacy thing at me. This is no more of a fallacy than it is still mentioned in genetics handbooks as a fact (e.g. Vogel and Motulsky) - Lewontin's fallacy is merely that this doesn't make it impossible make between group comparisons. This doesn't change the point that belief in genetically defined races is a minority viewpoint. Pace A.W.F. Edwards geneticists do not believe in genetically defined races, but in population with seamlessly blending genetic profiles, and in haplogroups which are also not racial groups. Genetic clustering is a statistical artefact it does not change the fact that a person selfidentifying as black can be more genetically similar to a person selfidentifying as white than as another black person. There is no genetic test that positively identify a person with a racial group - particularly not if there has been any influx of genes from a different geographical population in the persons immediate ancestry (including grandparents). (Collins states this in the piece I have brought around here many times now). The idea that selfidentified race tells us much about a persons genetic make up is wildly problematic and has received tonnes of criticism - e.g. in relation to race in biomedicine. ·Maunus·ƛ· 22:53, 28 November 2010 (UTC)

I have not found support in the current secondary sources for the claim that most scholars agree with Edwards as against Lewontin. Lewontin is cited as a "brilliant" (one source's term) scholar whose results have been repeatedly replicated in numerous current sources. Maybe the "fallacy" is having a whole Wikipedia article on what is very much a minority point of view. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk, how I edit) 23:11, 28 November 2010 (UTC)

The fact that Edwards is right has been empirically verified (in fact, it happened already back in the 1960s), and is completely uncontroversial. From the abstract of the Vogel and Motulsky book (4th ed., 2010) mentioned by Maunus:

Early studies showed that most human genetic variation occurs within populations rather than between them, and that genetically related populations often cluster geographically. Recent studies based on much larger data sets have recapitulated these observations, but have also demonstrated that high-density genotyping allows individuals to be reliably assigned to their population of origin. In fact, for admixed individuals, even the ancestry of particular genomic regions can often be reliably inferred.

On pp. 595-596, they explain how Edwards's argument refutes Lewontin (Maunus quoted this passage in an earlier discussion):

An important point to realize is that Lewontin’s calculation (and later work that confirms his finding) are based on the F-statistics introduced in Sect. 20.2.1 (see for a discussion) averaged across single genetic loci. While it is an undeniable mathematical fact that the amount of genetic variation observed within groups is much larger than the differences among groups, this does not mean that genetic data do not contain discernable information regarding genetic ancestry. In fact, we will see that minute differences in allele frequencies across loci when compounded across the whole of the genome actually contain a great deal of information regarding ancestry. Given current technology, for example, it is feasible to accurately identify individuals from populations that differ by as little as 1% in FST if enough markers are genotyped. (See discussion below for a detailed treatment of the subject.) It is also important to note that when one looks at correlations in allelic variation across loci, self-identified populations and populations inferred for human subjects using genetic data correspond closely.

In The g Factor, Jensen similarly describes genetic racial differences as differences in allele frequencies. The hereditarian approach is therefore 100 percent compatible with the latest genetic knowledge. No one thinks that races are non-overlapping essences, so it's a strawman to argue that. There's much research on the ancestry of black and white Americans, some of it described in the Vogel and Motulsky book: blacks are, on average, 80 percent West African and 20 percent European, while most whites have little to no recent non-European ancestry. In America, genetic tests can apparently predict self-identified race more reliably than self-identified gender! The fact that African Americans have varying amounts of white ancestry is a natural experiment that could be used to test the hereditarian hypothesis -- this is because genetic tests can determine the magnitudes of different ancestry components in admixed individuals (see Rowe & Rodgers [2005] in the article). Also, whether someone who identifies as black can be more genetically similar to someone who identifies as white depends on the amounts of admixture in them.

As to what most scientists in different fields currently think about the reality of race (however defined), I don't think we can say anything too certain about it. Neil Risch, who is probably the most influential population geneticist in the world at the moment, has argued that race is a useful concept in biomedical research. In psychology, even Richard Nisbett, in his recent book that Maunus so loves, says that hereditary intelligence differences between races are entirely possible (even though he argues that such differences don't exist).

Maunus, above you disputed the correspondence between race/ethnicity and genetic clusters, whereas the Vogel and Motulsky book explicitly affirms it. What are you talking about?--Victor Chmara (talk) 01:01, 29 November 2010 (UTC)

I don't know how you derive that conclusion form those quotes. I see this: "While it is an undeniable mathematical fact that the amount of genetic variation observed within groups is much larger than the differences among groups, this does not mean that genetic data do not contain discernable information regarding genetic ancestry." Which is exactly what I said above - ingroup variation is larger than outgroup variation - just like lewontin said - it is his conclusion that this means that genetic groupings based on ancestry cannot be made that is false, as I acknowledged.

I'll quote the relevant sentence again: It is also important to note that when one looks at correlations in allelic variation across loci, self-identified populations and populations inferred for human subjects using genetic data correspond closely. That is, when one considers an individual's genes as an aggregate rather than as isolated entities as Lewontin stupidly does, self-identified categories such as races correspond to genetic clusters. Moreover, as Witherspoon et al. 2007[37] have shown, when one compares a large number of markers at the same time in populations geographically separated in their evolution (e.g. Europeans, East Asians, and sub-Saharan Africans), everyone is genetically closer to every single person in their own population than anyone in the other ones. So on what do you base your assertion that there's no correspondence between self-identified race/ethnicity and genetic clusters?--Victor Chmara (talk) 02:07, 29 November 2010 (UTC)

Now - you know full well that geneticists don't generally work with "races" - Vogel and Motulsky also do not deal with races or racial clusterings - they talk about populations (although some of them believe that what they refer to populations is the same thing - but social scientists know that that is nonsense). Race as a category has a lot of different variables and genetics and geographic origin is only one of them - others are social and cultural in nature. Denying the existience and validity of the humonguous body of research on race is simply stupid. I don't know what data suggests that selfidentified gender is less genetically accurate than self identified race - but untill you provide a number of very reliable quotes for that I will regard it as nonsensical hyperbole. It is very difficult to argue with you when you simply choose to dismiss and disregard the opposition viewpoint. If you were truly interested in a neutral and balanced article you would read the opposing accounts and try to integrate them into the article - currently you are denying that they even exist. As long as that is the case I don't see how the POV tag could ever be removed.·Maunus·ƛ· 01:32, 29 November 2010 (UTC)

More about the Vogel and motulsky quote: What the V& M quote says is basically that genetics is now so advanced that they can pinpoint a persons geographic ancestry very precisely - we could for example tell if a person is likely to have ancestry in belgium. This does not of course mean that belgians are a race. ·Maunus·ƛ· 01:41, 29 November 2010 (UTC)

The claims that the hereditarian IQ & race hypothesis is false because the race concept is meaningless or because genetic variation is clinal or whatever -- these are all pseudo arguments. All you need for the hereditarian hypothesis to work is that there be systematic allele frequency differences between socially identified races. That is indeed the case, and it has long been known. Playing the semantic game about the reality of race is therefore meaningless from the hereditarian perspective, as was pointed out by Jensen a long time ago.

The idea that gender is less genetic than race in America was one result of this large (N=3,636) study[38] (one of whose authors, Hua Tang, was incidentally a coauthor of the "race" article in the Vogel and Motulsky book). Neil Risch mentioned it in this interview[39]: "In a recent study, when we looked at the correlation between genetic structure [based on microsatellite markers] versus self-description [of race/ethnicity--VC], we found 99.9% concordance between the two. We actually had a higher discordance rate between self-reported sex and markers on the X chromosome!" Whether this generalizes to the entire population is unknown (and irrelevant for our purposes), but transsexualism and conditions like AIS suggest that it is possible.--Victor Chmara (talk) 02:47, 29 November 2010 (UTC)

This discussion is too much about the TRUTH, and not enough about WP:V. I agree with Maunus that the article does not express a neutral point of view in the way that it presents the debate. Too much is unchallenged or phrased starkly as to appear as truth. Lewontin's point is not generally considered to have been refuted. What we personally think here should be neither here nor there, except insofar as understanding what each piece of research actually says helps us to edit better.VsevolodKrolikov (talk) 05:46, 29 November 2010 (UTC)

Lewontin's argument about variability is true, but it is a non sequitur to say, as Lewontin did, that race is therefore "of virtually no genetic or taxonomic significance". This is how Richard Dawkins put it in The Ancestor's Tale:

We can all happily agree that human racial classification is of no social value and is positively destructive of social and human relations. That is one reason why I object to ticking boxes in forms and why I object to positive discrimination in job selection. But that doesn't mean that race is of ‘virtually no genetic or taxonomic significance’. This is Edwards's point, and he reasons as follows. However small the racial partition of the total variation may be, if such racial characteristics as there are are highly correlated with other racial characteristics, they are by definition informative, and therefore of taxonomic significance.

--Victor Chmara (talk) 11:37, 29 November 2010 (UTC)

Victor, you neglected to note what Dawkins says before that, and which is absolutely germane to this discussion: Lewontin's view of race has become near universal-orthodoxy in scientific circles. (p. 417) That is what is important for Wikipedia, not what you or I happen to think is the WP:TRUTH. If Dawkins is saying it, and he disagrees with it, it carries a hell of a lot of weight as far as I can see.VsevolodKrolikov (talk) 12:00, 29 November 2010 (UTC)

• No I think the main reason stems from what I'd term the article's "dissociative identity disorder". What is race? What is intelligence? Why would the two be linked as an article topic? Is it currently a real life topic? Is there a current controversy? What positions are there in this controversy? The article's voice, the NPOV "stage" for a topic rife with divisive p.o.v.'s, the mooring in other words, or contextual anchor necessary to help the reader first fix and then relate to the various perspectives, isn't commanding the ship. This is a significant problem, and I don't mean to trivialize it with metaphors. But this topic is of a sort traditional encyclopedias don't touch and wikipedia is venturing into with a "crowd sourced voice". And this voice fails so far focusing simply on giving the reader the basics, a context, outlines and a map. Instead, the undertone is "the hereditarian---right or wrong?" While the reader is treated like an unwitting jury, without the necessary "introduction".

I realize these remarks aren't specific enough to resolve simply and neatly. But the article is being drawn to this hereditarian "view" like a ship a'storm to the craggy rocks. The article needs the dispassionate voice from above the "storm". That's not the same thing as the "anti-heretarian view" but the perch of the "dispassionate observer".

Though I don't think the article is anywhere close to NPOV yet, I don't see much value here in haggling over the article's tags. Tags are (limitedly) useful for soliciting editors to make repairs. On WP they're frequently used like WP-brand "disapprovals" or "disclaimers". I think solicitations should be placed on talk pages--and if the WP community deems article disapproval or disclaimer tags legitimate then WP should call them that. I'm much more amenable if WP encourages readers to "read this but what do we know? here are the sources we see. please do verify!" And at this point, I see the "tag" as having no value whatsoever except like a light switch. Editors acclimate and can fall asleep with it on or off. Flicking it once in awhile might wake them back up temporarily but mainspace should be devoted to keeping readers alert, not editors...imho. And this article, tags or no tags, is not providing service to readers. Professor marginalia (talk) 08:51, 29 November 2010 (UTC)

• The preceding back-and-forth was unproductive because it was premised on the belief that if one could show that "race" was a folk category rather than a natural category that it would be impossible for racial differences to be genetic in origin. That's a view some scientists hold, and other disagree with them. I'll leave it as an exercise to figure out if either group is in the majority. But the problem is that there are yet other scientists who don't care about that argument because either way it doesn't change the answer to the question of whether particular socially identifiable groups of individuals differ in a particular trait on average or the cause of that average difference. Google admixture mapping to find out more. NPOV requires all of those POVs to co-exist in one article. --Cant1lev3r (talk) 06:53, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

I think the article in general, and the lead in particular, are overly polarized, but that the extreme opinions generally all seem to be represented. I don't know whether that makes the article neutral or nonneutral. Warren Dew (talk) 21:59, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

Factually accurate?

Are there parts of this article which are factually inaccurate? Can you point to them? Are they verifiable with citations and yet still reasonably certainly untrue? This is irrespective of any feelings about neutrality.

The main overall problem is undue weight, with the article not reflecting the balance of issues and sources that any textbook or professional's handbook on this issue would show. Many current sources are available to show how the issue is treated in the professional literature. I'll check for article statements that don't square with sources in the next few days as my work schedule allows. One rather blatant mispresentation of a living scholar's point of view stood in article text for a long time, with a misleading source (former source by the scholar, who long ago changed his view), but that was cured a little while ago by another editor's edit. I think there are still some more of those. There are a lot of unreplicated primary research findings reported here inconsistently with WP:MEDRS. Thanks for asking. I look forward to seeing what other editors think. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk, how I edit) 00:29, 29 November 2010 (UTC)

WBB, be more specific. Highly general statements like the above are not useful. (Also, a hint: Everybody learned about your not-terribly-representative-of-expert-opinion list of sources the last one hundred times you told us about it, so you can stop spamming it.)--Victor Chmara (talk) 01:35, 29 November 2010 (UTC)

I haven't followed the above discussion but alarm bells are ringing for me about the above post. Presenting a list of sources for discussion must surely be an excellent way forward for the article. People should be discussing the quality of the sources per objective criteria independent of the sources' conclusions, e.g. academic publisher, peer review, author's qualifications. Itsmejudith (talk) 09:17, 29 November 2010 (UTC)

It shows a real serious lack of good faith to accuse WBB of "spamming" the article; since participating s/he has brought to our attention a great number of important recent works of scholarship. This cannot be a bad thing, unless one wishes to ignore recent scholarship. Slrubenstein | Talk 17:24, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

WBB has posted essentially the same message probably hundreds of times on the talk pages of dozens of articles. That is quite simply spamming.--Victor Chmara (talk) 21:59, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

Any editor here who actually reads sources on the topic is welcome to suggest new sources, and I would allow the same page in user space to be used even-handedly by editors who desire to discuss the general usefulness and accuracy of one or another source. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk, how I edit) 02:57, 2 January 2011 (UTC)

We unfortunately need a Wikipedia "Race" project to better organize race references, to coordinate issues across articles, and to discuss where content needs to be split or consolidated for clarity. If WBB were to receive some acknowledgements or comments regarding references s/he might announce less frequently. But as new editors drift in... And let's please stick to critical examination of content, not complain about each other, it's challenging enough. PЄTЄRS J VЄСRUМВА ►TALK 04:07, 2 January 2011 (UTC)

I did a really quick scan of the article and the statements generally seem to be supported by legitimate sources. The ones I looked at seem to be at least arguably true but lack context. I do think there are issues with undue weight, and in particular that the extreme points of view are overrepresented on all sides. I also think there's way too much weight on one particular racial difference - the black/white difference - with evidence that doesn't involve that particular contrast underrepresented. For example, there was a paper that alleged increased intelligence among Ashkenazi Jews due to their being a persecuted caste that would be a good counterpoint to the caste section, but it isn't there - and indeed, the article on Ashkenazi Jew intelligence would perhaps be a good candidate for merging here, to make the article better rounded and not just a black/white contrast. Warren Dew (talk) 21:53, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

Removal of POV and fact tags

The article is not balanced. The history section doesn't actually provide a history of the issue - it only lists the most prominent pro-hereditarian publications and authors. It doesn't show that there has been a debate about the issue since the first reports of the gap. The current debate section again summarises mostly the hereditarian arguments. It gives a laundry list of studies critiquing the bell curve but does not summarise the arguments other than mention the rather trivial peer review argument. It then spends the rest of the section summarising Rushton and Jensen and Lynn and Vanhanen. It mentions "ethical guidelines" but doesn't mention why many people think the research is unethical. The section in short is focused on presenting hereditarian viewpoints and arguments and only mentions that there are opposing viewpoints with out actually presenting them. The grouop difference section presents an unproblematized list of what is largely accepted about IQ. It doesn't mention any of the problems that are often pointed out for some of these statements - e.g. "IQ is heritable" it doesn't say how much so and what that means, IQ predicts performance without regards to SES or racial background (perhaps because western education is based on IQ type tasks). In the test scores section it baldy states that self report has been shown to match up with racial/genetic clustering. This is based on very few studies and it is commonly contradicted as nonsense - since there is as much genetic variability inside of any racial group as there is without. It states that G-loaded tests show the highest gap - Nisbett criticizes this assumption stating that it is only partly true and that the gap diminishes for some highly g-loaded tests. It gives Rushton and Lynns estimated IQ numbers without mentioning that they have been severly criticized for being based on selective sampling and bad math. The views on research section mixes different statements together almost randomly. Completely incoherent, but with ample quitation space especially to hereditarians like Linda Gotfredson. It always gives the last word to the hereditarian pov. The section debate overview has been extensively criticized above from both sides of the argument. The policy relevance section uncritically states the hereditarian counter claim without even providing any of the criticisms that they are responding to - it basically amounts to saying "Rushton and Jensen say that affirmative action is worse than what they are doing". All in all the article is clearly biased towards the hereditarian viewpoint and completely fails to give an adequate account of the many important arguments against it, it also fails to adequately put the topic into a social and historical context - which of course has to include an account of the social circumstances that lead the topic to become controversial - namely the context of institutionalized racial discrimintation in the US through out the 20th century.·Maunus·ƛ· 09:48, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

Have you read the descriptions of when such tags can be used? They are not a 'badge of shame'. They are calls to an ongoing dispute on the talk page. There was no ongoing dispute about factual items but some on NPOV conserns. You are not entitled to just stick on tags and keep them there. If you feel there are issues then please try and fix them. Dmcq (talk) 11:27, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

These are issues that are ongoing for the past year and a half - we have been working on fixing them quite intensively but there is no way of achieving consensus about anything except that the article is bad.You try to actually improve the article sintead of just removing the tags and you'll see. Get a consensus that it is time to remove the tags before removing them - you are not entitled to remove tags before there is a consensus to do so. And please read the archives, the arbcom case and the sources to get an idea of the degree to which this article has problems. ·Maunus·ƛ· 11:33, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

I held a straw poll about those issues above in the talk page before removing the disputed tag and reinstating the NPOV tag. According to the rules the NPOV tag should just have been removed because there was no ongoing discussion but I extended its life with the poll. The archives do not count as ongoing discussion. I reiterate, the tags are to attract people to ongoing discussion they are not a markers just stuck onto articles by people who don't like them. What you have talked about above are biased writing but not about factual inaccuracy so the NPOV tag is the correct one if this is starting up another discussion. Dmcq (talk) 11:55, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

I think you are wrong in your understanding of the tag policy - tags should not be "badges of shame" - but they should be used to "foster iimprovement of the encyclopedia and notify readers of possible problems". Not using tags as "Badges of Shame" means that we should not add tags simply to show that this is a bad article - but for constructive purposes. This is an article where the tag is clearly constructive since we have a wide consensus that the article is not neutral (although we do not have a consensus about to which side). This makes it reasonable to leave the npov tag in place even in the absence of discussion. The policy does not allow the removal of tags because of lack of discussion as long as there is a general consensus that the article has the problem described by the tag. When there is no such consensus the tag can obviously be removed - but this is not the case here. Not a single editor has suggested that the article is neutral.·Maunus·ƛ· 12:53, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

See Template:NPOV 'The editor placing this template in an article should promptly begin a discussion on the article's talk page. In the absence of any discussion, or if the discussion has become dormant, then this tag may be removed by any editor'. Anyway the NPOV template is there for the moment, what's your beef? If you want to discuss improving the article then go ahead and do so. If you don't then I'm liable to remove the tag at some stage in the future when there been no diisussion on the matter for a while. Dmcq (talk) 13:24, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

Go ahead and try. I won't put it back. But I expect that it will be put back by some other editor within an hour. I have a problem with the way you approach this subject as if there weren't around twenty editors involved with it already who have been discussing how to improve the articles for the past six months. As I've said the only thing that there has been consensus about is that the article is not neutral. Removing the tag would quite simply neither improve the encyclopedia or help anyone doing so - what is your problem with having the tag in place? ·Maunus·ƛ· 13:43, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

Go ahead and discuss improving the article or better for advancement when there is a deadlock use WP:BRD and actually do a few changes and then discuss. If there is no progress I will consider it neutral for all practical purposes and then copy a bit out of the leader for the Intelligence quotient article.. Dmcq (talk) 14:50, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for another serving of gratuitous condescension. I think it is wonderful if you want to contribute to improving the article. Copying from the IQ article doesn't strike me as a particularly useful way to do that, and I think you will find that collaborating with the many editors who are interested in this topic requires a rather comprehensive knowledge of the relevant sources to be succesful. But by all means give it a shot if you think you have a good way to improve it, that we haven't thought of before. ·Maunus·ƛ· 17:15, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

What I want to do is copy a bit from here to the intelligence quotient article. Dmcq (talk) 19:10, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

Possible misrepresentation of Nisbett

I've been looking for ways to improve this article, and I've found something in it that I'm not sure is right. At the beginning of the "Debate overview" section, there is a sentence that says "Richard Nisbett, in replying to hereditarian arguments, structures the debate into several major areas." This is cited to Nisbett’s commentary on Rushton and Jensen, and Appendix B of his book "Intelligence and How to Get it." Then there's the explanation about heritability within and between groups, score convergence, flynn effect and spearman's hypothesis.

I have looked through these sources (they're both online), and Appendix B of the book does discuss heritability, score convergence and spearman's hypothesis, but it discusses a bunch of other stuff too and those things are in the "Variables potentially affecting intelligence in groups" section. Same with his commentary on Rushton and Jensen. The article currently makes it sound like the Nisbett sources only talk about what's in the "Debate overview" section even though they discuss a lot more than that, and I feel this misrepresents Nisbett. I think this could be improved, either by combining the sections or change/remove the sentence about how Nisbett summarizes the debate. The current way is technically incorrect though. Any ideas?-SightWatcher (talk) 02:03, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

I would guess Nisbett was referenced explicitly in an attempt to prevent this article from becoming a coat rack for one theory or another. You could remove the Nisbett lead as it's not strictly needed, or you could merge the two sections and follow Nisbett more faithfully in terms of section headings. --Cant1lev3r (talk) 06:47, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

On second thought, looks like the Nisbett sources also don't discuss some of the factors affecting IQ that're mentioned in the "Variables potentially affecting intelligence in groups" section, like nutrition and stereotype threat. If we say that this section as well as "Debate overview" are modeled after Nisbett then these things will need to be left out. I don't think we should do that, though, because no doubt other sources discuss them. I agree with the concern about the article becoming a coat rack, and that it's a good idea to mention that this is how a prominent researcher summarizes the debate. But if Nisbett doesn't describe it this way, then I feel he's not the best choice for it. Anyone know of a source that talks about the same aspects of the debate that Nisbett does, as well as nutrition and stereotype threat?-SightWatcher (talk) 06:19, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

For what it's worth, my Kindle copy of Nisbett's book found multiple references to stereotype threat in Chapter 6, but only one reference to nutrition regarding race: "Postnatal conditions also favor whites over blacks, especially for nutrition (Ho, Roessmann, Straumfjord, and Monroe, 1980)". There would probably be no harm in listing several sources for the topic outline. --Cant1lev3r (talk) 21:28, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

Ok, good to know. I actually haven't read all of Nisbett's book yet, just the appendix being used as a source for this section, so I didn't know it discussed stereotype threat too. So the best solution might just be to cite this part of the article to Nisbett's book instead of just the appendix. We still need a source that includes nutrition in its debate summary though. I don't think a single brief mention in his book is enough to cite him for that. Do you know of a source that summarizes the debate while discussing nutrition?-SightWatcher (talk) 04:46, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

No one can recommend a source for this? I don't think this part of the article should be left as is, which seems to misrepresent Nisbett, but I don't know how to change it unless someone can recommend a different source to use.-SightWatcher (talk) 04:04, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

1996 report in the intro

Why have much material from a 1996 report in the intro? Far too old now for its conclusions to be accepted as the state of the art. Preferably it should be removed completely from the intro.Miradre (talk) 16:30, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

What in particular is outdated in the 1996 report? I see it constantly cited in new literature.--Victor Chmara (talk) 14:18, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

You do accept the conclusion that there is no evidence for genetic factors causing the IQ differences? Miradre (talk) 14:31, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

"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." Miradre (talk) 14:35, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

I don't think there's direct empirical support, because that would probably require information about specific sets of genes that cause racial differences in IQ. However, there are tons of indirect evidence for the hereditarian position, which was true already when the report was published.--Victor Chmara (talk) 14:46, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

That is your view, not that of the report. One cannot accept and only include certain conclusions of the report, like regarding socioeconomic factors, while rejecting and excluding from mentioning other parts like the conclusions regarding genetic factors.Miradre (talk) 14:59, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

I don't think there have been any siginificant changes in the consensus view since the 1996 report's publication. There is certainly no reports of any direct links between specific genes and the race-IQ gap. The hereditarian hypothesis doesn't seem to me to be stand any stronger now than it did then. ·Maunus·ƛ· 15:06, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

Deletion of Lynn's argumentation and criticism

See [40] The current text has several problems:

1. Does not mention that Lynn considers environmental factors such nutrition to be important as well as genetic ones.
2. Gives the impression that Lynn argues that genes explain, for example, economic differences when he uses IQ for this argument.
3. Does not mention the gist of the criticism, that Lynn excluded most the available IQ data and that this caused a substantial different average IQ for sub-Saharan Africa.

As such, I will restore the previous, more correct version unless good reasons are given against this.Miradre (talk) 14:19, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

I don't object to the environment factors mentioned by Lynn to be added. However he has explicitly stated that even after environment factors are accounted for there is still a 1 SD gap between Whites and Blacks that would be due to genetic factors. Again, Lynn's position as substantially genetic is much more accurate than "in part" genetic when explaining his viewpoint of racial IQ gaps.

Lynn does argue that a significant portion of IQ is related to genetics and that in turn has impacts on economical differences so I'm not sure what the issue on this aspect is.

Wicherts used different sets of IQ data and also used his own measurements to adjust for Flynn affect. It doesn't necessarily make Wicherts data more valid than Lynn's. BlackHades (talk) 23:54, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

If you agree to some of the changes, then why do you revert everything?

Lynn has used IQ data, not genetic data, for showing relations to economic growth.

My text does not state that Wicherts data is more correct. It describes his criticism of Lynn's research and his argument that Lynn had exluded most of the available IQ data giving substantially different average IQ. To exclude this important criticism violates npov. If you consider something in Wicherts criticism to be wrong, then please add this with sources.

Also, I find your edit comment weird: "Reverting edits. Get consensus for change. Read talk". I took this to talk after your earlier revert and you never answered.Miradre (talk) 00:33, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

Wicherts et al. do not claim that Lynn "excluded most of the available IQ data". They themselves do not use all of the data in their analysis. What Wicherts and others say is that the way Lynn included and excluded studies is biased, and that their own selection of studies is more appropriate.--Victor Chmara (talk) 08:28, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

I quote: "In light of all the available IQ data of over 37,000 African testtakers, only the use of unsystematic methods to exclude the vast majority of data could result in a mean IQ close to 70. On the basis of sound methods, the average IQ remains close to 80."

Unless a good reason are given I will quote this word for word if necessary in the text.Miradre (talk) 16:30, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

In their reviews of African IQ data, Wicherts et al. themselves exclude lots of studies that Lynn had included. They give reasons why they include or exclude each study, and the gist of their argument is that the selection of studies in Lynn's review of African IQ studies is unsystematic and biased. The total number of studies included in either Lynn's or Wicherts's reviews is not particularly relevant. What is relevant is that, according to Wicherts et al., Lynn used biased criteria to include and exclude studies, while the criteria in their own study are (they argue) unbiased.--Victor Chmara (talk) 19:11, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

That is misleading, Wicherts et al, in their first paper only excluded two studies. In the second paper they included this and more for a total of 109 samples compared to 28 for Lynn. Obviously the numbers studied is important: I quote, "To arrive at a mean IQ close to Lynn andMeisenberg's estimate of 69, the majority of the data would have to be rejected... ...this would amount to the exclusion of over 25,000 cases, or two-thirds of the available data."

A very serious criticism that should be added is a summary of this: "In the examples given above, the exclusion rule was applied only to samples that averaged relatively high IQs, but not to samples that averaged IQs near or below 70. This suggests that Lynn and Meisenberg's assessment of samples' representativeness is not independent of the mean IQ in the samples." "these rules have been applied only to exclude samples with IQs above 74.5, but not to exclude samples that averaged IQs near or below 70." "Lynn and Meisenberg's sole inclusion criterion was so strongly associated with the average IQs (rb=−.88, pb.0001) that it is hard to avoid the impression that Lynn and Meisenberg's assessment of representativeness was afunction of the average IQ in the sample."

You may or may not agree with this criticism but according to NPOV both sides should be allowed in article.Miradre (talk) 19:29, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

Lacking discussion of the Pioneer fund

Why is there not more material on the Pioneer Fund? For example the article on Intelligent Design mentions the Discovery Institute repeatedly. In good journals researchers should disclose possible conflicts of interests such as funding sources with a political or commercial agenda and many of the hereditarians certainly have such conflicts of interest.Miradre (talk) 01:11, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

I agree that this is very relevant - the fund has almost singlehandedly (fundedly?) kept this line of research alive during its toughest times.·Maunus·ƛ· 00:00, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

The political aspect of this debate is covered in a separate article, History of the race and intelligence controversy. It goes into more detail about the Pioneer Fund. The main R&I article appears to be limited to the debate about what the data says, while the other article is for discussion about who may or may not be biased.Boothello (talk) 02:00, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

Obviously this is important also for current research and not just for past history. At the very least the controversy regarding the Fund should be mentioned.Miradre (talk) 02:04, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

The history article covers the current debate too. Something like a third of it is devoted to the past 30 years. If this needs to be discussed in the R&I article it needs to be brief in order to avoid overlap. And for balance, if the article is going to go into more detail about the Pioneer Fund, it should also discuss some of the left-wing organizations that opponents of the hereditarian position have been involved with, such as the Sociobiology Study Group and Science for the People.Boothello (talk) 02:40, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

The Pioneer Fund funding is ongoing. Not history. If there is any overlap then the material in the history article could be reduced. If you want to add something of current interest with good sources, then please do so.Miradre (talk) 05:48, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

A separate section on funding might be appropriate I think as people have had trouble trying to research this area. I don't think the Discovery Institute is an apt comparison as there's loads of people supporting that and the research it funds isn't peer reviewed. Dmcq (talk) 20:48, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

The comparison would be that there is an organization with an ulterior agenda beyond simply supporting research. The Discovery Institute has religious motivation, the Pioneer Fund, considering its creation and history, has a political agenda. Relevent for the same reason one should disclose if the tobacco industry is sponsoring research on smoking, even if peer-reviewed.Miradre (talk) 21:33, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

• This page has been historically dominated by users who have more of a favorable view of the Pioneer Fund, and only recently were they taken out of the picture. I think more could be added about the Pioneer Fund, certainly. II | (t - c) 21:37, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

I see there's consensus for adding some material about this. If it gets added, I hope it can be presented in a way that's more balanced than most articles and books that discuss the Pioneer Fund in relation to hereditarian research, which seem to often discuss this source of funding only as a way to discredit the research. The info should include the fact that there has sometimes been no other way to get funding for politically sensitive research, as Dmcq mentioned. And I still think it should also discuss political organization like those I mentioned that have supported opponents of the hereditarian viewpoint.Boothello (talk) 01:09, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

That may be interesting additions if you have some good sources supporting this.Miradre (talk) 01:18, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

Added something myself regarding this.Miradre (talk) 01:28, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

Okay, I added another sentence about the similar accusations made against people on the other side. I also think the "views on research" section is pretty badly organized overall, especially as it relies so heavily on long quotes. Maybe someone should propose a rewrite of it here and replace the current version once it has consensus.Boothello (talk) 04:54, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

The validity of "Race" and "IQ"

In the "Debate overview" section it would be appropriate to have section called "The validity of 'Race' and 'IQ'". This because the concepts are often questioned by critics of this research. However, this article should have very little if any discussion of this itself since that is a proper topic of the Race and IQ articles. If there is anything more to be said on this topic that is not said in those articles it could be placed in this section. Then there are some material that could be moved to this section from elsewhere in the article or shortened.

Like this paragraph: "Commentators have also argued that hereditarian psychologists have tacitly adopted folk definitions of race and heredity. Other common criticisms have centered on the problems that intelligence is poorly measured and that race is a social construct, not a biologically defined attribute.[24][25] According to this view, intelligence is ill-defined and multi-dimensional, or has definitions that vary between cultures. This would make contrasting the intelligence of groups of people, especially groups that came from different cultures, dependent mainly on which culture's definition of intelligence is being used. Moreover, this view asserts that even if intelligence were as simple to measure as height, racial differences in intelligence would still be meaningless since race exists only as a social construct, with no basis in biology."Miradre (talk) 18:31, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

Which particular race article were you referring to? Race is just a disambiguation page. Dmcq (talk) 18:50, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

Race (classification of humans). Has very long sections discussing the validity of the concept.Miradre (talk) 18:58, 26 January 2011 (UTC)