Talk:Race and intelligence

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What about East Indians and Middle Easterners?

What is the average IQ for East Indians (South Asians) and Middle Easterners (since it is not noted here). Zachorious 10:20, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

AFAIK the data is not great for those populations, but Lynn gives estimates around 89 for the near East and 82 for South Asia, with 84 for the N. Africa to South Asia axis. See Race_and_intelligence#_note-34 and [1]. My guess would be that there is a lot of variation among East Indians subpopulations. Emmigrants from these regions, of course, score higher when living in Western countries. --Rikurzhen 10:39, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

Yea, I was suprised to see South Asians ranked so low, considering their achievments outside South Asia (like being the highest median income for the US of any ethnic group). Seems like there are no data on Middle Eastern men (unless they group Middle Easterners with White Europeans). Zachorious 11:16, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

South Asian performance in western countries is likely influenced by selective top-tier migration. Near East and West Asia actually both refer to the Middle East area. The discussion of this chapter in Lynn's book in this book review is pretty interesting (ctrl f "near east" to go to the section on that chapter).--Nectar 12:43, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

What do they mean by top-tier migration and selective migration in this case? Zachorious 08:47, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

ultramarine's latest edits

are generally destructive; meant to push his favored POV

• reintroduced the self-referrential langauge of "within this article" to the race section, where "within genetcs" is what we really care about

That edit is correct. The meaning used within this article is far from consensus (or even majority) within genetics as a whole. "This article" is allowed under WP:SELF, since wherever it might be reproduced, the "thisness" still applies. Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 19:07, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

• he's deleted descriptions of several studies with the claim that they are irrelevant; they are strongly relevant to supporting the hereditarian pov

The deletion of the recent speculative results about some genes that "may or may not" have anything to do with IQ is appropriate. Citing that is a deceptive attempt to prop up the legitimacy of hereditarian position by insinuating that we're "on the verge" of finding specific genes (which is conceivable, but not yet supported by that evidence). Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 19:07, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

• we had achieved a good balance between detail and generality with the use of footnotes, such that (for example) the extensive praise and blame of lynn was reduced to a single sentence and the detail was in a note. this is too much detail for a summary style section (an massive paragraph to introduce a single sentence*); the detail either needs to be moved to a footnote or moved to the subarticle.

For the most part, Ultramarine is correct in her de-referencing of some large narrative sections. I did not want to touch the page while you were doing your excellent work on moving references to m:cite.php style. But I think you generally went too far with that. Footnote material should be only the narrative that is directly related to explaining the references themselves. The narrative related to the article/section more generally should live outside the footnotes. Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 19:07, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

• this is the single sentence: In general, Lynn lists East Asians and Europeans as demonstrating the highest average IQ, indigenous Americans and other Eurasians with intermediate average IQ, and Africans and Australian Aborigines with the lowest average IQ
• but noteably, he left the details of the IQ data in footnotes (an NPOV compromise to get the actual values off the main page)

I slightly reluctantly agree that the specific figures should be moved back out of the footnotes, despite how provocative and offensive Lynn's over display of racism is. But the criticism of Lynn should not be hidden away either. Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 19:07, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

Seems good, please make an appropriate edit.Ultramarine 19:18, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

• the hapmap senetence, which is an example that has nothing to do with intelligence, is not instructive for this article, but it may be a helpful example to the notion of an operational definition. the footnote is the appropriate way to offer that example without stretching out that summary section.

The hapmap material is extremely relevant to evaluating the operative constructs of race that cited researchers utilize. Putting it in a footnote as if it is a minor detail rather than central to the article topic is definitely wrong. If the categorization by race is itself speculative and poorly supported (as it is), that should noted in main text. Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 19:07, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

The hapmap data is instructive, but the choice of the 4 hapmap populations was not based on considerations of "race" so to speak, but rather getting unadmixed samples of the populations from which Americans decended. --Rikurzhen 19:36, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

• i don't care about the trade book label, but AFAIK all of the books named in this article are trade books, so it's inappropriate to label jsut this book -- that IQ&tWoN is part of the scholarly literature is clear from the many references to it (33 citations by Google Scholar).

--Rikurzhen 18:49, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

If there are other trade books, then they should certainly also be marked as such. Inclusion in Google scholar does not prove a book is scientific, Mein Kampf is also there.Ultramarine 19:18, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

I will continue to oppose all attempts to hide critical facts in footnotes. I removed the study the article is claiming has disproved a genetic cause for the Flynn effect. Nothing of this sort was stated in the abstract. The sentence quoted is taken out of context.Ultramarine 18:57, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

The paper claims that the effect of the Flynn effect on cognitive ability is different in kind to the gap between Blacks and Whites, nothing about genetics. I think the text was clear about this. --Rikurzhen 19:25, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

This appears in two places "Recent studies have identified some genes involved in the brain that occur in different frequencies in different races, but their roles in the brain haven't yet been studied." Misleading, the gene for sickle cell disease have different frequency but does not prove anything regarding IQ. "Some genes involved in the brain" can be anything from completely meaningless differences in protein structure to resistance to parasites like toxoplasmosis.Ultramarine 19:10, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit conflict] this should be a response to Ultramarine

About deleting: You're completely wrong about those two descriptions (acutally five papers). Either trust me on this or read the papers; read the papers that cite these papers; and read the news stories that accompanied their publications. I've done these tihngs and the relevance is clear to me. I believe Nectar actually wrote the brain allele entry, so the connection appears to be clear to him as well.

About footnotes: The footnote issue is actually a Summary Style issue. We cannot tolerate a lengthy discussion of Lynn in the text of this article. It must be handled by (a) the IQ&tWoN article, (b) the sub-article of this series, and/or (c) footnotes for details. The current situations -- where several paragraphs are dedicated to praising and blaming Lynn's methods/motives is 100% unacceptable. Something has to change. The Lynn data is exteremly relavant -- witness the question in a section above -- so it can't be deleted. If Lynn could be criticized in a few concise sentences, that would also be a solutions. The current text uses lengthy quotes and mentions irrelvant detail about the studies used in IQ&tWoNs -- which serve only to impune Lynn's methods, not the acutal results of his which we report. --Rikurzhen 19:24, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

Presentation of Lynn's so-called "data" as if it were of scientific value is 100% unacceptable in an article allegedly concerned with a scientific issue. Move it to the Stormfront article or somewhere where it fits better. Presenting enough context for readers to understand just how very biased and unreliable Lynn is is about the only way it's possible to include Lynn at all... but getting him out of the article entirely would be much more apporpriate. As-is, the balance gives far less weight to criticisms of Lynn that it should. Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 19:32, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

I think you should leave evaluation the value of Lynn's data to those publishing on it: Iq_and_the_wealth_of_nations#Peer-reviewed_papers_using_IQ_scores_from_the_book --Rikurzhen 19:36, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

And peer-reviewed papers have criticzed it. Move this biased and factually incorrect trade book to the subarticles where it can be discussed in detail.Ultramarine 19:39, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

You don't describe important, controversial topics by saying that because it has been criticized that we shouldn't describe it. You present both sides, (and note that there are at least as many positive as negative publications) hopefully with as little text as possible to stay withing the bounds of a summary style. --Rikurzhen 19:47, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

This factually incorrect trade book has far too much space. I propose moving the material to the subarticles. Maybe we can keep a sentence or two in the main article.Ultramarine 19:51, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

A sentence or two (which includes a sentence like In general, Lynn lists East Asians and Europeans as demonstrating the highest average IQ, indigenous Americans and other Eurasians with intermediate average IQ, and Africans and Australian Aborigines with the lowest average IQ) is exactly what I am requesting and was trying to accomplish with footnotes. See my note About footnotes above where I list some options. --Rikurzhen 20:16, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

I roughly inserted the Lynn RDiI material from this article into the subarticle some time ago. I or someone else should write a short paragraph on this. I thought we already had that short paragraph, with footnotes to support each claim, but we can go shorter and we can go without the footnotes. If someone has a good idea for the summary please feel free to delete what's there and start fresh (and/or fix up the subarticle, which is repeditive about between nation differences). --Rikurzhen 21:24, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

Massive deletion of critical arguments -- what happened to the goal of cutting that down to a paragraph? --Rikurzhen 22:15, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

brain allele papers

Looking at the brain gene papers, I do not even see any mention of race in the abstracts. Please quote. Why should this be mentioned in the main article and somewhere in the subarticles? Whyu should this be mentioned two times when many critical studies have been removed to the subarticles? Ultramarine 19:39, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

They don't use the word race, Ultramarine. They are looking at many dozens of populations. The sicklecell allele is clinal, but the sicklecell phenotype still affects one socially defined race more than others. --Rikurzhen 19:47, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

I see nothing worth including in the main article. Race is not mentioned. Some genes involved in the brain have varying frequency when measured at different places in the world. Looking at the Microcephalin gene, the distrubtion does not follow claimed IQ scores. Europeans have a higher frequency than East Asians and Latin America most of all.Ultramarine 20:10, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

Looking at APSM, people from the Middle East and Europe have a higher frequency than East Asians. The highest is found in New Guinea. Hardly follows claimed IQ scores either. Ultramarine 20:20, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

The point made by the description is that brain affecting genes can and do in fact vary by geography, not that these genes explain the IQ gap. I believe the context was the defense of the plausibility of a genetic contribution to the black-white-asian IQ gap. --Rikurzhen 20:16, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

Maybee we should state that if there is a genetic cause, then these studies suggest that the smartest people are in Latin America and New Guinea.Ultramarine 20:20, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

LOL. Right after we prove the monogenic inheritance of IQ. That's microcephalin, right? ASPM didn't make to the new world, no? --Rikurzhen 20:24, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

ASPM have the highest frequency in New Guinea but a low frequency in Latin America. Overall, it seems that people from New Guinea are the smartest in the world.Ultramarine 20:31, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

ironic given Jared Diamond's claim to that effect. are you now satisified that this stuff is relevant? --Rikurzhen 20:35, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

I saw wrong, ASPM is slightly higher at some European places. I am not convinced, these genes do not follow claimed IQ scores between races. We could mention it in one of the subarticles.Ultramarine 20:41, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

Are you arguing for arguments sake? They (we) do not purport to explain the IQ differences, only to provide evidence that such difference could plausibly be due to genetic differences -- that is, that populations differ in the frequency of alleles, including alleles that affect brain function. There's no reason to expect that any single gene (even a gene knownn to affect IQ) will reflect the phenotypic gap 1:1. For example, each population may have it's own unique alleles that cause the IQ gap, in which case such a pattern would never be observed. --Rikurzhen 20:52, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

It's generally assumed and commonly argued in this area that races don't/can't vary in neural genetics. We could expand the sentence to include that the authors of one or two of those papers conclude some of the genes have been under selective pressure. This is even more germane because it's commonly argued genetic change between lineages has only occured as climatological adaption since the migration out of Africa.--Nectar 21:03, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

That's good too. --Rikurzhen 21:20, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

I see little new for this article in these studies. That some genes vary with geography is nothing new, skin color does this. Again, lets mention them in some subarticle. Ultramarine 21:05, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

If it should be included, we clearly states that these genes do not follow claimed racial differences in IQ.Ultramarine 21:13, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

I'm certainly fine with that. I think before we said that they may have absolutely nothing to do with IQ differences, racial or otherwise. --Rikurzhen 21:16, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

lynn

Lynn is referred to as a white supremacist every time he's brought up on this page, but so far no evidence or reason to think this has been mentioned. Is this just rhetorical flourish? (I assume it's not).--Nectar 21:46, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

deleting footnotes

i added references inside footnotes to existing text in the brain size and reaction time sub-subsection. UL deleted them. These references were copied from the corresponding section of the subarticle, which those sentences were in turn summarizing. The references were not being hidden in the footnotes, they were being unhidden from the subarticle. A footnote that is printed on the same page as the noted sentence isn't hidden; it's explicitly easier to find -- it doesn't even take a new page load to bring them up. Footnotes that link to the relevant section of the subarticle would be a substitute, but I see no reason to delete them -- they're adding info, not taking it away. --Rikurzhen 22:07, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

NPOV and factually incorrect

See this edit [2]. Massive deletion of critical arguments.Ultramarine 22:16, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

Gross misrepresentation and gaming of the system: "However, after analyzing IQ data, one research group concluded that "It appears therefore that the nature of the Flynn effect is qualitatively different from the nature of B–W differences in the United States." Something of this importance, an argument against the Flynn effect as an explanation, was never mentioned in that abstract. Hidden in the footnote is what this is really about. "Note that this result does not indiciate that the B-W gap is or is not genetic, merely that the kind of difference in cogntiive abilities associated with the Flynn effect is not the same kind of difference in cognitive ability associated with the B-W IQ gap." Ultramarine 22:23, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

So rewrite it so that it's clear. I never imagined their quote would be taken to mean anything about genetics. --Rikurzhen 22:25, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

So why have you hidden the clarification in the footnotes? Remove this and the other attempts to hide information you do not like in the footnotes most people will not read.Ultramarine 22:36, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

It hasn't been shown why any reader would misinterpret the argument that the Flynn effect is different than B-W differences as that B-W differences are genetic.--Nectar 22:53, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

(1) see #rikurzhen_response_1 "Massive deletion of critical arguments -- what happened to the goal of cutting that down to a paragraph? --Rikurzhen 22:15, 25 February 2006 (UTC)". keep deleting/rewriting until we've got a summary style presentation.

I said move to a subarticle, not just delete the critical arguments.Ultramarine 22:25, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

I don't edit all at once. I'm sorry, it's just not in me. I edit a little at a time. Keep working at that section until it is correct. I moved all of that material to the subpage a long time ago. Edit it until it's down to the essential minimum. --Rikurzhen 22:27, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

Look at you edit. You have just deleted all the critical arguments.Ultramarine 22:31, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

I deleted the stuff that you seemed to agree that we should start deleting. Never mind. I copied the text below so that we can edit it on the talk page and leave the version that Lulu restored up for now. This would have been a much better way to have started the process and that's partly my fault. --Rikurzhen 22:34, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

(2) on flynn, that's exactly what they said and the note describes exactly what that means. change the sentence for clarity as you see fit, but don't delete things that are important. --Rikurzhen 22:21, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

The study never argued against a genetic explanation. Your presentation is extremely misleading. Putting the information in the footnote where most people will not read it is gaming of the system.Ultramarine

Okay. You need to start assuming good faith. Misleading people is not my intention. If you saw the possibility of misreading that sentence, then you should have fixed it and left an edit summary to that effect. Instead you deleted it and called it irrelevant. Rewrite the thing so it's clear and we'll both be happy. --Rikurzhen 22:34, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

edit it on talk page then

previous version

Cognitive ability scores for the ten global genetic clusters identified in previous genetic cluster analysis(Template:AYref) have been surveyed by Richard Lynn(Template:AYref). Lynn regards these ten population groups as races, and extracts racial averages from 620 published studies surveying a total of 813,778 tested individuals. When taken as individual national averages, the data available, particularly regarding the developing world, is speculative due to limited sampling, year of testing, and varying type of cognitive ability test used. Lynn's previous work, including the trade book IQ and the Wealth of Nations with Tatu Vanhanen, have received widespread and strong criticism for both bias and error.(Sociologist Thomas Volken argues the data for national IQs is "highly deficient," citing limited sampling and varying tests and years (Volken). In a review of The Bell Curve, Leon Kamin writes that "Lynn's distortions and misrepresentations of the data constitute a truly venomous racism, combined with scandalous disregard for scientific objectivity."(Template:AYref) In contrast to Kamin's strongly worded attack on Lynn, W. D. Hamilton described Lynn in a review of another of Lynn's books as doing "an excellent job with the facts" and being "brave [and] thick-skinned ... to swim against ... popular antirealistic currents."[3] Examples of problematic national IQ figures include that the stated average IQ score of 59 for Equatorial Guinea is based on one test of 48 children aged 10-14 in 1984; the Ethiopian average is derived from a study of Ethiopians who immigrated to Israel a year prior, and whose low scores were thought by the original authors to be a reflection of temporary adjustment to a different culture and language (note that this data is not used in the averages presented below). Kamin also argued Lynn selectively excluded data showing a similar score in Whites and sub-Saharan Africans: "Lynn chose to ignore the substance of Crawford-Nutt's paper, which reported that 228 black high school students in Soweto scored an average of 45 correct responses on the Matrices--HIGHER than the mean of 44 achieved by the same-age white sample on whom the test's norms had been established and well above the mean of Owen's coloured pupils." (Template:AYref))

In general, Lynn lists East Asians and Europeans as demonstrating the highest average IQ, indigenous Americans and other Eurasians with intermediate average IQ, and Africans and Australian Aborigines with the lowest average IQ. According to Lynn, when the studies are grouped and taken as averages for the ten racial groups, the argument for their reliability is that, though additional evidence may be required to confirm some of the more limited estimates, many have very high reliability in the sense that different studies give similar results, as well as that they correlate highly with performance in international studies of achievement in mathematics and science and with national economic development(Template:AYref). Lynn argues established environmental hypotheses can explain a substantial amount of these differences. The data set for sub-Saharan Africans around the world, the one most often criticized, is drawn from 155 different studies with a combined sample of 387,286 people. 57 of the studies are from countries in Africa, 54 from western countries, and 16 from non-western countries outside of Africa.(Template:AYref [4])

Some Ashkenazi Jews score significantly higher than any other group.(Lynn estimates United States and British Ashkenazim IQ scores of 107-115, in contrast to average IQ of Ashkenazim in Israel at 103. He suggests this estimate may be lower due to selective migration effects in relation to the U.S. and Britain, and immigrants from the former Soviet Block countries having posed as Ashkenazim.) An IQ of 70 is often associated with mental retardation, but deficits in adaptive behavior, such as telling the time, interacting socially, and looking after oneself, have only limited correlation with IQ, and are more important than IQ in determining whether a person is able to live an independent life.((Template:AYref, p. 177). Template:AYref reported that on the basis of IQ alone 10 times as many Blacks as Whites would be classified as retarded, but when adaptive behavior measures are added to the criterion, this difference completely disapears. Some ethnic differences in cognitive ability appear in some aspects of cognitive ability and not others (see below; Template:AYref, p. 178). The Black-White disparity seen in IQ does not appear in some basic cognitive functions that don't involve more than minimal elaboration, transformation, or other mental manipulation (Template:AYref, p. 178; Template:AYref).)

IQ scores vary greatly among different nations for related groups. Blacks in Africa score much lower than Blacks in the US. Some reports indicate that the Black–White gap is smaller in the UK than in the U.S.(Template:AYref). American Blacks average about 7-20% European admixture(Template:AYref;Template:AYref); UK admixtures are not as well-studied. Many studies also show differences in IQ between different groups of Whites. In Israel, large gaps in test scores and achievement separate Ashkenazi Jews from other groups such as the Sephardi(Template:AYref).

new version

Cognitive ability scores for the ten global genetic clusters identified in previous genetic cluster analysis(Template:AYref) have been surveyed by Richard Lynn(Template:AYref). In general, Lynn lists East Asians and Europeans as demonstrating the highest average IQ, indigenous Americans and other Eurasians with intermediate average IQ, and Africans and Australian Aborigines with the lowest average IQ. Lynn's previous work, including the trade book IQ and the Wealth of Nations with Tatu Vanhanen, have received widespread and strong criticism for both bias and error, but has also been used as a source of IQ data and hypotheses in several peer-reviewed studies.

IQ scores vary greatly among different nations for related groups. Blacks in Africa score much lower than Blacks in the US. Some reports indicate that the Black–White gap is smaller in the UK than in the U.S.(Template:AYref). American Blacks average about 7-20% European admixture(Template:AYref;Template:AYref); UK admixtures are not as well-studied. Many studies also show differences in IQ between different groups of Whites. In Israel, large gaps in test scores and achievement separate Ashkenazi Jews from other groups such as the Sephardi(Template:AYref).

Comments

First stop your practice of hiding information you do not like in footnotes. Restore the hidden information, then we can continue.Ultramarine 22:34, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

Be nice. --Rikurzhen 22:35, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

Are you going to restore the hidden information? Ultramarine 22:37, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

I'm going to leave the version that Lulu put up for the time being while we edit this text on the talk page. There's no reason to fight over the footnotes as we intend to rewrite the entire thing anyway. Put your energy into the rewrite so we can replace the existing text, footnote and all. --Rikurzhen 22:40, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

Is that a sufficient minimal text? --Rikurzhen 22:52, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

I am satisfied that the very minimal description of world-wide scores is OK. If we limit mention of Lynn to the few sentences that Rikurzhen used, it seems perfectly fair also only to indicate criticism of Lynn in a sentence, as is done right now. It's really only presentation of those detailed numbers claiming Africans and Aborigines have IQs in the moderate mental retardation level that heightens my concern that criticism be fully presented. If all we say is (roughly) "Lynn ranks these half dozen groups in this order"... well, I still don't believe Lynn's right, but it's also not the direct affront of telling readers that there are whole continents of idiots who can't learn to read or feed themselves. Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 01:55, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

measurement invariance <> no measurement errors

it's about the factor structure of abilities, not measurement accuracy. the text surrounding the wicherts papers should be restored or whathever. --Rikurzhen 22:59, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

"Conversely, if factorial invariance is untenable, the between-group differences cannot be interpreted in terms of differences in the latent factors supposed to underlie the scores within a group or cohort."Ultramarine 23:09, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

That's about the factor structure of abilities, and about g, not about measurement error. the B-W gap could be a gap in Gq or Gf and/or whatever, or it could be a gap in g. this relates to spearman's hypothesis, as well as the question of whether the flynn effect is acting on g. --Rikurzhen 23:12, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

Changed to a more correct text.Ultramarine 23:17, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

Trade book

If what we mean by trade book is 'not published by an academic press' or 'intended for a general audience', than books like the Blank Slate, the Mismeasure of Man, Guns Germs and Steele (both published by W. W. Norton & Company), and Lewontin Rose and Gould's Not in Our Genes (Pantheon), are all trade books. However, it's not normal usage to refer to these books by this specific publishing term. If by tradebook we mean to imply "not a scientific work", we should take note that all these books, including Lynn's, are read by specialists and are reviewed and cited in scientific journals. Is there any reason to diverge from standard usage when referring to these books on Wikipedia? --Nectar 06:24, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

No. --Rikurzhen 06:29, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

I'm actually convinced that the "trade book" phrase should not be used. But as to this notion of Lynn being cited in scientific journals: Rikurzhen notes that Google Scholar shows 33 hits on IQ&tWoN. For context, I looked at two books by Richard Lewontin. The Genetic Basis of Evolutionary Change is definitely an academic title; The Triple Helix: Gene, Organism, and Environment is his most recent trade book, from 2000. I'm am about 98% certain that both titles have sold quite a bit less than IQ&tWoN, given the broad appeal of the latter in white supremecist circles. Lewontin's academic book is on Google scholar 1180 times, his trade book appears there 192 times. Which suggests that even as trade books go, IQ&tWoN is not treated seriously by scholars. Stephen King horror novel Salem's Lot, FWIW, gets 38 Google scholar hits, so is somewhat more widely referenced academically than Lynn is. Lynn's newest book is not only not published by an academic publisher, but is not published by any reputable publisher. Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 06:54, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

Your citation scoring metric is biased for more popular topics. There are far more scholars in terms of absolute numbers with a scholarly interest in genetics than race difference in IQ. You also do not have a control for the age of the publication, which is a lesser flaw. For a better comparison, look at Race and Intelligence: Separating Science from Myth (2001; 4 citations), Race, evolution, and behavior (2000; 61 citations), Race, IQ and Jensen (1980; 15 citations), The G Factor: the Science of Mental Ability (1998; 544 citations), or even Handbook of intelligence (2000; 55 citations). --Rikurzhen 07:10, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

Weren't me that suggested Google Scholar hists lent legitimacy :-). (though I did take a minor effort to mention that Triple Helix is 2000, hence of similar age to IQatWoN). Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 07:20, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

Critiquing Google Scholars' numbers wasn't my point, only that we can't compare apples and oranges (so to speak). But this is back to the "is Lynn a reliable source?" question, which I hope we have put to rest. --Rikurzhen 07:28, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

Well, yeah... he's definitely not a reliable source, nor anything within a stone's throw of one. I'm glad it's settled. Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 07:29, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

This is just an aside, but responding to "98% certain," the Triple Helix has an Amazon.com Sales Rank of #175,819, and IQatWoN has a rank of 382,178. (The Genetic Basis of Evolutionary Change, being published 25 years before these two, has a figure in a different category.)--Nectar 07:31, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

Adding to Rikurzhen's figures above, I see The Scientific Study of General Intelligence (2003), edited by Helmuth Nyborg, has a chapter written by Lynn and refers to Lynn on 57 different pages (42 occuring in chapters by other authors), including reference to a cognitive ability study by Lynn conducted on Africans. I can't see how Lynn would be a reliable source for a well-reviewed survey of the field like this book, but not for this article. Blanket condemnations, at the very least, are out of the question.--Nectar 07:47, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

what happened to DO NOT HIDE IN FOOTNOTES

about 24 hours ago, Ultramarine tore thru the article with the edit summary DO NOT HIDE IN FOOTNOTES. i had no problem with the previous version that used footnotes, but from the present position, the reduced text i produced above seem superior in that it tells us the bare minimum while getting the point across -- as per summary style. we can go back to footnotes if that's the consensus, but let's figure that out on the talk page once and for all rather than switching back and forth. --Rikurzhen 08:18, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

Fine. You have made many subtle changes removing arguments for those advocating against a genetic explanation. Also, you just deleted the critical material from the footnotes. Ultramarine 08:20, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

(1) I made small changes for concision, but they do not change NPOV. We can talk about them in a separate section. (2) I didn't delete anything, I put what I thought had become the acting consensus version into the article. We can work on a more detailed version in the section above if you like. --Rikurzhen 08:25, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

It's definitely true that Rikurzhen's removal of material was pretty selective in deleting only critical material from footnotes. The overall simplification of the main text of "world-wide scores" is definitely good. But I really can't see a harm in retaining the criticism in the footnote only. To Ultramarine: Why are you restoring a version of the footnote w/o my minor touchups (i.e. that says "the above" which no longer makes sense in the footnote comment; and that goes off in a digression about "criticizing the critics")?! Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 08:28, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

Look guys, I used the reversion function to make my changes. I did not mean to delete anything in particular, just to reset things untill consensus could be reached on talk. If it's 2 for and 1 neutral on footnotes in that section, then let's have footnotes. You can retreive the original version from this page if you want to restore all of the material to footnotes. --Rikurzhen 08:30, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

My "vote" is: (1) Use Rikhurzhen's much better, very brief, text for "world-wide scores"; (2) Leave the criticism of Lynn, but only in a footnote, not in the main text. Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 08:44, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

Your changes are constantly in favor of your pov and removed arguments. You have certainly deleted a long critical text previously found in the footnotes.Ultramarine 08:27, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

Accusing me of bad faith is totally unhelpful. I've suggested a method for reaching consensus. --Rikurzhen 08:31, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

You did remove a long critical text from the footnotes. And why did your remove for example this which you had above agreed to include: " These genes do not follow the same distribution as that claimed for different racial groups." Ultramarine 08:43, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

41289695 to 41289166

this edit:

from top to bottom

1. okay
2. "biological research" to "this article"; reintroduces verbooten self-referential language; is less informative than the undisputed claim which it replaces; don't believe me? -- see the many many works by genetics since 2002 on this topic such as Risch, Bamshed, etc.

   On the narrow point: there is nothing "verboten" about self-referential langauge of this sort. WP:SELF is a prohibition on article referring to the fact they appear on WP (since they might not), it is not a prohibition on articles referring to themselves. In fact, terms like "this article" are explicitly permitted in WP:SELF#Neutral_references Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 09:03, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

   okay, my mistake. i still suggest that the "biological research" phrase or something like it is more informative and less prone to being proven false as the reason that this articles does (if indeed it does) treat races in such as way is because that's how researchers treat it, not because we just decided it was a good idea. --Rikurzhen 09:08, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

3. there's no dispute about the correlations; i know about the wealth/genetic transmission paper, and that's about a relatively unrelated topic, so mentioning it here only serves to exaggerate
4. ?? pioneer fund
5. ?? pioneer fund
6. this is (1) trivially true, but (2) the text doesn't say what is meant, but moreover (3) this is merely a result of restriction of range, as people drop out of school from elementary to college so as to restrict range -- when this is corrected for there is no age effect
7. the 2 genes from the science paper follow a pattern that is only weakly correlated with observed IQ (i'm sure the correlation isn't zero); but there are hundreds of candidate genes from the PNAS paper, about which this new sentence misleads about
8. okay

--Rikurzhen 08:52, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

1. -
2. Again, many criticisms of race concept so the article should not state that it is undisputed science.
3. The text states that the link to wealth is disputed which is true.

   the sentence implies that all real world correlations are disputed, we just need to rewrite the sentence to make that clearer; or ditch the wealth dispute and make a straightforward descrription of where IQ correlations are strong, medium, weak, and nonexistent. IQ#Practical_validity has examples, as does the apa report --Rikurzhen 09:17, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

   I have rewritten it. Any significant effect is very much disputed for accumulated wealth.Ultramarine 09:20, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

   I think you're thinking of the genetic transmission of wealth via IQ, which is near zero. there is an IQ:wealth correlation, which is weak, that goes into their calculation --Rikurzhen 09:23, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

   Sounds very good, we should include it.Ultramarine 09:25, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

4. ?
5. ?
6. The importance of IQ decline when getting closer to the real world. This is important and should not be ignored.

   We can say this without resorting to this kind of trickery. The correlation with income is substially less than, for example, the correlation with school grades. That's a perfectly good example. --Rikurzhen 09:17, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

7. You agreed to include that these genes do not follow the claimed IQ distribution. This should certainly be mention as otherwise there is an impression for extremely strong support for the genetic arguments.

   It can't stand as written because it's inaccurate. rewrite needed --Rikurzhen 09:17, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

   Then rewrite, do not delete.Ultramarine 09:20, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

   I thought the sentence I added covered it. I'll try to think of a fix. --Rikurzhen 09:23, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

8. - Ultramarine 09:05, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

kamin requires qualification

i would say the same for Richard Lewontin or Gould when it comes to this topic the topic of their descriptions of other researchers working in this field. it's important to know their strong opinions about the science when presenting their opinions about other scientists. for comparison, the section on "bias" currently lists by name Rushton, Jensen and Lynn in association with the phrase "hate group". --Rikurzhen 20:45, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

Critics of critics of critics of critics of critics of ...

Despite your choice of username, Rikurzhen, this is just not sensible editing. If you want to add a footnote about critics of Kamin in main text discussing Kamin, I have absolutely nothing against it. But a footnote about Lynn (that includes both critics and supporters) is not the place to go off on a digression about each person mentioned. It just IS NOT. This is not a good foonote:

Kamin criticizes Lynn (blah blah). But Jensen criticizes Kamin (...). And Gould criticizes Jensen (...). Gould is criticized by Wilson (blah blah). Wilson is criticized by Mertz (...). And Hamilton, who is criticized by Jones, who is criticized by Smith, who is criticized by Wen, ..., supports Lynn.

Footnotes should be about the subject they annotate, not self-reflective. Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 21:27, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

No, you should look for someone other than Kamin, Gould, and Lewontin to terminate the string of back and forth criticisms. You ask Should we then include critics of Jensen and Mackintosh in response. You know someone who is a critic of the professionalism of Nicholas Mackintosh (Chair of the Department of Experimental Psychology at Cambridge University)? Or for that matter, someone how has something bad to say about Arthur Jensen's professionalism (rather than his conclusions) other than one of those three? Kamin is actually as unreliable when it comes to this topic as you have previously made Lynn out to be. --Rikurzhen 21:31, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

I'll work on finding an additional or different criticism of Lynn than Kamin. But please no recursion in the meanwhile. Of course, there alreadly is a different critic than Kamin mentioned in the footnote, but I assume whomever I mention will have someone Pioneer-funded "scientist" to snipe at them also (preemptorily excluding Gould and Lewontin as possible critics is quite perverse, at best.. but I guess the idea is that it must be a critic who does not criticize Lynn, huh?). FWIW, it's quite easy to find critics of Jensen's professionalism... but again, just say no to recursion.

Again, as I say: a footnote critical of Kamin is fine, if Kamin is discussed in either the body of this article, or in the Leon Kamin article, or somewhere else in main text. But footnotes aren't articles. Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 21:41, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

I'll wait for your changes. But you don't seem to understand the logic of my claim. Kamin, Lewontin and Gould are (were) admittedly driven by political motivations to discredit all research into human differenecs, especially those that fall along race lines. They have been broadly criticized for allowing politics to affect their professionalism, which is also broadly the claim they are making against Lynn. Your statement that anyone that criticizes Lynn will themselves be criticized seems implausible to me. Presenting Kamin as a representative critic of Lynn is like presenting Bill O'Reilly as a representative critic of the Clintons. O'Reilly has too much baggage to be taken seriously, as does Kamin. Find someone who doesn't tend to make dishonest/inconceivable statements about IQ research. There's no need for recursion, as the example of Mackintosh demonstrates. --Rikurzhen 21:57, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

Someone who doesn't tend to make dishonest/inconceivable statements about IQ research pretty categorically rules out mentioning Jenson, now doesn't it?! The political motivations of Kamin, Lewontin and Gould stuff is nonsense, of course. But even taking your analogy: if some article on the Clintons or something they did had a footnote to Bill O'Reilly, of course that footnote should not digress into criticisms of O'Reilly. Readers are perfectly able to click on the Bill O'Reilly (commentator) link to read about criticisms of O'Reilly. And readers are perfectly able to click on the Leon Kamin link to find criticisms of Kamin. Or the Arthur Jensen link. Or whatever.

The thing is, Rikurzhen, I don't believe for one millisecond that you yourself even believe what you are pushing here. You're a lot smarter than that. You actually know what a footnote is. Instead this is just tedious argument for the sake of argument, and as a chance to jab at Kamin or whomever. Trust me, if you want pedantic, you're not even yet in the same league as I can do in my sleep (mostly I've recovered from that ability though). Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 22:18, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

No, I'm not bs-ing, being merely pedantic, nor arguing for arguments sake. I didn't add the criticism of Kamin -- Nectar did with the edit summary If we include Kamin's rhetorical quote, we should include some reference to his reputation among intelligence researchers -- but I agree that it is both appropriate and necessary for balance. If you're not serious about replacing the quotation from Kamin with someone else, then I'll insist on my view that he must be qualifed in this context. Moreover, I don't see how a footnote is different than article text, an image caption, or a cateogory list in the need for it to be balanced. --Rikurzhen 23:08, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

I don't believe you. I honestly just don't. A footnote about Foo should discuss Foo. It should not discuss everything and everyone mentioned in the footnote itself (that's for some different footnote, somewhere else). You know this. You know you know this. And I know you know you know this. Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 23:26, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

Maybe I need to check my copy of the Chicago Manual of Style, but I really think neutrality and honesty in presentation is more important than this matter of style. IMO, quoting Kamin (in this context and without full disclosure of his prejudices) is a trick. I would think the same if one were to write about paleontology, quote Gould on paleontology, then quote Rushton as a critic of Gould's honesty without pointing out that Rushton himself is the recipent of professional criticism. (For his professional practices, not just his conclusions.)

Note that Volken's criticism is of Lynn's conclusions (not ad hominem) which is completely fair game, whereas Kamin's criticism is about Lynn's professionalism and his person (ad hominem) which is an entirely different level of criticism and deserves a higher level of editorial scrutiny. --Rikurzhen 23:43, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

I think the idea is that this footnote gives a problematic discussion of Foo that requires qualification. Kamin's methodological claim that highly correlated cognitive ability test results can't meaningfully be converted into each other will probably be a red flag for more centrist psychometricians regarding accepting his methodological evaluations at face value. Given this and his position that the heritability of IQ could be "zero," elements of the quote on Lynn may be best interpreted as pathos appeals or ad hominems ("truly venemous," "scandalous"), which seem questionable for inclusion in a science article. --Nectar 01:40, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

human evolution was rapid during last 50k years -- only now confirmed

in response to "Evidence human evolution continues"?! What next, evidence that the sky is blue?, etc.

prior to high-throughput genome sequencing of humans, it was a common claim from some scientists that any geographic component to human genetic variation must be shallow and small because 50k years isn't enough time for large differences to occur -- evolution is too gradual. many of them also had a habit of downplaying the role of selection in evolution, which would be consistent with their claims.

The topic of gradualism and allele distribution rates is no doubt an interesting topic. But it is not this topic. Other interesting topics that are not this one include: quantifying reproductive isolation of human groups; the "eve hypothesis"; human geographic migration patterns; gene drift; the role of regulatory genes in phentotypic change; and so on. Presenting something that is extremely distantly related to this topic, and only if you make a whole lot of guesses about what might be true of intervening logical steps, is what's known as original research. Moreover, it's a very deceptive attempt to insinuate something obviously false. Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 05:39, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

a quick google search finds this example from Gould:

Science can be liberating as well as restrictive. We have now understood genetic variation in human beings - I'm not saying our knowledge is fixed for all time; it never is -- but I think we have seen just how shallow and superficial the average differences are among human races, even though in certain features, like skin color and hair form, the visual differences are fairly striking. They're based on almost nothing in terms of overall genetic variation, and that's because we now understand that human racial variation is much, much younger than we ever thought it was, that probably all non-African racial diversity is less than 100,000 years old. That sounds like a lot of time, but to an evolutionary biologist that's an eye blink; that's not enough time to accumulate anything in the way of evolutionary difference. So science liberates as well as falls into the biases of its time.[5]

Umm... OK. Gould's comment is pretty much right, and is not affected a whit by the recent studies some editors stuck in. Neither Gould nor any other practicing biologist in the last century ever thought that all alleles are equally distributed in all human populations. Nor that evolutionary pressure suddenly stopped X years ago. You do know, don't you, that 50k < 100k? Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 05:39, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

there's a reason that the three papers nectar described were published in science and pnas: they are hot! who would have guessed that something like 10% of the human genome has human genes have a signature of recent selection? (well maybe some people.) but even more germane -- the functional categories aren't just skin color and hair form, nor just the things that evolve quickly in any animal (e.g. sperm proteins and immunity genes), but also genes for neuronal fuction. that's quite different than what Gould is suggesting in the quotation above, and it is also quite obviously germane to this article. --Rikurzhen 05:10, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

WTF? There are two alleles in question in the cited article. That's what 0.0000001% of the human genome? That 10% weird number is off by something like a multiple of a billion. I suppose there must be some less absurd claim that you are trying to make, but I'm honestly not sure what it is. Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 05:39, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

There are three recent papers. This is the third: http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/abstract/0509691102v1 --Rikurzhen 05:42, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

I'll let you mull that one over and you can reconsider your comments above with that in mind. --Rikurzhen 05:46, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Original research

It's argued in the race section of this article that race is "biologically meaningless." However, these studies find differences in neural genetics between races. That has clear relevance to the "biologically meaningless" discussion. No original conclusions have been drawn, and the additions, including the conclusion "These studies add further weight to the view that human evolution is still a work in progress" were derived from the NYTimes article.--Nectar 06:18, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

If you assume that many different alleles have a similar bio-geographic distribution, then race is "biologically meaningful". The articles in question suggest a small number of alleles that are distributed in a manner that does not closely match the operative definitions of race used by the researchers in this article. It's conceivable that the above speculation is true, but the cited articles are not even remotely relevant to such a claim. Nor is there any connection whatsoever between how rapid human evolutionary change has been in the last 50k years and whether "races" are ontologically distinct. If you make a whole lot of additional assumptions about relative isolation of breeding communities (and a variety of other unknowns), then the notion might be plausible.

As to whether "human evolution is still a work in progress"... I honestly can't imagine what point anyone might think they're making (though I guess I can see why a popular source like NYT might use that as a headline). Yes, the sky is still blue. Yes, objects are still attracted by gravity. And yes, evolution didn't cease to operate when homo sapiens emerged as a species. So the fuck what? I guess it's sort of a tautology posing as a conclusion... something like the irrefutable true (but still obnoxious and biased): "A woman is a woman, but a cigar is a cigar". Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 06:50, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Lulu, you seem to have missed the point on both marks. On (paragraph 1) you are conflating the (a) derivability of what we call races from genes alone with (b) the genetic (and probably phenotypic) differences that exist between socially + geographially delineated populations. These articles of course do not address (a). For new data that begins to answer (a) see PMID 16355252. These papers are instead telling us about (b).

And yet several editors (inlcuding you) keep inserting the comments in the section about the ontological status of race. I never removed the comments from the section where the new studies were actually relevant, only from the section where they were trying to insinuate an unwarranted conclusion about (a).

Of course the question is not a binary yes or no to whether human evolution has continued during the last ~50k years (since the first humans left Africa), but rather to what extent. Gould et al thought very little, in part because they assumed that selection was not acting strongly and that neutral mutations would (of course) only add up to so much in that time. The early proponents of evolutionary psychology also made similar assumptions about the evolution of the mind. (And so you can see it's not a good versus evil thing ;).) If the PNAS paper is correct, then the magnitude of the change due to selection was much greater than Gould or most others seem to have predicted. And as the Science papers show, genes that are plausibly associated with human cognition were under (some kind of) selection as well. So it's not only that humans have evolved (as any species with finite population size will because of neutral effects), but that selection was been so strong and not restricted to skin deep biological processes. --Rikurzhen 07:25, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

It is absolutely inconceivable to me that Gould ever believed that selection stopped acting when humans left Africa. Sadly, he is now dead, so we can't ask him. But I have read every book he had published without encountering any hint of such a thing.

Maybe you'd be better off taking this discussion over to the Intelligent design or Creationism articles, somewhere where a reader might for one millisecond not find it obvious that evolution exists. Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 07:39, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Varieties of maize

Umm... from the Gould quote above: "less than 100,000 years" is "not enough time to accumulate anything in the way of evolutionary difference" in humans. Where I think we can take "evolutionary difference" to mean salient phenotypic changes, rather than any evolultionary change at all. A selective signature on nearly 1 out of 10 genes is something like what human cultivation did to the rice genome. That's a huge evolutionary difference in less than 100k years. --Rikurzhen 07:45, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

C'mon, I know you are not really that tin-eared. I suppose that you believe also that Gould thought these plants are phenotypically identical too (which would follow from the overly literal reading you propose) Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 07:51, 27 February 2006 (UTC):

I mention rice not to compare with the 100k number, but to compare with the genome change number. The rice generation time is substantially less and of course these plants were under artificial rather than natural selection. But his 100k number was for human generation times and made an assumption about the selective regime experienced by humans during the last 100k years which has since been refuted. --Rikurzhen 07:56, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

The problem of "race"

(1) It's argued by some that the partly genetic hypothesis is problematic or even fundamentally invalid because of the criticisms against "race". E.g.: "If biologists have shown that genetically there is neither a black nor a white race, then IQ tests cannot have shown that the black race is less intelligent than the white—there is no black race, and there is no white race" (Francisco Gil-White 2004). (2) The observance of differences in neural genetics firmly establishes the possibility of genetic differences in intelligence (because some neural genes are known to influence intelligence). There is no way (2) is not relevant to (1).--Nectar 11:09, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

I guess this is maybe settled already in the article. If that's the case, the criticism in the (very long) race section should probably be directed at more fruitful targets than implying criticism of "race" is a problem for the partly genetic hypothesis.--Nectar

This specific argument is obviously valid only in if you italicize white and black to refer to the words themseleves rather than what they describe. In the way it is actually written it makes as much sense as "If biologists have shown that genetically there is neither a black nor a white race, then skin colorometers cannot have shown that the black race is darker skinned than the white—there is no black race, and there is no white race".

The kind of argument Gould is making in the quotation I put in the section above may deserve a spot in the article, but it's not aim at IQ directly, so it may be inappropriate to state it as such. The form of the argument that is appropriate is intimated in the NYTimes review of Lahn's work: that there may have been selective pressure for pathogen resistance and sperm proteins (and skin color), but there's no reason to think the human brain has evolved much in the last 50k years. --Rikurzhen 18:16, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

Genes and intelligence

(outdenting for readability): A tangential point to this is our current sentence

It's been suggested that a conclusive answer may not be possible until intelligence is directly linked to specific genes.

in Section 4.4. There are several things wrong with this pronouncement. (1) Who suggests this anyway? (2) Don't use contractions. (3) The quote suggest that this link has not yet been established. We obviously do not agree whether or not this link has been established in any meaningful way in 2005, and whether it is conclusive. But many would think so, which means that the quoted sentence is misleading. The easiest way to tackle this would be to completely remove it. It's not a very good sentence anyway. Arbor 09:56, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

I've thought that sentence may be able to be replaced with reference to Pinker's statement: "Advances in genetics and genomics will soon provide the ability to test hypotheses about group differences rigorously."[6] Re (2), contractions seem fine to me; is there a problem with them?--Nectar 10:50, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

"make it so..." :) --Rikurzhen 20:12, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Media portrayal

Why should a merely twenty years old study be mentioned in the intro? Provide evidence that this still applies today.Ultramarine 12:54, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

The Sackett et al. study's identical results corroborate that study.--Nectar 13:02, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Full name and year, please.Ultramarine 13:13, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Template:AYref. You can find this study discussed in the "Media portrayal" section of the race and intelligence article. The references page has a link to the online article.--Nectar 13:23, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

That is not evidence of that media portrayal is inaccurate in general. And one can hardly say that media portrayal differs from scientific opinion when the scientific journals state the same thing.Ultramarine 13:27, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Ultra, what you would need would be that anybody (with a straight face) says something like this: "Today, media regularly represents the views of those who stress that individual and group differences may be partly genetic (e.g., Arthur Jensen) as representative of mainstream opinion among experts, whereas those of Stephen Jay Gould and Leon Kamin are described as minority viewpoints." From my own subjective reading of "the media", that claim would be a lie, but others may be reading other "mainstream media". We could, of course, do some more-or-less original research here in order to get an overview of what the media thinks, but unless my mainstream media sampling (which is indeed strongly biased towards left-wing publications) is completely off, the quoted study is an accurate portrayal. However, if I am wrong, and there has indeed be a notable shift in the viewpoints expressed in such publications towards acceptance of the hereditarian position, then that would indeed make a very welcome addition to this article. Until such evidence is produced (and I would accept original research at least for the sake of discussion), the quoted study is sterling quality, and miles ahead any other claim in Wikipedia of "many people think that" or "it is often said that" or "the media often describes X as". Arbor 14:17, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit conflict] The Sackett study corroborates the earlier study's finding of a strong bias toward one side of the debate, and Sackett et al. do conclude it is a widespread bias. That being the case, if you can provide evidence against this trend, we can change the article.--Nectar 14:24, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Spare my the original research. A toll taken twenty years ago regarding voting preferences is uninteresting today. Again, the Sackett study is not evidence of general misrepresentation and one can hardly say that media portrayal differs when the scientific journals state the same thing. Some rephrasing may be possible. Ultramarine 14:27, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Original research means 'drawing original conclusions.' Sackett et al. argue there is widespread bias toward one side, thus giving any confirmation we need of the earlier study. The burden of proof is now on your side, as you've provided absolutely no evidence for your argument.--Nectar

I have made npov changes to intro and also mentions the funding. And please do not just simply delete every addition I make. Ultramarine 14:52, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Ultramarine, your "additions" are also "deletions". When you put the two together, and you get reverted, don't infer that your additions are unwelcome. I cannot in priciple abide by your attempts to hide the Snyderman and Rothman survey data. It's too widely known and discussed for your or my opinions about it to count. It has to go in, and it has to be mentioned as the thing we know about media portrayal in the intro. --Rikurzhen 18:40, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Why did you delete all the changes and not only the things discussed here? For one thing, why should this one 20 years old study be mentioned in the intro and not the source of funding.Ultramarine 19:16, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

I'm sorry I stepped away from the computer before leaving this note... I deleted the PF+SPLC sentence also because it needs to be replaced completely, not merely tweaked. The previous sentence was a mix of generality and specificity that made wide open implications of racism accusations with just a hint of specific detail -- that is, it wasn't NPOV worded. We can go general: direct and indirect accusations of bias and racism ... blah blah. We can go specific: the Pioneer Fund, which has given grants to public supporters of the partly genetic hypothesis, has been accused by the controverial SPLC organization of supporting racism. --Rikurzhen 19:29, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

While we have Ultramarine's attention: on your user page you list several quotes from other WP editors about yourself. One of them is mine, about an old version of the Pioneer Fund section: "the argument is presented as a confused string of insinuations and petty pointers in some stream-of-consciousness prose". While I think this is an accurate description of the sorry state that paragraph was then in, and thus have no qualms about the presence of this quote, attributed or not, I take exception to being listed under Racialists. I had to read up on Racialist to see what the term means, and find very little there that is an even halfway accurate rendition of my views. Especially, the Appiah quote used to define the term seems to assume that racialists operate under an essentialist definition of race, and most of the other views described in that article are alien to me as well. Not that I think our own perspectives matter, but I would label myself (at least within this debate) as a Rawlsian. So if you want to keep the quoted jibe on your user page, please attribute it either to me, or to Rawlsians. Not to Racialists. Arbor 20:20, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Given your edit history on this page, Arbor, it's really hard to see how the label does not apply rather precisely. Edit histories speak louder than disavowals. But in any case, I would think that whatever Ultramarine puts on her user page is pretty clearly her own editorial judgement, not a purport of encyclopedic and verifiable fact. So I'd chill with it, if I were you (you should see the things people write about me on WP... though usually the ones that rant most wind up getting on indefinite block for unrelated matters; it's karma not any action I take). Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 20:40, 27 February 2006 (UTC)... I apologize on the struck-out comment: it is unnecessarily confrontational, and I do not mean to personally attack Arbor, nor create the impression of doing so. Sorry. Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters

Well, with Ultramarine I assumed it was a good-natured error. I have more difficulties in categorising your comment. So while I might chill with Ultra, I won't with you. What exactly is it that my edit history displays that is in any way concordant with Racialism? The only paragraph I can see isn't obviously false is the third, namely the quoting of Rushton, Lynn, Jensen. I would be surprised if I actually have quoted any of those here, but maybe I have. With almost everything else I disagree forcefully. Going through the linked article: I live in a "colour-blind" society (registering an individual's race or ethnicity is actually illegal in Sweden). I think that's the way to go. The US census policy on this makes me acutely uncomfortable. I take absurdly strong exception to any idea of racial pride, segregation, or identity politics. Appiah's definition, ""the view – which I shall call racialism – that there are heritable characteristics, possessed by members of our species, which allow us to divide them into a small set of races, in such a way that all the members of these races share certain traits and tendencies with each other that they do not share with members of any other race" (emphasis mine) is laughably essentialist and certainly not something I would agree with. The bit on DuBois is too short for me to decide if that is accurate ("differences between races exist" could mean anything, including stuff you believe in). So unless the term means something really different than what the article claims, I cannot see how it applies to me. Indeed, in many specific points that are crucial to me, politically and morally, I hold the exact opposite position. Arbor 21:20, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Edits

My latest edit [7]. Please do not just revert. Explain objections. I have tried to make the intro neutral with statement from each side.Ultramarine 21:23, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

copied from above: I'm sorry I stepped away from the computer before leaving this note... I deleted the PF+SPLC sentence also because it needs to be replaced completely, not merely tweaked. The previous sentence was a mix of generality and specificity that made wide open implications of racism accusations with just a hint of specific detail -- that is, it wasn't NPOV worded. We can go general: direct and indirect accusations of bias and racism ... blah blah. We can go specific: the Pioneer Fund, which has given grants to public supporters of the partly genetic hypothesis, has been accused by the controverial SPLC organization of supporting racism. --Rikurzhen 19:29, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

more: sackett and "sterotype threat" is not a sufficient summary of the media portrayal data. as per necar and arbor above, there's no reason to think anything has changed since s&r did their survey. no contray data exists, and the only other data point we can find is supportive. prefixing s&r as "one study" suggests that there's something not right about that "one study" or that being "one study" is not a good thing. we don't add "one study" before any of the other unique reports we describe. --Rikurzhen 21:39, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Summary of controversial assumptions

I haven't checked this article in a while, but I see Ultramarine removed this on 27 February:

This research is grounded in several controversial assumptions: - *the social categories of race and ethnicity are concordant with genetic categories, such as biogeographic ancestry. - *intelligence is measurable (see psychometrics) and is dominated by a unitary general cognitive ability.

The reason for having this in the introduction originally was to help unfamiliar readers (i.e. no one editing this) grasp the basic concepts and controversies. Then it got moved from the intro and now removed altogether. I thought it was a pretty good overview of the major issues. I'll let you folks decide how to proceed, but I don't think this article does a very good job of presenting the controversy in its present form. Both "race" and "intelligence" need to be explained in a way so readers understand that the terms have disputed meanings, especially in terms of quantifiable/measurable characteristics. The summary above is not original research, but a succinct summation of the issues with this research, the key points that scholars dispute.

Do what you will on this, but it feels way too wonky for a general article as it stands. I'm not saying dumb it down, but explain the academic dispute briefly, preferably in a sentence or two right up front to help readers new to the topic. Byeee! Jokestress 00:46, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Hey Jokestress, thanks for stopping by again :) --Nectar 13:35, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Image:Rosenberg 1048people 993markers.jpg

Sorry, I should have done a couple edits rather than combine them. The mentioned image had a messed up caption when I took it out, but that was just a formatting/markup question. However, as a more principled thing, I find this chart confusing and tangential to the topic. It's certainly worth putting somewhere else, maybe in the Race article; but it's peripheral to this, and not really explained in the body text (nor should it be in this article; though again, doing so elsewhere is good). I would recommend including a short phrase about "multilocus allele clusters" or something like that, and making that a wikilink to an article with the Rosenberg chart. There's also an element that putting the chart here seems like some sort of effort at "argument by dazzlement" or something like that: i.e. readers who doubt if race is onotologically meaningful will be so wow'd by all those colors and labels as to think 'even though I can't figure that out, it sure looks impressive'". Once you do understand it, the chart is at best a very weak argument for what it's used to purport; certainly not worth so much room in this article. Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 05:18, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

To me, it doesn't seem to do any of those things. Maybe it's because I understand the detail, whereas you seem to be suggesting what the average reader might infer. --Rikurzhen 05:57, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

In any case, it is extremely peripheral to this article. And so far, I cannot locate enough information to entirely evaluate it. The description on the image page is so-so, and the caption only "explanation by insinuation". I'm sure with another couple hundred words, all the details of what the chart means could be fleshed out... but some other article would be the place to do that. Maybe a brand new one, like Race and multilocus allele clusters. Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 06:16, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

IMHO, race has more than enough about genetics. I'll get back to you on this later. --Rikurzhen 06:50, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

The article Race does have a bunch on genetics. But then, it's an absurdly huge article that is in desperate need of refactoring to conform to WP:SIZE. I hadn't ever taken a look at that when I wrote my first comment in this section; but once I did, I figured that a new, narrower article would be a better place. Actually, maybe some of the bloat over at Race could go in such a spinoff... however, I definitely don't want to add that to my way too long list of contentious pages I watch, so I'll leave that to someone else. Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 07:03, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

That sounds like a good idea, actually. Very linkable, say from the current article, or from Lewontin's fallacy. Arbor 07:19, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Wish granted. --Rikurzhen 07:35, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

For an article on the subject of comparing ethnic groups, the genetic structure and inferred evolutionary history of the population seems on topic, if Rosenberg's right that that's what these studies refer to. The race section currently already covers some of the other fundamentals of the concept and the controversy. I think Cavalli-Sforza's clustering at the level of 10 clusters could be even more informative, if that work were deemed to be of the same rigour. Regarding the image, I think seeing the data visually is clarifying (a picture's worth a thousand words etc.), though merely including it for argumentative purposes wouldn't be very good. (For convenience, the 2002 paper can be read here, and the 2005 paper here.)--Nectar 07:33, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Lulu, that was a good attempt, but I don't think that's an improvement. "proponent of the race as a genetic concept" probably doesn't accurately describe any researchers. race is a complicated concept that happens to map onto ancestry pretty well, which is itself tied with genetics. i'm reverting to get us back to square one and we can make another attempt at it. --Rikurzhen 08:56, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

So change a word or two... don't just throw out what I did! If you notice, I removed about the same number of words for extraneous digressions pro-race-concept and anti-race-concept (and as you noticed, weakened overclaim about precise number of opponents of the race concept). I disagree, of course, that "race is a complicated concept that maps ancestry well"... but then, I guess that's because I know a lot more about the intellectual and social history of the concept of race than do folks who naively naturalize it, and assume it was invented by modern genetics. If you add enough epicycles, I guess you can get the motion of planets right though... Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 16:11, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

The original content that you added and ascribed to Collins and Risch is what I objected to, and it's what I reverted for. I still have to revert at least that part back because you've mischaracterized them. (AFAIK, the only other thing you did was delete the figure and rearrange the text -- so I didn't feel a need to preseve those change too.) --Rikurzhen 17:20, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

One accurate description is -- some geneticists have claimed that many of these "well-intentioned" statements are false and do not "derive from an objective scientific perspective." They argue instead "that from both an objective and scientific (genetic and epidemiologic) perspective there is great validity in racial/ethnic self-categorizations, both from the research and public policy points of view." --Rikurzhen 17:24, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

I also removed the (pro-)Lewontin digression in my edit, since it's also a side issue (I think Lewontin is right, FWIW, but this isn't the place for it). On either side of it, I think quoting ad hominem insults is really not encyclopedic. The Collins paraphrase is just that. It's much more neutral to just say: Some say race is not ontologically warranted as a category; others say that multilocus alleles provide ontological grounding. Reporting the name calling is just mean-spirited (yes, it's verifiable since it quotes people, but what's the point?). Anyway, we should definitely link back to your fine new page, Rikurzhen. Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 19:43, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Your text is still inaccurate, as is your interpretation of Collin's statement. First, and trivially, Collins was not attacking but praising the motives of those who have made such statements. I included it here to point out that this is not a blood feud, but rather that one side thinks the other is letting otherwise admirable politcial considerations to influence their conclusions. More substantially, your text about "gross phenotypic identifiers of racial groups" is nothing like what any geneticists that I've read have to say about this subject, and certainly not the ones cited. For example, Risch writes that "Racial categorizations have never been based on skin pigment, but on indigenous continent of origin." The conclusion of his 2002 Genome Biology paper is that not only is self-identified race/ethnicity/ancestry a valid categorization, but "that self-defined race, ethnicity or ancestry are actually more genetically informative than clusters based on analysis of random genetic markers", that is, the data he was analyzing actually "demonstrate the superiority of ethnic labels over genetic clustering" for the purpose of categorization of people for biomedical research. This is about the utility of people's self described ancestry to make inferences about their genotype. --Rikurzhen 20:22, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

It's really hard to read the Collins the way you say. It reads like a patronizing dismissal, not as praise, as far as I can construe it. But even if it were praise, why should that be here. Scientifically, some geneticist think one thing, others think another. I'm really not interested in whether the parties share beers or graffiti each others offices.

The "gross phenotypic identifiers" is an excellent phrase, and is precisely how characterization of race are always made (except possibly in a genetics lab). Not only skin tone, but face shape, hair quality, etc. But all macroscopic and phenotypic. No one walks down the street and asks passers-by for blood samples to analyze enzyme compositions... at least no one I know. For that matter, no one asks for a geneology chart going back 15 generations either. Let's not whitewash what racial identification actually is, nor try to pretend it was invented in the last 10 years by geneticists. Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 20:38, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Is there concern that the image implies something it shouldn't? It is otherwise useful to portray how the population gets genetically sub-divided.--Nectar 09:20, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Mostly, it's really, really huge, and requires a really long caption (which still isn't nearly long enough to actually explain it)... all for a point that is only barely relevant to this particular article at all. I mean, yes, it does also imply something it shouldn't, but that's actually a much smaller problem than plain old size. Now that Rikuzhen created that excellent spinoff (well, working on excellent, it needs cleanup for sure), why not just point readers there? Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 16:11, 2 March 2006 (UTC)