Talk:J. Philippe Rushton

/Talk Archive 2006-06-20

This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the J. Philippe Rushton article.
This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject.

Put new text under old text. Click here to start a new topic.
New to Wikipedia? Welcome! Learn to edit; get help.

Article policies

Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL

Archives: Index, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6

Issues with reorg

Let's discuss particular issues with particular sections here, as per the massive reorg that recently occured. Blanket reverting isn't helping move the article to a more NPOV stance - we need to work collaboratively with eachother, and express what our concerns are, and I think then we can more effectively address our issues. Please, let's talk about specific concerns you have here, and find some common ground on how to address it before doing massive reverts. Thanks! --JereKrischel 21:54, 20 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Stop describing all Rushton supporters by their most infamous description (i.e. Pioneer fund). One of the experts you quote was fired from his university but i don't describe him as fired professor. Also, the section on Rushton's race theory was very well written. Why would you erase half of Rushton's own views from an article about Rushton, while providing ample room for your own original research on racial mathematics. Why do you erase pro-Rushton quotes calling them red-herring while keeping in negative quotes?

I also think a huge problem is that we're all editing too much to quickly. That doesn't allow us to debate edits slowly point by point. You've already reorganized the entire article in a massive way allowing four complete sections all devoted to criticism. In light of all the changes you've already made, it would be nice if you could make future changes more slowly, describing each one, and make more effort to not play favorites with experts. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 134.117.254.250 (talk • contribs)

The problem I'm having is that we did the reorg to separate things out, and instead of working with the new structure, old parts are being put back in without thought. For example, there is a section that says "(See Criticm)", and there is no section like that anymore.

I'm sorry if the Pioneer Fund seems to be an infamous description - they are particularly notable, and I think it should be clear where his support comes from. I tried to be neutral about putting that in (I didn't say, "From the infamous, facist Pioneer Fund") - is there a way we can include that salient information in an NPOV fashion for you?

Why is it relevant to point out where Rushton's supporters get their funding from? Every person being cited has some kind of bias yet only the bias of Rushton's supporters is pointed out. All of these people are being cited because they are experts so only their relevant qualifications (i.e. Harvard biologist)should be mentioned. You seem more interested in discrediting all those who agree with Rushton than producing a neutral article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 134.117.254.250 (talk • contribs)

Well, the obvious answer is that if everybody supporting him is funded by the same group, they may have motives beyond pure academic ones in supporting his research. Is there a contra-example to the Pioneer Fund, that represents Rushton critics? If everyone on the other side is being funded by a single entity, I think it's important to note that too. I'm sorry if you feel like making associations clear is somehow discrediting people, but attribution is important. Much in the same way you'll have media disclaim their financial relationships to companies they cover in the press, I think that it is absolutely best practice here to make the funding connection clear - after all, Rushton is the president of the Pioneer Fund now, right? What might happen to people's grants if they contradicted him? --JereKrischel 01:20, 21 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Well he wasn't the president of the Pioneer fund at the time those quotes were taken. Obviously most of the people who support Rushton do similar research and thus get similar funding, but this is true in many areas of research. Seems kind of biased to describe all Rushton supporters as "Pioneer fund scholar" but describe all his detractos by their professional qualifications, even though in many cases, his detractors have lesser qualifications. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 134.117.83.71 (talk • contribs)

I'm not describing all Rushton supporters as Pioneer Fund scholars - I'm only describing those who are Pioneer Fund scholars as Pioneer Fund scholars. Have I mislabeled someone? Or are you asserting that there are no Rushton supporters who are not funded by the organization he is the president of? I fully support putting everyone's qualifications in their description, but we should also note those who have direct financial ties to the Pioneer Fund in the name of full disclosure. --JereKrischel 03:25, 21 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Regarding the red-herring quotes, they may belong *somewhere*, but when put in arbitrarily they don't make sense - PC analysis doesn't refer to absolute genetic difference at all, and it shouldn't be held up as an argument. I'm sure there are better arguments to hold up - let's find them together! --JereKrischel 22:32, 20 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Well if you read Jensen's quote, he seems to think that PC analysis describe genetic similarity and so that view deserves representation. It's not our job to decide which expert is correct. You posted an intelligent expert refuting race to counter Jensen's view. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 134.117.254.250 (talk • contribs)

I think we put that back in already:

Rushton supporters claim that when Principal components analysis is performed on data from Cavalli-Sforza, major racial groups did indeed form widely seperated clusters

Would you like to expand on that? Or have we settled it? --JereKrischel 01:20, 21 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Moved some stuff

Okay, I've tried to re-add most of the NPOV portions of the previous POV edits - hopefully this gives us a good place to start. In general, I'm trying to leave the sections describing his work completely neutral (merely stating his beliefs, not making every argument he has), and putting all the debate in the Criticism sections - mostly that's because otherwise the argument ranges too wildly - one person will point out A, then the other one will say B, but look C, then someone responds to C, which leads to D, and has nothing to do with A.

I also removed text directly lifted from another website. We're not allowed to do that without attribution. If we want to make those arguments, we can summarize and reference them, but wholesale copying is not allowed.

Thank you everyone for helping with this - I'm sure with some hard work between us, we'll have a fair and balanced article addressing everyone's issues. Let's take our time, be polite, and assume good faith. Thanks! --JereKrischel 23:34, 20 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Race Evolution section

Okay, I understand that there are issues with POV here, but let's not do blanket reverts. I think the cite for his book is good, the caption for the included image, and the shortened length of laundry lists. If there are additions past that you see should be made, let's try them out one by one to see if we can find some compromise! Thanks! --JereKrischel 00:16, 21 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The issue's not POV, this issue is that when I encouraged you to reorganize the page, you took the liberty of eliminating much of the content from his primary theory. You cut out crucial explanations about the relevance of splitting off dates, many of the variables he discussed, the unifications of all the variables through r/K, the survival challenges of different environments. You devoted more detail to the criticism (including your own original arguments) than the original arguments of the subject of the article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 134.117.254.250 (talk • contribs) 17:32, 20 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, for the variables he discussed, they're all in the table - I think it's pretty much overkill to list them all in the text.

We still have the information regarding the splitting off dates, and we still have the mention of the unified r/K. We also still have the survival challenges for colder environments...what in particular do you think is missing? --JereKrischel 00:37, 21 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Splitting off dates:

Rushton concludes that Negroids branched off first (200,000 years ago), Caucasoids second (110,000 years ago) and Mongoloids last (41,000 years ago). Rushton has claimed that this first, second, and third chronological sequence perfectly correlates with, and is responsible for, what he believes to be a consistent global multi-dimensional racial pattern on everything from worldwide crime statistics, the global distribution of AIDS, to personality.

You didn't explain how or why the splitting off dates correlate with the pattern he describes in the broader evolutionary context which is one of the most important aspects of the theory. You edited out his quote about some populations being more advanced than others which is a radical idea because most people assume that all modern humans are at the same level of evolution. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 134.117.254.250 (talk • contribs)

Okay, let me try and edit that in...the specific quote you'd like would fit in well with "Rushton believes that this branching represents a linear evolution, with Negroids being the least evolved, and Mongoloids being the most evolved." --JereKrischel 01:24, 21 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Unified r/K:

Rushton believes that his collection of 60 different variables can be unified by a single evolutionary dimension known as the r and K scale. His theory is based on an attempt to apply the inter-species r/K selection theory to the immensely smaller inter-racial differences within the human species. While all humans display extremely K-selected behavior, Rushton believes the "races" vary in the degree to which they exhibit that behavior. He asserts that Negroids use a strategy more toward an r-selected strategy (produce more offspring, but provide less care for them) while Mongoloids use the K strategy most (produce fewer offspring but provide more care for them), with Caucasoids exhibiting intermediate tendencies in this area.

You edited out a lot of the r and K differences he claims to have seen among the races. He describes 60 different variables. The previous version mentioned as many of them as possible. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 134.117.254.250 (talk • contribs)

Yes, I think it is inappropriate to laundry list all 60, or even more than a few. The table represents that data in a much more concise manner than a repetitive list. Certainly, the mere laundry list doesn't improve his argument - we've already declared that the variables he's chosen cover a broad range. --JereKrischel 01:25, 21 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Survival challenges:

He further asserts that Caucasoids evolved more toward a K-selected breeding strategy than Negroids because of the harsher and colder weather encountered in Europe, while the same held true to a greater extent for Mongoloids. Rushton believes that the survival challenges of making warm clothes, building durable shelter, preserving food, and strategically hunting large animals all selected genes for greater intelligence and social organization among the populations that migrated to cold climates.

Is there something missing there? --JereKrischel 00:39, 21 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The other problem is you just impulsively edit things you have no knowledge of in a way that badly distorts reality. For eample you write:

He asserts for example, "that many African-American youth have adopted a culture of anti-intellectualism", implying that their decisions about culture are based on their race.

You make it sound like Rushton is accusing African-American youth of adopting a culture of anti-intellectualism. It was Rushton detractors who claimed that anti-intelletucal culture was artificially lowering their IQ scores. Rushton simply replied that perhaps the culture was a product, not the cause, of the low IQ's.

I'm sorry, I thought I had followed that reasoning - genetics cause low IQs...low IQs cause anti-intellectual culture. Let me see if I can freshen that up a bit with your thoughts. --JereKrischel 01:27, 21 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Protected

The page has now been protected to force all involved parties to use the talk page to resolve disputes, rather than furthering this disruptive edit war. Once you have reached an agreement and protection is no longer necessary, please let me know or request unprotection. Thanks. AmiDaniel (talk) 01:57, 21 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

penis size

article says: Rushton has not provided any direct evidence to support this assertion, instead relies on examples of evolutionary trade-offs between brain size and reproductive frequency that permeates the r-K evolutionary scale. No study has ever shown a correlation between reproductive frequency and penis size.

there's a well established trade off between testis size and brain size: http://www.journals.royalsoc.ac.uk/openurl.asp?genre=article&id=doi:10.1098/rspb.2005.3367 bat species with promiscuous females have relatively smaller brains than do species with females exhibiting mate fidelity. This pattern may be a consequence of the demonstrated negative evolutionary relationship between investment in testes and investment in brains, both metabolically expensive tissues. --Rikurzhen 02:00, 21 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

AFAIK, Rushton never cited studies on human testes size. Not even sure if any have been done. --JereKrischel 02:02, 21 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know if Rushton does either, but I'm familar with at least one study done by someone who is now famous and probably wishes he hadn't (PMID 3083267). --Rikurzhen 02:04, 21 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Actually Rushton does mention the weight of the testes. I was planning on adding that to the table. He finds Caucasoid men have much heavier testes than Mongoloid men. I'll have to put a question mark for black men though since he cites no study for them. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 134.117.83.71 (talk • contribs)

Of course, Diamond only cites a 1974 study on differences between some Danish and Chinese testes on autopsy. Amazingly, this seems to be one of extremely few, or maybe the only study, on this in the world. He also notes "An explicit test revealed no relation between testis size and copulatory frequency in Korean men." Ultramarine 02:31, 21 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I guess this sort of leads into the questionable quality of the research he chose to "aggregate"...I wouldn't be averse to making some note of the testes size studies, but what he said was, more-brains, less-penis, not more-brains, less-balls. Kindof OR for us to make the explanation for him, perhaps? --JereKrischel 02:43, 21 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Also, we'd need to find testes-size to brain-size studies, not testes-size varying over biogeographic category, right? Not sure if you get anything just by saying balls are different between biogeographic areas... --JereKrischel 02:48, 21 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Rushton never claimed that brain-size and sexual anatomy were inversely correlated among individuals, only between populations.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 134.117.83.71 (talk • contribs)

What? So the trade-off somehow happens at a group level, but not an individual level? How would that work if a given population group he defines "evolves" and increases brain-size? Would that evolution somehow cause other population groups to spontaneously reduce their testes size? Can any group in isolation evolve into a big-brain/big-testes group? If Rushton claimed that brain-size and sexual anatomy only inversely correlate amongst populations, he's got a bigger problem defending his position that I originally thought. --JereKrischel 03:32, 21 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

As far as I know, Rushton never commented on tradeoffs at the individual level one way or another. But if in one environment brain size is selected and in another environment penis size is selected, you could very easily have one population with the bigger brain, the other population with the bigger penis, without their being any inverse correlation within each population. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.1.195.4 (talk • contribs)

I'm sorry, you failed to address my point. If you took a population, and it selected for simultaneously big-brain and big-penis, it would destroy any relationship that might have existed between groups. If you can't assert that that trade-off must exist within a group, you simply cannot assert that that trade-off must be constant between groups.

Let me illustrate:

Point in time "A"
- Group 1 has big brains, small penis
- Group 2 has small brains, big penis

At this point, we assert that there is a trade off - a group either has big brains, or big penis.

Point in time "B"
- Group 1 has big brains, big penis
- Group 2 has small brains, big penis

At this point, we cannot assert that there is a trade off - Group 1 has managed to generate a bigger penis (since there is no inverse relationship within the group, according to your interpretation of Rushton), and has now destroyed the "trade-off" observed at point in time "A". Now, maybe, if you assert that Group 2 was forced to simultaneously develop even *bigger* penises, then the observed "trade-off" may remain constant - but now you're asserting that evolutionary pressures on Group 1 somehow affect Group 2. What's your mechanism?? --JereKrischel 16:51, 21 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Of course it's possible for evolution to select a population to have both large brains and large penis. But when Rushton speaks of an evolutionary trade-off he simply means that some traits are more important in some environments than others, so a population with a small brain and a large penis in a warm environment may evolve into a population with a large brain and a shrunken penis as the migrate North. Thus in order to pass on more genes in the colder environment, evolution has traded their larger penises for large brains. This needn't imply an intrinsic inverse relation between the two variables, but rather, Rushton seems to believe that as humans migrated North, those with small brains (regardless of penis size) died out, and those with big penis (regardless of brain size) also died out. If both a large brain and a small penis increased genetic fitness up North, than Northern populations would average both larger brains and smaller penis, than the ancestral population that stayed warm, without either variable requiring an intrinsic relationship within each population, or even correlating among individuals. Rushton believes that those with small brains lacked the survival skills required to solve the new challenges they faced up North, and those with large penises were too focused on having sex with multiple partners to invest the needed time to form the stable families required to pass on genes in the harsh cold. By contrast in extremely warm environments, survival was more often a matter of luck, since not even a large brain could solve the problem of unexpected diseases and severe drought. And since large brains are so metabolically expensive, prone to over-heating, and hazardous to child-birth, those with small brains and big penises arguabley had good odds of survival, because the more children you can father with the greatest number of women, the greater the chances one of them will survive an unexpected drought or disease. By contrast in a cold environment, fathering a huge number of babies with many women will likely lead to none of them surviving, since up North each child might require lots of individual attention to learn the needed skills, and require a father focused on hunting for his family, since plant food would be scarce. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 134.117.83.70 (talk • contribs)

So, now you're back to arguing that penis size is inversely related to brain size on an individual level. As an individual moved to a climate, you're asserting that the environmental pressures on brain and penis would be inverse, favoring one over the other. This is what you earlier disclaimed, but it seems to be your point again. --JereKrischel 04:03, 22 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Prima facie, if the testis size v. brain size correlation is driven by natural selection -- rather than pleiotropy -- then there's no need for a within group correlation between the two. I'm surprised to read that Rushton plays up penis size more than testis size as the latter has a much more direct connection to sexual behavior. Human penis size is inordinate compared to other apes, possibly a product of sexual selection, but so is human brain size. --Rikurzhen 03:12, 22 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Good point. testes size is more relevant to Rushton's theory, especially since the more r selected chimps have testes almost 3 times heavier than humans. I think Rushton focuses more on penis size mainly because there's a lot more data (i.e. international condom sizes)Kinsley data etc. Rushton also argues that a larger penis increases the odds of penetrating etc and thus is related to reproductive output, at least within humans. Of course mechanisms change when you try to extrapolate to wildly different species, some of which reproduce without the need for a penis.

It seems that Rushton is continually confounded with the need to come up with new explanations :). If testes size v. brain size correlation is driven by natural selection that is proportional wherever you go (that is to say, move to one place, and you'll trade off one way, move to another, and you'll trade off another way), then the differences should be observable on an individual level as well, don't you think? After all, such differences would simply be reflective of having a family living on a colder or warmer side of town, right? --JereKrischel 04:03, 22 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Making the argument for linear evolution

Once we get unprotected, I'd like to propose an edit to your additions:

Citing genetic research by Cavalli-Sforza, the African Eve hypothesis, and the Out of Africa theory, Rushton concludes that Negroids branched off first (200,000 years ago), Caucasoids second (110,000 years ago), and Mongoloids last (41,000 years ago). Working under the assumption that more ancient forms of life (i.e. plants, bacteria, reptiles) are less evolved than more recent forms of life (i.e. mammals, primates, humans) Rushton applies the same rationale to this branching sequence, stating:

One theoretical possibility, is that evolution is progressive and that some populations are more advanced than others^{[citation needed]}

Rushton has claimed that this first, second, and third chronological sequence perfectly correlates with, and is responsible for, what he believes to be a consistent global multi-dimensional racial pattern on everything from worldwide crime statistics, the global distribution of AIDS, to personality.

Hopefully that will be okay! --JereKrischel 02:01, 21 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Sounds good but I really think that second paragraph could include several more variables that were mentioned in previous versions such as brain size and intelligence, rate of mental hospitalization, sexuality and the age at which babies crawl. Brain size is especially relevant because all through hominoid evolution brain size got bigger. Rate of mental hospitalization is especially interesting. And the age at which babies crawl is a good example of r/K and shows the utter diversity of his pattern. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 134.117.83.71 (talk • contribs)

Could you pick three or four variables, and just leave the rest in the table? --JereKrischel 02:41, 21 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Okay 4 variables: Brain size, personality, rate of mental hospitalization, and the age at which babies crawl. Deal? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 134.117.83.71 (talk • contribs)

Sounds good, keeps it nice and tight, demonstrates the wide variety, and complements the table. Thanks! --JereKrischel 03:33, 21 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I thought Wikipedia does not allow original research

Paragraphs like this seem to lower the articles credibility:

Despite their claims, mathematically it is possible to distinguish arbitrary groups which have minor differences between means, but more differences within those groups (see Arithmetic mean). For example, blue and green bags of coins may differ as groups, by 2 cents, but within groups larger amounts:

First of all it appears to be original research. You cite no well known expert of any kind making that claim. It reduces the complex field of genetics to a simple formula, and it's presented in a way that implies it contradicts Jensen. Could you please leave your own arguments out and stick to citing experts? Wikipedia is about reporting facts, not making original arguments.

Yeah, the citation really isn't about anything expert, it's about definitions (see Arithmetic mean). I'm not sure that citing a standard mathematical practices is OR - if you'd like I'll try to find a better cite for that...might not be as clear, but I'm sure we can find one. --JereKrischel 03:35, 21 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Why was reply to the Flynn Effect edited out?

The Flynn Effect is mentioned as a devestating challenge to Rushton, but when a cogent reply complete with an actual quotes to frequently cited experts was added, you edited the whole thing out. Why are you trying to show only one side of debate, and the side of the debate you show is not attributed to any experts. Why was all this edited out?

However psychologist Robert C. Nichols describes such arguments as a "faulty" syllogism:

1. We do not know what causes the test score changes over time.

2. We do not know what causes racial differences in intelligence.

3. Since both causes are unknown, they must, therefore, be the same.

4. Since the unknown cause of changes over time cannot be shown to be genetic, it must be environmental.

5. Therefore, racial differences in intelligence are environmental in origin.

Proponents of the genetic perspective point to the fact that 20th century enevironment also caused the height of men and women to increase by several inches while the height difference between the sexes remained genetic. Critics claim that the genetic difference between males and females is an order of magnitude greater than any observed difference between "races".

Describing the U.S. Flynn Effect, Professor Emeritus of Educational Psychology at the University of California, Berkely writes:

If the Flynn Effect is caused by environmental factors, it is most remarkable that a steady rise in the population's average test scores over a period of fifty or sixty years has had no effect on the mean IQ difference between blacks and whites, which has remained at about 1 SD since World War I. This era has been one of steadily diminishing disparities between blacks and whites in educational, social, and economic opportunities. Yet the general upward secular trend in the overall population level of mental test scores has not changed the standardized difference between the mean test scores of black and whites.'''''''''' — Preceding unsigned comment added by 134.117.83.71 (talk • contribs)

That was directly copied from http://home.comcast.net/~neoeugenics/jen.htm. We're not allowed to copy websites and present them as original here. If you want to quote, or paraphrase, that's fine, but outright copying, AFAIK, is not allowed. --JereKrischel 03:40, 21 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Actually the faulty syllogism is a direct quote from Robert C. Nichols and the quote from Jensen can be found in his book. The argument in between originated here. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.1.195.4 (talk • contribs)

Then the quote should be *quoted*, and referenced, not presented as written by Wikipedia editors. --JereKrischel 16:52, 21 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Incorrect criticism of Rushton's 3 way model

You write:

One will note that at the same time Jensen defends the idea of race, his self-described analysis undercuts the 3-"race" hierarchy Rushton supports, and instead notes a 4-"race" distribution.

He doesn't undercut Rushton. Rushton never said there were ONLY 3 races. But his study is focused on the 3 broadest population groups. The existence of a fourth race (which btw is probably a mix of races) does not undercut the idea of 3 MAIN races. Again can we please just stick to reporting facts and quotes and leave our own personal interpretations out of it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 134.117.83.71 (talk • contribs)

I'm sorry, but the 4 distinct clusters clearly indicate more "main" races than Rushton supposes - it really means he needs to go back to all his studies and re-analyze his data in terms of the additional "main" race. None of the clusters mentioned were any closer or farther from each other to be able to conclude that two of them could be treated either as a sub-group of one, or a mix of two. Even the thought that there might be mixes of races large enough to form distinct groups challenges Rushton, because then he'd have to analyze his data with regards to permutations and combinations of A/B/C. I think we can find a better way of stating it, but it seems pretty obvious from the citation. --JereKrischel 03:38, 21 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

But Rushton's study is precisely focused on the three largest racial categories. How does the existence of a smaller racial categroy in anyway contradict his research? That's like someone doing a study on the 3 major cities in a country and then others complaining that they ignored the rural towns. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.1.195.4 (talk • contribs)

Rushton is trying to say that people in city #1 are the smartest, and people in city #3 are the dumbest, with city #2 in between. He asserts this is because city #3 was founded first, and city #1 was founded last, and more recent cities are inherently smarter. Ignoring the rural towns and suburbs inbetween these cities, he has kept himself ignorant of larger patterns - for example, between city #3 & city #2 (dumber and dumbest), there is a suburb which "mixes" the two, is older than any of the cities, and is even smarter than people in city #1. Now his neat "evolution" has been shattered, since now the oldest area, and the newest area are the smartest. Adding in additional combinations and permutations of suburbs and rural towns inbetween the "cities" he has measured only further confounds his theory. --JereKrischel 17:00, 21 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The selection of a number of groups to divide people into is (in general) arbitrary (but there are heuristics for such a selection). It doesn't follow necessarily that one person's view that people should be divided into 4 groups for analysis A is contradictory with another's view that people should be divided into 3 groups for analysis B. --Rikurzhen 18:39, 21 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

You're correct that it's arbitrary, but the conclusion of Rushton (neat, sequential "evolution" of races in a linear fashion), is thwarted by groups that do not fall along the line he draws. Of course his premise can't possibly hold in the first place, since evolution is a continuous process and isolated groups will continue to evolve in parallel, but it is particularly contradicted by additional biogeographic "races" he hasn't taken into account in his analysis. --JereKrischel 18:58, 21 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

How do you know those groups don't fall into the lines he draws? You have to start evolutionary research somewhere and so it makes sense to start with three largest genetic clusters of human-kind. Rushton is only one man. It's hard enough for one researcher to analyze hundreds of studies on 60 different variables when comparing the 3 largest races, but the existences of smaller races, along with divisions within races, is a challenges he leaves to future scholars. The existence of a 4th race would only undercut Rushton if Rushton theory was dependent on there being only 3 races, OR if the 4th race could be shown to somehow contradict his data. In neither case that's true, so your statement should be removed. Even if if you were right your statement should still be removed since your editorializing. It's hard enough to agree on an edit when we just report the facts. Adding original analysis and interpretation will make it impossible. And your statement about isolated groups evolving in parallel in no way contradicts the fact that throughout evolution, a populations that branch off earlier tend to be less K selected than populations that branch off later. Within primates, monkeys branched off earliest and are much less K selected than Hominoids branched off last and are the most K selected. Apes are intermediate in both K selection and splitting off date. This clearly contradicts your claim that parallel evolution makes splitting off dates irrelevant. In fact the pattern can be extended all through evolution, and not just within the primate branch which itself branched off later than others orders of mammals which are less K selected. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 134.117.83.70 (talk • contribs)

I certainly don't know if additional clusters and groups that have been identified since Rushton's claims of a tri-level hierarchy fall along the lines he draws, and neither does he without further research. Also, the branching you refer to between homonid species is a completely different beast than with imagined "branching" within a single species. The other question you beg is which group is the branch, and which group is the trunk - especially when actual genetic studies show no greater distance between the biogeographic categories Rushton promotes in the order he asserts. There are also many cases of a later "branch" in the evolutionary ladder leading to a dead end, while earlier "branches" ended up evolving into higher species.

The pattern you think exists, doesn't. The splitting you think happened, didn't. We can certainly find a better way of stating the issue, but trying to defend Rushton from every logical fallacy he commits certainly isn't appropriate. We can work on the wording together and find a decent compromise, I'm sure! --JereKrischel 03:54, 22 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Instead of saying things like "The pattern you think exists, doesn't. The splitting you think happened, didn't" can you please try to be a little more open-minded on this issue? The point is you can point to the existence of a fourth race, independent of the three largest races Rushton studies, without making the biased assertion that such a finding undercuts Rushton's research. Why do you have so much difficulty adhearing to Wikipedia's neutral perspective policy? In fact Rushton knew from the outset, that the 3 race model does not include all humans, but only the 3 largest populations which seems a good place to start. The existence of a 4th race, or even a 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th and 9th race is in no way a logical fallacy on Rushton's part since he's studying only the 3 largest races. Does the existence of xyy people undercut all the research finding differences between men (xy) and women (yy)? Does the existence of bisexual people undercut research on the two main sexual orientations (homosexual & heterosexual). Does the existence of additional kingdoms undercut research of biologists comparing the animal kingdom with the plant kingdom? And of course there are case of earlier branches that eventually go on to outdistance branches that were once higher. However if you're on the first branch, and you don't do any more branching, then by definition you're less evolved than higher branches. As for inter-species/intra-species comparisons, I think that's discussed above.