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Kudos to you for an amazing amount of work on this. Assuming no objections on your part, I will add some photos of the various characters to liven things up. David.Kane ( talk) 13:05, 12 April 2010 (UTC)
I have three issues with the last sentence of the opening. First, there are non-psychologists actively involved in the debate. Charles Murray is a political scientists and Linda Gottfredson is a sociologist. Second, I am not sure if the Pioneer Fund is important enough to mention in the opening. (But all your discussions of it in the body of the article are perfectly reasonable.) I just don't see the Pioneer Fund as being nearly as important as, for example, Jensen's 1969 article or the Bell Curve. Third, I think reasonable people might differ about how "small" the group pursuing this research is. I can certainly cite a dozen or more. David.Kane ( talk) 13:45, 12 April 2010 (UTC)
Can someone explain what was wrong with this addition to the history section and what I need to change to include it?
In 1998, Douglas Detterman, founding editor of the journal, Intelligence, published a special issue as a tribute to Arthur Jensen's research on the topic of human intelligence. Detterman's introduction to the special issue is entitled "Kings of Men," and is followed by commentary from respected scholars in-field on the integrity and impact of the contributions Jensen has made to this field. Bpesta22 ( talk) 14:08, 12 April 2010 (UTC)
Confused as to how it's commentary. It seems to be entirely factual. Given that, am I ok to add it back in? - Bpesta22 ( talk) 14:31, 12 April 2010 (UTC)
(ec) I'm sorry, but there you are completely wrong. Go and read Wikipedia:RS#Primary.2C_secondary.2C_and_tertiary_sources. "Wikipedia articles should be based mainly on reliable secondary sources." That's quite clear, don't you think? We don't get to be the historians if we can't find a seconday source - Bpesta22 seems to have written those words, they're not a paraphrase of a secondary source that I can check myself. That is what WP:V says. Anyway that kind of detail in this article is WP:UNDUE and seems against WP:NPOV. Mathsci ( talk) 14:45, 12 April 2010 (UTC)
I admit -- I hopped here from doing some New Pages Patrolling, fully expecting to find a nasty WP:SYNTH / WP:OR disaster... and am very pleasantly surprised to find what appears to be a well-sourced, interesting work. That said, the title seems clunky to me. Does anybody have any alternative suggestions? I for one can't think of any off the top of my head, so perhaps I'm answering my own question/concern with regard to the title, but I figured it was worth an ask. ɠǀɳ̩ςεΝɡ bomb 20:30, 12 April 2010 (UTC)
First of all, I'm glad to see that this section has been made its own article, and that it doesn't include the irrelevant information about Rushton writing for American Renaissance. However, I this section still has some NPOV problems that need to be addressed.
There are some other NPOV problems also, but these are the ones that stand out to me. Unless someone can present a convincing case for why these parts of the article need to remain the way they currently are, I'll be changing them shortly, unless someone else gets to them first. -- Captain Occam ( talk) 21:37, 12 April 2010 (UTC)
I noticed all of the same problems on reading through the article. These are serious and need to be addressed. -- DJ ( talk) 07:29, 14 April 2010 (UTC)
It is unacceptable to add and remove material which does not match the secondary sources as Captain Occam has done. Any edits of this kind, which depart from the secondary sources, will be reverted and continued efforts to "sanitize" the history or alter ii will be reverted. Captain Occam risk being blocked if he removes material that he does not like. Being a die h-hard fan of hereditarianism does not entitle Captain Occam to rewrite history, removing for example the role of William Shockley. That is unacceptable POV-pushing on wikipedia. His alternative is to find other neutral secondary sources that satisfy WP:RS amd WP:V. Mathsci ( talk) 03:27, 13 April 2010 (UTC)
<- I note that you just left this message. [2] That looks like an attempt to be disruptive. This message [3] was similar. Again not the way wikipedia is usually edited. In fact this borders on WP:HARASSment and wikihounding. Mathsci ( talk) 07:19, 13 April 2010 (UTC)
The most glaring fault of the article in its current state is the complete omission of the role of Marxist and neo-Marxist ideology in the historical development of the race and intelligence controversy. This needs correction if the article is to approach something resembling a neutral point of view. I assume that Mathsci, the primary editor, has not intentionally failed to make mention of this aspect, but is instead simply ignorant of the wider politico-historical context in which this debate has unfolded. I provide some information below in the hopes of turning both his attention as well as the attention of other editors to the need for this article to discuss both sides of the debate on equal terms.
Articles and/or books which could be reviewed as background material include:
Radical Marxists critics have charged that IQ testing and IQ research, as represented by the work of Arthur Jensen, are either disguised racist ideology or pseudopsychological science. This article argues that the historical evidence marshalled in support of the first charge is both selective and irrelevant, and that the technical arguments advanced to support the second charge that IQ research is pseudoscience reflect both serious misunderstandings and misrepresentations of Jensen's views on the nature and heritability of IQ.
Advocates of certain political and economic ideologies, most notably neo-Marxist and similar collectivist and totalitarian philosophies, are intolerant of the idea that not all of a person's behavior and not all social conditions are potentially amenable to the control of the political and economic system. To maintain the belief in complete economic determinism of the conditions of life, the importance of genetic factors - which are not directly subject to political or economic control - must be denied. This was the philosophical underpinning of Lysenkoism, which prevailed for many years in the Soviet Union, with ultimately disastrous consequences for the science of genetics and for its applications in agriculture in the U.S.S.R. Despite this lesson, in recent years we have seen a good deal of Lysenkois thinking in the so-called nature-nurture controversy over IQ - most blatantly promulgated, of course, by left-wing groups such as the Progressive Labor Party, the Students for a Democratic Society, the American Communist Party, and other minor, but highly vocal, political and social activist groups. (pp. 487-488)
All these criticisms tend to have a political context, as one might have anticipated from the dislike expressed towards IQ testing by Hitler and Stalin, brothers-in-arms to ban any sign of objectivity from the political landscape. Modern writers who seeks to castigate IQ testing often sail under the flag of Marxism; this would include people like Stephen Rose, Leon Kamin, and R. L. Lewontin, whose book Not in Our Genes received much favourable attention from journalistic reviewers in the media, and severe criticism from experts writing in scientific journals. The same was true of Stephen Jay Gould, whose book The Mismeasure of Man has more factual errors per page than any book I have ever read. (pg. 10)
Much more can be found by anyone interested in the subject. I suspect that Mathsci, being the primary editor, will spare no effort in ensuring that the article becomes compliant with NPOV policy and will himself undertake the work of integrating material such as that presented above into the article. -- Aryaman (talk) 13:45, 13 April 2010 (UTC)
In addition to the sources above, we could look at John Alcock's Triumph of Sociobiology (Oxford, 2001):
The mid-1970's were years of intense political activity on campuses, much of it initiated by left-wing professors and their students who opposed the war in Vietnam. At Harvard University, the war and various other injustices came under fire from a number of scholars of the Marxist or semi-Marxist persuasion, including Wilson's colleagues Lewontin and Gould. Lewontin and another colleague wrote about this time, "As working scientists in the field of evolutionary genetics and ecology, we have been attempting with some success to guide our own research by a conscious application of Marxist philosophy.... There is nothing in Marx, Lenin or Mao that is or that can be in contradiction with the particular physical facts and processes of a particular set of phenomena in the objective world". Marxist philosophy is founded on the premise of the perfectability of human institutions through ideological prescription. Therefore, persons with Marxist views were particularly unreceptive to the notion that an evolved "human nature" exists, fearing that such a claim would be interpreted to mean that human behavior cannot change. If our actions really were immune to intervention, then the many ills of modern societies could not be corrected. Such a conclusion is needless to say a repugnant one, and not just for Marxists. (pg. 20)
Here's the abstract of Roger Pearson's Race, Intelligence and Bias in Academe (Scott-Townsend, 1991):
This book details evidence of widespread efforts to withhold from the public any clear understanding of the importance of heredity in shaping human abilities, particularly with regard to research into the genetic basis of human behavior, with particular reference to heredity and intelligence. Eminent academic authorities such as Arthur Jensen at Berkeley, Richard Herrnstein of Harvard, Thomas Bouchard of Minnesota, William Shockley of Stanford, Philippe Rushton of Western Ontario, Linda Gottfredson of Delaware, and numerous other scholars have been criticized by Marxist faculty members such as Leon Kamin and Richard Lewontin, pilloried in Leftist publications, described in less than favorable terms in the general media, and had their classes disrupted—even suffering physical assault in some cases—by Marxist student organizations. All this is amply documented, and the result is an up-to-date book which makes entertaining reading but provides solid, documented information on what is currently happening in major segments of the university arena. What makes all this important is that the role of heredity in shaping human abilities has now been demonstrated beyond reasonable doubt by research into behavioral genetics. Yet due to a concerted campaign by Leftists within the academic world and the prevailing political climate in the media, these facts are little known to the general public. For those interested this is also a useful source book.
Of course, the abstract alone is not quotable, but it's a lead worth following up on, particularly given the title of the work.
There's nothing "disruptive" about suggesting this article make mention of the role of Marxist ideology in the history of the race and intelligence debate, particularly as an offshoot of the wider sociobiology debate (which is really little more than infighting among the branches of post-Classical positivism). It's documented in reliable sources and is obviously relevant to the topic. Segerstråle (Oxford, 2000) discusses it in depth. What, exactly, is the problem here? Is it somehow taboo to mention that the beliefs and actions of some of the most vocal opponents of hereditarianism, such as Lewontin, Gould, and Rose, were influenced by Marxist ideology? -- Aryaman (talk) 11:03, 14 April 2010 (UTC)
Varoon, Roger Pearson is a Pioneer grantee, so this is a primary source for history. His role is described at length in Tucker. As far as the first quote gos, this article is not about sociobiology. If you read the 2001 OUP book by Ullica Segerstråle, which I have added to the reference and linked with a footnote into the text, she makes it clear that the race and intelligence debate should not be confused with the sociobiology debate (a common source of confusion) even if some of the players on the environmentalist side were the same; she also makes it clear that political ideology really had nothing to do with the scientific merits of the debate. That requires looking through the book as a whole, not cherry-picking quotations: she says that she wrote her book to clarify what exactly had been going on in the debate.
However I have a contructive suggestion to make, I hope along the lines of extra content of the type you want to see in the article.
Her book is an excellent source for the behaviour and ideology of the group around Gould and Lewontin. Not even Segerstråle describes them as Marxists. She is far more cautious, even if in print Lewontin at one stage made such an assertion of that kind. The allegations and counterallegations (which Wooldridge calls "insults") exchanged between these groups of scientists - words like "racist" or "Marxist" - should be handled in the same kind of cautious circumspect way in our writing, which should paraphrase secondary sources. I would certainly be absolutely against going into things like Glayde Whitney's links with the Grand Master of the Klu Klux Klan, etc. I did note that Segerstråle asserts that Gould and Lewontin chose their approach to divert attention from a possible vacuum in their own scientific careers by deliberately putting other scientists in the spotlight. I think that's discussed at length in her book.
So my recommendation is to use Segerstråle's, Wooldridge's and Tucker's books (I might have missed some) to have a slightly more refined and detailed set of comments on the activities of both sides, i.e. to amplify and possibly explain the insults traded between both sides. However, we should not act as historians - we should quote historians and what they write in secondary sources, not assemble quotes ourselves. I am totally against that. It amounts to WP:SYNTH and WP:OR.
I have listened to your suggestions several times and acted upon them: hence (1) the inclusion of the material on the Sociobiology Study Group and (2) adding Segerstråle as a reference (I had actually looked at it while finding material for (1)). Certainly the interaction on the lede of another article was positive. Slrubenstein was delighted that we could work together on the lede and I have to say that he has privately encouraged me to make the most of that excellent collaboration (I hope you're reading this Slr :) ). This material is even more neutral, so I actually don't anticipate any kind of problem.
So would you be ready to work out some not-too-extended specific content of the above kind, based on those three (or more) secondary sources, and then use that material as a basis for linking to primary sources (such as quotes)? Mathsci ( talk) 13:57, 14 April 2010 (UTC)
The current version of the article uses Lynn, Richard (2001), The science of human diversity: a history of the Pioneer Fund, University Press of America, ISBN 076182040X as a source. Perfectly reasonable! I don't want to get caught up with the semantic debate over what is a "primary" and what is a "secondary" source. But if Lynn (2001) is a reasonable source for this article (and I think it is), then surely Intelligence: A New Look by Hans J. Eysenck (1998) is a reasonable source as well, right? David.Kane ( talk) 21:00, 13 April 2010 (UTC)
<- Could you please stop wikilawyering and trying to twist my words? The source satisifies WP:RS, but it is only tangentially relevant to the subject. If somebody suggests a specific new piece of information in the form of a new sentence or sentences that are to be added to the article. using the source then that can be discussed. So far none of you have suggested specific content changes/additions. This page is not a WP:FORUM. You might be used to prolonging discussions on Race and intelligence interminably - here all that is required is for the specific piece of content to be added either directly to the article using WP:BRD or for that content to be mentioned here. Nebulous discussions are useless. As the recent changes patroller remarked, at the moment this is a normal, neutral and well-written wikipedia article. So as I've already said, specific content changes using this source or any similar source can of course be discussed. I have no objection.
I used wikipedia email. Please redact your second paragraph. Mathsci ( talk) 05:32, 14 April 2010 (UTC)
I’m not sure it’s reasonable to assume he’ll be running out of steam anytime soon. You didn’t get to see much of this during the mediation case, which he deliberately refused to be part of because he objected to Ludwig as the mediator, but before the article entered mediation he could sometimes keep this up for more than a month at a time.
However, I don’t think that should be a reason for us to not work on improving the article. You, me, and David.Kane appear to all agree that the article has NPOV issues which need to be addressed, and Bryan Pesta and Mikemikev have also raised similar concerns on the race and intelligence talk page. If Mathsci is the only person who disagrees with the five of us about this, I think it’s pretty clear what the consensus is.
If your own time is the limiting factor here, though, I’m all right with waiting until whenever you’re more available. I find dealing with Mathsci to be kind of taxing, so I’d prefer to do it at a time when I’d be able to have some help from you with this. -- Captain Occam ( talk) 00:30, 14 April 2010 (UTC)
Mathsci ( talk) 05:51, 14 April 2010 (UTC)
Perhaps the best way to build some trust and work together is to suggest a series of small changes, easily reverted and clearly explained? Worth a try, any way. I just went first by replacing one word (psychologists) with, I think, a better one (researchers). What does everyone think? David.Kane ( talk) 00:32, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
At this point, six different users have agreed that this article has NPOV problems which need to be fixed: me, David.Kane, Varoon Arya, DJ, Mikemikev, and Bpesta22. One of us just needs to take the initiative and actually fix them. After what I just had to deal with in the AN/I thread, though, I'd really rather not have to make another attempt at this myself right now. (“Another” meaning after my one on the 12th.) Is anyone else willing to volunteer? -- Captain Occam ( talk) 06:02, 17 April 2010 (UTC)
"In 1911 Boas published The Mind of Primitive Man, a series of lectures on culture and race. It was often referred to in the 1920s by those who were opposed to new U.S. immigration restrictions based on presumed racial differences. In the 1930s the Nazis in Germany burned the book and rescinded his Ph.D. degree, which Kiel University had in 1931 ceremonially reconfirmed."
[12]
Franz Boas later updated the book and the revised edition was published in 1938.
[13] --
120 Volt monkey (
talk) 15:02, 16 April 2010 (UTC)
Kudos to DJ for some constructive additions to this article. I think that this takes the excellent work that MathSci has done and makes it even better. Soon, we will be able to remove the NPOV tag. David.Kane ( talk) 18:18, 17 April 2010 (UTC)
I modified the summary of Jensen's article using a new direct quote of Jensen in Wooldridge. It does not seem that Captain Ocacam in the few seconds he took to revert has had time to check either source. That is not acceptable editing behaviour. This summary seems to agree with both sources. Statements made by Jensen in 1982 are of course irrelevant to this portion of the history. Is there another secondary source in the history of psychology, not by jensen, summarising the paper differently? I considerably shortened what Wooldridge wrote, so it might be worth looking there. I don't think eiher of he summaries represeny Jensen's paper inaccurately. The more quotes from the paper that are used, the less reason for complaints. Mathsci ( talk) 23:19, 17 April 2010 (UTC)
Without weighing on the details of this dispute, I will note that I agree with MathSci that good secondary sources are wonderful to use. To that issue: Would MathSci (and others) agree that Race Differences in Intelligence by John C. Loehlin, Gardner Lindzey and J.N. Spuhler (1975) is a good secondary source? (It looks excellent to me and has a couple of pages on Jensen (1969). David.Kane ( talk) 00:46, 18 April 2010 (UTC)
Tucker's narrative seems to be inconsistent with Jensen's own narrative. I didn't remove Tucker's narrative but it must be attributed to Tucker given the ostensible differences in their accounts. Jensen can write about what he meant in 1969 at any time after 1969. Given the singular importance of that first publication, Jensen has written about it many times. We could expand that section enormously with all of the material that's been written about the events of that time period. What we can't do is leave out Jensen's own account of what he wrote and what he intended. -- DJ ( talk) 01:11, 18 April 2010 (UTC)
I'll reiterate the two problems with this section as concisely as possible in hopes that all we lack is a clear understanding of the problems.
1) The summary of the events surround Jensen (1969) are ostensibly different than Jensen's accounts (at least from 1970, 1972, 1978, 1982 and 2002 which I'm familiar with to one degree or another). Jensen's own accounts of his work and intentions are secondary sources describing the primary material (Jensen 1969). Minimally, the existing narratives need to be attributed and Jensen's narrative included as well.
2) The section closes with a list of scientific criticisms of Jensen 1969 which are beyond the scope of a historical narrative, including many anachronisms and violate NPOV because they present only one one POV. For example, debate about whether the heritability of IQ is 45% versus 90% is obviously entirely inappropriate here for those three reasons. The only solution that permits keeping this material is to (a) include a matching summary of what Jensen (1969) argued [three points: the failure of compensatory education, the heritabilty of IQ, and the possibility of a hereditarian explanation for black-white IQ differences] and (b) pointers to what the contemporary consensus is on these points in the main article. A better solution is to do away with scientific criticisms and stick to history. -- DJ ( talk) 02:20, 18 April 2010 (UTC)
@ Captain Occam. Statements like this are of absolutely no value. What you have written is an emotional rant. Please stop doing this.
@ DJ. The commentary on Jensen (1969) cannot directly use his subsequent attempts to clarify himself. That is not how history articles are written on wikipedia.. Besides which it was this paper in unaltered form which was circulated throughout the US by Shockley (as stated with documentary evidence in Tucker (2002) ). Again let's stick to the secondary sources. Anything by Jensen is a primary source. If the book by Loehlin et al mentions these clarifications, then we could make reference to these statements by Jensen, as reported by Loehlin et al. But certainly we cannot produce WP:OR and WP:SYNTH in this article. The criticisms are not beyond a historical narrative, because they do occur in a history of psychology book (Wooldridge). That sort of writing is completely standard. What can be written is that "In the analysis of Wooldridge (1994) , five main types of criticism were determined, ..." or some similar phrase. Any assertions about what goes in or out must be based on wikipedia editing policies. I can't see any policies that justify your claims of limiting the scope of an article, in fact quite the contrary. Wooldridge gives a very cautious, lucid and carefully reasoned analysis of what happened in the debate. He is both a skilled journalist and academic. He can't be accused of bias, as far as I am aware. Indeed the book has had rave reviews by historians in the academic literature, eg this one. Tucker has also won at least three prizes for his book and I haven't seen any book review that has accused him of distorting facts.
@David.Kane. Is there a copy of the book by Loehlin et al accessible on the web? I have not found a readable link yet. All three authors (one of whom is now dead) have impeccable credentials. Mathsci ( talk) 08:10, 18 April 2010 (UTC)
d explanation of how Jensen’s paper was criticized in these two issues of HER. If the article includes both all of these criticisms and the ways in which the APA rejects them, we’ll be getting into specific arguments and counter-arguments about the data itself, which I don’t think belongs in this article. That sort of thing belongs in race and intelligence, while this article is about the history of the debate. Judging by how incredibly selective Mathsci has been about sources thus far, I also suspect he would have a problem with us using the APA report as a source, since it isn’t written specifically from a historical perspective.
-> (on wikibreak - about to travel by ferry to England, where I will be extremely busy) I disagree. This is history from the early seventies. We can't write history oursleves and include statements from the 1990s. That is absurd. By all means find other secondary reliable sources and add from them if there is relevant material of whatever kind. But please don't tamper with the chronology. The purpose of this article is just to describe the historical events in the controversy. For example Adrian Wooldridge quotes Jensen's response at the time amongst other things: (page 374 top)
If my article had been faulty, one competent critic should have been sufficient to put it down. The fact that dozens of criticisms have steadily appeared for more than five years after its publication is a social-psuchological phenomenon perhaps worthy of study in its own right.
Arthur Jensen, "What is the Question? What is the Evidence?", Page 235.
Wooldridge devotes 3 or 4 pages to these criticisms. We report what the sources say not what we would like to see in the article. So no, it is not alright to remove material because WP:IDONTLIKEIT. That is called POV-pushing. Please could Captain Occam find his own secondary sources and please stop asking the same unreasonable question so many times. Also could he please stop making meatpuppetry requests to other users. These decisions are not decided on strength of numbers - artificially increased by users he has summoned here - no matter how many times he tries that ploy.
Captain Occam is moving closer and closer to some kind of indefinite block at this stage. He has left messages on four or five users' page requesting support for his unreasonable point of view and is using the number of people on his side as an argument. This is clearly disruptive, since he never discusses any of the sources. I wonder whether he has actually bothered to read any of the sources. Mathsci ( talk) 05:09, 20 April 2010 (UTC)
There are many other secondary sources that speak to the 1969 HER article, the events that led to its writing and the events that followed its publication. I'll start a list. Attribution of views already in the article and inclusion of a range of other views is needed. -- DJ ( talk) 13:58, 20 April 2010 (UTC)
@Mathsci: you're essentially saying that autobiography is inadmissible as a source for history, no? Or more broadly that a review paper written by a subject expert isn't a reliable secondary source for any of the expert's own work. Jensen's own account of how and why he wrote a paper in 1969 is a reliable source on the events of 1969, whether it was published by Jensen or someone else and whether it was published in 1970 or 1998, so long as the account is attributed. The prohibition against primary sources is that they require the editor to make interpretive judgments we shouldn't be making. No such situation exists here. Jensen's historical accounts written at later dates have the same standing to the events of history as any other source. -- DJ ( talk) 17:55, 21 April 2010 (UTC)
@Mathsci. I believe my question stands. Per David.Kane, I see nothing that rules out the use of Jensen's post-1969 autobiographical writings, and I see much that commends its use per WP:NPOV. -- DJ ( talk) 01:33, 25 April 2010 (UTC)
I have found this long chapter by William H. Tucker, pages 180-268, '"Unaided by eugenic foresight": The controversy over Jensenism' in
There is also a discussion of Jensen's use and subsequent oscillating support and retraction of support for Burt's twin studies in this article by one of the leading US historians of psychology, Franz Samelson. This was in fact some of the main data used by Jensen in his 1969 paper as Samelson mentions.
Here is for example is Samelson's description of Jensen's attempt in 1992 to rehabilitate Burt:
Yet after the new campaign to rehabilitate Burt had got under way, Jensen was invited to give an address to Division 1 at the 1992 APA meeting, in which he accused the recently deceased Hearnshawof bad scholarship and blamed the whole Burt Affair on a leftwing plot abetted by the sensationalist media. His address was promptly published in Div. 1’s General Psychologist (Jensen, 1992a) and was also made available on cassette by the APA – which apparently had learned little from the BPS’ problems – without any indication whatsoever that the speaker was not exactly a disinterested party and his account might be somewhat selective if not polemic.2 It also contained some errors and, as a look at original documents shows, misstatements.
2. In 1976, TIME had quoted Jensen as saying: ‘It is a political attack. The real targets are me, Herrnstein, and the whole area of research on the genetics of intelligence (p. 66)’.
I shall try to find other historical accounts of Jensen by uninvolved commentators. Nicholas Mackintosh wrote a book on the allegations of scientific fraud againsts Burt in 1995. This, alas, is all part of the history, which is quite complicated! Mathsci ( talk) 14:41, 21 April 2010 (UTC)
There's also "Intelligence: a brief history" (2004) by Robert Sternberg and Anna Cianciolo. Mathsci ( talk) 15:23, 21 April 2010 (UTC)
MathSci and Captain Occam, please stop edit-warring. MathSci: it is perfectly appropriate to begin a sentence by naming the person whose views are being presented. You cannot delete it because it is compliant with our NPOV policy. Captain Occam: please do not add Tucker's name to every sentence that is attributed to him. His name needs be provided only once, the first time that his views are introduced. After that, the fact that there is a citation makes it very clear that a view is being presented, and it is being attributed to a source. To keep adding the name is not only unnecessary, it is poor style. I have just restored the name and title of the book the first time his views are provided. I hope both of you will accept this, and move on. Slrubenstein | Talk 16:47, 25 April 2010 (UTC)
Captain Occam, you accused him of edit warring here:
Do you retract the accusation? Slrubenstein | Talk 19:43, 25 April 2010 (UTC)
MathSci wrote rv abusive use of primary sources from after the event - Distributivejustice ( talk · contribs) is producing WP:OR and WP:SYNTH)
What I wrote was a near verbatim summary of Jensen's autobiographical writing cited and quoted in the text. Therefore it cannot be either WP:OR or WP:SYNTH, but rather is the attributed view of Jensen from a secondary source in a peer-reviewed scholarly journal. Moreover, WP:NPOV demands his view of what happened ca. 1969 be included. -- DJ ( talk) 23:17, 25 April 2010 (UTC)
This single purpose editor inserted material by the main subject of the section 1960-1980, written in 1998, not reported in secondary sources. This is not how history articles are written. It seems to be an attempt to POV-push the article into a non neutral state by an editor who has made no secret of his advocacy of Jensen. If Distributivejustice thinks history about controversial individuals is written using statements written 30 years after the event, he is mistaken. It is exactly in such cases that it is essential to use secondary sources. If he, or any like-minded editor, attempts to insert anachronistic commentaries from primary sources, unsupported by secondary commentators, they are quite likely to have their editing privileges restricted due to blatant POV-pushing. The historian of psychology, Franz Samelson, made it quite clear that Jensen has vacillated over the years in his public statements: that is what we can report, not this concoction of WP:OR and WP:SYNTH which contradicts all chronology.
Diana Mitford in her autobiography was able to justify all her actions in the 1930s and 1940s - she related how anybody who had met Adolf Hitler could not fail to be charmed by him. That has been reported in secondary sources and that is why the article on her do not rely on her personal pronouncements. This is exactly in line with wikipedia core editing policies. Thanks, Mathsci ( talk) 23:32, 25 April 2010 (UTC)
This makes no sense to me. As far as I can tell, you are saying that Tucker 2002 is a reliable source for events in 1969 and Jensen 1997 (Intelligence, Volume 26, Issue 3; the entire issue was about Jensen's work and legacy) is not a reliable source. How is that possible? -- DJ ( talk) 23:52, 25 April 2010 (UTC)
<- Neither of these arguments are valid. An autobiographical tribute by an involved researcher and lobbyist is certainly not a historical account. When Varoon Arya says "award-winning", no-one on the heriditarian side is a member of the United States National Academy of Sciences or comparable body. Might he be referring to MENSA? As for 120 Volt monkey ( talk · contribs), this account appears to be an alternative account of another user, possibly banned. Please could he stop using this discussion page as a forum? The book by William H. Tucker won at least three prizes when it was first published, is published by a university press and has had excellent reviews. The history cannot be written using auobiographical commentaries by those involved, like Gottfredson and Jensen. By exactly the same token, articles by Lewontin, Gould and Kamin are primary sources and not used as direct sources for writing the history. The kind of wikilawyering and POV-pushing going on here seems to be disruption by a tag-team, an attempt to sabotage a neutrally written article by a group of advocates for a particular minoritarian point of view. Using primary sources written by those directly involved in the history of a controversy, be it Lewontin or Jensen, is not permissible, unless it is reported by a reliable secondary source. Mathsci ( talk) 06:35, 26 April 2010 (UTC)
There's a rather helpful thread here:
Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard#Jensen_1998_writing_about_Jensen_1969. --
DJ (
talk) 16:53, 26 April 2010 (UTC)
In essence, this article is nearly a POV fork of race and intelligence, but I think it could be better. One way to easily make it better to is to get a balanced account of what actually happened around the events of 1969. Comparisons of a professor at UC Berkeley to a murderer really aren't appropriate here, nor is the suggestion that Jensen needs to "justifying" his scholarly work, but they do highlight the WP:BLP concerns around letting this NPOV issue remain unfixed. Concerns about primary sources are not paramount compared to WP:NPOV, and a publication in a peer-reviewed journal speaking to the history of a scholarly debate is hardly akin to the kind of raw data that people mean by "primary source" with respect to WP:RS. The alternative to fixing this article is that we need to merge this back into race and intelligence where the context will make it clearer. -- DJ ( talk) 05:06, 27 April 2010 (UTC)
<- Ahem,2 out of 40 citations - the first a quote and the second a minor remark. But this is somewhat irrelevant. Evidently the initiator of a controversial event is not suitable to provide the principal historical commentary on that event. You with Occam are just POV-pushing to include unduly primary sources. I don't have a view on Jensen, except that he is a distinguihsed academic who in his career appears to have provoked some controversy and possibly made some errors of judgement. This is best illustrated by two quotes for Samelson's article about the "Burt affair".
These statements about Burt are contradictory. As Samelson points out, Jensen kept changing his mind on the "Burt affair". That is why, directly involved as he was, he cannot be used as a primary source. I think this is pretty clear. It's exactly why we use secondary sources for history. I already mentioned that for the Franco-Siamese War when the biased and ill-informed reports of French officers were not permitted as sources. If they were quoted elsewhere, then yes those quotes could be used. Mathsci ( talk) 23:58, 27 April 2010 (UTC)
Please stop asking the same question repeatedly. The Pioneer grantees and avowed hereditarians Eysenck, Jensen and Gottfredson are not used as sources for exactly the same reasons as Lewontin, Gould and Kamin, some of the main scientists who disagreed with them. In writing about a controversy, where not much science is in fact involved, authors are chosen who have all the historical documents at their disposal, write in the conventional way of historians or historians of psychology and were not involved or unduly biased in the controversy. You claim that Adrian Wooldridge the main source is anti-Jensen. That does not seem to be the case, so can't really be discussed any further. He writes all the history dispassionately, as one would expect from somebody with an Oxford D.Phil. in history. Tucker writes mainly about research related to the Pioneer Fund - without this funding almost all the hereditarian research would have been unfunded. I have no idea whether he's anti-Jensen or not. Certainly he is quite critical of Rushton, but not of Jensen as far as I am aware. The relations between Shockley and Jensen were published with careful documentation and so are irrefutable. It is a mistake to say that authors are either pro- or anti-Jensen. Historians are far more subtly nuanced than that. Now I know that you and your team seem to be pro-Jensen. I think you personally removed from the article the summary of the criticisms of Jensen, including the names of the critics, listed dispassionately by Wooldridge. Now you are requesting, over and above disallowing this material by a neutral historian, that the history of the controversy be rewritten from the point of view of the hereditarians. I presume that means suggesting to the reader that Jensen very innocently wrote his paper - not even his own idea -hardly realising that there was anything controversial in it. He was then was shocked at the disproportionate reaction to it largely orchestrated by left-wing extremist manipulating the media apparently in the name of science but in fact due to their Marxist aversion to an unpalatable yet undeniable Truth. Accounts like that can be read on sites like The Occidental Quarterly and VDARE.com, where Lynn and Rushton contribute. But that is not a neutral way to write history and certainly not the way on wikipedia. We summarises the events described in secondary sources as accurately as possible. It turns out that there is very little disparity between Tucker and Wooldridge; Tucker is possibly less cautious in his language. This is what is to expected from well written books. There are plenty of quotes of Jensen in secondary sources but these cannot be used in the way attempted yesterday, reverted by other users. Mathsci ( talk) 04:37, 28 April 2010 (UTC)
The only relevant section on history in this nine page paper by Linda Gottfredson seems to be in the last 2 and a bit pages (short!), which is reproduced below (and will be removed fairly soon).
Jensenism, the Reaction
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This reads like an opinion piece and seems exceptionally inaccurate and imprecise. It is not a meticulous historical account with careful references and names. It is fairly obviously a primary source. It is in no way comparable to the 10 pages or so in Wooldridge's book, the work of a trained and skilled historian. How is this in any way useful for writing the article? I can see that it wouldn't be bad for a blog. But wikipedia? You must be joking! Mathsci ( talk) 09:04, 28 April 2010 (UTC)
Well I don't currently have acces to those sources and I don't see exactly where they might be useful, I think it is important to keep an eye on the ball (to make a good coherent article) and not diverge in to he said she said just to give a voice to all involved editors. Are there any particular statements that you think could be supplemented well by short statements from other sources. Why don't you describe your concerns and proposed solutions here so we can see how best to accomodate them. I personally don't think the current text is unfair to Jensen it simply describes that his article generated controversy and with my additions it even gives him the opportunity to mention where he differs from others' descriptions of him. It is already mentioned that Jensen also garnered support from Eysenck and others. I am not sure that including descriptions from Eysenck or others have anything important to contribute, I'd like you to show me what it is you think is lacking. ·Maunus·ƛ· 09:08, 30 April 2010 (UTC)
<- I have included the direct quotes of what Jensen wrote in 1983 and 1992, as documented by Franz Samelson, with links to the original primary sources. This contains the statements about a cabal of left-wing academics, supported by the media. These types of comments were made at the time by both sides in 1970s. In Wooldridge there are reports of allegations from the other side - charges of racism or scientific racism - which I would favour adding for balance as they show the extreme and undoubtedly unjustified reactions of some of Jensen's contemporaries. Here are screenshots of page 376 in Wooldridge's book where this is discussed: [19], [20]. Note that the statement about the Association of Black Psychologists is taken from an article by Jensen. Contributors to the debate at the time included Sandra Scarr, Christopher Jencks and Luigi Cavalli-Sforza, but it's unclear they really need to be listed. Mathsci ( talk) 11:34, 30 April 2010 (UTC)
Sorry for the short reply: the worst NPOV problems are mainly from the unattributed views of Tucker (2002). Note that William H. Tucker is a psychologist, not a historian. Here's the worst text:
In 1969 Jensen wrote a long article in the Harvard Educational Review, "How Much can We Boost IQ and Achievement", arguing that racial minorities, should be taught, not through conceptual explanations, but instead by relying on their ability to associate rather than understand, i.e. learning by rote. He decried the "misguided and ineffective attempts to improve [the] lot" of blacks. As he wrote,"Is there a danger that current welfare policies, unaided by eugenic foresight, could lead to the genetic enslavement of a substantial segment of our population?"[24] [25]
And this is what Jensen says his article was about:
Based on a review of the empirical literature, my HER article made four main claims: (i) experimental attempts to raise the IQ of children at risk for low IQ and poor scholastic performance by various psychological and educational manipulations had yielded little, if any, lasting gains in IQ or scholastic achievement: (ii) individual differences in IQ have a high heritability (.70-.80, corrected for attenuation), but environment also plays an important part; (iii) most of the exclusively cultural- environment explanations for racial differences in IQ and scholastic achievement were inconsistent and inadequate, so genetic as well as environmental factors should be considered; and (iv) certain abilities, particularly rote-learning and memory (i.e.. Level I ability) have only a weak relationship to IQ. which suggests that these Level I abilities might be used to compensate to some extent for low IQ (i.e.. Level II ability) and thereby make school instruction more beneficial for many children, regardless of their racial or social class background, who are below average in Level II but are average or above in Level I. (Pupils with this pattern of abilities constitute the majority of those who are most at risk for failure under traditional classroom instruction.)
And this is what Gottfredson says about his article:
All his most "controversial" claims in that 1969 article--that intelligence is highly genetic, not very malleable, and probably differs between races partly for genetic reasons--are now mainstream conclusions in the science of intelligence.
I won't suggest solutions so as to leave that open for discussion. -- DJ ( talk) 18:08, 30 April 2010 (UTC)
<- I suggest that in the next week or so, Captain Occam prepares whatever extra neutral content he thinks might be added and then in a section here on the talk page puts down the sentences he wants to add. Gottfredson made no comments at the time, so her personal opinions in 1998 in the collapse section above are not really appropriate material. She is just repeating things said by people at the time, and it's better to locate and report those directly. Jensen's already used the language of "left-wing media-fuelled conspiracy", so there's not much need to repeat that. I don't think any space needs to be added about Marxism - certainly Segerstråle's book points out that it's a red herring. The ABP made some of the most extreme charges of racism, so again it's not necessary to belabour that point. Trying to place unchronological information into the article that tries to prove Jensen was correct and that most mainstream scientists agree with him because of some much later opinion poll or newspaper article seems completely irrelevant to the history. That would be classified as WP:UNDUE, WP:OR. WP:SYNTH and WP:Civil POV pushing. At the moment I can't see how any wikipedia editing policy supports Captain Occam's objections to present content. Racial bias for example is accurately discussed in the article and the quote I gave appears in Jensen's book on bias and the other two sources cited in the article (I took the most complete version). I've no idea why Captain Occam describes this as "cherry picking". Was Jensen wrong to include that quote in his book? The same applies to the statements about Jensen's position within the "Burt Affair", which I think is documented in many sources. There's no reason to rewrite or interpret the history of events in the early 1970s by using opinion polls and newspaper articles from the late 1980s or 1990s. That makes no sense at all. Commentaries by reliable secondary sources or later accounts of significant individuals involved in events at the time could be used, but not third party accounts like Gottfredson's. Also, as Maunus has said, too many "he said, she said" passages are not appropriate here as they will just make the article unreadable. Mathsci ( talk) 20:53, 1 May 2010 (UTC)
No administrator would accept your claim that I am the main reason you are editing race-related articles. That is an unreasonable statement to make. You alone are the one who chooses the articles you edit or create. Your second paragraph also makes no sense at all to me. What has Ludwigs2 got to do with your editing here? Your suggestion is crazy.
Mathsci (
talk) 21:06, 1 May 2010 (UTC)
This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 1 | Archive 2 | Archive 3 | → | Archive 5 |
Kudos to you for an amazing amount of work on this. Assuming no objections on your part, I will add some photos of the various characters to liven things up. David.Kane ( talk) 13:05, 12 April 2010 (UTC)
I have three issues with the last sentence of the opening. First, there are non-psychologists actively involved in the debate. Charles Murray is a political scientists and Linda Gottfredson is a sociologist. Second, I am not sure if the Pioneer Fund is important enough to mention in the opening. (But all your discussions of it in the body of the article are perfectly reasonable.) I just don't see the Pioneer Fund as being nearly as important as, for example, Jensen's 1969 article or the Bell Curve. Third, I think reasonable people might differ about how "small" the group pursuing this research is. I can certainly cite a dozen or more. David.Kane ( talk) 13:45, 12 April 2010 (UTC)
Can someone explain what was wrong with this addition to the history section and what I need to change to include it?
In 1998, Douglas Detterman, founding editor of the journal, Intelligence, published a special issue as a tribute to Arthur Jensen's research on the topic of human intelligence. Detterman's introduction to the special issue is entitled "Kings of Men," and is followed by commentary from respected scholars in-field on the integrity and impact of the contributions Jensen has made to this field. Bpesta22 ( talk) 14:08, 12 April 2010 (UTC)
Confused as to how it's commentary. It seems to be entirely factual. Given that, am I ok to add it back in? - Bpesta22 ( talk) 14:31, 12 April 2010 (UTC)
(ec) I'm sorry, but there you are completely wrong. Go and read Wikipedia:RS#Primary.2C_secondary.2C_and_tertiary_sources. "Wikipedia articles should be based mainly on reliable secondary sources." That's quite clear, don't you think? We don't get to be the historians if we can't find a seconday source - Bpesta22 seems to have written those words, they're not a paraphrase of a secondary source that I can check myself. That is what WP:V says. Anyway that kind of detail in this article is WP:UNDUE and seems against WP:NPOV. Mathsci ( talk) 14:45, 12 April 2010 (UTC)
I admit -- I hopped here from doing some New Pages Patrolling, fully expecting to find a nasty WP:SYNTH / WP:OR disaster... and am very pleasantly surprised to find what appears to be a well-sourced, interesting work. That said, the title seems clunky to me. Does anybody have any alternative suggestions? I for one can't think of any off the top of my head, so perhaps I'm answering my own question/concern with regard to the title, but I figured it was worth an ask. ɠǀɳ̩ςεΝɡ bomb 20:30, 12 April 2010 (UTC)
First of all, I'm glad to see that this section has been made its own article, and that it doesn't include the irrelevant information about Rushton writing for American Renaissance. However, I this section still has some NPOV problems that need to be addressed.
There are some other NPOV problems also, but these are the ones that stand out to me. Unless someone can present a convincing case for why these parts of the article need to remain the way they currently are, I'll be changing them shortly, unless someone else gets to them first. -- Captain Occam ( talk) 21:37, 12 April 2010 (UTC)
I noticed all of the same problems on reading through the article. These are serious and need to be addressed. -- DJ ( talk) 07:29, 14 April 2010 (UTC)
It is unacceptable to add and remove material which does not match the secondary sources as Captain Occam has done. Any edits of this kind, which depart from the secondary sources, will be reverted and continued efforts to "sanitize" the history or alter ii will be reverted. Captain Occam risk being blocked if he removes material that he does not like. Being a die h-hard fan of hereditarianism does not entitle Captain Occam to rewrite history, removing for example the role of William Shockley. That is unacceptable POV-pushing on wikipedia. His alternative is to find other neutral secondary sources that satisfy WP:RS amd WP:V. Mathsci ( talk) 03:27, 13 April 2010 (UTC)
<- I note that you just left this message. [2] That looks like an attempt to be disruptive. This message [3] was similar. Again not the way wikipedia is usually edited. In fact this borders on WP:HARASSment and wikihounding. Mathsci ( talk) 07:19, 13 April 2010 (UTC)
The most glaring fault of the article in its current state is the complete omission of the role of Marxist and neo-Marxist ideology in the historical development of the race and intelligence controversy. This needs correction if the article is to approach something resembling a neutral point of view. I assume that Mathsci, the primary editor, has not intentionally failed to make mention of this aspect, but is instead simply ignorant of the wider politico-historical context in which this debate has unfolded. I provide some information below in the hopes of turning both his attention as well as the attention of other editors to the need for this article to discuss both sides of the debate on equal terms.
Articles and/or books which could be reviewed as background material include:
Radical Marxists critics have charged that IQ testing and IQ research, as represented by the work of Arthur Jensen, are either disguised racist ideology or pseudopsychological science. This article argues that the historical evidence marshalled in support of the first charge is both selective and irrelevant, and that the technical arguments advanced to support the second charge that IQ research is pseudoscience reflect both serious misunderstandings and misrepresentations of Jensen's views on the nature and heritability of IQ.
Advocates of certain political and economic ideologies, most notably neo-Marxist and similar collectivist and totalitarian philosophies, are intolerant of the idea that not all of a person's behavior and not all social conditions are potentially amenable to the control of the political and economic system. To maintain the belief in complete economic determinism of the conditions of life, the importance of genetic factors - which are not directly subject to political or economic control - must be denied. This was the philosophical underpinning of Lysenkoism, which prevailed for many years in the Soviet Union, with ultimately disastrous consequences for the science of genetics and for its applications in agriculture in the U.S.S.R. Despite this lesson, in recent years we have seen a good deal of Lysenkois thinking in the so-called nature-nurture controversy over IQ - most blatantly promulgated, of course, by left-wing groups such as the Progressive Labor Party, the Students for a Democratic Society, the American Communist Party, and other minor, but highly vocal, political and social activist groups. (pp. 487-488)
All these criticisms tend to have a political context, as one might have anticipated from the dislike expressed towards IQ testing by Hitler and Stalin, brothers-in-arms to ban any sign of objectivity from the political landscape. Modern writers who seeks to castigate IQ testing often sail under the flag of Marxism; this would include people like Stephen Rose, Leon Kamin, and R. L. Lewontin, whose book Not in Our Genes received much favourable attention from journalistic reviewers in the media, and severe criticism from experts writing in scientific journals. The same was true of Stephen Jay Gould, whose book The Mismeasure of Man has more factual errors per page than any book I have ever read. (pg. 10)
Much more can be found by anyone interested in the subject. I suspect that Mathsci, being the primary editor, will spare no effort in ensuring that the article becomes compliant with NPOV policy and will himself undertake the work of integrating material such as that presented above into the article. -- Aryaman (talk) 13:45, 13 April 2010 (UTC)
In addition to the sources above, we could look at John Alcock's Triumph of Sociobiology (Oxford, 2001):
The mid-1970's were years of intense political activity on campuses, much of it initiated by left-wing professors and their students who opposed the war in Vietnam. At Harvard University, the war and various other injustices came under fire from a number of scholars of the Marxist or semi-Marxist persuasion, including Wilson's colleagues Lewontin and Gould. Lewontin and another colleague wrote about this time, "As working scientists in the field of evolutionary genetics and ecology, we have been attempting with some success to guide our own research by a conscious application of Marxist philosophy.... There is nothing in Marx, Lenin or Mao that is or that can be in contradiction with the particular physical facts and processes of a particular set of phenomena in the objective world". Marxist philosophy is founded on the premise of the perfectability of human institutions through ideological prescription. Therefore, persons with Marxist views were particularly unreceptive to the notion that an evolved "human nature" exists, fearing that such a claim would be interpreted to mean that human behavior cannot change. If our actions really were immune to intervention, then the many ills of modern societies could not be corrected. Such a conclusion is needless to say a repugnant one, and not just for Marxists. (pg. 20)
Here's the abstract of Roger Pearson's Race, Intelligence and Bias in Academe (Scott-Townsend, 1991):
This book details evidence of widespread efforts to withhold from the public any clear understanding of the importance of heredity in shaping human abilities, particularly with regard to research into the genetic basis of human behavior, with particular reference to heredity and intelligence. Eminent academic authorities such as Arthur Jensen at Berkeley, Richard Herrnstein of Harvard, Thomas Bouchard of Minnesota, William Shockley of Stanford, Philippe Rushton of Western Ontario, Linda Gottfredson of Delaware, and numerous other scholars have been criticized by Marxist faculty members such as Leon Kamin and Richard Lewontin, pilloried in Leftist publications, described in less than favorable terms in the general media, and had their classes disrupted—even suffering physical assault in some cases—by Marxist student organizations. All this is amply documented, and the result is an up-to-date book which makes entertaining reading but provides solid, documented information on what is currently happening in major segments of the university arena. What makes all this important is that the role of heredity in shaping human abilities has now been demonstrated beyond reasonable doubt by research into behavioral genetics. Yet due to a concerted campaign by Leftists within the academic world and the prevailing political climate in the media, these facts are little known to the general public. For those interested this is also a useful source book.
Of course, the abstract alone is not quotable, but it's a lead worth following up on, particularly given the title of the work.
There's nothing "disruptive" about suggesting this article make mention of the role of Marxist ideology in the history of the race and intelligence debate, particularly as an offshoot of the wider sociobiology debate (which is really little more than infighting among the branches of post-Classical positivism). It's documented in reliable sources and is obviously relevant to the topic. Segerstråle (Oxford, 2000) discusses it in depth. What, exactly, is the problem here? Is it somehow taboo to mention that the beliefs and actions of some of the most vocal opponents of hereditarianism, such as Lewontin, Gould, and Rose, were influenced by Marxist ideology? -- Aryaman (talk) 11:03, 14 April 2010 (UTC)
Varoon, Roger Pearson is a Pioneer grantee, so this is a primary source for history. His role is described at length in Tucker. As far as the first quote gos, this article is not about sociobiology. If you read the 2001 OUP book by Ullica Segerstråle, which I have added to the reference and linked with a footnote into the text, she makes it clear that the race and intelligence debate should not be confused with the sociobiology debate (a common source of confusion) even if some of the players on the environmentalist side were the same; she also makes it clear that political ideology really had nothing to do with the scientific merits of the debate. That requires looking through the book as a whole, not cherry-picking quotations: she says that she wrote her book to clarify what exactly had been going on in the debate.
However I have a contructive suggestion to make, I hope along the lines of extra content of the type you want to see in the article.
Her book is an excellent source for the behaviour and ideology of the group around Gould and Lewontin. Not even Segerstråle describes them as Marxists. She is far more cautious, even if in print Lewontin at one stage made such an assertion of that kind. The allegations and counterallegations (which Wooldridge calls "insults") exchanged between these groups of scientists - words like "racist" or "Marxist" - should be handled in the same kind of cautious circumspect way in our writing, which should paraphrase secondary sources. I would certainly be absolutely against going into things like Glayde Whitney's links with the Grand Master of the Klu Klux Klan, etc. I did note that Segerstråle asserts that Gould and Lewontin chose their approach to divert attention from a possible vacuum in their own scientific careers by deliberately putting other scientists in the spotlight. I think that's discussed at length in her book.
So my recommendation is to use Segerstråle's, Wooldridge's and Tucker's books (I might have missed some) to have a slightly more refined and detailed set of comments on the activities of both sides, i.e. to amplify and possibly explain the insults traded between both sides. However, we should not act as historians - we should quote historians and what they write in secondary sources, not assemble quotes ourselves. I am totally against that. It amounts to WP:SYNTH and WP:OR.
I have listened to your suggestions several times and acted upon them: hence (1) the inclusion of the material on the Sociobiology Study Group and (2) adding Segerstråle as a reference (I had actually looked at it while finding material for (1)). Certainly the interaction on the lede of another article was positive. Slrubenstein was delighted that we could work together on the lede and I have to say that he has privately encouraged me to make the most of that excellent collaboration (I hope you're reading this Slr :) ). This material is even more neutral, so I actually don't anticipate any kind of problem.
So would you be ready to work out some not-too-extended specific content of the above kind, based on those three (or more) secondary sources, and then use that material as a basis for linking to primary sources (such as quotes)? Mathsci ( talk) 13:57, 14 April 2010 (UTC)
The current version of the article uses Lynn, Richard (2001), The science of human diversity: a history of the Pioneer Fund, University Press of America, ISBN 076182040X as a source. Perfectly reasonable! I don't want to get caught up with the semantic debate over what is a "primary" and what is a "secondary" source. But if Lynn (2001) is a reasonable source for this article (and I think it is), then surely Intelligence: A New Look by Hans J. Eysenck (1998) is a reasonable source as well, right? David.Kane ( talk) 21:00, 13 April 2010 (UTC)
<- Could you please stop wikilawyering and trying to twist my words? The source satisifies WP:RS, but it is only tangentially relevant to the subject. If somebody suggests a specific new piece of information in the form of a new sentence or sentences that are to be added to the article. using the source then that can be discussed. So far none of you have suggested specific content changes/additions. This page is not a WP:FORUM. You might be used to prolonging discussions on Race and intelligence interminably - here all that is required is for the specific piece of content to be added either directly to the article using WP:BRD or for that content to be mentioned here. Nebulous discussions are useless. As the recent changes patroller remarked, at the moment this is a normal, neutral and well-written wikipedia article. So as I've already said, specific content changes using this source or any similar source can of course be discussed. I have no objection.
I used wikipedia email. Please redact your second paragraph. Mathsci ( talk) 05:32, 14 April 2010 (UTC)
I’m not sure it’s reasonable to assume he’ll be running out of steam anytime soon. You didn’t get to see much of this during the mediation case, which he deliberately refused to be part of because he objected to Ludwig as the mediator, but before the article entered mediation he could sometimes keep this up for more than a month at a time.
However, I don’t think that should be a reason for us to not work on improving the article. You, me, and David.Kane appear to all agree that the article has NPOV issues which need to be addressed, and Bryan Pesta and Mikemikev have also raised similar concerns on the race and intelligence talk page. If Mathsci is the only person who disagrees with the five of us about this, I think it’s pretty clear what the consensus is.
If your own time is the limiting factor here, though, I’m all right with waiting until whenever you’re more available. I find dealing with Mathsci to be kind of taxing, so I’d prefer to do it at a time when I’d be able to have some help from you with this. -- Captain Occam ( talk) 00:30, 14 April 2010 (UTC)
Mathsci ( talk) 05:51, 14 April 2010 (UTC)
Perhaps the best way to build some trust and work together is to suggest a series of small changes, easily reverted and clearly explained? Worth a try, any way. I just went first by replacing one word (psychologists) with, I think, a better one (researchers). What does everyone think? David.Kane ( talk) 00:32, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
At this point, six different users have agreed that this article has NPOV problems which need to be fixed: me, David.Kane, Varoon Arya, DJ, Mikemikev, and Bpesta22. One of us just needs to take the initiative and actually fix them. After what I just had to deal with in the AN/I thread, though, I'd really rather not have to make another attempt at this myself right now. (“Another” meaning after my one on the 12th.) Is anyone else willing to volunteer? -- Captain Occam ( talk) 06:02, 17 April 2010 (UTC)
"In 1911 Boas published The Mind of Primitive Man, a series of lectures on culture and race. It was often referred to in the 1920s by those who were opposed to new U.S. immigration restrictions based on presumed racial differences. In the 1930s the Nazis in Germany burned the book and rescinded his Ph.D. degree, which Kiel University had in 1931 ceremonially reconfirmed."
[12]
Franz Boas later updated the book and the revised edition was published in 1938.
[13] --
120 Volt monkey (
talk) 15:02, 16 April 2010 (UTC)
Kudos to DJ for some constructive additions to this article. I think that this takes the excellent work that MathSci has done and makes it even better. Soon, we will be able to remove the NPOV tag. David.Kane ( talk) 18:18, 17 April 2010 (UTC)
I modified the summary of Jensen's article using a new direct quote of Jensen in Wooldridge. It does not seem that Captain Ocacam in the few seconds he took to revert has had time to check either source. That is not acceptable editing behaviour. This summary seems to agree with both sources. Statements made by Jensen in 1982 are of course irrelevant to this portion of the history. Is there another secondary source in the history of psychology, not by jensen, summarising the paper differently? I considerably shortened what Wooldridge wrote, so it might be worth looking there. I don't think eiher of he summaries represeny Jensen's paper inaccurately. The more quotes from the paper that are used, the less reason for complaints. Mathsci ( talk) 23:19, 17 April 2010 (UTC)
Without weighing on the details of this dispute, I will note that I agree with MathSci that good secondary sources are wonderful to use. To that issue: Would MathSci (and others) agree that Race Differences in Intelligence by John C. Loehlin, Gardner Lindzey and J.N. Spuhler (1975) is a good secondary source? (It looks excellent to me and has a couple of pages on Jensen (1969). David.Kane ( talk) 00:46, 18 April 2010 (UTC)
Tucker's narrative seems to be inconsistent with Jensen's own narrative. I didn't remove Tucker's narrative but it must be attributed to Tucker given the ostensible differences in their accounts. Jensen can write about what he meant in 1969 at any time after 1969. Given the singular importance of that first publication, Jensen has written about it many times. We could expand that section enormously with all of the material that's been written about the events of that time period. What we can't do is leave out Jensen's own account of what he wrote and what he intended. -- DJ ( talk) 01:11, 18 April 2010 (UTC)
I'll reiterate the two problems with this section as concisely as possible in hopes that all we lack is a clear understanding of the problems.
1) The summary of the events surround Jensen (1969) are ostensibly different than Jensen's accounts (at least from 1970, 1972, 1978, 1982 and 2002 which I'm familiar with to one degree or another). Jensen's own accounts of his work and intentions are secondary sources describing the primary material (Jensen 1969). Minimally, the existing narratives need to be attributed and Jensen's narrative included as well.
2) The section closes with a list of scientific criticisms of Jensen 1969 which are beyond the scope of a historical narrative, including many anachronisms and violate NPOV because they present only one one POV. For example, debate about whether the heritability of IQ is 45% versus 90% is obviously entirely inappropriate here for those three reasons. The only solution that permits keeping this material is to (a) include a matching summary of what Jensen (1969) argued [three points: the failure of compensatory education, the heritabilty of IQ, and the possibility of a hereditarian explanation for black-white IQ differences] and (b) pointers to what the contemporary consensus is on these points in the main article. A better solution is to do away with scientific criticisms and stick to history. -- DJ ( talk) 02:20, 18 April 2010 (UTC)
@ Captain Occam. Statements like this are of absolutely no value. What you have written is an emotional rant. Please stop doing this.
@ DJ. The commentary on Jensen (1969) cannot directly use his subsequent attempts to clarify himself. That is not how history articles are written on wikipedia.. Besides which it was this paper in unaltered form which was circulated throughout the US by Shockley (as stated with documentary evidence in Tucker (2002) ). Again let's stick to the secondary sources. Anything by Jensen is a primary source. If the book by Loehlin et al mentions these clarifications, then we could make reference to these statements by Jensen, as reported by Loehlin et al. But certainly we cannot produce WP:OR and WP:SYNTH in this article. The criticisms are not beyond a historical narrative, because they do occur in a history of psychology book (Wooldridge). That sort of writing is completely standard. What can be written is that "In the analysis of Wooldridge (1994) , five main types of criticism were determined, ..." or some similar phrase. Any assertions about what goes in or out must be based on wikipedia editing policies. I can't see any policies that justify your claims of limiting the scope of an article, in fact quite the contrary. Wooldridge gives a very cautious, lucid and carefully reasoned analysis of what happened in the debate. He is both a skilled journalist and academic. He can't be accused of bias, as far as I am aware. Indeed the book has had rave reviews by historians in the academic literature, eg this one. Tucker has also won at least three prizes for his book and I haven't seen any book review that has accused him of distorting facts.
@David.Kane. Is there a copy of the book by Loehlin et al accessible on the web? I have not found a readable link yet. All three authors (one of whom is now dead) have impeccable credentials. Mathsci ( talk) 08:10, 18 April 2010 (UTC)
d explanation of how Jensen’s paper was criticized in these two issues of HER. If the article includes both all of these criticisms and the ways in which the APA rejects them, we’ll be getting into specific arguments and counter-arguments about the data itself, which I don’t think belongs in this article. That sort of thing belongs in race and intelligence, while this article is about the history of the debate. Judging by how incredibly selective Mathsci has been about sources thus far, I also suspect he would have a problem with us using the APA report as a source, since it isn’t written specifically from a historical perspective.
-> (on wikibreak - about to travel by ferry to England, where I will be extremely busy) I disagree. This is history from the early seventies. We can't write history oursleves and include statements from the 1990s. That is absurd. By all means find other secondary reliable sources and add from them if there is relevant material of whatever kind. But please don't tamper with the chronology. The purpose of this article is just to describe the historical events in the controversy. For example Adrian Wooldridge quotes Jensen's response at the time amongst other things: (page 374 top)
If my article had been faulty, one competent critic should have been sufficient to put it down. The fact that dozens of criticisms have steadily appeared for more than five years after its publication is a social-psuchological phenomenon perhaps worthy of study in its own right.
Arthur Jensen, "What is the Question? What is the Evidence?", Page 235.
Wooldridge devotes 3 or 4 pages to these criticisms. We report what the sources say not what we would like to see in the article. So no, it is not alright to remove material because WP:IDONTLIKEIT. That is called POV-pushing. Please could Captain Occam find his own secondary sources and please stop asking the same unreasonable question so many times. Also could he please stop making meatpuppetry requests to other users. These decisions are not decided on strength of numbers - artificially increased by users he has summoned here - no matter how many times he tries that ploy.
Captain Occam is moving closer and closer to some kind of indefinite block at this stage. He has left messages on four or five users' page requesting support for his unreasonable point of view and is using the number of people on his side as an argument. This is clearly disruptive, since he never discusses any of the sources. I wonder whether he has actually bothered to read any of the sources. Mathsci ( talk) 05:09, 20 April 2010 (UTC)
There are many other secondary sources that speak to the 1969 HER article, the events that led to its writing and the events that followed its publication. I'll start a list. Attribution of views already in the article and inclusion of a range of other views is needed. -- DJ ( talk) 13:58, 20 April 2010 (UTC)
@Mathsci: you're essentially saying that autobiography is inadmissible as a source for history, no? Or more broadly that a review paper written by a subject expert isn't a reliable secondary source for any of the expert's own work. Jensen's own account of how and why he wrote a paper in 1969 is a reliable source on the events of 1969, whether it was published by Jensen or someone else and whether it was published in 1970 or 1998, so long as the account is attributed. The prohibition against primary sources is that they require the editor to make interpretive judgments we shouldn't be making. No such situation exists here. Jensen's historical accounts written at later dates have the same standing to the events of history as any other source. -- DJ ( talk) 17:55, 21 April 2010 (UTC)
@Mathsci. I believe my question stands. Per David.Kane, I see nothing that rules out the use of Jensen's post-1969 autobiographical writings, and I see much that commends its use per WP:NPOV. -- DJ ( talk) 01:33, 25 April 2010 (UTC)
I have found this long chapter by William H. Tucker, pages 180-268, '"Unaided by eugenic foresight": The controversy over Jensenism' in
There is also a discussion of Jensen's use and subsequent oscillating support and retraction of support for Burt's twin studies in this article by one of the leading US historians of psychology, Franz Samelson. This was in fact some of the main data used by Jensen in his 1969 paper as Samelson mentions.
Here is for example is Samelson's description of Jensen's attempt in 1992 to rehabilitate Burt:
Yet after the new campaign to rehabilitate Burt had got under way, Jensen was invited to give an address to Division 1 at the 1992 APA meeting, in which he accused the recently deceased Hearnshawof bad scholarship and blamed the whole Burt Affair on a leftwing plot abetted by the sensationalist media. His address was promptly published in Div. 1’s General Psychologist (Jensen, 1992a) and was also made available on cassette by the APA – which apparently had learned little from the BPS’ problems – without any indication whatsoever that the speaker was not exactly a disinterested party and his account might be somewhat selective if not polemic.2 It also contained some errors and, as a look at original documents shows, misstatements.
2. In 1976, TIME had quoted Jensen as saying: ‘It is a political attack. The real targets are me, Herrnstein, and the whole area of research on the genetics of intelligence (p. 66)’.
I shall try to find other historical accounts of Jensen by uninvolved commentators. Nicholas Mackintosh wrote a book on the allegations of scientific fraud againsts Burt in 1995. This, alas, is all part of the history, which is quite complicated! Mathsci ( talk) 14:41, 21 April 2010 (UTC)
There's also "Intelligence: a brief history" (2004) by Robert Sternberg and Anna Cianciolo. Mathsci ( talk) 15:23, 21 April 2010 (UTC)
MathSci and Captain Occam, please stop edit-warring. MathSci: it is perfectly appropriate to begin a sentence by naming the person whose views are being presented. You cannot delete it because it is compliant with our NPOV policy. Captain Occam: please do not add Tucker's name to every sentence that is attributed to him. His name needs be provided only once, the first time that his views are introduced. After that, the fact that there is a citation makes it very clear that a view is being presented, and it is being attributed to a source. To keep adding the name is not only unnecessary, it is poor style. I have just restored the name and title of the book the first time his views are provided. I hope both of you will accept this, and move on. Slrubenstein | Talk 16:47, 25 April 2010 (UTC)
Captain Occam, you accused him of edit warring here:
Do you retract the accusation? Slrubenstein | Talk 19:43, 25 April 2010 (UTC)
MathSci wrote rv abusive use of primary sources from after the event - Distributivejustice ( talk · contribs) is producing WP:OR and WP:SYNTH)
What I wrote was a near verbatim summary of Jensen's autobiographical writing cited and quoted in the text. Therefore it cannot be either WP:OR or WP:SYNTH, but rather is the attributed view of Jensen from a secondary source in a peer-reviewed scholarly journal. Moreover, WP:NPOV demands his view of what happened ca. 1969 be included. -- DJ ( talk) 23:17, 25 April 2010 (UTC)
This single purpose editor inserted material by the main subject of the section 1960-1980, written in 1998, not reported in secondary sources. This is not how history articles are written. It seems to be an attempt to POV-push the article into a non neutral state by an editor who has made no secret of his advocacy of Jensen. If Distributivejustice thinks history about controversial individuals is written using statements written 30 years after the event, he is mistaken. It is exactly in such cases that it is essential to use secondary sources. If he, or any like-minded editor, attempts to insert anachronistic commentaries from primary sources, unsupported by secondary commentators, they are quite likely to have their editing privileges restricted due to blatant POV-pushing. The historian of psychology, Franz Samelson, made it quite clear that Jensen has vacillated over the years in his public statements: that is what we can report, not this concoction of WP:OR and WP:SYNTH which contradicts all chronology.
Diana Mitford in her autobiography was able to justify all her actions in the 1930s and 1940s - she related how anybody who had met Adolf Hitler could not fail to be charmed by him. That has been reported in secondary sources and that is why the article on her do not rely on her personal pronouncements. This is exactly in line with wikipedia core editing policies. Thanks, Mathsci ( talk) 23:32, 25 April 2010 (UTC)
This makes no sense to me. As far as I can tell, you are saying that Tucker 2002 is a reliable source for events in 1969 and Jensen 1997 (Intelligence, Volume 26, Issue 3; the entire issue was about Jensen's work and legacy) is not a reliable source. How is that possible? -- DJ ( talk) 23:52, 25 April 2010 (UTC)
<- Neither of these arguments are valid. An autobiographical tribute by an involved researcher and lobbyist is certainly not a historical account. When Varoon Arya says "award-winning", no-one on the heriditarian side is a member of the United States National Academy of Sciences or comparable body. Might he be referring to MENSA? As for 120 Volt monkey ( talk · contribs), this account appears to be an alternative account of another user, possibly banned. Please could he stop using this discussion page as a forum? The book by William H. Tucker won at least three prizes when it was first published, is published by a university press and has had excellent reviews. The history cannot be written using auobiographical commentaries by those involved, like Gottfredson and Jensen. By exactly the same token, articles by Lewontin, Gould and Kamin are primary sources and not used as direct sources for writing the history. The kind of wikilawyering and POV-pushing going on here seems to be disruption by a tag-team, an attempt to sabotage a neutrally written article by a group of advocates for a particular minoritarian point of view. Using primary sources written by those directly involved in the history of a controversy, be it Lewontin or Jensen, is not permissible, unless it is reported by a reliable secondary source. Mathsci ( talk) 06:35, 26 April 2010 (UTC)
There's a rather helpful thread here:
Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard#Jensen_1998_writing_about_Jensen_1969. --
DJ (
talk) 16:53, 26 April 2010 (UTC)
In essence, this article is nearly a POV fork of race and intelligence, but I think it could be better. One way to easily make it better to is to get a balanced account of what actually happened around the events of 1969. Comparisons of a professor at UC Berkeley to a murderer really aren't appropriate here, nor is the suggestion that Jensen needs to "justifying" his scholarly work, but they do highlight the WP:BLP concerns around letting this NPOV issue remain unfixed. Concerns about primary sources are not paramount compared to WP:NPOV, and a publication in a peer-reviewed journal speaking to the history of a scholarly debate is hardly akin to the kind of raw data that people mean by "primary source" with respect to WP:RS. The alternative to fixing this article is that we need to merge this back into race and intelligence where the context will make it clearer. -- DJ ( talk) 05:06, 27 April 2010 (UTC)
<- Ahem,2 out of 40 citations - the first a quote and the second a minor remark. But this is somewhat irrelevant. Evidently the initiator of a controversial event is not suitable to provide the principal historical commentary on that event. You with Occam are just POV-pushing to include unduly primary sources. I don't have a view on Jensen, except that he is a distinguihsed academic who in his career appears to have provoked some controversy and possibly made some errors of judgement. This is best illustrated by two quotes for Samelson's article about the "Burt affair".
These statements about Burt are contradictory. As Samelson points out, Jensen kept changing his mind on the "Burt affair". That is why, directly involved as he was, he cannot be used as a primary source. I think this is pretty clear. It's exactly why we use secondary sources for history. I already mentioned that for the Franco-Siamese War when the biased and ill-informed reports of French officers were not permitted as sources. If they were quoted elsewhere, then yes those quotes could be used. Mathsci ( talk) 23:58, 27 April 2010 (UTC)
Please stop asking the same question repeatedly. The Pioneer grantees and avowed hereditarians Eysenck, Jensen and Gottfredson are not used as sources for exactly the same reasons as Lewontin, Gould and Kamin, some of the main scientists who disagreed with them. In writing about a controversy, where not much science is in fact involved, authors are chosen who have all the historical documents at their disposal, write in the conventional way of historians or historians of psychology and were not involved or unduly biased in the controversy. You claim that Adrian Wooldridge the main source is anti-Jensen. That does not seem to be the case, so can't really be discussed any further. He writes all the history dispassionately, as one would expect from somebody with an Oxford D.Phil. in history. Tucker writes mainly about research related to the Pioneer Fund - without this funding almost all the hereditarian research would have been unfunded. I have no idea whether he's anti-Jensen or not. Certainly he is quite critical of Rushton, but not of Jensen as far as I am aware. The relations between Shockley and Jensen were published with careful documentation and so are irrefutable. It is a mistake to say that authors are either pro- or anti-Jensen. Historians are far more subtly nuanced than that. Now I know that you and your team seem to be pro-Jensen. I think you personally removed from the article the summary of the criticisms of Jensen, including the names of the critics, listed dispassionately by Wooldridge. Now you are requesting, over and above disallowing this material by a neutral historian, that the history of the controversy be rewritten from the point of view of the hereditarians. I presume that means suggesting to the reader that Jensen very innocently wrote his paper - not even his own idea -hardly realising that there was anything controversial in it. He was then was shocked at the disproportionate reaction to it largely orchestrated by left-wing extremist manipulating the media apparently in the name of science but in fact due to their Marxist aversion to an unpalatable yet undeniable Truth. Accounts like that can be read on sites like The Occidental Quarterly and VDARE.com, where Lynn and Rushton contribute. But that is not a neutral way to write history and certainly not the way on wikipedia. We summarises the events described in secondary sources as accurately as possible. It turns out that there is very little disparity between Tucker and Wooldridge; Tucker is possibly less cautious in his language. This is what is to expected from well written books. There are plenty of quotes of Jensen in secondary sources but these cannot be used in the way attempted yesterday, reverted by other users. Mathsci ( talk) 04:37, 28 April 2010 (UTC)
The only relevant section on history in this nine page paper by Linda Gottfredson seems to be in the last 2 and a bit pages (short!), which is reproduced below (and will be removed fairly soon).
Jensenism, the Reaction
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This reads like an opinion piece and seems exceptionally inaccurate and imprecise. It is not a meticulous historical account with careful references and names. It is fairly obviously a primary source. It is in no way comparable to the 10 pages or so in Wooldridge's book, the work of a trained and skilled historian. How is this in any way useful for writing the article? I can see that it wouldn't be bad for a blog. But wikipedia? You must be joking! Mathsci ( talk) 09:04, 28 April 2010 (UTC)
Well I don't currently have acces to those sources and I don't see exactly where they might be useful, I think it is important to keep an eye on the ball (to make a good coherent article) and not diverge in to he said she said just to give a voice to all involved editors. Are there any particular statements that you think could be supplemented well by short statements from other sources. Why don't you describe your concerns and proposed solutions here so we can see how best to accomodate them. I personally don't think the current text is unfair to Jensen it simply describes that his article generated controversy and with my additions it even gives him the opportunity to mention where he differs from others' descriptions of him. It is already mentioned that Jensen also garnered support from Eysenck and others. I am not sure that including descriptions from Eysenck or others have anything important to contribute, I'd like you to show me what it is you think is lacking. ·Maunus·ƛ· 09:08, 30 April 2010 (UTC)
<- I have included the direct quotes of what Jensen wrote in 1983 and 1992, as documented by Franz Samelson, with links to the original primary sources. This contains the statements about a cabal of left-wing academics, supported by the media. These types of comments were made at the time by both sides in 1970s. In Wooldridge there are reports of allegations from the other side - charges of racism or scientific racism - which I would favour adding for balance as they show the extreme and undoubtedly unjustified reactions of some of Jensen's contemporaries. Here are screenshots of page 376 in Wooldridge's book where this is discussed: [19], [20]. Note that the statement about the Association of Black Psychologists is taken from an article by Jensen. Contributors to the debate at the time included Sandra Scarr, Christopher Jencks and Luigi Cavalli-Sforza, but it's unclear they really need to be listed. Mathsci ( talk) 11:34, 30 April 2010 (UTC)
Sorry for the short reply: the worst NPOV problems are mainly from the unattributed views of Tucker (2002). Note that William H. Tucker is a psychologist, not a historian. Here's the worst text:
In 1969 Jensen wrote a long article in the Harvard Educational Review, "How Much can We Boost IQ and Achievement", arguing that racial minorities, should be taught, not through conceptual explanations, but instead by relying on their ability to associate rather than understand, i.e. learning by rote. He decried the "misguided and ineffective attempts to improve [the] lot" of blacks. As he wrote,"Is there a danger that current welfare policies, unaided by eugenic foresight, could lead to the genetic enslavement of a substantial segment of our population?"[24] [25]
And this is what Jensen says his article was about:
Based on a review of the empirical literature, my HER article made four main claims: (i) experimental attempts to raise the IQ of children at risk for low IQ and poor scholastic performance by various psychological and educational manipulations had yielded little, if any, lasting gains in IQ or scholastic achievement: (ii) individual differences in IQ have a high heritability (.70-.80, corrected for attenuation), but environment also plays an important part; (iii) most of the exclusively cultural- environment explanations for racial differences in IQ and scholastic achievement were inconsistent and inadequate, so genetic as well as environmental factors should be considered; and (iv) certain abilities, particularly rote-learning and memory (i.e.. Level I ability) have only a weak relationship to IQ. which suggests that these Level I abilities might be used to compensate to some extent for low IQ (i.e.. Level II ability) and thereby make school instruction more beneficial for many children, regardless of their racial or social class background, who are below average in Level II but are average or above in Level I. (Pupils with this pattern of abilities constitute the majority of those who are most at risk for failure under traditional classroom instruction.)
And this is what Gottfredson says about his article:
All his most "controversial" claims in that 1969 article--that intelligence is highly genetic, not very malleable, and probably differs between races partly for genetic reasons--are now mainstream conclusions in the science of intelligence.
I won't suggest solutions so as to leave that open for discussion. -- DJ ( talk) 18:08, 30 April 2010 (UTC)
<- I suggest that in the next week or so, Captain Occam prepares whatever extra neutral content he thinks might be added and then in a section here on the talk page puts down the sentences he wants to add. Gottfredson made no comments at the time, so her personal opinions in 1998 in the collapse section above are not really appropriate material. She is just repeating things said by people at the time, and it's better to locate and report those directly. Jensen's already used the language of "left-wing media-fuelled conspiracy", so there's not much need to repeat that. I don't think any space needs to be added about Marxism - certainly Segerstråle's book points out that it's a red herring. The ABP made some of the most extreme charges of racism, so again it's not necessary to belabour that point. Trying to place unchronological information into the article that tries to prove Jensen was correct and that most mainstream scientists agree with him because of some much later opinion poll or newspaper article seems completely irrelevant to the history. That would be classified as WP:UNDUE, WP:OR. WP:SYNTH and WP:Civil POV pushing. At the moment I can't see how any wikipedia editing policy supports Captain Occam's objections to present content. Racial bias for example is accurately discussed in the article and the quote I gave appears in Jensen's book on bias and the other two sources cited in the article (I took the most complete version). I've no idea why Captain Occam describes this as "cherry picking". Was Jensen wrong to include that quote in his book? The same applies to the statements about Jensen's position within the "Burt Affair", which I think is documented in many sources. There's no reason to rewrite or interpret the history of events in the early 1970s by using opinion polls and newspaper articles from the late 1980s or 1990s. That makes no sense at all. Commentaries by reliable secondary sources or later accounts of significant individuals involved in events at the time could be used, but not third party accounts like Gottfredson's. Also, as Maunus has said, too many "he said, she said" passages are not appropriate here as they will just make the article unreadable. Mathsci ( talk) 20:53, 1 May 2010 (UTC)
No administrator would accept your claim that I am the main reason you are editing race-related articles. That is an unreasonable statement to make. You alone are the one who chooses the articles you edit or create. Your second paragraph also makes no sense at all to me. What has Ludwigs2 got to do with your editing here? Your suggestion is crazy.
Mathsci (
talk) 21:06, 1 May 2010 (UTC)