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You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard#RFC on sourcing in relation to race and intelligence. Generalrelative ( talk) 00:34, 1 May 2021 (UTC)
Flogging of ye olde dead horse |
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The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it. |
The article claims that there is a "consensus" about genetics not playing a role in racial differences in IQ, however, none of the sources cited demonstrate data from several surveys of experts that claim that there is a consensus that this is the case. In fact, numerous reliable surveys and sources who that this NOT the case. Rindermann, Becker, and Coyle (2020) emailed 1237 researchers who had either published intelligence-related work in an academic journal or who were a member of an organization related to the study of individual differences in intelligence and found that 49% of the Black-White IQ gap was caused be genes. Only 16% of these experts believed that none of the Black-White IQ gap was due to genes, and only 6% believed that the gap was entirely due to genes. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160289619301886 Similarly, Snyderman et al. 1987 emailed 1,020 academics in this literature, and the results were as such: 45% of respondents said the Black-White IQ gap was due to genes and the environment, 24% said there wasn’t enough data to say, 17% didn’t respond, 15% said it was due only to the environment, and 1% said that it was due entirely to genes. http://lepo.it.da.ut.ee/~spihlap/snyderman@rothman.pdf It is usually advised not to use primary sources, but not a single source that is either cited in the article or that exists claims that there is a "consensus" that the black-white IQ gap is only due to the environment based on any data from surveys, which is what we would need in order to establish the claim that there is a consensus surrounding this topic. This is why I am giving primary sources as evidence to show that what is claimed in this article is not the case. Furthermore, there are several secondary sources as well that claim that there is not a consensus. Here is a massive literature review on the heritability of racial differences in IQ which found that the group differences are between 50 to 80% heritable. https://benthamopen.com/contents/pdf/TOPSYJ/TOPSYJ-3-9.pdf Another massive review of the literature and meta-analysis concluded that genes account for between approximately 50% and 70% of the variation in cognition at the population level. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4006996/ A review published by the Journal of Philosophy of Science similarly shows no consensus regarding this matter: https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/392856 Ad nauseum, ad nauseum. In general, Wikipedia should work to establish reliable and neutral sources for claims, as opposed to simply stuffing poor ones that agree with a given narrative. I understand that a lot of people come on Wikipedia in order to push their political agenda which doesn't usually have any form of scientific backing, but we have to be committed to WP:NPOV and WP:RS. There is only one consensus on this topic and it is that there is no consensus on this topic, and any honest expert will attest to this. Dashoopa ( talk) 00:54, 1 May 2021 (UTC)
As per the second study, the mixture group contradicts the claim that race is merely a product of environment. As per the third study, this was from a well-respected journal so it falls within WP:RS. As per the fourth study, he outlines many philosophers of science, himself, included which disagree with that meaning that there is not a consensus. Try again. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Dashoopa ( talk) 02:01, 1 May 2021 (UTC)
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the theory that a genetic link exists between race and intelligence is enough of a minority viewpoint in the scientific consensus that it falls under Wikipedia's definition of a fringe theory.Editors overwhelmingly believed that the scientific consensus continues to support that outcome. It follows that any presentation of this theory in articles should comply with that guideline. There was some discussion on how this decision translates into formulations of prose. As there were no specific proposals to that end made in this discussion, that falls outside the scope of this RfC. ProcrastinatingReader ( talk) 16:01, 11 May 2021 (UTC)
Is the following statement correct (vote "yes") or incorrect (vote "no")? The theory that a genetic link exists between race and intelligence is enough of a minority viewpoint in the scientific consensus that it falls under Wikipedia's definition of a fringe theory.
NightHeron (
talk)
20:24, 3 May 2021 (UTC)
Several editors have suggested that last year's RfC on race and intelligence (see [1]) should be revisited. As the OP of that RfC, I'm fine with that, provided it's done with the EC-protection that this talk-page has. The wording of the above formulation is taken from the closing of last year's RfC. NightHeron ( talk) 20:24, 3 May 2021 (UTC)
among a limited group of editors. I've just finished putting notifications of this RfC on the talk-pages of all editors (except for SPAs, IPs, and editors with edit-count less than 500) on both sides in last year's RfC, over 40 editors. I've also put notices at Talk:Scientific racism, Talk:Nations and IQ, Talk:Heritability of IQ, WP:RSN, and WP:FTN. I'd be happy to put notices wherever else you suggest, in particular, at any relevant WikiProjects you can think of. I agree that it's important to invite broad participation. NightHeron ( talk) 23:25, 3 May 2021 (UTC)
I would HIGHLY suggest you hold this discussion on the article talk page rather than here, which is what I stated in the closure I made above.[2] That seems pretty unambiguous to me. Generalrelative ( talk) 23:36, 3 May 2021 (UTC)
I would HIGHLY suggest you hold this discussion on the article talk page rather than here, which is what I stated in the closure I made above, or at NPOVN as you noted. Please do not hold it here, immediately after the above discussion.I agree that the previous RfC was malformed and am glad to see that a wide range of editors will be notified. I was tbh suspicious of the RSN RfC deciding to not notify previously involved editors. — Wingedserif ( talk) 23:53, 3 May 2021 (UTC)
brief and neutral. NightHeron ( talk) 09:30, 4 May 2021 (UTC)
The entire point of starting a new RFC was to address the issues of WP:RS and WP:V that have arisen over the past year. Your RFC question ignores those issues, and just rehashes the question from last year's RFC. An RFC that ignores those issues won't be able to resolve anything useful, no matter which way the outcome goes.Stonkaments ( talk) 19:13, 4 May 2021 (UTC)
The scientific consensus is that there is no evidence for a genetic component behind IQ differences between racial groups.and per the facts that the vast majority of sources and arguments used in the countless previous discussions to contest this have been that there is a genetic component, not that the scientific consensus is that there is a genetic component, and that those few sources which address the actual consensus provided have been of quite low quality. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 21:32, 3 May 2021 (UTC)
[W]hile it is true that most researchers in the area of human genetics and human biological diversity no longer allocate significant resources and time to the race/IQ discussion, and that moral concerns may play an important role in these decisions, an equally fundamental reason why researchers do not engage with the thesis is that empirical evidence shows that the whole idea itself is unintelligible and wrong-headed.[5] For anyone who is skeptical as to whether this view represents a true scientific consensus, I'd suggest running a 20-year search of "race and intelligence" at Nature and Science. You will find plenty that agrees with this 2019 Nature editorial titled "Intelligence research should not be held back by its past" (coordinated to comment upon a meta-analysis in Nature Genetics published on the same day):
Historical measurements of skull volume and brain weight were done to advance claims of the racial superiority of white people. More recently, the (genuine but closing) gap between the average IQ scores of groups of black and white people in the United States has been falsely attributed to genetic differences between the races.[6] (see also [7], [8], [9] and [10]). But you will find nothing that affirmatively supports a genetic connection between race and intelligence. The most you will find are a couple which entertain the possibility that connections between cognitive abilities and race-like genetic clusters may be discovered in the future (see [11] and [12]). Even where the ethics of researching links between race and intelligence are defended ( [13]), it is clearly stated that
There is an emerging consensus about racial and gender equality in genetic determinants of intelligence; most researchers, including ourselves, agree that genes do not explain between-group differences.Generalrelative ( talk) 22:32, 3 May 2021 (UTC)
It is neither explicitly stated nor obviously follows logically from this that the opinion that there is some genetic component to the variation is fringe.You are incorrect.
A:1 B:7 C:2 D:9 E:5.
A:1 B:9 C:1, they're considered Black, whereas if they have traits
A:9 B:1 C:7, they're considered white. That seems clear enough, until you ask about a person who has traits
A:4 B:4 C:3, who's somewhere in the middle.
E, such that a person with
E:1has a 30% chance of having an IQ less than 70, and a person with
E:9has a 10% chance of having an IQ greater than 130.
D:3have a 10% chance of having an IQ over 150, but people with all other
Dtraits are perfectly normal. Oh yeah, and they can't find anyone with
E:7with an IQ over 110, even though people with
E:6and
E:8are over-represented in the 110+ IQ group.
unintelligible and wrong-headed. I also wanted to keep my !vote as brief as possible, but if you'd like more sources which might persuade the persuadable, see "Why genetic IQ differences between 'races' are unlikely" by the geneticist Kevin Mitchell [14] and "Race, genetics and pseudoscience: an explainer" by the geneticists Ewan Birney, Jennifer Raff, Adam Rutherford and Aylwyn Scally: [15]. Neither of these are peer-reviewed publications, let alone published in Nature or Science, but they are both by respected subject-matter experts (especially Birney, who is a pretty big deal). Unlike the opinions of psychometricians as to what is likely genetic, the opinions of real geneticists should carry weight per e.g. WP:SELFPUB. Generalrelative ( talk) 14:59, 4 May 2021 (UTC)
claims about the genetic basis for population differences [in IQ], are not scientifically supported. They then go on to explain why it is also unlikely that such a basis will be discovered in the future. And in the end they make it very clear that the reason they need to explain these things at all is that they feel it is incumbent on them to counter
a vocal fringe of race pseudoscience. Though they do not call out "hereditarian" figures like Rindermann and Lynn by name, it would be a stretch to read the entire piece and come away with any ambiguity as to whom they're referring to here. I'm tempted to quote at length, but really, the whole thing is not very long. I would encourage anyone who is skeptical about this issue to read it: [16] Generalrelative ( talk) 16:36, 4 May 2021 (UTC)
doesn't even present sources on either sideis almost perfect in its wrongheadedness. Generalrelative ( talk) 23:13, 3 May 2021 (UTC)
it was rushed by an editor to try and push something through without due consideration. Sounds like you must be a mind reader. That's gotta come in handy IRL, though we typically refrain from characterizing other editors' imagined motivations here. Generalrelative ( talk) 23:27, 3 May 2021 (UTC)
...from what's been going on at WP:RSN it was clear that the choice was between a straightforward, neutrally stated RfC that revisits last year's RfC, or else a complicated, tendentiously worded RfC at a non-EC-protected forum...[19] Stonkaments ( talk) 23:36, 3 May 2021 (UTC)
from what's been going on [..] non-EC-protected forumto
without due considerationis a tendentious logical leap, so he called it a tendentious logical leap. -- Hob Gadling ( talk) 02:14, 4 May 2021 (UTC)
a genetic component to intelligence. We are discussing whether the contention that observed differences in IQ test performance between racial groups have a genetic component is currently a fringe view. If you're confused as to why those are separate questions, please see Heritability of IQ or the piece cited by MrOllie above. Generalrelative ( talk) 23:45, 3 May 2021 (UTC)
observed differences are therefore environmental in origin, as the article currently says. That is falling into a false dilemma which is often pushed by Hereditarian literature, as [26] points out. For the most part the modern rejection of Hereditairanism focuses a lot more on the fact that their racial categories are largely social and cultural in origin (and to lesser extent disputes over measures of intelligence, especially as they apply to such hazy social categories) rather than arguing, as Hereditarians sometimes try to falsely imply their opponents believe, that intelligence is not heritable at all. -- Aquillion ( talk) 08:26, 4 May 2021 (UTC)
differences in IQ test performance between racial groups, which is a totally separate issue from the differences between individuals. Hereditarians do sometimes claim that their opponents reject any link between genetics and individual variation, and that's untrue. NightHeron ( talk) 21:42, 9 May 2021 (UTC)
"The theory that a genetic link exists between race and intelligence is enough of a minority viewpoint in the scientific consensus that it falls under Wikipedia's definition of a fringe theory"including definitions outlined in Wikipedia's content guideline Wikipedia:Fringe theories#Spectrum of fringe theories. --- Sluzzelin talk 17:52, 4 May 2021 (UTC)
while it is not always explicitly stated in the literature, by the same logic, the finding of similar heritabilities across advantaged/disadvantaged groups supports the genetic difference hypothesis. This appears to be the minority opinion, with the same review noting that Scarr-Rowe has general acceptance. However, the existence of the meta-analysis study (and additionally the studies listed therein) shows that the view is not so narrowly held that it qualifies for WP:FRINGE. — Mikehawk10 ( talk) 20:24, 4 May 2021 (UTC)
fabrication in the content, the issue is not so much with the data being fake as with the interpretations of that data being fallacious or the standards of data collection being lax. Such methodological shortcomings are harder to call people out on or definitively prove than outright falsifying data, which is kind of the root of the issue here. Richard Lynn is the godfather of this strategy (his data was the basis for The Bell Curve) with later generations of hereditarians refining his approach. Generalrelative ( talk) 02:20, 5 May 2021 (UTC)
You're confusing two things: (1) genetic component in individual variation, which agrees with scientific consensus, and (2) genetic component in differences between races, which goes against scientific consensus- ©Nightheron, 10:30 5 May (below). -- John Maynard Friedman ( talk) 19:18, 5 May 2021 (UTC)
Reich’s claim that we need to prepare for genetic evidence of racial differences in behavior or health ignores the trajectory of modern genetics. For several decades billions of dollars have been spent trying to find such differences. The result has been a preponderance of negative findings despite intrepid efforts to collect DNA data on millions of individuals in the hope of finding even the tiniest signals of difference.[29] (In a follow-up, Reich clarified that, while he believes that
very modest differences across human population in the genetic influences on behavior and cognition are to be expected [...] we do not yet have any idea about what the difference are. [30] So it's clear that even he is quite far removed from the racial hereditarian position that the black-white IQ gap is explained by a genetic advantage that white people have over black people.)
empirical evidence shows that the whole idea [of a genetic race-IQ connection] itself is unintelligible and wrong-headedand explains that this is a
fundamental reason why most researchers in the area of human genetics and human biological diversity no longer allocate significant resources and time to the race/IQ discussion. [31] For more in this vein, see the two pieces I recommended to Alaexis above: "Why genetic IQ differences between 'races' are unlikely" by the geneticst Kevin Mitchell [32] and "Race, genetics and pseudoscience: an explainer" by the geneticists Ewan Birney, Jennifer Raff, Adam Rutherford and Aylwyn Scally. [33] As I mentioned above, the latter of these is rather emphatic, noting that
claims about the genetic basis for population differences [in IQ] are not scientifically supportedand stating that their motivation for writing is to counter
a vocal fringe of race pseudoscience(my emphasis). Though they do not call out "hereditarian" psychometricians by name, it is clear from the context whom they're referring to here. And then there's that Nature editorial, which was coordinated to appear alongside a huge meta-analysis on the genetics of inteligence, which flat-out states that attributing the black-white IQ gap to genetics is "false" and characterizes it definitively as an idea which should be relegated to the past. [34]
in the scientific consensusshould be the relevant scientific consensus. Which is why I think it's important to note that, while racial hereditarianism is a minority view among psychometricians today, it appears to be a truly negligable view among geneticists. Generalrelative ( talk) 03:22, 6 May 2021 (UTC)
does not seem to reflect the prior RFCmakes no sense. The wording is taken verbatim from the close of last year's RfC. NightHeron ( talk) 10:30, 5 May 2021 (UTC)
in order tois speculating about the motivations of other editors, it is also the opposite of WP:AGF and
wasting everyone's time. -- Rsk6400 ( talk) 17:58, 7 May 2021 (UTC)
If there really is a fundamental issue not addressed by this RfC, then, this RfC does not prevent someone from opening a proper RfC to address it). Seems like it would've been nice to get this one closed first, but in any case I thought y'all might like to know. Generalrelative ( talk) 19:28, 9 May 2021 (UTC)
Because it is implied in the above that I endorse opening this RfC, I would like to observe that the implication is totally dishonest; that this RfC is obviously tendentious; and that the closure is appropriate.-- JBL ( talk) 20:08, 9 May 2021 (UTC)
ideologically driven[36] and that its defenders simply
can't handle the truth[37], but this RfC makes it clear at least that we are not alone. Generalrelative ( talk) 19:20, 7 May 2021 (UTC)
The circumstances under which this RFC has been rushed out to the Wikipedia community seem also to be affected by an ulterior, possibly racist agenda.For context you might want to see the tendentiously worded RfC that was launched last week on RSN. I would agree with your characterization if it were applied to that one. Note the closing admin's statement:
Some have suggested starting a properly formatted, neutrally worded RFC on the article talk page instead.NightHeron, who implemented this suggestion, has been a truly stalwart defender of the view you (and so many others here) have expressed. Generalrelative ( talk) 16:30, 6 May 2021 (UTC)
references
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References
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You are invited to join the discussion at Talk:Nicholas Wade. Generalrelative ( talk) 15:08, 13 May 2021 (UTC)
There is now a formal RfC at this talk page: Talk:Nicholas Wade#RfC about suggested statement. You are invited to participate. Generalrelative ( talk) 00:00, 17 May 2021 (UTC)
To all participating here: I've started work on a potential FYI for this talk page at User:MjolnirPants/RnI FYI. I'd like to know what everyone thinks and invite you all to suggest changes. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 01:42, 14 May 2021 (UTC)
The FYI has been through a few rounds of edits, along with a bit of discussion about them, and I believe it is ready for inclusion here. Would love to hear from others about it. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 23:17, 23 May 2021 (UTC)
After another few rounds of editing, the FAQ is looking better than ever. I intend to add it to this page very soon. If anyone believes discussion would be helpful, then now is the time to get it going. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 15:52, 30 May 2021 (UTC)
What do other scientists have to say about the question of a genetic link between race and intelligence?should either be eliminated or substantially altered. Not all sources (including those we reference in the FAQ) agree that the question is fundamentally unintelligible. Many think that such a link is indeed possible but highly unlikely to exist. And since the current version of the FAQ is visually quite cluttered, we might want to err on the side of fewer items.
What is the evidence for a genetic link between race and intelligence?could be rephrased to make it clear without clicking through that there is no such evidence (or we could consider cutting this question altogether). Otherwise it appears to contradict the premise of the first question.
What is the current state of the science on a link between intelligence and race?can be eliminated to avoid clutter, since it simply directs the reader to read the article.
Isn't this just political correctness?Happy to be reverted and discuss if others disagree with these changes! Generalrelative ( talk) 16:58, 1 June 2021 (UTC)
The FAQ is really shaping up well. I have questions about two of the Q-and-As:
In such surveys, the average percentage of the measured delta (about 15 points between the highest average racial score and the lowest average racial score) estimated to be explained by genetics is 1-5%; less than half the delta expected between two identical IQ tests taken by the same person on different days. In other words: statistically meaningless.) First, it uses technical language "measured delta". Second, it's not clear what average is being taken. Third, I'm not sure that it's accurate. Hunt estimated 3%, and he was among the relatively moderate members of the ISIR crowd. Fourth, if the IQ tests taken by the same person were identical, of course one would expect performance the second time to be significantly better than the first time ("practice makes perfect"). Fifth, given all the problems with the surveys, why should anyone care about this statistic? NightHeron ( talk) 20:29, 1 June 2021 (UTC)
First, it uses technical language "measured delta".Good point. I agree on rewording this.
Second, it's not clear what average is being taken.Also a good point.
Third, I'm not sure that it's accurate. Hunt estimated 3%, and he was among the relatively moderate members of the ISIR crowd.Well, 3% is pretty close to the median of 1-5%. I'm not sure what you mean, here. I've seen 1% and 5% given, though Hunt is the only one who's opinion has been brought up on WP about it, that I've seen. If you think we should quote Hunt on this, I'm fine with that.
Fourth, if the IQ tests taken by the same person were identical, of course one would expect performance the second time to be significantly better than the first time ("practice makes perfect").This needs clarification: when giving a person an IQ test repeatedly, the problems are usually randomly chosen from a pool of problems of similar complexity, to avoid precisely this. The answer needs to be clarified.
Fifth, given all the problems with the surveys, why should anyone care about this statistic?The best direct answer I've got is: It shows that even if one accepts that their research is 100% accurate, their hypothesis is still meaningless. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 20:43, 1 June 2021 (UTC)
Where did the 1-5% figure come from?Honestly, it's WP:SYNTH (arguably WP:CALC) from various such surveys I've read over the past few years. I like the point it makes, but I'm not married to it. We can remove it, if we want to hold the FAQ to the same standards as an article (I didn't see it that way, but I understand the case for it).
The racial hereditarians claim that 1-5% (or whatever percent they're claiming) is consistently in one direction. This has to be rejected, not called "statistically meaningless".From where I sit, there's no difference there.
(1) Suppose that Jane and John each take IQ tests 5 times, and Jane's average score is 10 points higher than John's. Suppose the variation in each case over the 5 times went up and down an average of 15 points, so both were averages of 15-point fluctuations. Wouldn't we still conclude that Jane has significantly higher IQ than John?Yes, but those are two individuals, not populations. And individuals tend to have stable IQs over time, whereas populations do not (not only the Flynn effect, but the fact that the difference are shrinking over time, as well).
(2) The batting performanceThis analogy is very problematic, as batting performance is much more objective and empirical than IQ.
I don't think we should be saying anything to the effect that "even if their research is 100% accurate it's a small difference anyway",That's an opinion I can understand.
just as we wouldn't say "even if the climate change deniers are right that whatever change is occurring is caused naturally rather than by humans, we should still be concerned and do something about it."That's not. I think you missed a clause, there, in which the deniers also assert that the consequences of not doing anything are negligible.
Clarification of the climate denier analogy: it's saying "Even if the climate change deniers are right that whatever change is occurring is caused naturally rather than by humans, they're wrong that there's no reason to be concerned and do something about it."Yeah, that's a better phrasing that I can get behind.
To give another analogy, it's what lawyers do when they say "even if my client did commit the murder, it was not premeditated so you should convict him on a lesser charge."I see it more like "Even if my client did commit the murder, there's no evidence that it was premeditated," which is a valid point.
If the difference is statistically significant then it contradicts the main premise that there is no evidence for such differenceNo, it wouldn't. These numbers are speculations by the psychometrists involved, not hard data about the differences. They aren't evidence.
On the other hand, if the difference is not statistically significant, then, tautologically, these numbers are insignificant and should not be mentioned.I agree with the statement that the the numbers are insignificant, but I disagree that they shouldn't be mentioned, because they would be insignificant (per the comparison to the variance of a single person) even if there were evidence that some of the difference was genetic.
. Stonkaments ( talk) 18:36, 3 June 2021 (UTC)Yet the spectre of Lysenkoism lurks in current scientific discourse on gender, race and intelligence. Claims that sex- or race-based IQ gaps are partly genetic can offend entire groups, who feel that such work feeds hatred and discrimination. Pressure from professional organizations and university administrators can result in boycotting such research, and even in ending scientific careers.
readily consider many of them to be reliable sources in other contexts. That really doesn't seem like a good-faith representation of past discussions or editing behavior. And yes I'm sure you can find "nearly 20 sources" from within the walled garden of fringe racialist pseudoscience. That's not going to change the balance of NPOV here. Jackson & Winston's peer-reviewed paper, published in an APA journal, is more than enough to establish the fact that race-and-intelligence research continues to be funded despite the fact that it is scientifically bankrupt. Generalrelative ( talk) 18:47, 3 June 2021 (UTC)
They are real scientists, and their views can be considered fairly representative at least of one end of the spectrum of mainstream ideas). Generalrelative ( talk) 19:16, 3 June 2021 (UTC)
I wonder if an entry about how this topic was viewed in the past would be helpful? The answer could be along the lines that every attempt to study or prove this in the past was based on racist motivations? I don't have sources handy at the moment, but I think some historical framing to this topic could be helpful. There's the obvious examples from Nazi doctors and then experiments with African Americans during the Jim Crow era. Mr Ernie ( talk) 15:01, 3 June 2021 (UTC)
When Rushton’s book Race, Evolution and Behaviour was published in 1995, psychologist David Barash was stirred to write in a review: “Bad science and virulent racial prejudice drip like pus from nearly every page of this despicable book.” Rushton had collected scraps of unreliable evidence in “the pious hope that by combining numerous little turds of variously tainted data, one can obtain a valuable result”. In reality, Barash wrote, “the outcome is merely a larger than average pile of shit”.
You are invited to join the discussion at Talk:Who We Are and How We Got Here.
FYI the relevant content dispute begins at comment #4 of Talk:Who We Are and How We Got Here#WP:DUE. Generalrelative ( talk) 16:02, 4 June 2021 (UTC)
NightHeron can you clarify how the reverted passage violates WP:NPOV? Is the journal where the referenced study has been published not good? Ping Ekpyros Alaexis ¿question? 12:24, 14 September 2021 (UTC) Added diff link – dlthewave ☎ 12:34, 20 September 2021 (UTC)
interracial differences must be at least partly the result of individual genetic differences. Thus, the main point of your edit was to directly contradict the consensus reached at two recent RfC's that this is a fringe POV and so must be treated in accordance with WP:PROFRINGE, avoiding FALSEBALANCE. There was nothing "sideways" about reverting your edit. NightHeron ( talk) 13:41, 16 September 2021 (UTC)
For those without institutional access, here’s the money quote from Visscher et al.:
Box 2: Misconceptions regarding heritability
[...]
Heritability is informative about the nature of between-group differences –– This misconception comes in two forms, and in both cases height and IQ in human populations are good examples. The first misconception is that when the heritability is high, groups that differ greatly in the mean of the trait in question must do so because of genetic differences. The second misconception is that the observation of a shift in the mean of a character over time (when we can discount changes in gene frequencies) for a trait with high heritability is a paradox. For IQ, a large increase in the mean has been observed in numerous populations, and this effect is called the Flynn Effect, after its discoverer. The problem with this suggested paradox is that heritability should not be used to make predictions about changes in the population over time or about differences between groups, because in each individual calculation the heritability is defined for a particular population and says nothing about environments in other populations. White males born in the United States were the tallest in the world in the mid-19th century and about 9cm taller than Dutch males. At the end of the 20th century, although the height of males in the United States had increased, many European countries had overtaken them and Dutch males are now approximately 5cm taller than white US males, a trend that is likely to be environmental rather than genetic in origin.
Including a summary of this, and perhaps a bit of quotation as well, could certainly improve the section we’re discussing. Generalrelative ( talk) 23:57, 16 September 2021 (UTC)
@
Ekryros: In thinking that Ned Block was the source of the corn analogy and Lewontin popularized it, I was responding to what you wrote above: What is the problem with identifying Ned Block as the source of the analogy image?
and later: that analogy was popularized by Lewontin
. From this I assumed that Ned Block was the source of the corn analogy, and Lewontin popularized it. Sorry -- from what you now say, I guess we both got it backwards. I didn't check the citation to Block because there was no citation to Block; that part of your edit was unsourced.
Above I specified which part of your edit endorsed the fringe theory that, as you put it in your edit, interracial differences must be at least partly the result of individual genetic differences.
According to geneticists, there is zero evidence that interracial differences in performance on intelligence tests are partly the result of individual genetic differences. The reason why the claim in your edit relates to intelligence (and so is covered by the two recent RfCs) is that you put your edit in an article titled "Race and intelligence".
I don't appreciate your litany of personal name-calling, which violates
WP:NPA and could result in sanctions against you if you continue. You have called me uninformed, histrionic, blathering, clueless, ignorant, puerile, asinine
. Wikipedia is not some kind of social media platform where insults and name-calling are accepted. Please stop this behavior immediately.
NightHeron (
talk)
12:29, 17 September 2021 (UTC)
Subsequent scientists have pointed out that the corn-stalk analogy...can be misleading:...individual humans are not randomly sorted into racial groups. Due to differing evolutionary histories and shared ancestries, racial groups have inherited genetic differences, and thus interracial differences must be at least partly the result of individual genetic differences.It harms the encyclopedia to insert an edit that promotes the theory of genetic superiority of certain races over others in intelligence. NightHeron ( talk) 19:24, 17 September 2021 (UTC)
Comment on content, not on the contributor. Personal attacks harm the Wikipedia community and the collaborative atmosphere needed to create a good encyclopedia". Also, aspersions (personal attacks) may be removed from the page per WP:NPA. --- Steve Quinn ( talk) 20:45, 17 September 2021 (UTC)
Your participation is welcome in the discussion at Talk:The Bell Curve#Merger proposal concerning merging the article Cognitive elite into The Bell Curve. NightHeron ( talk) 22:10, 6 November 2021 (UTC)
Putting the socks away. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 14:59, 16 November 2021 (UTC) |
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More socks. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 17:34, 16 November 2021 (UTC) |
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The Q&A seems to confuse "observable" and "visible" traits. Differences in behaviour or cognitive abilities can be observable, although they are not physical. Therefore the claim that "So comparing Africans to Europeans will show differences in genes that regulate skin color, hair texture, nose and lip shape, and other observable traits. But the rest of the genetic code will be essentially the same." Seems nonsensical. How could we find non-observable differences? Is IQ not an "observable trait/characteristic"?
2A00:23C7:EE82:7701:1906:630D:E828:D194 ( talk) 17:27, 16 November 2021 (UTC)
For example the claim "So comparing Africans to Europeans will show differences in genes that regulate skin color, hair texture, nose and lip shape, and other observable traits. But the rest of the genetic code will be essentially the same." I would be interesting to learn what sources the claim that difference in genes between Africans and Europeans are limited to observable traits is based on.
Similarly there are many other claims there that read more like opinions rather than facts. What are the editing guidelines that apply to the Q&A?
2A00:23C7:EE82:7701:90A2:E3C3:BD92:E870 ( talk) 22:11, 15 November 2021 (UTC)
The Q&A states that surveys on intelligence experts "are almost invariably conducted by advocates of scientific racism, and respondents to these surveys are also almost exclusively members of groups that promote scientific racism. In short, they are not representative samples of mainstream scientific opinion."
How is Rothman and Snyderman survey not representative sample of scientific opinion? The 1020 experts in the survey were chosen randomly from the following organisations:
American Educational Research Association (120) National Council on Measurement in Education (120) American Psychological Association: Development psychology division (120) Educational psychology division (120) Evaluation and Measurement division (120) School psychology division (120) Counseling psychology division (60) Industrial and organizational psychology division (60) Behavior Genetics Association (60) American Sociological Association (education) (60) Cognitive Science Society (60)
How are these not mainstream scientists?
Regardless of whether the IP from Milan was in good faith, the addition of the polygenic scores does seem relevant and justified given that it meets all of Wikipedia's criteria. 2800:484:877C:94F0:8544:9078:3A8A:4A27 ( talk) 22:28, 2 December 2021 (UTC)
Like, I am fine with saying Intelligence is not a reliable source, but then we would need to remove all the references to it from this article then, in order to be consistent. 2800:484:877C:94F0:A4C1:8C1A:84BF:EC33 ( talk) 04:23, 3 December 2021 (UTC)
Ok, so let us mention the polygenic scores based on that criterion. Not because they represent scientific consensus, but because they are being put forth as evidence for a fringe view point. — Preceding
unsigned comment added by
191.106.148.198 (
talk)
14:04, 3 December 2021 (UTC)
Ok, but there is a whole section in this article dedicated to research into possible genetic influences, should we delete it then? — Preceding
unsigned comment added by
191.106.156.142 (
talk)
15:07, 3 December 2021 (UTC)
There is nothing "psuedoscientific" about this. The genetic hypothesis is a scientific hypothesis, just like any other, and it makes very specific predictions, including that these polygenic scores will be different. The only reason these polygenic scores are not being added, is because they constitute very powerful evidence in favour of a genetic component to racial gaps in IQ, and you guys want to suppress and hide this information from the public. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2800:484:877C:94F0:4863:BF9C:825:FDE9 ( talk) 17:24, 3 December 2021 (UTC)
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Ok guys, these polygenic scores either support hederitrianism, or they do not. If the American Journal of Physical Anthropology (a reliable source as far as I can tell) says they do not, do you not think this is an important development in this field that should be included? Unless the point I do not get is that you guys just want to hide this information from the public. I am looking for an argument, not another sudden closing or the discussion please. 2800:484:877C:94F0:78E7:361E:A26D:7647 ( talk) 21:18, 7 December 2021 (UTC)
We have had it for the reliability of the sources in Intelligence and MDPI, and FINE, I conceded that. But no one has called into question the reliability of the American Journal of Physical Anthropology. As far as I can tell, not argument has been given for not including the paragraph that says that the polygenic scores do NOT support hereditarianism. Especially since it is right in line with modern scientific consensus.
Why you do not want to include that second paragraph has not been discussed yet. 2800:484:877C:94F0:1D0E:83AF:628:E99 ( talk) 21:26, 7 December 2021 (UTC)
Well, the field of genetics has advanced enormously over the last few years. If there is new, direct genetic evidence that the Black-White IQ gap, for example, is not genetic, then that would seem a substantial development in this very field, would you not agree? And since there definitely is an almost universal scientific consensus against racial hereditarianism, should we not present to the public the strong, cutting edge, direct genetic evidence that adds to the mountain of support there already is for this consensus? after all, the last sentence in the introduction says "In recent decades, as understanding of human genetics has advanced, claims of inherent differences in intelligence between races have been broadly rejected by scientists on both theoretical and empirical grounds." But fails to provide any examples of this. How about we include this very study as a shining example of that claim? 2800:484:877C:94F0:9CB:E91:4744:EDCC ( talk) 01:22, 8 December 2021 (UTC)
I was speaking of the introduction, which maybe could include a few citations at that point at least. But let us look at the section "Genetics of race and intelligence",
First it says: a review of candidate genes for intelligence published in Deary, Johnson & Houlihan (2009) failed to find evidence of an association between these genes and general intelligence, stating "there is still almost no replicated evidence concerning the individual genes, which have variants that contribute to intelligence differences".
Then it says: A 2005 literature review article by Sternberg, Grigorenko and Kidd stated that no gene has been shown to be linked to intelligence, "so attempts to provide a compelling genetic link of race to intelligence are not feasible at this time.
And there are a few other sentences to the same effect in the section. Now honestly, that section is out of date, we now know of thousands of genetic variants that are associated with Educational Attainment now. Do you not think that section needs to be updated?
2800:484:877C:94F0:D503:EAD8:E165:4323 ( talk) 03:07, 8 December 2021 (UTC)
Nature explicitly says: generates polygenic scores that explain 11–13% of the variance in educational attainment and 7–10% of the variance in cognitive performance. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41588-018-0147-3
So it is not OR.
Stanford picked up, not the more recent larger study, but a previous smaller one that also pinned down a few hundred SNPs with genome wide significance for EA: https://cepa.stanford.edu/content/genetics-success-how-snps-associated-educational-attainment-relate-life-course-development
That is your secondary source.
None discussed this specifically in terms of race, but they do make all of those statements in the "Genetics of race and intelligence" section, outdated. They are:
1) Current studies using quantitative trait loci have yielded little success in the search for genes influencing intelligence.
2) Several candidate genes have been proposed to have a relationship with intelligence.[158][159] However, a review of candidate genes for intelligence published in Deary, Johnson & Houlihan (2009) failed to find evidence of an association between these genes and general intelligence, stating "there is still almost no replicated evidence concerning the individual genes, which have variants that contribute to intelligence differences".
3) A 2005 literature review article by Sternberg, Grigorenko and Kidd stated that no gene has been shown to be linked to intelligence, "so attempts to provide a compelling genetic link of race to intelligence are not feasible at this time."
4) "Almost no genetic polymorphisms have been discovered that are consistently associated with variation in IQ in the normal range."
Come to think of it, statements (1) and (2) do not explicitly discuss these statements about intelligence in terms of race, given that and that they are clearly outdated, maybe they should be deleted.
Finally, https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33529393/ Does discuss in terms of race. Not picked up by any secondary sources yet, but you could add it as "Kevin A Bird has found that the distribution of these genetic variants lends no support to the hereditarian hypothesis" or something like that.
2800:484:877C:94F0:D503:EAD8:E165:4323 ( talk) 04:56, 8 December 2021 (UTC)
I am Jewish. 2800:484:877C:94F0:C026:2849:7482:9EF6 ( talk) 20:26, 8 December 2021 (UTC)
Long and proud, 17 generations, Sephardic Jewish pedigree, on my mother's side, going back at least until the early 1400s. Not that that is relevant but still. 2800:484:877C:94F0:C026:2849:7482:9EF6 ( talk) 20:33, 8 December 2021 (UTC)
The section on "Genetics of race and intelligence" has many sentences to the effect that no genetic variants affecting intelligence in the normal range have been discovered. That is not longer true. We should remove that.
2800:484:877C:94F0:C026:2849:7482:9EF6 ( talk) 20:36, 8 December 2021 (UTC)
This is one of the more interesting areas of Race and Intelligence that is not explored at all in this article.
2800:484:877C:94F0:C026:2849:7482:9EF6 ( talk) 20:36, 8 December 2021 (UTC) |}
Profoundly WP:NOTHERE. Generalrelative ( talk) 00:27, 9 December 2021 (UTC) |
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Let us add this. The second sentence is straight from the American Journal of Physical Anthropology, the paragraph is right in line with modern scientific consensus. We have to add it now. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2800:484:877C:94F0:FD2A:567D:EA90:669A ( talk) 15:14, 4 December 2021 (UTC)
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Relentless parade of WP:BLUDGEON, WP:FORUMSHOP and WP:ASPERSION. Generalrelative ( talk) 00:30, 9 December 2021 (UTC) |
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You guys REALLY don't care if this is true or not right? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 93.149.193.190 ( talk) 22:02, 30 November 2021 (UTC) There is also the article in the journal Intelligence [1] Given that the journal Intelligence is cited over a dozen times in this article, there should not be a problem with it right? (apart from the fact that the facts hurt your feelings that is) 93.149.193.190 ( talk) 22:18, 30 November 2021 (UTC)
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Why was this reverted?
In recent years scientists have found thousands of
Single-nucleotide polymorphisms associated with intelligence. The distribution of these genetic variants across races can be summarized in
polygenic scores. These scientific developments have provided no support for the hereditarian hypothesis for racial differences in cognitive ability.
[1] — Preceding
unsigned comment added by
Fq90 (
talk •
contribs)
Having looked at the archives I saw there was clear consensus against the addition of a statement to the opposite effect, on the basis that the Journal Intelligence and MDPI were not reliable sources, but I have not seen a consensus or any reason given to exclude the above paragraph, which says exactly the opposite of what the paragraph that was shut down by the consensus of the editors. — Preceding
unsigned comment added by
Fq90 (
talk •
contribs)
17:40, 19 January 2022 (UTC)
No clue what you are talking about. Removing the most up to date and accurate information from an encyclopedia entry is also disruptive. Users who come to the article and read the section on "Genetics of race and intelligence" are going to go home thinking that no genetic variants contributing to variation in intelligence in the normal range have been found yet, and that is not the current state of the science. Do you not think this is problematic?
Fq90 (
talk)
17:45, 19 January 2022 (UTC)
I have, I only meant to say that I am not the user you mentioned. So is it problematic in your view that the readers of Wikipedia are going home thinking this encyclopedia has given them the most up to date and accurate information when as a matter of fact it has not?
Fq90 (
talk)
18:02, 19 January 2022 (UTC)
Is there really no evidence at all for a genetic link between race and intelligence?", the "[9]" link. EvergreenFir (talk) 19:19, 19 January 2022 (UTC)
@
EvergreenFir: Exactly, like, it is 2022 already, the last reference in the "Genetics of race and intelligence" is from 10 years ago. The section needs updating.
Fq90 (
talk)
19:02, 19 January 2022 (UTC)
[W]hile it is true that most researchers in the area of human genetics and human biological diversity no longer allocate significant resources and time to the race/IQ discussion, and that moral concerns may play an important role in these decisions, an equally fundamental reason why researchers do not engage with the thesis is that empirical evidence shows that the whole idea itself is unintelligible and wrong-headed.[54] Generalrelative ( talk) 19:34, 19 January 2022 (UTC)
@
Firefangledfeathers: I do not know, what worries me is what I have been saying, the readers of the encyclopedia are coming here expecting us to give them up-to-date and accurate information, and they are going home with the more-than-10-years-ago-no-longer-true state of the science. What further worries me is that no one here seems to think this is a problem.
Fq90 (
talk)
23:23, 19 January 2022 (UTC)
Ok, forget mentioning the polygenic scores, focus on merely mentioning that thousands of genetic variants that contribute to variation in intelligence have been discovered already. Would you not say that this is up-to-date, accurate, neutral and uncontroversial, and that these findings have been widely discussed in reliable sources? Further would you not say that the current state of the article, which says that no such genetic variants have been discovered is simply, objectively inaccurate?
As I said, forget mentioning the polygenic scores and its implications, I would be quite happy if we simply add this:
A 2018 study found 1,271 genome-wide significant
Single-nucleotide polymorphism that collectively explain 11–13% of the variance in educational attainment and 7–10% of the variance in cognitive performance.
[2]
Fq90 (
talk)
02:35, 20 January 2022 (UTC)
The meta-analysis identifies 18 genomic regions associated with intelligence, and candidate genes that are highly expressed in the brain. The associations, the study suggests, could explain up to 4.8% of the variance in intelligence across these cohorts.But it's true that there is decent evidence that some specifically identifiable genomic regions contribute a non-zero amount to individual differences in IQ. It's also worth emphasizing that the editorial states explicitly that this provides absolutely no evidence for group-level differences in innate intelligence. I would be okay with removing any content in the existing article which contradicts this. I would not however support adding anything to the article, such as a reference to the meta-analysis itself, which does not discuss race and intelligence, since doing so would clearly be SYNTH. Generalrelative ( talk) 02:56, 20 January 2022 (UTC)
References
Given past discussion, this doesn't seem to be a good faith question. User:Fq90 is free to create a new RFC or abide by the current one. Guettarda ( talk) 16:41, 25 January 2022 (UTC) |
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Why was this removed now? the American Journal of Psychology is one of the most respected academic journals in the world. Some researchers have argued that the polygenic scores derived from this research provide evidence for a genetic component to the racial gaps in IQ. [1] — Preceding unsigned comment added by Fq90 ( talk • contribs)
I hardly see how this is "fringe" if it is discussed in the American Journal of Psychology. However, here is a secondary source that discusses the polygenic scores as well: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/09/13/can-progressives-be-convinced-that-genetics-matters — Preceding unsigned comment added by Fq90 ( talk • contribs)
Ok, change the wording, but at this point not discussing the polygenic scores is encyclopedic negligence. Fq90 ( talk) 16:15, 25 January 2022 (UTC)
OK, here is a quote from another article discussing the polygenic scores: While polygenic prediction has been demonstrated to work best for discovery and target samples of matching ethnic background [42, 49], as in the present study, the availability of large-scale discovery samples for other ancestries, e.g., of African or Asian populations, would be indispensable for the comparative analysis of polygenic contribution to cognition in different ancestries and cultures. [2] That should meet the WP:FRIND criterion right? Fq90 ( talk) 16:38, 25 January 2022 (UTC) References
References |
WP:SOCK drawer. Generalrelative ( talk) 01:50, 27 January 2022 (UTC) | |||
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This section was removed on this basis: (Removing per WP:FRINGE. Most of these figures(e.g. Rushton, Carl, etc.)are WP:FRINGE, as racial hereditarianism has been determined to be here per an rfc, see the Talk page. Also, much of the presentation is misleading and WP:POV(e.g. Bruce Lahn's variants were found to be unrelated to IQ).) But the section did not endorse the views of Rushton and Carl, it simply discussed issues relating to academic freedom. Regarding Bruce Lahn, we can add that variants were found to be unrelated to IQ, however as a section on academic freedom, what is relevant is that at the time people thought this research did have implications for race and IQ and that Lahn stopped doing his research as a result. Fq90 ( talk) 13:13, 22 January 2022 (UTC)
@ Skllagyook: "Scientists and scholars who have argued in favor of the hereditarian position have faced considerable censorship and social and professional reprisal from both the general public and the academic community." Honestly, do you disagree with that? Not at all, Ben Stein argued the same thing about scientists who happened to be creationists for example, and I would agree they are treated with derision in the academic community. This does not mean they are right, or that the academic community's consensus about evolution is biased or unreliable, or that it is unjust to fire them if they bring their fringe views into the class room. However, academic freedom is important, as you go through each of the examples listed in the section, do you not find them galling? That a scholar like Turkheimer for example explicitly argues that your abhorrence for a racist hypothesis should trump your commitment to academic freedom? or that the father of modern genetics is ostracized from the academic community for expressing an opinion? or that Sam Harris claims to have reputable scientists in his inbox who agree with hereditarianism but will not say so publicly out of fear?. Fq90 ( talk) 13:59, 22 January 2022 (UTC)
Issues pertaining to academic freedom and freedom of inquiry
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I've indef semi-protected the talk page due to serious signal to noise ratio issues and disruption. This is logged under the Arbitration log as an enforcement issue, a continuation of the previous AE case. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 00:33, 9 December 2021 (UTC)
@
Generalrelative: Well, hello again! I noticed that you reverted my addition of the
Evolutionary psychology navigation box to this article. I most certainly do not dispute that the theory that
ethnic and racial differences in intelligence are biologically based is an argument that falls under
WP:FRINGE but it was based upon assumptions related to
group selection, while contemporary evolutionary psychology as proposed by
Leda Cosmides and
John Tooby is based upon the
selfish-genetic view of evolution as proposed by
George C. Williams,
W. D. Hamilton,
John Maynard Smith, and
Richard Dawkins in the 1960s and 1970s which was formulated explicitly in rejection of group selection. See
Tooby and Cosmides in their 2015 interview with Reason.tv where they note that the principal subject of interest in their field are
cultural universals. Cosmides and Tooby initiated the line of research related to the
Wason selection task in the 1980s and 1990s that demonstrated that general intelligence itself is more related to non-arbitrary and evolutionarily familiar problems rather than to arbitrary and evolutionarily novel ones in line with longstanding observations made by other critics of the theory such as
Thomas Sowell,
James R. Flynn, and
Richard E. Nisbett (as noted in the
Evolution of human intelligence article section about Social exchange theory). I would argue that because Cosmides and Tooby helped formulated the framework that helped displace the racialist theory with one that is still consistent with the mainstream of evolutionary theory warrants its inclusion in the Related topics list of the navbox along with the other articles listed in the parentheses after
Unit of selection. --
CommonKnowledgeCreator (
talk)
00:55, 23 February 2022 (UTC)
Another WP:SOCK AndyTheGrump ( talk) 13:35, 18 March 2022 (UTC) |
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I have added a paragraph that discusses racial differences in the polygenic scores with references to four reliable sources that talk about them specifically in the context of race. I think this should be enough to meet the criterion of WP:FRIND, laid out by Generalrelative in a previous discussion. Here it is: As scientists have begun to uncover genetic variants that have genome-wide significant associations with intelligence, they have been able to summarize the distributions of these variants across a wide range of populations using polygenic scores. These polygenic scores may provide evidence of a partial genetic link for differences in intelligence between racial groups in the United States, as traditionally defined. [1] [2] However, it is still unclear whether differences in the average incidence of these genetic variants arose as a result of natural selection. [3]Moreover, it is still unclear whether these polygenic scores have the same predictive power across races, as most genome-wide association studies are done in racially homogeneous samples." [4] LucaCapobianco ( talk) 04:21, 18 March 2022 (UTC)
References
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I think the FAQ above this talk page need more citation. GUT412454 ( talk) 10:42, 4 July 2022 (UTC)
Pretty fun. https://quillette.com/2022/07/18/cognitive-distortions/ - Peregrine Fisher ( talk) 04:30, 26 July 2022 (UTC)
Our article's prior short description was: "Discussions and claims of differences in intelligence along racial lines."
I edited it to to read: "Differences in average intelligence between races."
My explanation: "Per WP:VIA
WP:VAI, replaced vague, unhelpful, and musteline short description… Removed "discussions of" as this is an encyclopedia article. Removed "along racial lines" as it's unnecessarily vague. Removed "claims of" in accordance with
WP:NPOV,
MOS:DOUBT, and
MOS:CLAIM—while the cause(s) may remain controversial, expert consensus has long acknowledged significant differences, as measured by IQ."
Three minutes later, my edit was summarily reverted, with the sole explanation: "nope - we don't assert as fact minority-opinion claims." The reverting editor initiated no discussion on the Talk page, offered no explanation of what these "minority-opinion claims" might be, and blithely ignored the guidance in WP:REVONLY while wholesale reverting my tripartite edit and explanation.
As I'd written in my explanation, the fact that there are differences in average tested intelligence between racial groups is the majority, consensus view. The text of our article makes this abundantly clear:
Indeed, the entire article is about, as I succinctly summarized: "Differences in average intelligence between races." While much of the article is devoted to deconstructing the terms and meanings of "race" and "intelligence" while promulgating a minority view that none of the differences in average intelligence between races could possibly be genetic in origin—nowhere does our article reference any consensus that differences in average intelligence between racial groups do not exist or that their existence is merely a "minority-opinion claim". Indeed, the exact opposite is true.
I welcome input regarding our short description—but the mealy-mouthed one that is there now serves our article poorly, and contradicts a host of Wikipedia guidance. Thanks! ElleTheBelle 16:32, 7 August 2022 (UTC)
Yeah, there is precisely zero chance that you are going to persuade the community to allow you to present WP:RACISTBELIEFS in Wikivoice. There is no scientific rationale for defining intelligence as "what IQ tests measure" any more than there is for defining the intrinsic worth of a human being in terms of their Net worth. The consensus is that IQ measures some aspects of intelligence, but if you think that translates into a consensus that some races are more or less intelligent than others then you are simply, profoundly mistaken. Generalrelative ( talk) 01:17, 8 August 2022 (UTC)
Sock drawer. Generalrelative ( talk) 14:59, 8 August 2022 (UTC) |
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I'm not necessarily arguing that heritability has to be mentioned at all, but it is currently mentioned in the article. If the article is going to mention that environmental factors play a major role, it should be clear that IQ in adults is mostly hereditary. The article currently gives the impression that environmental factors are more important, or at least as important as hereditary factors, which may mislead a reader. The current state of this section of the article either needs to be removed entirely or added to as to not be misleading. Thespearthrower ( talk) 20:03, 18 September 2022 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
I stated in my edit summary here that I would "go through and put back any helpful subsequent edits in a moment". However while I was attempting to do so, Thespearthrower came in and restored a sentence they had just added. Typically "one revert" is understood to include related reverts in sequence, but since that sequence has been interrupted I don't think I can fulfill what I said I'd do without running afoul of 1RR. In any case, the only additional thing I saw to do was to cut the extraneous "therefore" in the final sentence of the first paragraph. I'll take care of that after 24 hours has elapsed unless someone else beats me to it. All other constructive edits subsequent to the major WP:BLOCKEVASION edit appear to have been cleanup.
I ask Thespearthrower to self-revert and seek consensus on the talk page for the sentence they would like to add. I do not agree that this sentence is due for inclusion in the lead of the article. See e.g. WP:HOWEVER for perspective. Generalrelative ( talk) 20:21, 18 September 2022 (UTC)
largely because intelligence has no essential definition other than the circular one "that which is measured by intelligence tests", I'm not saying you will find a big blank or a circular definition when you look up the word "intelligence" in a dictionary. The issue is that it's not at all clear that IQ tests measure what these dictionary definitions are talking about. This is something that actual scientists who study this stuff are circumspect about, and Wikipedia reflects that. Generalrelative ( talk) 23:01, 18 September 2022 (UTC)
Thespearthrower ( talk) 16:07, 19 September 2022 (UTC)
References
@ AndyTheGump: I don't think I can revert due to 1RR but if you see material misrepresenting the claim of its alleged source, you have to remove/modify it. Given that you realized the source doesn't correspond to the claims made in the article whatsoever, you should have removed the content or found a fitting source. Unless somebody has done so, I will be removing the material tomorrow, as per policy.- Thespearthrower ( talk) 17:12, 20 September 2022 (UTC)
Thank you! Thespearthrower ( talk) 17:55, 20 September 2022 (UTC)
Ok, so I read this pathetic outpour in the 'net about how wikipedia is wrong and blahblah. And also that it censores science. I wouldn't want to see Wikipedia censor science, so I decided to take a look.
In a deletion discussion (one of many), there was one very sound argument for deleting it: the same could be covered by Race and Intelligence, and should be, since not every fringe theory deserves its own page. All good. HOWEVER, this page doesn't mention the theory at all! So, on to find if the scientific sources listed in a late version of the article are found, here's four that seem prominent (peer-reviewed, published): [1] [2] [3] [4]
I think it would serve Wikipedia well to critique these sources, and salvage into this article what can be salvaged, about the clearly existing and notable "exceptional Ashkenazi genetic intelligence" theory.
-- Sigmundur ( talk) 12:37, 19 July 2022 (UTC) Sigmundur ( talk) 12:37, 19 July 2022 (UTC)
limited and biased. The second barely intelligence, and only in passing. The third is the very book that your first source dismisses as trash. The final one is... Richard Lynn, most notable for his work at Mankind Quarterly, the journal of scientific racism. This is the sort of unreliable, unscientific nonsense you get when you search for sources to back up a culture-war-trash source like Quillette. If that's all you can drudge up in support of their nonsense, it's certainly not notable. -- Aquillion ( talk) 18:32, 7 August 2022 (UTC)
Oh god, I came here to talk about this very thing and it looks like someone was already doing it. Does anyone know why there is no mention of Ashklenazi Jews in this article? Also, in the section on test scores, I think we should differentiate between South Asians and East Asians. Asian is a term that is too broad, it encompasses everyone from Syrians to Koreans.
TheHaberProcess (
talk) 18:11, 7 August 2022 (UTC) striking
WP:BLOCKEVASION.
Generalrelative (
talk)
15:05, 8 August 2022 (UTC)
This does not imply that differences between groups are also genetic, since one group may experience a difference across the board, such as in wealth, discrimination, or social and cultural capitaland
CH&H's evidence is circumstantialand
But all the hypotheses would have to be true for the theory as a whole to be true--and much of the evidence is circumstantial, and the pivotal hypothesis is the one for which they have the least evidence.So, you claim Ashkenazi Jews are
the most intelligent race, but the very source you quote regards this as highly dubious. (I did not check Peterson because he is a crappy source - most psychoanalysts do not understand how science works, and Peterson definitely does not. He talks a lot of Dunning-Krugerish nonsense about evolution too.)
seem very OKto you. They must also
seem very OKto the people here who are familiar with the subject, and the subject needs to be relevant enough. They have tried to explain why. -- Hob Gadling ( talk) 06:29, 8 August 2022 (UTC)
The evidence is less comprehensive for other groups in the US. According to a number of secondary sources, Ashkenazi Jews are have an average IQ that is between a half and a full standard deviation above the mean for white gentiles.(sources) However, the primary research on the topic is wanting and said advantage seems to be more associated with how individuals are regarded rather than their genetic make up.(Bloom source here) Indian Americans are also a group with high average educational and occupational attainment. There is some preliminary evidence that their average IQ is roughly on a pair with that of Ashkenazi Jews.(if not Forbes, maybe this book: US-India Forward Leap—The Partnership Building - Page 140, or both) This may be because only individuals with high educational and occupational status can migrate from India to the U.S.
TheHaberProcess (
talk) 07:45, 8 August 2022 (UTC)striking
WP:BLOCKEVASION.
Generalrelative (
talk)
15:05, 8 August 2022 (UTC)
References
10-15 points IQ advantage of Ashkenazi Jews
Sad socks :( Generalrelative ( talk) 06:37, 31 January 2023 (UTC) |
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Hi @ Grayfell: why did you delete the references? ETDS554 ( talk) 04:30, 30 January 2023 (UTC)
Hello. To clarify, the edit added sources, but it also changed the meaning of the article by adding an anachronistic claim that race and intelligence was being discussed since since at least them times of Aristotle.Since this claim is controversial and disputed it is misleading to present this with the edit summary "WP:ILC". It is also a typo, but that would be an easy fix. The added source makes an interesting point, but it's an extreme over-reach to say it claims or even suggests that Aristotle viewed human groups as 'races' in the modern sense of the word. If I'm wrong and Matthew A. Sears is claiming that Aristotle's view of races is the same as the modern one, we need a source where he explicitly claims that, and we would need to contextualize it against the mountain of existing sources which dispute it. Grayfell ( talk) 07:02, 30 January 2023 (UTC) |
Sad socks :( Generalrelative ( talk) 06:38, 31 January 2023 (UTC) |
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Sad socks :( Generalrelative ( talk) 06:40, 31 January 2023 (UTC) |
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Clueful editors are invited to participate at Talk:Eyferth study#Request for comment on hereditarianism subsection. Generalrelative ( talk) 07:53, 14 March 2023 (UTC)
See WP:NOTFORUM What some random contributor thinks is 'taboo' is of no relevance to article content. AndyTheGrump ( talk) 22:43, 4 April 2023 (UTC) |
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I would like to include the following: The Bell Curve, by Richard J. Herrnstein and Charles Murray, lists figures of 105 for Northeast Asians, 100 for North and Central Europeans, 92-96 for South Europeans, 91 for Arctic peoples, 90 for Maoris, 89 for American Hispanics, 86 for Native Americans, 85 for Pacific Islanders, 84 for South Asians, 83 for North Africans, 71 for Sub-Saharan Africans, 62 for Australian Aborigines, 57 for Pygmies, and 55 for Bushmen. Generalrelative reverted this edit, with the argument being that it is WP:UNDUE and WP:PRIMARY. However, I don't see how the edit gives undue weight to any particular source, since The Bell Curve is one of the most well-known publications in the field. In addition, it is a secondary source which summarizes primary source research in the field. What do people here think? Wiki Crazyman ( talk) 23:01, 21 February 2023 (UTC)
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At this point WP:DENY is probably the best approach here. Wikipedia talk pages are not a WP:FORUM. Generalrelative ( talk) 23:10, 4 April 2023 (UTC) |
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I see in the FAQ section of this page that folks are trying to claim no evidence for a genetic link between race and intelligence as a "scientific consensus" viewpoint despite the fact that actual scientific consensus is so rare that the phrase could be considered an oxymoron. Let's take a look at the claims related to that FAQ and maybe delete that section? No evidence for such a connection has ever been published. The bell curve research, SAT scores, army entrance scores - most race/IQ data has shown a gap that is challenging to explain exclusively through environmental factors. A statement signed by 143 senior human population geneticists states categorically that genetics research in no way supports the view that "recent natural selection has led to worldwide differences in I.Q. test results". 143 academics choosing to virtue-signal on a topic likely to help their career doesn't speak to a broad scientific consensus. Top academics signed a letter condemning the COVID lab leak theory too. As understanding of the human genome and the science of population genetics advances, it has become increasingly clear that race is not a biologically meaningful way to categorize human population groups. See for example this statement by the American Association of Physical Anthropologists. That's just saying the terms of the discussion are ill-defined. So you're welcome to say there's a "scientific consensus" that race is a poorly-defined concept - that's a fact. Even if we take ancestral population groups to be proxies for race, most subject-matter experts agree that cognitive differences between such such groups are unlikely to exist. "most" doesn't amount to a scientific consensus - you'd be fair to say that "most" university professors vote for the political left but that doesn't mean there is a "scientific consensus" that the left is better Extensive evidence has been published which indicates that observed differences in IQ test performance between racial groups are environmental in origin. 100% environmental in origin? I don't think so. That's like claiming that Shaq is good at basketball because he trained a lot. The guy is also tall. Most researchers view the idea of a genetic connection between race and intelligence as scientifically obsolete. Sure, they view race and intelligence as fuzzy, unscientific topics that they don't want to get into. That's not the same as saying that there is a scientific consensus. There is a scientific consensus that the earth orbits around the sun. There is little scientific consensus on the topic of race and intelligence. Also this phrase is not the kind of wording that should appear on a supposedly neutral wiki page. Brandon ( talk) 21:37, 4 April 2023 (UTC)
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Recently @ AndyTheGrump reverted my edit that corrected an inaccuracy in the lead about scientific consensus
I replaced the scientific consensus is that genetics does not explain differences in IQ test performance between groups, and that observed differences are environmental in origin.
with the scientific consensus is that intelligence is a complex trait that is influenced by both genetic and environmental factors.
exactly as stated in the cited source of medline plus
he argued that MedlinePlus which is produced by United States National Library of Medicine is not WP:RS, calling it “misuse of source” even though these are the exact words of the source, and claimed it irrelevant even though the title of the article itself is “Race and intelligence” Chafique ( talk) 11:52, 24 May 2023 (UTC)
Chafique Medline plus is just a digital library run by the National Institutes of Health. They index papers from academic journals, including good and bad. You can find papers purporting to prove demonic possession in MedLine. Inclusion in Medline does not make something good by default. The papers are published in journals (the actual source), not Medline, which simply indexes them. Zenomonoz ( talk) 12:12, 25 May 2023 (UTC)
Please be careful when discussing Frederick Douglass. He was the half black, half white offspring of a plantation owner. He is also very important to the issue of Blackface. When new slave families arrived on plantations, plantation owners often allowed their children to interact with the slave kids. Whenever this happened, the black kids would laugh at anything the white kids did, funny or not. This condition was picked up by the whites, it was imitated in traveling circuses, on stage, in vaudeville, and in silent film. It was so bad that when Douglass gained fame, he was told to never smile in pictures taken of him, or it would remind people of the condition. So, of the hundreds of pictures taken of Frederick Douglass, none show him with a smile. This, despite being instructed to ally himself with the Suffragette Movement, having two wives (one white), and five children. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Lord Milner ( talk • contribs) 23:35, 12 August 2023 (UTC)
The article currently reads "There is no evidence for a Jewish IQ advantage." This statement is not supported by the article cited. I'll outline here the relevant section of the article, "Jewish—Non-Jewish Differences in IQ". The first paragraph says there is "little good evidence" about the IQ of Ashkenazi Jews, then citing three studies which provide some evidence of higher Ashkenazi Jewish IQ; they say these studies are samples of convenience. They seem to be convinced that such a difference exists. Rather than arguing there is no difference, they instead go on to discuss in the second paragraph the source of the difference, focusing on Cochran et al.'s sphingolipid explanation. They do not believe there is strong enough evidence in favor of this theory, but still do not believe to be affirmatively untrue, as they still regard it to be "an intriguing suggestion". In their third paragraph, they note that even the highest estimates of Ashkenazi Jewish IQ wouldn't account for the observed differences in Ashkenazi Jewish accomplishment. This is the entirety of their treatment of Ashkenazi Jewish IQ.
There is no bad-faith interpretation here, this is the straightforward, plain reading of the source material. Even if you think one source is sufficient to establish the existence of academic consensus, this source does not suffice, as it directly contradicts the claim currently made in the article. The authors explicitly say that there exists evidence/data in favor of the proposition. Where am I wrong here?
If you wanted to say "According to such-and-such authors, there is 'little good evidence' for an Ashkenazi Jewish IQ advantage", that would be supported by the source, though it would be somewhat biased towards what you want to be true. But the claim that there is no evidence is straightforwardly false. Peaux ( talk) 01:47, 22 September 2023 (UTC)
Why was this content deleted? — Preceding unsigned comment added by CuriousCrafter123 ( talk • contribs) 17:55, 15 September 2023 (UTC)
There has been some edit warring over this, and the claim has been made
in an edit summary that the sentence misrepresents the source. I took the time to reread the relevant section just now, and I see the authors are quite clear that there isn't any real evidence that Jews (or Ashkenazi Jews in particular) in fact have higher IQs on average than other populations. As the authors emphasize, All available studies, however, are based on samples of convenience.
They then go on to discuss the question of to what we should attribute the greater overall intellectual ability popularly attributed to Jews
. But "popularly attributed" does not imply that there is in fact scientific evidence. The closest thing to evidence that they cite are two estimates comparing Jews in Britain and America to White non-Jews in the same countries, and one of these estimates is by notorious quack
Richard Lynn. All that said, I'm not especially committed to retaining the edit, which was
added by a brand new account (it's been discussed before, e.g., whether Jewish intelligence is relevant to this article at all, given that there is some question as to whether "Jewish" is a racial category) but I don't think that the rationale that was given for removing it in this instance makes sense.
Generalrelative (
talk)
01:42, 22 September 2023 (UTC)
For those without access, here is an extended quotation from the article in question. Generalrelative ( talk) 05:59, 22 September 2023 (UTC) |
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After giving this some thought, I'm going to come down on the side of removing this content –– though not, I should emphasize, for any of the reasons raised by Miladragon3/Peaux. The fact remains that the sentence refers to "Jewish IQ advantage" which is a fundamentally misleading phrase. The previous sentences are about IQ test scores, so to fit in thematically we'd need to revise it to say that there's no good evidence for what the average IQ of Jews is. If folks think that's important to say here, that's fine, but I find it awkward. If you have nothing substantive to say about it, why bring it up? And this is leaving aside the concern that I raised above about Jews not necessarily being a racial grouping. On the whole, I just don't think the sentence as-is fits and I don't think a "fixed" version really adds much to the article. Generalrelative ( talk) 06:59, 22 September 2023 (UTC)
The phrase in the lede “Further complicating the issue, modern science has shown race to be a social construct rather than a biological reality” masks controversy and is not appropriate verbiage for an encyclopedic explanation of science. Science has not “shown” race to “be” a social construct. Some scientific perspectives have characterized race as a social construct, and more commonly as being more socially constructed than biologically real. But some scientists maintain that race is strongly biological. We should reveal controversy. Zanahary ( talk) 16:01, 15 October 2023 (UTC)
Race does not provide an accurate representation of human biological variation. It was never accurate in the past, and it remains inaccurate when referencing contemporary human populations. Humans are not divided biologically into distinct continental types or racial genetic clusters. Instead, the Western concept of race must be understood as a classification system that emerged from, and in support of, European colonialism, oppression, and discrimination. It thus does not have its roots in biological reality, but in policies of discrimination. Because of that, over the last five centuries, race has become a social reality that structures societies and how we experience the world. In this regard, race is real, as is racism, and both have real biological consequences.
Racial categories do not provide an accurate picture of human biological variation. Variation exists within and among populations across the planet, and groups of individuals can be differentiated by patterns of similarity and difference, but these patterns do not align with socially-defined racial groups (such as whites and blacks) or continentally-defined geographic clusters (such as Africans, Asians, and Europeans). What has been characterized as “race” does not constitute discrete biological groups or evolutionarily independent lineages. Furthermore, while physical traits like skin color and hair texture are often emphasized in racial classification, and assumptions are often made about the pattern of genetic diversity relative to continental geography, neither follows racial lines. The distribution of biological variation in our species demonstrates that our socially-recognized races are not biological categories. While human racial groups are not biological categories, “race” as a social reality — as a way of structuring societies and experiencing the world — is very real. The racial groups we recognize in the West have been socially, politically, and legally constructed over the last five centuries.
I'd support adding a sentence to the last lead paragraph about the clear political goals (segregation/eugenics/"racial awareness") of the hereditarian position (based on this paper, page 6), and adding a corresponding paragraph to the body, maybe in the "Policy relevance and ethics" section. Some of this stuff is mentioned in the History section but only in passing; most of this article focuses on the science, but not on the movement linked to that science, and that movement's false claims (that their research is suppressed, "taboo", or that opponents are engaged in "blank-slate" science denial). The paper I linked addresses this at length and is a good source if we decide to cover this. DFlhb ( talk) 08:46, 25 May 2023 (UTC)
The phrasing of the first paragraph when I read it always felt inaccurate. I didn’t know how to articulate until now.
My objections to the current reading is as follows:
(1)- “Science” as defined by wikipedia is an endeavor with the calculus of the scientific method. If we use calculus as a type of logic.
The meaning of endeavor can be either a noun or a verb, but not an object. It is not itself a system. Hence why Wikipedia says science is “systematic”. In logic and model theory only models, systems, or theories can show or demonstrate something. My definition of endeavor is inspired by Websters dictionary and Cambridge, in addition to a preview of the definition from the Oxford dictionary site. I do not have access to the Oxford English dictionary
(1.1)- For science to “show” something is misleading to the audience. Science as defined is a continuous process. Another phrasing which would work is the scientific method as it is a system. This would be more accurate. Even so, this leads me to the next point
(2)- In Oxford’s English learning dictionary “to show” means to prove something, among other things. This type of definition fits best in the context of the paragraph. Another definition by Webster close to this is “to demonstrate or establish by argument or reasoning”. The other definitions I’ve seen have been “to declare” to “peform”. The later definitions cannot be done by a system nor can “establishment”, rather, by people or an object. A formal system in itself cannot show this, a computer for example is build by a system of logic but it is the computer itself which can only demonstrate propositions, images, or declarations. The later cases do not seem to fit.
(2)- Now, to “prove” or “demonstrate by argument or reasoning”. As indicated by the edit, it is debatable whether or not the scientific method can show or “prove” anything. As commentators on this subject have offered perspectives, Kuhn and Popper in particular, who are the closest to holding positivist positions in the epistemology of science, there is disagreement. The school of conventionalism inherently carries an issue that there is an indeterminacy of proof. A formal system which we hold to understand an objective perception of the world is limited by its measuring apparati. Popper, holds two things: you cannot prove anything in science, only falsify. But to falsify is another term than to “show”. My edit comments were cut off but I added other suggestions. It might be better to replace show with “falsify”. Finally Kuhn holds the only systems we have in the domain of science are paradigms which may be superseded by later paradigms. So another phrasing which would be more precise is “the modern scientific paradigm has falsified race as [biological] construct” or “the modern scientific paradigm has shown race to be a social construct”.
(2)- The final objection which was cut off from my edit comment is that some hold to epistemological anarchism or even post modern like philosophies, which hold every scientific view is merely socially constructed. It is merely the product of a community of people holding certain propositions to be true by their own will to power. And/or, the epistemological anarchism which would hold each “truth” is merely a position by people. This led me to write “the modern scientific community”.
My edit comments also give other justifications in that it is more accurate to use a community as people who show things as they are objects which can act. Which showing is.
(3)- The idea of “science” showing race to be a social construct is indeed modern. Therefore, it may be accurate to say this is the case. But the scientific method hasn’t changed nor has the system of science since the concept of race was conceived. Prior to the mid 20th century the consensus of race wasn’t that it was a social construct. So “science” at that time period would have contradicted the modern understanding of race. Therefore to say “modern science has shown race to be a social construct” is to say science contradicts itself. A way to remove such a contradiction would to specify the field as “Modern biology and genetics has shown…” which indeed can be subject to change as we know physics, for example, is constantly developing and has many open problems and currently is waiting for a new unifying paradigm. ————————-
Therefore the suggestions are as follows:
(A) ”..modern biology and genetics have shown race to be socially constructed”
(B) “…the modern scientific paradigm has shown race to be a social construct [or: to be socially constructed]”
(C) “…the modern scientific paradigm has falsified race as anything else [than/but a] social construct”
(D) My original edit which was reverted
Finally, if there was already discussion of this I would like to see it, I do not know where it would be and it might help to add to the talk discussion. Sedeanimu ( talk) 22:14, 28 November 2023 (UTC)
Modern science regards race as a social construct, an identity which is assigned based on rules made by society.The statement has been discussed many, many times, both there and here, and consensus has converged on the language you see. I'm surprised to hear you say you couldn't find any of these discussions because the most recent example is just above. Generalrelative ( talk) 23:32, 28 November 2023 (UTC)
The introduction requires removal of editorial bias for "blank slatism", which is a peculiar view of human nature in which all observed human group differences have a complete environmental origin. At a minimum, it needs to be made clear that many claims in the first paragraph of the introduction are disputed:
Here is a neutral version of the introduction first paragraph which takes into account current research;
I understand that the systemic encyclopaedic editorial bias for "blank slatism" likely relates to an RfC on racial hereditarianism. [63] [64] Richardbrucebaxter ( talk) 04:06, 26 November 2023 (UTC)
[W]hile it is true that most researchers in the area of human genetics and human biological diversity no longer allocate significant resources and time to the race/IQ discussion, and that moral concerns may play an important role in these decisions, an equally fundamental reason why researchers do not engage with the thesis is that empirical evidence shows that the whole idea itself is unintelligible and wrong-headed.
This revision by @ NightHeron reverts my addition of a relevant perspective on criticisms of race by Earl B. Hunt. The rationale is that it's undue and "confusing": "since race is socially constructed, it's unclear how biology and genetics could be part of the explanation".
An editor being confused by the content of a scientist's perspective is not grounds for wholesale removal of the content. And Hunt's idea here is that socially constructed race is correlated with biological and cultural realities that can be impactful in test performance, so studies of race and intelligence are in fact studies of other factors and intelligence, with race as proxy. This is neither confusing nor undue. Zanahary ( talk) 22:51, 1 December 2023 (UTC)
I don't understand this sentence When one samples continental groups, the clusters become continental; if one had chosen other sampling patterns, the clusters would be different.
Does it come from Kaplan 2011? If yes, could you give the page on which it's written?
Alaexis
¿question?
09:52, 3 December 2023 (UTC)
Anthropologists such as C. Loring Brace,[54] philosophers Jonathan Kaplan and Rasmus Winther,[55][55][56][57] and geneticist Joseph Graves,[58] have argued that while it is certainly possible to find biological and genetic variation that corresponds roughly to the groupings normally defined as "continental races", this is true for almost all geographically distinct populations. The cluster structure of the genetic data is therefore dependent on the initial hypotheses of the researcher and the populations sampled. When one samples continental groups the clusters become continental; if one had chosen other sampling patterns the clustering would be different. Weiss and Fullerton have noted that if one sampled only Icelanders, Mayans and Maoris, three distinct clusters would form and all other populations could be described as being clinally composed of admixtures of Maori, Icelandic and Mayan genetic materials.[59] Kaplan and Winther therefore argue that seen in this way both Lewontin and Edwards are right in their arguments. They conclude that while racial groups are characterized by different allele frequencies, this does not mean that racial classification is a natural taxonomy of the human species, because multiple other genetic patterns can be found in human populations that cross-cut racial distinctions. Moreover, the genomic data under-determines whether one wishes to see subdivisions (i.e., splitters) or a continuum (i.e., lumpers). Under Kaplan and Winther's view, racial groupings are objective social constructions (see Mills 1998 [60]) that have conventional biological reality only insofar as the categories are chosen and constructed for pragmatic scientific reasons.
These words should not be italicized— WP:WORDSASWORDS is for words. This section is for criticism of concepts, not of words. Thus, the words ‘race’ and ‘intelligence’ should be de-italicized there. Zanahary ( talk) 17:01, 12 December 2023 (UTC)
The expression "cancel culture" came in circulation in the late 2010s and early 2020s. As I understand the MOS, it really should read
The expression cancel culture came in circulation in the late 2010s and early 2020sbut I'm not about to start another debate about it. WP:other stuff exists. 𝕁𝕄𝔽 ( talk) 20:44, 12 December 2023 (UTC)
Right now, the lede contains:
With the inception of IQ testing in the early 20th century, differences in average test performance between racial groups were observed, though these differences have fluctuated and in many cases steadily decreased over time. Complicating the issue, modern science has shown race to be a socially constructed phenomenon rather than a biological reality, and there are various conflicting definitions of intelligence.
I think it should be:
Since the inception of IQ testing in the early 20th century, differences in average test performance between racial groups have been observed, though these differences have fluctuated and in many cases steadily decreased over time. Complicating the issue, modern science has shown race to be a socially constructed phenomenon rather than a biological reality, and there exist various conflicting definitions of intelligence.
“since” and “have been” clarify that such differences are still observed, and makes more sense with the explanation that they’ve changed over time. “Exist” is just better prose than “are”. Zanahary ( talk) 18:52, 12 December 2023 (UTC)
Since the advent of IQ testing in the early 20th century, there have been observations of differences in average test performance among racial groups. These differences, however, are not static; over time and across studies, they have varied and sometimes narrowed.
sometimes narrowedseems like a rather obvious POV shift from
in many cases steadily decreased over time. In general, your text uses more words to say the same thing, except for the part about the narrowing gap where it uses fewer words to make a more equivocal statement, which is (I would argue) UNDUE in this case. The narrowing gap is a very widespread phenomenon by any measure. That is, by any measure which people have used to argue for the existence of a gap, such gaps are narrowing and doing so consistently over time. Generalrelative ( talk) 23:10, 14 December 2023 (UTC)
Since the advent of IQ testing in the early 20th century, there have been observations of differences in average test performance among racial groups. These differences, however, are not static; many have varied across studies and steadily decreased over time., which is an improvement because it makes clear and expresses coherently that the observation of differences has persisted. Zanahary ( talk) 04:09, 15 December 2023 (UTC)
Surprise, surprise ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ It was a sockpuppet all along. Generalrelative ( talk) 23:39, 21 December 2023 (UTC) |
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Why does this content keep being deleted? CuriousCrafter123 ( talk) 23:56, 20 December 2023 (UTC)
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IQ tests in the US are only a small part of the global historical picture. I added a UK/Japan example; also ample examples a) affecting non-anglo groups not always considered 'white' in the US/UK/France for instance, and b) taking place in non-Western countries [e.g. S. America, MENA, Asia], which bear mention. – SJ + 04:26, 4 February 2024 (UTC)
I mentioned one example of Japan (views in the UK about east Asia); there are also views in the West of Asian exceptionalism, stereotypes in parts of Asia and Europe about the inferiority or superiority of different groups of outsiders; views from countries that developed eugenics programs in the 20c and their outcomes. It's strange to have an article on this topic that chooses to single out Anglo-Saxons and the US and World War I in the lead but doesn't talk about World War II, German and Japanese takes on these issues mid-20c, sterilization and anti-miscegenation policies on grounds of intelligence, &c. There is also an overfocus on Jensen and a handful of others and one or two recent controversies to the exclusion of more globally significant ones. I see the detail article on history of the race and intelligence controversy has this problem in spades, starting with the definite article in the title and mentioning Jensen over 100 times. I don't have further edits at the moment, just noting the issue as a major one. – SJ + 22:17, 5 February 2024 (UTC)
– SJ + 00:57, 5 February 2024 (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 100 | Archive 101 | Archive 102 | Archive 103 |
You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard#RFC on sourcing in relation to race and intelligence. Generalrelative ( talk) 00:34, 1 May 2021 (UTC)
Flogging of ye olde dead horse |
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The article claims that there is a "consensus" about genetics not playing a role in racial differences in IQ, however, none of the sources cited demonstrate data from several surveys of experts that claim that there is a consensus that this is the case. In fact, numerous reliable surveys and sources who that this NOT the case. Rindermann, Becker, and Coyle (2020) emailed 1237 researchers who had either published intelligence-related work in an academic journal or who were a member of an organization related to the study of individual differences in intelligence and found that 49% of the Black-White IQ gap was caused be genes. Only 16% of these experts believed that none of the Black-White IQ gap was due to genes, and only 6% believed that the gap was entirely due to genes. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160289619301886 Similarly, Snyderman et al. 1987 emailed 1,020 academics in this literature, and the results were as such: 45% of respondents said the Black-White IQ gap was due to genes and the environment, 24% said there wasn’t enough data to say, 17% didn’t respond, 15% said it was due only to the environment, and 1% said that it was due entirely to genes. http://lepo.it.da.ut.ee/~spihlap/snyderman@rothman.pdf It is usually advised not to use primary sources, but not a single source that is either cited in the article or that exists claims that there is a "consensus" that the black-white IQ gap is only due to the environment based on any data from surveys, which is what we would need in order to establish the claim that there is a consensus surrounding this topic. This is why I am giving primary sources as evidence to show that what is claimed in this article is not the case. Furthermore, there are several secondary sources as well that claim that there is not a consensus. Here is a massive literature review on the heritability of racial differences in IQ which found that the group differences are between 50 to 80% heritable. https://benthamopen.com/contents/pdf/TOPSYJ/TOPSYJ-3-9.pdf Another massive review of the literature and meta-analysis concluded that genes account for between approximately 50% and 70% of the variation in cognition at the population level. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4006996/ A review published by the Journal of Philosophy of Science similarly shows no consensus regarding this matter: https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/392856 Ad nauseum, ad nauseum. In general, Wikipedia should work to establish reliable and neutral sources for claims, as opposed to simply stuffing poor ones that agree with a given narrative. I understand that a lot of people come on Wikipedia in order to push their political agenda which doesn't usually have any form of scientific backing, but we have to be committed to WP:NPOV and WP:RS. There is only one consensus on this topic and it is that there is no consensus on this topic, and any honest expert will attest to this. Dashoopa ( talk) 00:54, 1 May 2021 (UTC)
As per the second study, the mixture group contradicts the claim that race is merely a product of environment. As per the third study, this was from a well-respected journal so it falls within WP:RS. As per the fourth study, he outlines many philosophers of science, himself, included which disagree with that meaning that there is not a consensus. Try again. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Dashoopa ( talk) 02:01, 1 May 2021 (UTC)
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the theory that a genetic link exists between race and intelligence is enough of a minority viewpoint in the scientific consensus that it falls under Wikipedia's definition of a fringe theory.Editors overwhelmingly believed that the scientific consensus continues to support that outcome. It follows that any presentation of this theory in articles should comply with that guideline. There was some discussion on how this decision translates into formulations of prose. As there were no specific proposals to that end made in this discussion, that falls outside the scope of this RfC. ProcrastinatingReader ( talk) 16:01, 11 May 2021 (UTC)
Is the following statement correct (vote "yes") or incorrect (vote "no")? The theory that a genetic link exists between race and intelligence is enough of a minority viewpoint in the scientific consensus that it falls under Wikipedia's definition of a fringe theory.
NightHeron (
talk)
20:24, 3 May 2021 (UTC)
Several editors have suggested that last year's RfC on race and intelligence (see [1]) should be revisited. As the OP of that RfC, I'm fine with that, provided it's done with the EC-protection that this talk-page has. The wording of the above formulation is taken from the closing of last year's RfC. NightHeron ( talk) 20:24, 3 May 2021 (UTC)
among a limited group of editors. I've just finished putting notifications of this RfC on the talk-pages of all editors (except for SPAs, IPs, and editors with edit-count less than 500) on both sides in last year's RfC, over 40 editors. I've also put notices at Talk:Scientific racism, Talk:Nations and IQ, Talk:Heritability of IQ, WP:RSN, and WP:FTN. I'd be happy to put notices wherever else you suggest, in particular, at any relevant WikiProjects you can think of. I agree that it's important to invite broad participation. NightHeron ( talk) 23:25, 3 May 2021 (UTC)
I would HIGHLY suggest you hold this discussion on the article talk page rather than here, which is what I stated in the closure I made above.[2] That seems pretty unambiguous to me. Generalrelative ( talk) 23:36, 3 May 2021 (UTC)
I would HIGHLY suggest you hold this discussion on the article talk page rather than here, which is what I stated in the closure I made above, or at NPOVN as you noted. Please do not hold it here, immediately after the above discussion.I agree that the previous RfC was malformed and am glad to see that a wide range of editors will be notified. I was tbh suspicious of the RSN RfC deciding to not notify previously involved editors. — Wingedserif ( talk) 23:53, 3 May 2021 (UTC)
brief and neutral. NightHeron ( talk) 09:30, 4 May 2021 (UTC)
The entire point of starting a new RFC was to address the issues of WP:RS and WP:V that have arisen over the past year. Your RFC question ignores those issues, and just rehashes the question from last year's RFC. An RFC that ignores those issues won't be able to resolve anything useful, no matter which way the outcome goes.Stonkaments ( talk) 19:13, 4 May 2021 (UTC)
The scientific consensus is that there is no evidence for a genetic component behind IQ differences between racial groups.and per the facts that the vast majority of sources and arguments used in the countless previous discussions to contest this have been that there is a genetic component, not that the scientific consensus is that there is a genetic component, and that those few sources which address the actual consensus provided have been of quite low quality. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 21:32, 3 May 2021 (UTC)
[W]hile it is true that most researchers in the area of human genetics and human biological diversity no longer allocate significant resources and time to the race/IQ discussion, and that moral concerns may play an important role in these decisions, an equally fundamental reason why researchers do not engage with the thesis is that empirical evidence shows that the whole idea itself is unintelligible and wrong-headed.[5] For anyone who is skeptical as to whether this view represents a true scientific consensus, I'd suggest running a 20-year search of "race and intelligence" at Nature and Science. You will find plenty that agrees with this 2019 Nature editorial titled "Intelligence research should not be held back by its past" (coordinated to comment upon a meta-analysis in Nature Genetics published on the same day):
Historical measurements of skull volume and brain weight were done to advance claims of the racial superiority of white people. More recently, the (genuine but closing) gap between the average IQ scores of groups of black and white people in the United States has been falsely attributed to genetic differences between the races.[6] (see also [7], [8], [9] and [10]). But you will find nothing that affirmatively supports a genetic connection between race and intelligence. The most you will find are a couple which entertain the possibility that connections between cognitive abilities and race-like genetic clusters may be discovered in the future (see [11] and [12]). Even where the ethics of researching links between race and intelligence are defended ( [13]), it is clearly stated that
There is an emerging consensus about racial and gender equality in genetic determinants of intelligence; most researchers, including ourselves, agree that genes do not explain between-group differences.Generalrelative ( talk) 22:32, 3 May 2021 (UTC)
It is neither explicitly stated nor obviously follows logically from this that the opinion that there is some genetic component to the variation is fringe.You are incorrect.
A:1 B:7 C:2 D:9 E:5.
A:1 B:9 C:1, they're considered Black, whereas if they have traits
A:9 B:1 C:7, they're considered white. That seems clear enough, until you ask about a person who has traits
A:4 B:4 C:3, who's somewhere in the middle.
E, such that a person with
E:1has a 30% chance of having an IQ less than 70, and a person with
E:9has a 10% chance of having an IQ greater than 130.
D:3have a 10% chance of having an IQ over 150, but people with all other
Dtraits are perfectly normal. Oh yeah, and they can't find anyone with
E:7with an IQ over 110, even though people with
E:6and
E:8are over-represented in the 110+ IQ group.
unintelligible and wrong-headed. I also wanted to keep my !vote as brief as possible, but if you'd like more sources which might persuade the persuadable, see "Why genetic IQ differences between 'races' are unlikely" by the geneticist Kevin Mitchell [14] and "Race, genetics and pseudoscience: an explainer" by the geneticists Ewan Birney, Jennifer Raff, Adam Rutherford and Aylwyn Scally: [15]. Neither of these are peer-reviewed publications, let alone published in Nature or Science, but they are both by respected subject-matter experts (especially Birney, who is a pretty big deal). Unlike the opinions of psychometricians as to what is likely genetic, the opinions of real geneticists should carry weight per e.g. WP:SELFPUB. Generalrelative ( talk) 14:59, 4 May 2021 (UTC)
claims about the genetic basis for population differences [in IQ], are not scientifically supported. They then go on to explain why it is also unlikely that such a basis will be discovered in the future. And in the end they make it very clear that the reason they need to explain these things at all is that they feel it is incumbent on them to counter
a vocal fringe of race pseudoscience. Though they do not call out "hereditarian" figures like Rindermann and Lynn by name, it would be a stretch to read the entire piece and come away with any ambiguity as to whom they're referring to here. I'm tempted to quote at length, but really, the whole thing is not very long. I would encourage anyone who is skeptical about this issue to read it: [16] Generalrelative ( talk) 16:36, 4 May 2021 (UTC)
doesn't even present sources on either sideis almost perfect in its wrongheadedness. Generalrelative ( talk) 23:13, 3 May 2021 (UTC)
it was rushed by an editor to try and push something through without due consideration. Sounds like you must be a mind reader. That's gotta come in handy IRL, though we typically refrain from characterizing other editors' imagined motivations here. Generalrelative ( talk) 23:27, 3 May 2021 (UTC)
...from what's been going on at WP:RSN it was clear that the choice was between a straightforward, neutrally stated RfC that revisits last year's RfC, or else a complicated, tendentiously worded RfC at a non-EC-protected forum...[19] Stonkaments ( talk) 23:36, 3 May 2021 (UTC)
from what's been going on [..] non-EC-protected forumto
without due considerationis a tendentious logical leap, so he called it a tendentious logical leap. -- Hob Gadling ( talk) 02:14, 4 May 2021 (UTC)
a genetic component to intelligence. We are discussing whether the contention that observed differences in IQ test performance between racial groups have a genetic component is currently a fringe view. If you're confused as to why those are separate questions, please see Heritability of IQ or the piece cited by MrOllie above. Generalrelative ( talk) 23:45, 3 May 2021 (UTC)
observed differences are therefore environmental in origin, as the article currently says. That is falling into a false dilemma which is often pushed by Hereditarian literature, as [26] points out. For the most part the modern rejection of Hereditairanism focuses a lot more on the fact that their racial categories are largely social and cultural in origin (and to lesser extent disputes over measures of intelligence, especially as they apply to such hazy social categories) rather than arguing, as Hereditarians sometimes try to falsely imply their opponents believe, that intelligence is not heritable at all. -- Aquillion ( talk) 08:26, 4 May 2021 (UTC)
differences in IQ test performance between racial groups, which is a totally separate issue from the differences between individuals. Hereditarians do sometimes claim that their opponents reject any link between genetics and individual variation, and that's untrue. NightHeron ( talk) 21:42, 9 May 2021 (UTC)
"The theory that a genetic link exists between race and intelligence is enough of a minority viewpoint in the scientific consensus that it falls under Wikipedia's definition of a fringe theory"including definitions outlined in Wikipedia's content guideline Wikipedia:Fringe theories#Spectrum of fringe theories. --- Sluzzelin talk 17:52, 4 May 2021 (UTC)
while it is not always explicitly stated in the literature, by the same logic, the finding of similar heritabilities across advantaged/disadvantaged groups supports the genetic difference hypothesis. This appears to be the minority opinion, with the same review noting that Scarr-Rowe has general acceptance. However, the existence of the meta-analysis study (and additionally the studies listed therein) shows that the view is not so narrowly held that it qualifies for WP:FRINGE. — Mikehawk10 ( talk) 20:24, 4 May 2021 (UTC)
fabrication in the content, the issue is not so much with the data being fake as with the interpretations of that data being fallacious or the standards of data collection being lax. Such methodological shortcomings are harder to call people out on or definitively prove than outright falsifying data, which is kind of the root of the issue here. Richard Lynn is the godfather of this strategy (his data was the basis for The Bell Curve) with later generations of hereditarians refining his approach. Generalrelative ( talk) 02:20, 5 May 2021 (UTC)
You're confusing two things: (1) genetic component in individual variation, which agrees with scientific consensus, and (2) genetic component in differences between races, which goes against scientific consensus- ©Nightheron, 10:30 5 May (below). -- John Maynard Friedman ( talk) 19:18, 5 May 2021 (UTC)
Reich’s claim that we need to prepare for genetic evidence of racial differences in behavior or health ignores the trajectory of modern genetics. For several decades billions of dollars have been spent trying to find such differences. The result has been a preponderance of negative findings despite intrepid efforts to collect DNA data on millions of individuals in the hope of finding even the tiniest signals of difference.[29] (In a follow-up, Reich clarified that, while he believes that
very modest differences across human population in the genetic influences on behavior and cognition are to be expected [...] we do not yet have any idea about what the difference are. [30] So it's clear that even he is quite far removed from the racial hereditarian position that the black-white IQ gap is explained by a genetic advantage that white people have over black people.)
empirical evidence shows that the whole idea [of a genetic race-IQ connection] itself is unintelligible and wrong-headedand explains that this is a
fundamental reason why most researchers in the area of human genetics and human biological diversity no longer allocate significant resources and time to the race/IQ discussion. [31] For more in this vein, see the two pieces I recommended to Alaexis above: "Why genetic IQ differences between 'races' are unlikely" by the geneticst Kevin Mitchell [32] and "Race, genetics and pseudoscience: an explainer" by the geneticists Ewan Birney, Jennifer Raff, Adam Rutherford and Aylwyn Scally. [33] As I mentioned above, the latter of these is rather emphatic, noting that
claims about the genetic basis for population differences [in IQ] are not scientifically supportedand stating that their motivation for writing is to counter
a vocal fringe of race pseudoscience(my emphasis). Though they do not call out "hereditarian" psychometricians by name, it is clear from the context whom they're referring to here. And then there's that Nature editorial, which was coordinated to appear alongside a huge meta-analysis on the genetics of inteligence, which flat-out states that attributing the black-white IQ gap to genetics is "false" and characterizes it definitively as an idea which should be relegated to the past. [34]
in the scientific consensusshould be the relevant scientific consensus. Which is why I think it's important to note that, while racial hereditarianism is a minority view among psychometricians today, it appears to be a truly negligable view among geneticists. Generalrelative ( talk) 03:22, 6 May 2021 (UTC)
does not seem to reflect the prior RFCmakes no sense. The wording is taken verbatim from the close of last year's RfC. NightHeron ( talk) 10:30, 5 May 2021 (UTC)
in order tois speculating about the motivations of other editors, it is also the opposite of WP:AGF and
wasting everyone's time. -- Rsk6400 ( talk) 17:58, 7 May 2021 (UTC)
If there really is a fundamental issue not addressed by this RfC, then, this RfC does not prevent someone from opening a proper RfC to address it). Seems like it would've been nice to get this one closed first, but in any case I thought y'all might like to know. Generalrelative ( talk) 19:28, 9 May 2021 (UTC)
Because it is implied in the above that I endorse opening this RfC, I would like to observe that the implication is totally dishonest; that this RfC is obviously tendentious; and that the closure is appropriate.-- JBL ( talk) 20:08, 9 May 2021 (UTC)
ideologically driven[36] and that its defenders simply
can't handle the truth[37], but this RfC makes it clear at least that we are not alone. Generalrelative ( talk) 19:20, 7 May 2021 (UTC)
The circumstances under which this RFC has been rushed out to the Wikipedia community seem also to be affected by an ulterior, possibly racist agenda.For context you might want to see the tendentiously worded RfC that was launched last week on RSN. I would agree with your characterization if it were applied to that one. Note the closing admin's statement:
Some have suggested starting a properly formatted, neutrally worded RFC on the article talk page instead.NightHeron, who implemented this suggestion, has been a truly stalwart defender of the view you (and so many others here) have expressed. Generalrelative ( talk) 16:30, 6 May 2021 (UTC)
references
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References
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You are invited to join the discussion at Talk:Nicholas Wade. Generalrelative ( talk) 15:08, 13 May 2021 (UTC)
There is now a formal RfC at this talk page: Talk:Nicholas Wade#RfC about suggested statement. You are invited to participate. Generalrelative ( talk) 00:00, 17 May 2021 (UTC)
To all participating here: I've started work on a potential FYI for this talk page at User:MjolnirPants/RnI FYI. I'd like to know what everyone thinks and invite you all to suggest changes. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 01:42, 14 May 2021 (UTC)
The FYI has been through a few rounds of edits, along with a bit of discussion about them, and I believe it is ready for inclusion here. Would love to hear from others about it. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 23:17, 23 May 2021 (UTC)
After another few rounds of editing, the FAQ is looking better than ever. I intend to add it to this page very soon. If anyone believes discussion would be helpful, then now is the time to get it going. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 15:52, 30 May 2021 (UTC)
What do other scientists have to say about the question of a genetic link between race and intelligence?should either be eliminated or substantially altered. Not all sources (including those we reference in the FAQ) agree that the question is fundamentally unintelligible. Many think that such a link is indeed possible but highly unlikely to exist. And since the current version of the FAQ is visually quite cluttered, we might want to err on the side of fewer items.
What is the evidence for a genetic link between race and intelligence?could be rephrased to make it clear without clicking through that there is no such evidence (or we could consider cutting this question altogether). Otherwise it appears to contradict the premise of the first question.
What is the current state of the science on a link between intelligence and race?can be eliminated to avoid clutter, since it simply directs the reader to read the article.
Isn't this just political correctness?Happy to be reverted and discuss if others disagree with these changes! Generalrelative ( talk) 16:58, 1 June 2021 (UTC)
The FAQ is really shaping up well. I have questions about two of the Q-and-As:
In such surveys, the average percentage of the measured delta (about 15 points between the highest average racial score and the lowest average racial score) estimated to be explained by genetics is 1-5%; less than half the delta expected between two identical IQ tests taken by the same person on different days. In other words: statistically meaningless.) First, it uses technical language "measured delta". Second, it's not clear what average is being taken. Third, I'm not sure that it's accurate. Hunt estimated 3%, and he was among the relatively moderate members of the ISIR crowd. Fourth, if the IQ tests taken by the same person were identical, of course one would expect performance the second time to be significantly better than the first time ("practice makes perfect"). Fifth, given all the problems with the surveys, why should anyone care about this statistic? NightHeron ( talk) 20:29, 1 June 2021 (UTC)
First, it uses technical language "measured delta".Good point. I agree on rewording this.
Second, it's not clear what average is being taken.Also a good point.
Third, I'm not sure that it's accurate. Hunt estimated 3%, and he was among the relatively moderate members of the ISIR crowd.Well, 3% is pretty close to the median of 1-5%. I'm not sure what you mean, here. I've seen 1% and 5% given, though Hunt is the only one who's opinion has been brought up on WP about it, that I've seen. If you think we should quote Hunt on this, I'm fine with that.
Fourth, if the IQ tests taken by the same person were identical, of course one would expect performance the second time to be significantly better than the first time ("practice makes perfect").This needs clarification: when giving a person an IQ test repeatedly, the problems are usually randomly chosen from a pool of problems of similar complexity, to avoid precisely this. The answer needs to be clarified.
Fifth, given all the problems with the surveys, why should anyone care about this statistic?The best direct answer I've got is: It shows that even if one accepts that their research is 100% accurate, their hypothesis is still meaningless. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 20:43, 1 June 2021 (UTC)
Where did the 1-5% figure come from?Honestly, it's WP:SYNTH (arguably WP:CALC) from various such surveys I've read over the past few years. I like the point it makes, but I'm not married to it. We can remove it, if we want to hold the FAQ to the same standards as an article (I didn't see it that way, but I understand the case for it).
The racial hereditarians claim that 1-5% (or whatever percent they're claiming) is consistently in one direction. This has to be rejected, not called "statistically meaningless".From where I sit, there's no difference there.
(1) Suppose that Jane and John each take IQ tests 5 times, and Jane's average score is 10 points higher than John's. Suppose the variation in each case over the 5 times went up and down an average of 15 points, so both were averages of 15-point fluctuations. Wouldn't we still conclude that Jane has significantly higher IQ than John?Yes, but those are two individuals, not populations. And individuals tend to have stable IQs over time, whereas populations do not (not only the Flynn effect, but the fact that the difference are shrinking over time, as well).
(2) The batting performanceThis analogy is very problematic, as batting performance is much more objective and empirical than IQ.
I don't think we should be saying anything to the effect that "even if their research is 100% accurate it's a small difference anyway",That's an opinion I can understand.
just as we wouldn't say "even if the climate change deniers are right that whatever change is occurring is caused naturally rather than by humans, we should still be concerned and do something about it."That's not. I think you missed a clause, there, in which the deniers also assert that the consequences of not doing anything are negligible.
Clarification of the climate denier analogy: it's saying "Even if the climate change deniers are right that whatever change is occurring is caused naturally rather than by humans, they're wrong that there's no reason to be concerned and do something about it."Yeah, that's a better phrasing that I can get behind.
To give another analogy, it's what lawyers do when they say "even if my client did commit the murder, it was not premeditated so you should convict him on a lesser charge."I see it more like "Even if my client did commit the murder, there's no evidence that it was premeditated," which is a valid point.
If the difference is statistically significant then it contradicts the main premise that there is no evidence for such differenceNo, it wouldn't. These numbers are speculations by the psychometrists involved, not hard data about the differences. They aren't evidence.
On the other hand, if the difference is not statistically significant, then, tautologically, these numbers are insignificant and should not be mentioned.I agree with the statement that the the numbers are insignificant, but I disagree that they shouldn't be mentioned, because they would be insignificant (per the comparison to the variance of a single person) even if there were evidence that some of the difference was genetic.
. Stonkaments ( talk) 18:36, 3 June 2021 (UTC)Yet the spectre of Lysenkoism lurks in current scientific discourse on gender, race and intelligence. Claims that sex- or race-based IQ gaps are partly genetic can offend entire groups, who feel that such work feeds hatred and discrimination. Pressure from professional organizations and university administrators can result in boycotting such research, and even in ending scientific careers.
readily consider many of them to be reliable sources in other contexts. That really doesn't seem like a good-faith representation of past discussions or editing behavior. And yes I'm sure you can find "nearly 20 sources" from within the walled garden of fringe racialist pseudoscience. That's not going to change the balance of NPOV here. Jackson & Winston's peer-reviewed paper, published in an APA journal, is more than enough to establish the fact that race-and-intelligence research continues to be funded despite the fact that it is scientifically bankrupt. Generalrelative ( talk) 18:47, 3 June 2021 (UTC)
They are real scientists, and their views can be considered fairly representative at least of one end of the spectrum of mainstream ideas). Generalrelative ( talk) 19:16, 3 June 2021 (UTC)
I wonder if an entry about how this topic was viewed in the past would be helpful? The answer could be along the lines that every attempt to study or prove this in the past was based on racist motivations? I don't have sources handy at the moment, but I think some historical framing to this topic could be helpful. There's the obvious examples from Nazi doctors and then experiments with African Americans during the Jim Crow era. Mr Ernie ( talk) 15:01, 3 June 2021 (UTC)
When Rushton’s book Race, Evolution and Behaviour was published in 1995, psychologist David Barash was stirred to write in a review: “Bad science and virulent racial prejudice drip like pus from nearly every page of this despicable book.” Rushton had collected scraps of unreliable evidence in “the pious hope that by combining numerous little turds of variously tainted data, one can obtain a valuable result”. In reality, Barash wrote, “the outcome is merely a larger than average pile of shit”.
You are invited to join the discussion at Talk:Who We Are and How We Got Here.
FYI the relevant content dispute begins at comment #4 of Talk:Who We Are and How We Got Here#WP:DUE. Generalrelative ( talk) 16:02, 4 June 2021 (UTC)
NightHeron can you clarify how the reverted passage violates WP:NPOV? Is the journal where the referenced study has been published not good? Ping Ekpyros Alaexis ¿question? 12:24, 14 September 2021 (UTC) Added diff link – dlthewave ☎ 12:34, 20 September 2021 (UTC)
interracial differences must be at least partly the result of individual genetic differences. Thus, the main point of your edit was to directly contradict the consensus reached at two recent RfC's that this is a fringe POV and so must be treated in accordance with WP:PROFRINGE, avoiding FALSEBALANCE. There was nothing "sideways" about reverting your edit. NightHeron ( talk) 13:41, 16 September 2021 (UTC)
For those without institutional access, here’s the money quote from Visscher et al.:
Box 2: Misconceptions regarding heritability
[...]
Heritability is informative about the nature of between-group differences –– This misconception comes in two forms, and in both cases height and IQ in human populations are good examples. The first misconception is that when the heritability is high, groups that differ greatly in the mean of the trait in question must do so because of genetic differences. The second misconception is that the observation of a shift in the mean of a character over time (when we can discount changes in gene frequencies) for a trait with high heritability is a paradox. For IQ, a large increase in the mean has been observed in numerous populations, and this effect is called the Flynn Effect, after its discoverer. The problem with this suggested paradox is that heritability should not be used to make predictions about changes in the population over time or about differences between groups, because in each individual calculation the heritability is defined for a particular population and says nothing about environments in other populations. White males born in the United States were the tallest in the world in the mid-19th century and about 9cm taller than Dutch males. At the end of the 20th century, although the height of males in the United States had increased, many European countries had overtaken them and Dutch males are now approximately 5cm taller than white US males, a trend that is likely to be environmental rather than genetic in origin.
Including a summary of this, and perhaps a bit of quotation as well, could certainly improve the section we’re discussing. Generalrelative ( talk) 23:57, 16 September 2021 (UTC)
@
Ekryros: In thinking that Ned Block was the source of the corn analogy and Lewontin popularized it, I was responding to what you wrote above: What is the problem with identifying Ned Block as the source of the analogy image?
and later: that analogy was popularized by Lewontin
. From this I assumed that Ned Block was the source of the corn analogy, and Lewontin popularized it. Sorry -- from what you now say, I guess we both got it backwards. I didn't check the citation to Block because there was no citation to Block; that part of your edit was unsourced.
Above I specified which part of your edit endorsed the fringe theory that, as you put it in your edit, interracial differences must be at least partly the result of individual genetic differences.
According to geneticists, there is zero evidence that interracial differences in performance on intelligence tests are partly the result of individual genetic differences. The reason why the claim in your edit relates to intelligence (and so is covered by the two recent RfCs) is that you put your edit in an article titled "Race and intelligence".
I don't appreciate your litany of personal name-calling, which violates
WP:NPA and could result in sanctions against you if you continue. You have called me uninformed, histrionic, blathering, clueless, ignorant, puerile, asinine
. Wikipedia is not some kind of social media platform where insults and name-calling are accepted. Please stop this behavior immediately.
NightHeron (
talk)
12:29, 17 September 2021 (UTC)
Subsequent scientists have pointed out that the corn-stalk analogy...can be misleading:...individual humans are not randomly sorted into racial groups. Due to differing evolutionary histories and shared ancestries, racial groups have inherited genetic differences, and thus interracial differences must be at least partly the result of individual genetic differences.It harms the encyclopedia to insert an edit that promotes the theory of genetic superiority of certain races over others in intelligence. NightHeron ( talk) 19:24, 17 September 2021 (UTC)
Comment on content, not on the contributor. Personal attacks harm the Wikipedia community and the collaborative atmosphere needed to create a good encyclopedia". Also, aspersions (personal attacks) may be removed from the page per WP:NPA. --- Steve Quinn ( talk) 20:45, 17 September 2021 (UTC)
Your participation is welcome in the discussion at Talk:The Bell Curve#Merger proposal concerning merging the article Cognitive elite into The Bell Curve. NightHeron ( talk) 22:10, 6 November 2021 (UTC)
Putting the socks away. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 14:59, 16 November 2021 (UTC) |
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More socks. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 17:34, 16 November 2021 (UTC) |
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The Q&A seems to confuse "observable" and "visible" traits. Differences in behaviour or cognitive abilities can be observable, although they are not physical. Therefore the claim that "So comparing Africans to Europeans will show differences in genes that regulate skin color, hair texture, nose and lip shape, and other observable traits. But the rest of the genetic code will be essentially the same." Seems nonsensical. How could we find non-observable differences? Is IQ not an "observable trait/characteristic"?
2A00:23C7:EE82:7701:1906:630D:E828:D194 ( talk) 17:27, 16 November 2021 (UTC)
For example the claim "So comparing Africans to Europeans will show differences in genes that regulate skin color, hair texture, nose and lip shape, and other observable traits. But the rest of the genetic code will be essentially the same." I would be interesting to learn what sources the claim that difference in genes between Africans and Europeans are limited to observable traits is based on.
Similarly there are many other claims there that read more like opinions rather than facts. What are the editing guidelines that apply to the Q&A?
2A00:23C7:EE82:7701:90A2:E3C3:BD92:E870 ( talk) 22:11, 15 November 2021 (UTC)
The Q&A states that surveys on intelligence experts "are almost invariably conducted by advocates of scientific racism, and respondents to these surveys are also almost exclusively members of groups that promote scientific racism. In short, they are not representative samples of mainstream scientific opinion."
How is Rothman and Snyderman survey not representative sample of scientific opinion? The 1020 experts in the survey were chosen randomly from the following organisations:
American Educational Research Association (120) National Council on Measurement in Education (120) American Psychological Association: Development psychology division (120) Educational psychology division (120) Evaluation and Measurement division (120) School psychology division (120) Counseling psychology division (60) Industrial and organizational psychology division (60) Behavior Genetics Association (60) American Sociological Association (education) (60) Cognitive Science Society (60)
How are these not mainstream scientists?
Regardless of whether the IP from Milan was in good faith, the addition of the polygenic scores does seem relevant and justified given that it meets all of Wikipedia's criteria. 2800:484:877C:94F0:8544:9078:3A8A:4A27 ( talk) 22:28, 2 December 2021 (UTC)
Like, I am fine with saying Intelligence is not a reliable source, but then we would need to remove all the references to it from this article then, in order to be consistent. 2800:484:877C:94F0:A4C1:8C1A:84BF:EC33 ( talk) 04:23, 3 December 2021 (UTC)
Ok, so let us mention the polygenic scores based on that criterion. Not because they represent scientific consensus, but because they are being put forth as evidence for a fringe view point. — Preceding
unsigned comment added by
191.106.148.198 (
talk)
14:04, 3 December 2021 (UTC)
Ok, but there is a whole section in this article dedicated to research into possible genetic influences, should we delete it then? — Preceding
unsigned comment added by
191.106.156.142 (
talk)
15:07, 3 December 2021 (UTC)
There is nothing "psuedoscientific" about this. The genetic hypothesis is a scientific hypothesis, just like any other, and it makes very specific predictions, including that these polygenic scores will be different. The only reason these polygenic scores are not being added, is because they constitute very powerful evidence in favour of a genetic component to racial gaps in IQ, and you guys want to suppress and hide this information from the public. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2800:484:877C:94F0:4863:BF9C:825:FDE9 ( talk) 17:24, 3 December 2021 (UTC)
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Ok guys, these polygenic scores either support hederitrianism, or they do not. If the American Journal of Physical Anthropology (a reliable source as far as I can tell) says they do not, do you not think this is an important development in this field that should be included? Unless the point I do not get is that you guys just want to hide this information from the public. I am looking for an argument, not another sudden closing or the discussion please. 2800:484:877C:94F0:78E7:361E:A26D:7647 ( talk) 21:18, 7 December 2021 (UTC)
We have had it for the reliability of the sources in Intelligence and MDPI, and FINE, I conceded that. But no one has called into question the reliability of the American Journal of Physical Anthropology. As far as I can tell, not argument has been given for not including the paragraph that says that the polygenic scores do NOT support hereditarianism. Especially since it is right in line with modern scientific consensus.
Why you do not want to include that second paragraph has not been discussed yet. 2800:484:877C:94F0:1D0E:83AF:628:E99 ( talk) 21:26, 7 December 2021 (UTC)
Well, the field of genetics has advanced enormously over the last few years. If there is new, direct genetic evidence that the Black-White IQ gap, for example, is not genetic, then that would seem a substantial development in this very field, would you not agree? And since there definitely is an almost universal scientific consensus against racial hereditarianism, should we not present to the public the strong, cutting edge, direct genetic evidence that adds to the mountain of support there already is for this consensus? after all, the last sentence in the introduction says "In recent decades, as understanding of human genetics has advanced, claims of inherent differences in intelligence between races have been broadly rejected by scientists on both theoretical and empirical grounds." But fails to provide any examples of this. How about we include this very study as a shining example of that claim? 2800:484:877C:94F0:9CB:E91:4744:EDCC ( talk) 01:22, 8 December 2021 (UTC)
I was speaking of the introduction, which maybe could include a few citations at that point at least. But let us look at the section "Genetics of race and intelligence",
First it says: a review of candidate genes for intelligence published in Deary, Johnson & Houlihan (2009) failed to find evidence of an association between these genes and general intelligence, stating "there is still almost no replicated evidence concerning the individual genes, which have variants that contribute to intelligence differences".
Then it says: A 2005 literature review article by Sternberg, Grigorenko and Kidd stated that no gene has been shown to be linked to intelligence, "so attempts to provide a compelling genetic link of race to intelligence are not feasible at this time.
And there are a few other sentences to the same effect in the section. Now honestly, that section is out of date, we now know of thousands of genetic variants that are associated with Educational Attainment now. Do you not think that section needs to be updated?
2800:484:877C:94F0:D503:EAD8:E165:4323 ( talk) 03:07, 8 December 2021 (UTC)
Nature explicitly says: generates polygenic scores that explain 11–13% of the variance in educational attainment and 7–10% of the variance in cognitive performance. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41588-018-0147-3
So it is not OR.
Stanford picked up, not the more recent larger study, but a previous smaller one that also pinned down a few hundred SNPs with genome wide significance for EA: https://cepa.stanford.edu/content/genetics-success-how-snps-associated-educational-attainment-relate-life-course-development
That is your secondary source.
None discussed this specifically in terms of race, but they do make all of those statements in the "Genetics of race and intelligence" section, outdated. They are:
1) Current studies using quantitative trait loci have yielded little success in the search for genes influencing intelligence.
2) Several candidate genes have been proposed to have a relationship with intelligence.[158][159] However, a review of candidate genes for intelligence published in Deary, Johnson & Houlihan (2009) failed to find evidence of an association between these genes and general intelligence, stating "there is still almost no replicated evidence concerning the individual genes, which have variants that contribute to intelligence differences".
3) A 2005 literature review article by Sternberg, Grigorenko and Kidd stated that no gene has been shown to be linked to intelligence, "so attempts to provide a compelling genetic link of race to intelligence are not feasible at this time."
4) "Almost no genetic polymorphisms have been discovered that are consistently associated with variation in IQ in the normal range."
Come to think of it, statements (1) and (2) do not explicitly discuss these statements about intelligence in terms of race, given that and that they are clearly outdated, maybe they should be deleted.
Finally, https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33529393/ Does discuss in terms of race. Not picked up by any secondary sources yet, but you could add it as "Kevin A Bird has found that the distribution of these genetic variants lends no support to the hereditarian hypothesis" or something like that.
2800:484:877C:94F0:D503:EAD8:E165:4323 ( talk) 04:56, 8 December 2021 (UTC)
I am Jewish. 2800:484:877C:94F0:C026:2849:7482:9EF6 ( talk) 20:26, 8 December 2021 (UTC)
Long and proud, 17 generations, Sephardic Jewish pedigree, on my mother's side, going back at least until the early 1400s. Not that that is relevant but still. 2800:484:877C:94F0:C026:2849:7482:9EF6 ( talk) 20:33, 8 December 2021 (UTC)
The section on "Genetics of race and intelligence" has many sentences to the effect that no genetic variants affecting intelligence in the normal range have been discovered. That is not longer true. We should remove that.
2800:484:877C:94F0:C026:2849:7482:9EF6 ( talk) 20:36, 8 December 2021 (UTC)
This is one of the more interesting areas of Race and Intelligence that is not explored at all in this article.
2800:484:877C:94F0:C026:2849:7482:9EF6 ( talk) 20:36, 8 December 2021 (UTC) |}
Profoundly WP:NOTHERE. Generalrelative ( talk) 00:27, 9 December 2021 (UTC) |
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Let us add this. The second sentence is straight from the American Journal of Physical Anthropology, the paragraph is right in line with modern scientific consensus. We have to add it now. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2800:484:877C:94F0:FD2A:567D:EA90:669A ( talk) 15:14, 4 December 2021 (UTC)
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Relentless parade of WP:BLUDGEON, WP:FORUMSHOP and WP:ASPERSION. Generalrelative ( talk) 00:30, 9 December 2021 (UTC) |
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You guys REALLY don't care if this is true or not right? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 93.149.193.190 ( talk) 22:02, 30 November 2021 (UTC) There is also the article in the journal Intelligence [1] Given that the journal Intelligence is cited over a dozen times in this article, there should not be a problem with it right? (apart from the fact that the facts hurt your feelings that is) 93.149.193.190 ( talk) 22:18, 30 November 2021 (UTC)
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Why was this reverted?
In recent years scientists have found thousands of
Single-nucleotide polymorphisms associated with intelligence. The distribution of these genetic variants across races can be summarized in
polygenic scores. These scientific developments have provided no support for the hereditarian hypothesis for racial differences in cognitive ability.
[1] — Preceding
unsigned comment added by
Fq90 (
talk •
contribs)
Having looked at the archives I saw there was clear consensus against the addition of a statement to the opposite effect, on the basis that the Journal Intelligence and MDPI were not reliable sources, but I have not seen a consensus or any reason given to exclude the above paragraph, which says exactly the opposite of what the paragraph that was shut down by the consensus of the editors. — Preceding
unsigned comment added by
Fq90 (
talk •
contribs)
17:40, 19 January 2022 (UTC)
No clue what you are talking about. Removing the most up to date and accurate information from an encyclopedia entry is also disruptive. Users who come to the article and read the section on "Genetics of race and intelligence" are going to go home thinking that no genetic variants contributing to variation in intelligence in the normal range have been found yet, and that is not the current state of the science. Do you not think this is problematic?
Fq90 (
talk)
17:45, 19 January 2022 (UTC)
I have, I only meant to say that I am not the user you mentioned. So is it problematic in your view that the readers of Wikipedia are going home thinking this encyclopedia has given them the most up to date and accurate information when as a matter of fact it has not?
Fq90 (
talk)
18:02, 19 January 2022 (UTC)
Is there really no evidence at all for a genetic link between race and intelligence?", the "[9]" link. EvergreenFir (talk) 19:19, 19 January 2022 (UTC)
@
EvergreenFir: Exactly, like, it is 2022 already, the last reference in the "Genetics of race and intelligence" is from 10 years ago. The section needs updating.
Fq90 (
talk)
19:02, 19 January 2022 (UTC)
[W]hile it is true that most researchers in the area of human genetics and human biological diversity no longer allocate significant resources and time to the race/IQ discussion, and that moral concerns may play an important role in these decisions, an equally fundamental reason why researchers do not engage with the thesis is that empirical evidence shows that the whole idea itself is unintelligible and wrong-headed.[54] Generalrelative ( talk) 19:34, 19 January 2022 (UTC)
@
Firefangledfeathers: I do not know, what worries me is what I have been saying, the readers of the encyclopedia are coming here expecting us to give them up-to-date and accurate information, and they are going home with the more-than-10-years-ago-no-longer-true state of the science. What further worries me is that no one here seems to think this is a problem.
Fq90 (
talk)
23:23, 19 January 2022 (UTC)
Ok, forget mentioning the polygenic scores, focus on merely mentioning that thousands of genetic variants that contribute to variation in intelligence have been discovered already. Would you not say that this is up-to-date, accurate, neutral and uncontroversial, and that these findings have been widely discussed in reliable sources? Further would you not say that the current state of the article, which says that no such genetic variants have been discovered is simply, objectively inaccurate?
As I said, forget mentioning the polygenic scores and its implications, I would be quite happy if we simply add this:
A 2018 study found 1,271 genome-wide significant
Single-nucleotide polymorphism that collectively explain 11–13% of the variance in educational attainment and 7–10% of the variance in cognitive performance.
[2]
Fq90 (
talk)
02:35, 20 January 2022 (UTC)
The meta-analysis identifies 18 genomic regions associated with intelligence, and candidate genes that are highly expressed in the brain. The associations, the study suggests, could explain up to 4.8% of the variance in intelligence across these cohorts.But it's true that there is decent evidence that some specifically identifiable genomic regions contribute a non-zero amount to individual differences in IQ. It's also worth emphasizing that the editorial states explicitly that this provides absolutely no evidence for group-level differences in innate intelligence. I would be okay with removing any content in the existing article which contradicts this. I would not however support adding anything to the article, such as a reference to the meta-analysis itself, which does not discuss race and intelligence, since doing so would clearly be SYNTH. Generalrelative ( talk) 02:56, 20 January 2022 (UTC)
References
Given past discussion, this doesn't seem to be a good faith question. User:Fq90 is free to create a new RFC or abide by the current one. Guettarda ( talk) 16:41, 25 January 2022 (UTC) |
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Why was this removed now? the American Journal of Psychology is one of the most respected academic journals in the world. Some researchers have argued that the polygenic scores derived from this research provide evidence for a genetic component to the racial gaps in IQ. [1] — Preceding unsigned comment added by Fq90 ( talk • contribs)
I hardly see how this is "fringe" if it is discussed in the American Journal of Psychology. However, here is a secondary source that discusses the polygenic scores as well: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/09/13/can-progressives-be-convinced-that-genetics-matters — Preceding unsigned comment added by Fq90 ( talk • contribs)
Ok, change the wording, but at this point not discussing the polygenic scores is encyclopedic negligence. Fq90 ( talk) 16:15, 25 January 2022 (UTC)
OK, here is a quote from another article discussing the polygenic scores: While polygenic prediction has been demonstrated to work best for discovery and target samples of matching ethnic background [42, 49], as in the present study, the availability of large-scale discovery samples for other ancestries, e.g., of African or Asian populations, would be indispensable for the comparative analysis of polygenic contribution to cognition in different ancestries and cultures. [2] That should meet the WP:FRIND criterion right? Fq90 ( talk) 16:38, 25 January 2022 (UTC) References
References |
WP:SOCK drawer. Generalrelative ( talk) 01:50, 27 January 2022 (UTC) | |||
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This section was removed on this basis: (Removing per WP:FRINGE. Most of these figures(e.g. Rushton, Carl, etc.)are WP:FRINGE, as racial hereditarianism has been determined to be here per an rfc, see the Talk page. Also, much of the presentation is misleading and WP:POV(e.g. Bruce Lahn's variants were found to be unrelated to IQ).) But the section did not endorse the views of Rushton and Carl, it simply discussed issues relating to academic freedom. Regarding Bruce Lahn, we can add that variants were found to be unrelated to IQ, however as a section on academic freedom, what is relevant is that at the time people thought this research did have implications for race and IQ and that Lahn stopped doing his research as a result. Fq90 ( talk) 13:13, 22 January 2022 (UTC)
@ Skllagyook: "Scientists and scholars who have argued in favor of the hereditarian position have faced considerable censorship and social and professional reprisal from both the general public and the academic community." Honestly, do you disagree with that? Not at all, Ben Stein argued the same thing about scientists who happened to be creationists for example, and I would agree they are treated with derision in the academic community. This does not mean they are right, or that the academic community's consensus about evolution is biased or unreliable, or that it is unjust to fire them if they bring their fringe views into the class room. However, academic freedom is important, as you go through each of the examples listed in the section, do you not find them galling? That a scholar like Turkheimer for example explicitly argues that your abhorrence for a racist hypothesis should trump your commitment to academic freedom? or that the father of modern genetics is ostracized from the academic community for expressing an opinion? or that Sam Harris claims to have reputable scientists in his inbox who agree with hereditarianism but will not say so publicly out of fear?. Fq90 ( talk) 13:59, 22 January 2022 (UTC)
Issues pertaining to academic freedom and freedom of inquiry
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I've indef semi-protected the talk page due to serious signal to noise ratio issues and disruption. This is logged under the Arbitration log as an enforcement issue, a continuation of the previous AE case. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 00:33, 9 December 2021 (UTC)
@
Generalrelative: Well, hello again! I noticed that you reverted my addition of the
Evolutionary psychology navigation box to this article. I most certainly do not dispute that the theory that
ethnic and racial differences in intelligence are biologically based is an argument that falls under
WP:FRINGE but it was based upon assumptions related to
group selection, while contemporary evolutionary psychology as proposed by
Leda Cosmides and
John Tooby is based upon the
selfish-genetic view of evolution as proposed by
George C. Williams,
W. D. Hamilton,
John Maynard Smith, and
Richard Dawkins in the 1960s and 1970s which was formulated explicitly in rejection of group selection. See
Tooby and Cosmides in their 2015 interview with Reason.tv where they note that the principal subject of interest in their field are
cultural universals. Cosmides and Tooby initiated the line of research related to the
Wason selection task in the 1980s and 1990s that demonstrated that general intelligence itself is more related to non-arbitrary and evolutionarily familiar problems rather than to arbitrary and evolutionarily novel ones in line with longstanding observations made by other critics of the theory such as
Thomas Sowell,
James R. Flynn, and
Richard E. Nisbett (as noted in the
Evolution of human intelligence article section about Social exchange theory). I would argue that because Cosmides and Tooby helped formulated the framework that helped displace the racialist theory with one that is still consistent with the mainstream of evolutionary theory warrants its inclusion in the Related topics list of the navbox along with the other articles listed in the parentheses after
Unit of selection. --
CommonKnowledgeCreator (
talk)
00:55, 23 February 2022 (UTC)
Another WP:SOCK AndyTheGrump ( talk) 13:35, 18 March 2022 (UTC) |
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I have added a paragraph that discusses racial differences in the polygenic scores with references to four reliable sources that talk about them specifically in the context of race. I think this should be enough to meet the criterion of WP:FRIND, laid out by Generalrelative in a previous discussion. Here it is: As scientists have begun to uncover genetic variants that have genome-wide significant associations with intelligence, they have been able to summarize the distributions of these variants across a wide range of populations using polygenic scores. These polygenic scores may provide evidence of a partial genetic link for differences in intelligence between racial groups in the United States, as traditionally defined. [1] [2] However, it is still unclear whether differences in the average incidence of these genetic variants arose as a result of natural selection. [3]Moreover, it is still unclear whether these polygenic scores have the same predictive power across races, as most genome-wide association studies are done in racially homogeneous samples." [4] LucaCapobianco ( talk) 04:21, 18 March 2022 (UTC)
References
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I think the FAQ above this talk page need more citation. GUT412454 ( talk) 10:42, 4 July 2022 (UTC)
Pretty fun. https://quillette.com/2022/07/18/cognitive-distortions/ - Peregrine Fisher ( talk) 04:30, 26 July 2022 (UTC)
Our article's prior short description was: "Discussions and claims of differences in intelligence along racial lines."
I edited it to to read: "Differences in average intelligence between races."
My explanation: "Per WP:VIA
WP:VAI, replaced vague, unhelpful, and musteline short description… Removed "discussions of" as this is an encyclopedia article. Removed "along racial lines" as it's unnecessarily vague. Removed "claims of" in accordance with
WP:NPOV,
MOS:DOUBT, and
MOS:CLAIM—while the cause(s) may remain controversial, expert consensus has long acknowledged significant differences, as measured by IQ."
Three minutes later, my edit was summarily reverted, with the sole explanation: "nope - we don't assert as fact minority-opinion claims." The reverting editor initiated no discussion on the Talk page, offered no explanation of what these "minority-opinion claims" might be, and blithely ignored the guidance in WP:REVONLY while wholesale reverting my tripartite edit and explanation.
As I'd written in my explanation, the fact that there are differences in average tested intelligence between racial groups is the majority, consensus view. The text of our article makes this abundantly clear:
Indeed, the entire article is about, as I succinctly summarized: "Differences in average intelligence between races." While much of the article is devoted to deconstructing the terms and meanings of "race" and "intelligence" while promulgating a minority view that none of the differences in average intelligence between races could possibly be genetic in origin—nowhere does our article reference any consensus that differences in average intelligence between racial groups do not exist or that their existence is merely a "minority-opinion claim". Indeed, the exact opposite is true.
I welcome input regarding our short description—but the mealy-mouthed one that is there now serves our article poorly, and contradicts a host of Wikipedia guidance. Thanks! ElleTheBelle 16:32, 7 August 2022 (UTC)
Yeah, there is precisely zero chance that you are going to persuade the community to allow you to present WP:RACISTBELIEFS in Wikivoice. There is no scientific rationale for defining intelligence as "what IQ tests measure" any more than there is for defining the intrinsic worth of a human being in terms of their Net worth. The consensus is that IQ measures some aspects of intelligence, but if you think that translates into a consensus that some races are more or less intelligent than others then you are simply, profoundly mistaken. Generalrelative ( talk) 01:17, 8 August 2022 (UTC)
Sock drawer. Generalrelative ( talk) 14:59, 8 August 2022 (UTC) |
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I'm not necessarily arguing that heritability has to be mentioned at all, but it is currently mentioned in the article. If the article is going to mention that environmental factors play a major role, it should be clear that IQ in adults is mostly hereditary. The article currently gives the impression that environmental factors are more important, or at least as important as hereditary factors, which may mislead a reader. The current state of this section of the article either needs to be removed entirely or added to as to not be misleading. Thespearthrower ( talk) 20:03, 18 September 2022 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
I stated in my edit summary here that I would "go through and put back any helpful subsequent edits in a moment". However while I was attempting to do so, Thespearthrower came in and restored a sentence they had just added. Typically "one revert" is understood to include related reverts in sequence, but since that sequence has been interrupted I don't think I can fulfill what I said I'd do without running afoul of 1RR. In any case, the only additional thing I saw to do was to cut the extraneous "therefore" in the final sentence of the first paragraph. I'll take care of that after 24 hours has elapsed unless someone else beats me to it. All other constructive edits subsequent to the major WP:BLOCKEVASION edit appear to have been cleanup.
I ask Thespearthrower to self-revert and seek consensus on the talk page for the sentence they would like to add. I do not agree that this sentence is due for inclusion in the lead of the article. See e.g. WP:HOWEVER for perspective. Generalrelative ( talk) 20:21, 18 September 2022 (UTC)
largely because intelligence has no essential definition other than the circular one "that which is measured by intelligence tests", I'm not saying you will find a big blank or a circular definition when you look up the word "intelligence" in a dictionary. The issue is that it's not at all clear that IQ tests measure what these dictionary definitions are talking about. This is something that actual scientists who study this stuff are circumspect about, and Wikipedia reflects that. Generalrelative ( talk) 23:01, 18 September 2022 (UTC)
Thespearthrower ( talk) 16:07, 19 September 2022 (UTC)
References
@ AndyTheGump: I don't think I can revert due to 1RR but if you see material misrepresenting the claim of its alleged source, you have to remove/modify it. Given that you realized the source doesn't correspond to the claims made in the article whatsoever, you should have removed the content or found a fitting source. Unless somebody has done so, I will be removing the material tomorrow, as per policy.- Thespearthrower ( talk) 17:12, 20 September 2022 (UTC)
Thank you! Thespearthrower ( talk) 17:55, 20 September 2022 (UTC)
Ok, so I read this pathetic outpour in the 'net about how wikipedia is wrong and blahblah. And also that it censores science. I wouldn't want to see Wikipedia censor science, so I decided to take a look.
In a deletion discussion (one of many), there was one very sound argument for deleting it: the same could be covered by Race and Intelligence, and should be, since not every fringe theory deserves its own page. All good. HOWEVER, this page doesn't mention the theory at all! So, on to find if the scientific sources listed in a late version of the article are found, here's four that seem prominent (peer-reviewed, published): [1] [2] [3] [4]
I think it would serve Wikipedia well to critique these sources, and salvage into this article what can be salvaged, about the clearly existing and notable "exceptional Ashkenazi genetic intelligence" theory.
-- Sigmundur ( talk) 12:37, 19 July 2022 (UTC) Sigmundur ( talk) 12:37, 19 July 2022 (UTC)
limited and biased. The second barely intelligence, and only in passing. The third is the very book that your first source dismisses as trash. The final one is... Richard Lynn, most notable for his work at Mankind Quarterly, the journal of scientific racism. This is the sort of unreliable, unscientific nonsense you get when you search for sources to back up a culture-war-trash source like Quillette. If that's all you can drudge up in support of their nonsense, it's certainly not notable. -- Aquillion ( talk) 18:32, 7 August 2022 (UTC)
Oh god, I came here to talk about this very thing and it looks like someone was already doing it. Does anyone know why there is no mention of Ashklenazi Jews in this article? Also, in the section on test scores, I think we should differentiate between South Asians and East Asians. Asian is a term that is too broad, it encompasses everyone from Syrians to Koreans.
TheHaberProcess (
talk) 18:11, 7 August 2022 (UTC) striking
WP:BLOCKEVASION.
Generalrelative (
talk)
15:05, 8 August 2022 (UTC)
This does not imply that differences between groups are also genetic, since one group may experience a difference across the board, such as in wealth, discrimination, or social and cultural capitaland
CH&H's evidence is circumstantialand
But all the hypotheses would have to be true for the theory as a whole to be true--and much of the evidence is circumstantial, and the pivotal hypothesis is the one for which they have the least evidence.So, you claim Ashkenazi Jews are
the most intelligent race, but the very source you quote regards this as highly dubious. (I did not check Peterson because he is a crappy source - most psychoanalysts do not understand how science works, and Peterson definitely does not. He talks a lot of Dunning-Krugerish nonsense about evolution too.)
seem very OKto you. They must also
seem very OKto the people here who are familiar with the subject, and the subject needs to be relevant enough. They have tried to explain why. -- Hob Gadling ( talk) 06:29, 8 August 2022 (UTC)
The evidence is less comprehensive for other groups in the US. According to a number of secondary sources, Ashkenazi Jews are have an average IQ that is between a half and a full standard deviation above the mean for white gentiles.(sources) However, the primary research on the topic is wanting and said advantage seems to be more associated with how individuals are regarded rather than their genetic make up.(Bloom source here) Indian Americans are also a group with high average educational and occupational attainment. There is some preliminary evidence that their average IQ is roughly on a pair with that of Ashkenazi Jews.(if not Forbes, maybe this book: US-India Forward Leap—The Partnership Building - Page 140, or both) This may be because only individuals with high educational and occupational status can migrate from India to the U.S.
TheHaberProcess (
talk) 07:45, 8 August 2022 (UTC)striking
WP:BLOCKEVASION.
Generalrelative (
talk)
15:05, 8 August 2022 (UTC)
References
10-15 points IQ advantage of Ashkenazi Jews
Sad socks :( Generalrelative ( talk) 06:37, 31 January 2023 (UTC) |
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Hi @ Grayfell: why did you delete the references? ETDS554 ( talk) 04:30, 30 January 2023 (UTC)
Hello. To clarify, the edit added sources, but it also changed the meaning of the article by adding an anachronistic claim that race and intelligence was being discussed since since at least them times of Aristotle.Since this claim is controversial and disputed it is misleading to present this with the edit summary "WP:ILC". It is also a typo, but that would be an easy fix. The added source makes an interesting point, but it's an extreme over-reach to say it claims or even suggests that Aristotle viewed human groups as 'races' in the modern sense of the word. If I'm wrong and Matthew A. Sears is claiming that Aristotle's view of races is the same as the modern one, we need a source where he explicitly claims that, and we would need to contextualize it against the mountain of existing sources which dispute it. Grayfell ( talk) 07:02, 30 January 2023 (UTC) |
Sad socks :( Generalrelative ( talk) 06:38, 31 January 2023 (UTC) |
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Sad socks :( Generalrelative ( talk) 06:40, 31 January 2023 (UTC) |
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Clueful editors are invited to participate at Talk:Eyferth study#Request for comment on hereditarianism subsection. Generalrelative ( talk) 07:53, 14 March 2023 (UTC)
See WP:NOTFORUM What some random contributor thinks is 'taboo' is of no relevance to article content. AndyTheGrump ( talk) 22:43, 4 April 2023 (UTC) |
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I would like to include the following: The Bell Curve, by Richard J. Herrnstein and Charles Murray, lists figures of 105 for Northeast Asians, 100 for North and Central Europeans, 92-96 for South Europeans, 91 for Arctic peoples, 90 for Maoris, 89 for American Hispanics, 86 for Native Americans, 85 for Pacific Islanders, 84 for South Asians, 83 for North Africans, 71 for Sub-Saharan Africans, 62 for Australian Aborigines, 57 for Pygmies, and 55 for Bushmen. Generalrelative reverted this edit, with the argument being that it is WP:UNDUE and WP:PRIMARY. However, I don't see how the edit gives undue weight to any particular source, since The Bell Curve is one of the most well-known publications in the field. In addition, it is a secondary source which summarizes primary source research in the field. What do people here think? Wiki Crazyman ( talk) 23:01, 21 February 2023 (UTC)
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At this point WP:DENY is probably the best approach here. Wikipedia talk pages are not a WP:FORUM. Generalrelative ( talk) 23:10, 4 April 2023 (UTC) |
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I see in the FAQ section of this page that folks are trying to claim no evidence for a genetic link between race and intelligence as a "scientific consensus" viewpoint despite the fact that actual scientific consensus is so rare that the phrase could be considered an oxymoron. Let's take a look at the claims related to that FAQ and maybe delete that section? No evidence for such a connection has ever been published. The bell curve research, SAT scores, army entrance scores - most race/IQ data has shown a gap that is challenging to explain exclusively through environmental factors. A statement signed by 143 senior human population geneticists states categorically that genetics research in no way supports the view that "recent natural selection has led to worldwide differences in I.Q. test results". 143 academics choosing to virtue-signal on a topic likely to help their career doesn't speak to a broad scientific consensus. Top academics signed a letter condemning the COVID lab leak theory too. As understanding of the human genome and the science of population genetics advances, it has become increasingly clear that race is not a biologically meaningful way to categorize human population groups. See for example this statement by the American Association of Physical Anthropologists. That's just saying the terms of the discussion are ill-defined. So you're welcome to say there's a "scientific consensus" that race is a poorly-defined concept - that's a fact. Even if we take ancestral population groups to be proxies for race, most subject-matter experts agree that cognitive differences between such such groups are unlikely to exist. "most" doesn't amount to a scientific consensus - you'd be fair to say that "most" university professors vote for the political left but that doesn't mean there is a "scientific consensus" that the left is better Extensive evidence has been published which indicates that observed differences in IQ test performance between racial groups are environmental in origin. 100% environmental in origin? I don't think so. That's like claiming that Shaq is good at basketball because he trained a lot. The guy is also tall. Most researchers view the idea of a genetic connection between race and intelligence as scientifically obsolete. Sure, they view race and intelligence as fuzzy, unscientific topics that they don't want to get into. That's not the same as saying that there is a scientific consensus. There is a scientific consensus that the earth orbits around the sun. There is little scientific consensus on the topic of race and intelligence. Also this phrase is not the kind of wording that should appear on a supposedly neutral wiki page. Brandon ( talk) 21:37, 4 April 2023 (UTC)
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Recently @ AndyTheGrump reverted my edit that corrected an inaccuracy in the lead about scientific consensus
I replaced the scientific consensus is that genetics does not explain differences in IQ test performance between groups, and that observed differences are environmental in origin.
with the scientific consensus is that intelligence is a complex trait that is influenced by both genetic and environmental factors.
exactly as stated in the cited source of medline plus
he argued that MedlinePlus which is produced by United States National Library of Medicine is not WP:RS, calling it “misuse of source” even though these are the exact words of the source, and claimed it irrelevant even though the title of the article itself is “Race and intelligence” Chafique ( talk) 11:52, 24 May 2023 (UTC)
Chafique Medline plus is just a digital library run by the National Institutes of Health. They index papers from academic journals, including good and bad. You can find papers purporting to prove demonic possession in MedLine. Inclusion in Medline does not make something good by default. The papers are published in journals (the actual source), not Medline, which simply indexes them. Zenomonoz ( talk) 12:12, 25 May 2023 (UTC)
Please be careful when discussing Frederick Douglass. He was the half black, half white offspring of a plantation owner. He is also very important to the issue of Blackface. When new slave families arrived on plantations, plantation owners often allowed their children to interact with the slave kids. Whenever this happened, the black kids would laugh at anything the white kids did, funny or not. This condition was picked up by the whites, it was imitated in traveling circuses, on stage, in vaudeville, and in silent film. It was so bad that when Douglass gained fame, he was told to never smile in pictures taken of him, or it would remind people of the condition. So, of the hundreds of pictures taken of Frederick Douglass, none show him with a smile. This, despite being instructed to ally himself with the Suffragette Movement, having two wives (one white), and five children. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Lord Milner ( talk • contribs) 23:35, 12 August 2023 (UTC)
The article currently reads "There is no evidence for a Jewish IQ advantage." This statement is not supported by the article cited. I'll outline here the relevant section of the article, "Jewish—Non-Jewish Differences in IQ". The first paragraph says there is "little good evidence" about the IQ of Ashkenazi Jews, then citing three studies which provide some evidence of higher Ashkenazi Jewish IQ; they say these studies are samples of convenience. They seem to be convinced that such a difference exists. Rather than arguing there is no difference, they instead go on to discuss in the second paragraph the source of the difference, focusing on Cochran et al.'s sphingolipid explanation. They do not believe there is strong enough evidence in favor of this theory, but still do not believe to be affirmatively untrue, as they still regard it to be "an intriguing suggestion". In their third paragraph, they note that even the highest estimates of Ashkenazi Jewish IQ wouldn't account for the observed differences in Ashkenazi Jewish accomplishment. This is the entirety of their treatment of Ashkenazi Jewish IQ.
There is no bad-faith interpretation here, this is the straightforward, plain reading of the source material. Even if you think one source is sufficient to establish the existence of academic consensus, this source does not suffice, as it directly contradicts the claim currently made in the article. The authors explicitly say that there exists evidence/data in favor of the proposition. Where am I wrong here?
If you wanted to say "According to such-and-such authors, there is 'little good evidence' for an Ashkenazi Jewish IQ advantage", that would be supported by the source, though it would be somewhat biased towards what you want to be true. But the claim that there is no evidence is straightforwardly false. Peaux ( talk) 01:47, 22 September 2023 (UTC)
Why was this content deleted? — Preceding unsigned comment added by CuriousCrafter123 ( talk • contribs) 17:55, 15 September 2023 (UTC)
There has been some edit warring over this, and the claim has been made
in an edit summary that the sentence misrepresents the source. I took the time to reread the relevant section just now, and I see the authors are quite clear that there isn't any real evidence that Jews (or Ashkenazi Jews in particular) in fact have higher IQs on average than other populations. As the authors emphasize, All available studies, however, are based on samples of convenience.
They then go on to discuss the question of to what we should attribute the greater overall intellectual ability popularly attributed to Jews
. But "popularly attributed" does not imply that there is in fact scientific evidence. The closest thing to evidence that they cite are two estimates comparing Jews in Britain and America to White non-Jews in the same countries, and one of these estimates is by notorious quack
Richard Lynn. All that said, I'm not especially committed to retaining the edit, which was
added by a brand new account (it's been discussed before, e.g., whether Jewish intelligence is relevant to this article at all, given that there is some question as to whether "Jewish" is a racial category) but I don't think that the rationale that was given for removing it in this instance makes sense.
Generalrelative (
talk)
01:42, 22 September 2023 (UTC)
For those without access, here is an extended quotation from the article in question. Generalrelative ( talk) 05:59, 22 September 2023 (UTC) |
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After giving this some thought, I'm going to come down on the side of removing this content –– though not, I should emphasize, for any of the reasons raised by Miladragon3/Peaux. The fact remains that the sentence refers to "Jewish IQ advantage" which is a fundamentally misleading phrase. The previous sentences are about IQ test scores, so to fit in thematically we'd need to revise it to say that there's no good evidence for what the average IQ of Jews is. If folks think that's important to say here, that's fine, but I find it awkward. If you have nothing substantive to say about it, why bring it up? And this is leaving aside the concern that I raised above about Jews not necessarily being a racial grouping. On the whole, I just don't think the sentence as-is fits and I don't think a "fixed" version really adds much to the article. Generalrelative ( talk) 06:59, 22 September 2023 (UTC)
The phrase in the lede “Further complicating the issue, modern science has shown race to be a social construct rather than a biological reality” masks controversy and is not appropriate verbiage for an encyclopedic explanation of science. Science has not “shown” race to “be” a social construct. Some scientific perspectives have characterized race as a social construct, and more commonly as being more socially constructed than biologically real. But some scientists maintain that race is strongly biological. We should reveal controversy. Zanahary ( talk) 16:01, 15 October 2023 (UTC)
Race does not provide an accurate representation of human biological variation. It was never accurate in the past, and it remains inaccurate when referencing contemporary human populations. Humans are not divided biologically into distinct continental types or racial genetic clusters. Instead, the Western concept of race must be understood as a classification system that emerged from, and in support of, European colonialism, oppression, and discrimination. It thus does not have its roots in biological reality, but in policies of discrimination. Because of that, over the last five centuries, race has become a social reality that structures societies and how we experience the world. In this regard, race is real, as is racism, and both have real biological consequences.
Racial categories do not provide an accurate picture of human biological variation. Variation exists within and among populations across the planet, and groups of individuals can be differentiated by patterns of similarity and difference, but these patterns do not align with socially-defined racial groups (such as whites and blacks) or continentally-defined geographic clusters (such as Africans, Asians, and Europeans). What has been characterized as “race” does not constitute discrete biological groups or evolutionarily independent lineages. Furthermore, while physical traits like skin color and hair texture are often emphasized in racial classification, and assumptions are often made about the pattern of genetic diversity relative to continental geography, neither follows racial lines. The distribution of biological variation in our species demonstrates that our socially-recognized races are not biological categories. While human racial groups are not biological categories, “race” as a social reality — as a way of structuring societies and experiencing the world — is very real. The racial groups we recognize in the West have been socially, politically, and legally constructed over the last five centuries.
I'd support adding a sentence to the last lead paragraph about the clear political goals (segregation/eugenics/"racial awareness") of the hereditarian position (based on this paper, page 6), and adding a corresponding paragraph to the body, maybe in the "Policy relevance and ethics" section. Some of this stuff is mentioned in the History section but only in passing; most of this article focuses on the science, but not on the movement linked to that science, and that movement's false claims (that their research is suppressed, "taboo", or that opponents are engaged in "blank-slate" science denial). The paper I linked addresses this at length and is a good source if we decide to cover this. DFlhb ( talk) 08:46, 25 May 2023 (UTC)
The phrasing of the first paragraph when I read it always felt inaccurate. I didn’t know how to articulate until now.
My objections to the current reading is as follows:
(1)- “Science” as defined by wikipedia is an endeavor with the calculus of the scientific method. If we use calculus as a type of logic.
The meaning of endeavor can be either a noun or a verb, but not an object. It is not itself a system. Hence why Wikipedia says science is “systematic”. In logic and model theory only models, systems, or theories can show or demonstrate something. My definition of endeavor is inspired by Websters dictionary and Cambridge, in addition to a preview of the definition from the Oxford dictionary site. I do not have access to the Oxford English dictionary
(1.1)- For science to “show” something is misleading to the audience. Science as defined is a continuous process. Another phrasing which would work is the scientific method as it is a system. This would be more accurate. Even so, this leads me to the next point
(2)- In Oxford’s English learning dictionary “to show” means to prove something, among other things. This type of definition fits best in the context of the paragraph. Another definition by Webster close to this is “to demonstrate or establish by argument or reasoning”. The other definitions I’ve seen have been “to declare” to “peform”. The later definitions cannot be done by a system nor can “establishment”, rather, by people or an object. A formal system in itself cannot show this, a computer for example is build by a system of logic but it is the computer itself which can only demonstrate propositions, images, or declarations. The later cases do not seem to fit.
(2)- Now, to “prove” or “demonstrate by argument or reasoning”. As indicated by the edit, it is debatable whether or not the scientific method can show or “prove” anything. As commentators on this subject have offered perspectives, Kuhn and Popper in particular, who are the closest to holding positivist positions in the epistemology of science, there is disagreement. The school of conventionalism inherently carries an issue that there is an indeterminacy of proof. A formal system which we hold to understand an objective perception of the world is limited by its measuring apparati. Popper, holds two things: you cannot prove anything in science, only falsify. But to falsify is another term than to “show”. My edit comments were cut off but I added other suggestions. It might be better to replace show with “falsify”. Finally Kuhn holds the only systems we have in the domain of science are paradigms which may be superseded by later paradigms. So another phrasing which would be more precise is “the modern scientific paradigm has falsified race as [biological] construct” or “the modern scientific paradigm has shown race to be a social construct”.
(2)- The final objection which was cut off from my edit comment is that some hold to epistemological anarchism or even post modern like philosophies, which hold every scientific view is merely socially constructed. It is merely the product of a community of people holding certain propositions to be true by their own will to power. And/or, the epistemological anarchism which would hold each “truth” is merely a position by people. This led me to write “the modern scientific community”.
My edit comments also give other justifications in that it is more accurate to use a community as people who show things as they are objects which can act. Which showing is.
(3)- The idea of “science” showing race to be a social construct is indeed modern. Therefore, it may be accurate to say this is the case. But the scientific method hasn’t changed nor has the system of science since the concept of race was conceived. Prior to the mid 20th century the consensus of race wasn’t that it was a social construct. So “science” at that time period would have contradicted the modern understanding of race. Therefore to say “modern science has shown race to be a social construct” is to say science contradicts itself. A way to remove such a contradiction would to specify the field as “Modern biology and genetics has shown…” which indeed can be subject to change as we know physics, for example, is constantly developing and has many open problems and currently is waiting for a new unifying paradigm. ————————-
Therefore the suggestions are as follows:
(A) ”..modern biology and genetics have shown race to be socially constructed”
(B) “…the modern scientific paradigm has shown race to be a social construct [or: to be socially constructed]”
(C) “…the modern scientific paradigm has falsified race as anything else [than/but a] social construct”
(D) My original edit which was reverted
Finally, if there was already discussion of this I would like to see it, I do not know where it would be and it might help to add to the talk discussion. Sedeanimu ( talk) 22:14, 28 November 2023 (UTC)
Modern science regards race as a social construct, an identity which is assigned based on rules made by society.The statement has been discussed many, many times, both there and here, and consensus has converged on the language you see. I'm surprised to hear you say you couldn't find any of these discussions because the most recent example is just above. Generalrelative ( talk) 23:32, 28 November 2023 (UTC)
The introduction requires removal of editorial bias for "blank slatism", which is a peculiar view of human nature in which all observed human group differences have a complete environmental origin. At a minimum, it needs to be made clear that many claims in the first paragraph of the introduction are disputed:
Here is a neutral version of the introduction first paragraph which takes into account current research;
I understand that the systemic encyclopaedic editorial bias for "blank slatism" likely relates to an RfC on racial hereditarianism. [63] [64] Richardbrucebaxter ( talk) 04:06, 26 November 2023 (UTC)
[W]hile it is true that most researchers in the area of human genetics and human biological diversity no longer allocate significant resources and time to the race/IQ discussion, and that moral concerns may play an important role in these decisions, an equally fundamental reason why researchers do not engage with the thesis is that empirical evidence shows that the whole idea itself is unintelligible and wrong-headed.
This revision by @ NightHeron reverts my addition of a relevant perspective on criticisms of race by Earl B. Hunt. The rationale is that it's undue and "confusing": "since race is socially constructed, it's unclear how biology and genetics could be part of the explanation".
An editor being confused by the content of a scientist's perspective is not grounds for wholesale removal of the content. And Hunt's idea here is that socially constructed race is correlated with biological and cultural realities that can be impactful in test performance, so studies of race and intelligence are in fact studies of other factors and intelligence, with race as proxy. This is neither confusing nor undue. Zanahary ( talk) 22:51, 1 December 2023 (UTC)
I don't understand this sentence When one samples continental groups, the clusters become continental; if one had chosen other sampling patterns, the clusters would be different.
Does it come from Kaplan 2011? If yes, could you give the page on which it's written?
Alaexis
¿question?
09:52, 3 December 2023 (UTC)
Anthropologists such as C. Loring Brace,[54] philosophers Jonathan Kaplan and Rasmus Winther,[55][55][56][57] and geneticist Joseph Graves,[58] have argued that while it is certainly possible to find biological and genetic variation that corresponds roughly to the groupings normally defined as "continental races", this is true for almost all geographically distinct populations. The cluster structure of the genetic data is therefore dependent on the initial hypotheses of the researcher and the populations sampled. When one samples continental groups the clusters become continental; if one had chosen other sampling patterns the clustering would be different. Weiss and Fullerton have noted that if one sampled only Icelanders, Mayans and Maoris, three distinct clusters would form and all other populations could be described as being clinally composed of admixtures of Maori, Icelandic and Mayan genetic materials.[59] Kaplan and Winther therefore argue that seen in this way both Lewontin and Edwards are right in their arguments. They conclude that while racial groups are characterized by different allele frequencies, this does not mean that racial classification is a natural taxonomy of the human species, because multiple other genetic patterns can be found in human populations that cross-cut racial distinctions. Moreover, the genomic data under-determines whether one wishes to see subdivisions (i.e., splitters) or a continuum (i.e., lumpers). Under Kaplan and Winther's view, racial groupings are objective social constructions (see Mills 1998 [60]) that have conventional biological reality only insofar as the categories are chosen and constructed for pragmatic scientific reasons.
These words should not be italicized— WP:WORDSASWORDS is for words. This section is for criticism of concepts, not of words. Thus, the words ‘race’ and ‘intelligence’ should be de-italicized there. Zanahary ( talk) 17:01, 12 December 2023 (UTC)
The expression "cancel culture" came in circulation in the late 2010s and early 2020s. As I understand the MOS, it really should read
The expression cancel culture came in circulation in the late 2010s and early 2020sbut I'm not about to start another debate about it. WP:other stuff exists. 𝕁𝕄𝔽 ( talk) 20:44, 12 December 2023 (UTC)
Right now, the lede contains:
With the inception of IQ testing in the early 20th century, differences in average test performance between racial groups were observed, though these differences have fluctuated and in many cases steadily decreased over time. Complicating the issue, modern science has shown race to be a socially constructed phenomenon rather than a biological reality, and there are various conflicting definitions of intelligence.
I think it should be:
Since the inception of IQ testing in the early 20th century, differences in average test performance between racial groups have been observed, though these differences have fluctuated and in many cases steadily decreased over time. Complicating the issue, modern science has shown race to be a socially constructed phenomenon rather than a biological reality, and there exist various conflicting definitions of intelligence.
“since” and “have been” clarify that such differences are still observed, and makes more sense with the explanation that they’ve changed over time. “Exist” is just better prose than “are”. Zanahary ( talk) 18:52, 12 December 2023 (UTC)
Since the advent of IQ testing in the early 20th century, there have been observations of differences in average test performance among racial groups. These differences, however, are not static; over time and across studies, they have varied and sometimes narrowed.
sometimes narrowedseems like a rather obvious POV shift from
in many cases steadily decreased over time. In general, your text uses more words to say the same thing, except for the part about the narrowing gap where it uses fewer words to make a more equivocal statement, which is (I would argue) UNDUE in this case. The narrowing gap is a very widespread phenomenon by any measure. That is, by any measure which people have used to argue for the existence of a gap, such gaps are narrowing and doing so consistently over time. Generalrelative ( talk) 23:10, 14 December 2023 (UTC)
Since the advent of IQ testing in the early 20th century, there have been observations of differences in average test performance among racial groups. These differences, however, are not static; many have varied across studies and steadily decreased over time., which is an improvement because it makes clear and expresses coherently that the observation of differences has persisted. Zanahary ( talk) 04:09, 15 December 2023 (UTC)
Surprise, surprise ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ It was a sockpuppet all along. Generalrelative ( talk) 23:39, 21 December 2023 (UTC) |
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Why does this content keep being deleted? CuriousCrafter123 ( talk) 23:56, 20 December 2023 (UTC)
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IQ tests in the US are only a small part of the global historical picture. I added a UK/Japan example; also ample examples a) affecting non-anglo groups not always considered 'white' in the US/UK/France for instance, and b) taking place in non-Western countries [e.g. S. America, MENA, Asia], which bear mention. – SJ + 04:26, 4 February 2024 (UTC)
I mentioned one example of Japan (views in the UK about east Asia); there are also views in the West of Asian exceptionalism, stereotypes in parts of Asia and Europe about the inferiority or superiority of different groups of outsiders; views from countries that developed eugenics programs in the 20c and their outcomes. It's strange to have an article on this topic that chooses to single out Anglo-Saxons and the US and World War I in the lead but doesn't talk about World War II, German and Japanese takes on these issues mid-20c, sterilization and anti-miscegenation policies on grounds of intelligence, &c. There is also an overfocus on Jensen and a handful of others and one or two recent controversies to the exclusion of more globally significant ones. I see the detail article on history of the race and intelligence controversy has this problem in spades, starting with the definite article in the title and mentioning Jensen over 100 times. I don't have further edits at the moment, just noting the issue as a major one. – SJ + 22:17, 5 February 2024 (UTC)
– SJ + 00:57, 5 February 2024 (UTC)