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Possibly, but certainly not into those areas presented in the section "Debate overview". Either before or after adding "The validity of "Race" and "IQ"". As such this sentence should be removed. Miradre ( talk) 00:59, 28 January 2011 (UTC)
"Nichols (1987)[62] critically summarized the argument as follows: We do not know what causes the test score changes over time. We do not know what causes racial differences in intelligence. Since both causes are unknown, they must, therefore, be the same. Since the unknown cause of changes over time cannot be shown to be genetic, it must be environmental. Therefore, racial differences in intelligence are environmental in origin."
Summarized what argument? Never seen non-hereditarians use this flawed argument. Most likely the old quote is misleading due to lack of context. Looks like a straw man representation of the non-hereditarian side. Therefore I suggest it should be removed. Miradre ( talk) 15:58, 25 January 2011 (UTC)
I see it is a straw man argument. However, that is not a reason to remove it, because if we remove all the straw man arguments, there will be nothing left. This whole controversy is based on straw man arguments. Each side is so outraged at the other making large claims with no evidence that they'd claim the opposite (also without evidence) in revenge. Since neither side has any evidence, they resorts to criticizing the other side for their lack of evidence. So in this case, straw man arguments should STAY, as it is everything this controversy is about. If you don't like straw man arguments, don't take part of the controversy (not saying that you did). 173.183.79.81 ( talk) 01:24, 2 February 2011 (UTC)
Is largely unsourced. One supposed source is "Nisbett 2009". This is likely this, http://www.scribd.com/doc/29596219/Appendix-B-to-Intelligence-and-How-to-Get-It-by-Richard-Nisbett, in which case the content has little similarity to the source. Also undue weight for something with so low a correlation with IQ. As such this section should be grealy pruned and made to resemble a source. Miradre ( talk) 15:45, 29 January 2011 (UTC)
Now the text contains way too much uninteresting and irrelevant information about how RT works. Those interested can look that up in the main article about reaction time. It is not the purpose of this article to explain what MRI or reaction time is in great detail. As such as I think the following should be removed: "Reaction time (RT) is the elapsed time between the presentation of a sensory stimulus and the subsequent behavioral response by the participant. RT is often used in experimental psychology to measure the duration of mental operations, an area of research known as mental chronometry. In psychometric psychology, RT is considered to be an index of speed of processing. That is, RT indicates how fast the thinker can execute the mental operations needed by the task at hand. In turn, speed of processing is considered an index of processing efficiency. The behavioral response is typically a button press but can also be an eye movement, a vocal response, or some other observable behavior.[123] Scores on most types of RT tasks tend to correlate with standard IQ tests, but the exact amount of correlation varies a great deal and depends mostly on number of possible choices in the task: in general, the more choices, the higher the correlation. RT tasks also tend to correlate with g, and no relationship has been found between RT and any other psychometric factors independent of g. The correlation of both IQ and g to RT tends to be more pronounced for elementary cognitive tasks (ECTs) than other types of RT tasks. Like IQ, the correlation between g and RT varies depending on the type of task preformed." Miradre ( talk) 09:00, 1 February 2011 (UTC)
The ArbCom case on Race and intelligence is mentioned in a letter to The Economist. [1] -- WeijiBaikeBianji ( talk, how I edit) 01:34, 1 February 2011 (UTC)
The article has numerous problems of every kind but here I will focus on the overall structure.
1. The "History" and "Current debate" sections. Consists mainly of a long chronological list of the titles of various publications and by whom. Most likely completely uninteresting to almost everyone. The sections should be combined, the content greatly pruned, and most of the list moved to the "History of the race and intelligence controversy" article. Some other material like policy and research implications should be moved to the "Policy relevance" section.
2. The "Debate overview" and "Variables potentially affecting intelligence in groups" sections. Extremely unclear what the is supposed the the differences between these sections. Instead I propose two new logical sections: "Environmental factors potentially causing racial IQ differences" (with subsections such as nutrition, test bias, SES, and so on) and "Evidence against and for genetics causing racial IQ differences" (with subsections such as brain size, adoption, inbreeding depression, and so on). Miradre ( talk) 13:08, 1 February 2011 (UTC)
Let me just say that I think "presentation of the evidence" is very much a dangerous and difficult path to travel. The main problem with this is that evidence presented to the laymen tends to be like reading tea leaves or horoscopes. People see what that they want to see, and ignore the stuff they don't want to see. Taking this tack as the primary structure of the article exposes the problem multiple times. First, when editors try and sift through the mountain of data trying to determine which evidence is "good" and which is "bad", all the while presenting argument and counter-argument for the data. Second, such a presentation encourages readers to synethesize their own conclusions, with little regard to what the science says. Third, this leads to endless strife amongst maintainers who then have to tirelessly check and recheck all the edits that various POV pushers come in to "tweak" or "correct" the evidence. If there is one thing I think would improve the article while simultaneously make it more stable, that would be moving away from evidentiary exposition and more into summary of conclusions with the appropriate weighting. That's not to say there is no place for some explanation of specific evidence, but my guess is that most of that would be best handled in sub articles. aprock ( talk) 23:41, 3 February 2011 (UTC)
The figure of 5 or 6 is incorrect. This figure is a projection. Rushton and Jensen (The totality of available evidence shows race-IQ gap still remains 2006) point out that the actual figure is 3.44. In addition Rusthon and Jensen point out that Flynn and Dickens excluded several tests that all showed little to no decrease in the Black-White American IQ gap. Rushton and Jensen state that the actual figure, when including these excluded tests, is 2.1 and not 3.44 and again state that Flynn and Dickens use the projected score to exaggerate the trend line. (The rise and fall of the Flynn Effect as a reason to expect a narrowing of the Black-White IQ gap 2010)
Rushton and Jensen note, at the end of the 2006 article cited above, that the 3.44 figure is well within their own estimated h²/e² 80/20. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.170.43.133 ( talk) 02:38, 4 February 2011 (UTC)
The article IQ testing environmental variances has been proposed for deletion. The proposed-deletion notice added to the article should explain why.
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talk)
15:43, 25 January 2011 (UTC)
Source | % Variance | Average IQ Difference | |
---|---|---|---|
Between races (within social classes) | 14 | 30 | 12 |
Between social classes (within races) | 8 | 6 | |
Interaction of race and social class | 8 | N/A | |
Between families (within race and social class) | 26 | 65 | 9 |
Within families (siblings) | 39 | 11 | |
Measurement error | 5 | 7 | |
Total | 100 | 17 |
Should be part of the test scores section because it demonstrates that racial differences are a small fraction of total IQ differences (i.e., there is more variance within than between races).This is commonly accepted, but numbers speak louder than words in making the point. -- Cant1lev3r ( talk) 00:17, 6 February 2011 (UTC)
The problem with using bell curves is that they tend to conflate model with reality. Actual intelligence scores are not distributed on a bell curve. Rather the actual distributions are well modeled by bell curves. aprock ( talk) 06:49, 6 February 2011 (UTC)
I just created this graph of WAIS-IV data:
What do you think?-- Victor Chmara ( talk) 16:08, 6 February 2011 (UTC)
I believe the image is essentially what Rageh Omaar drew by hand in his BBC special while making the same point. The use of normal curves to show how the means and variances measured reflect overlapping distributions is also in Jensen (1998). -- Cant1lev3r ( talk) 17:31, 7 February 2011 (UTC)
So, does someone want to add this to the article? I agree with Victor Chmara and Miradre that it would help illustrate how IQ scores are distributed, and that the scores of all racial groups overlap more than they differ. And if anyone really thinks that IQ scores being distributed on a bell curve is an unpublished idea, it's pretty easy to find a source for that. Boothello ( talk) 19:36, 9 February 2011 (UTC)
I'm not sure what you're asking here. If you have a specific question about policies, I suggest that you bring it up on the appropriate noticeboard. aprock ( talk) 21:44, 11 February 2011 (UTC)
The degree of ancestry section fails to note the specific Hereditarian reply on a few issues. Since Flynn, Nisbett, and others give much weight to these studies, it might be more balanced to note the specific criticisms. Each criticism can be abbreviated in one sentence.
1. Human skin color: "Nisbett writes that the correlation between US skin color and IQ are very weak, typically in the range of 0.1-0.15. The correlations between facial features rated as stereotypically African and IQ are similarly low in a 1966 study. Nibett argues that even if one ignores the possible advantages a whiter skin color may give this is inconsistent with a strong genetic influence"
Jensen discussed this issue in his 1974 work "Educatability and group differences (p. 222-223)." According to Jensen (1974), the skin color correlation could be .2 at maximum.
To quote: "The highest correlation that can be obtained between the two measures is the square root of the product of their reliabilities. So the highest correlation we could expect to find between IQ and skin color would be sqrt [(.16)(.25)]= .20. Any higher correlation than this would most probably be attributed to factors other than racial admixture, per se."
[Reliability is the square of the correlation between two factors; Jensen argued that the ancestry-skin correlation for African Americans is about .4 and that the maximum the ancestry-IQ correlation could be, assuming that the Hereditarian hypothesis is correct, is .5.]
2. Prodigiousness Black Children: "A study from 1934 and 1936 of black schoolchildren with high IQ examined their self-reported family history and found that they had slightly less European ancestry than the black average at that time.[19]"
According to Mackenzie (1984), in "Explaining race differences in IQ: The logic, the methodology, and the evidence," the study invalidly compared the sample group to an unrepresentative national sample.
To quote: "The Witty and Jenkins study. In their reviews of studies on race differences in IQ, Loehlin et al. (1975) and Flynn (1980) both placed considerable emphasis on a study of 63 black Chicago schoolchildren by Witty and Jenkins (1936). In fact, the study cannot support a heavy weight of interpretation, but it does have some uniquely relevant features in its design. Witty and Jenkins did not compare the IQs of blacks with different proportions of white ancestry. Instead, they focused on the distribution of ancestry in a selected high IQ sample of black students. Their rationale was that "the hypothesis that Negroes are inferior to whites in mental ability" should generate the prediction that "Negroes who make the very highest scores on mental tests should be those who come from admixtures predominantly white" (Witty & Jenkins, 1936, p. 180). They therefore estimated their subjects' racial admixture, on the basis of parent interviews, as N (all Negro), NNW (more Negro than white), NW (equally Negro and white), or NWW (more white than Negro) and compared the distribution of reported ancestry to that found in a national sample of adult blacks by Herskovits (1930). There were no significant differ1226 ences between the two distributions, and the small differences that existed were not in a consistent direction. They concluded that their findings provided fairly strong evidence against the "hypothesis of Negro inferiority" (p. 191). In fact, however, these findings do not provide such evidence, even if the genealogical estimates are taken at face value. For Witty and Jenkins's findings to have any value as evidence, it is essential that their comparison sample (Herskovits's national sample) be an appropriate one. An appropriate sample would be one that represented the population from which the children were drawn, that is, a comparison sample of black Chicago schoolchildren. This point is not mere nit-picking; in Reed's (1969) figures, blacks in Chicago have less white ancestry than the average for the black population in the U.S. If the same was true in 1936, then a Chicago sample matched to a national sample would have more white ancestry than the local average. More important, Herskovits's national sample cannot be considered representative. About 32% of his sample was composed of Howard University undergraduates, and another 16% was taken from the "well-to-do and professional portion of the population of the Harlem district of New York City" (Herskovits, 1930, p. 5). Thus, almost half of Herskovits's national sample was highly selected for scholastic achievement or SES.3 A genetic hypothesis for race differences in IQ is not embarrassed by the finding that such a sample had a similar distribution of ancestry to a smaller sample that was highly selected for IQ. A genetic hypothesis is not actually supported by this finding, because it remains an open question whether the national sample itself had more white ancestry than the average for the black population. It is clear, however, that as it stands, the Witty and Jenkins study yields no interpretable results."
3. Blood group studies: "The frequency of different blood types vary with race. Correlations between degree of European blood types and IQ have varied between 0.05 and -0.38 in two studies from 1973 and 1977. Nisbett writes that one problem is that white blood genes are very weakly, if at all, associated with one another, and therefore they may not be associated with white IQ genes.[19]"
According to Reed (1997,"The Genetic Hypothesis: It Was Not Tested but It Could Have Been"), an expert on blood groups, given the methodology used, these studies were unable to detect any difference.
To quote: "I wish to comment on “The genetic hypothesis” (p. 95; for the Black-White difference in psychometric intelligence) in the Neisser et al. (February 1996) article, particularly the reference to two studies that used blood groups to estimate the degree of African ancestry in American Blacks in relation to their IQ scores (they found no relation). I have experience in such admixture estimation (e.g., Reed, 1969, 1973) and, as mentioned in the target article (Reed & Jensen, 1992, 1993), in studying biological factors in intelligence. My 1969 article gave the fast estimate of the proportion of White ancestry in American Blacks (Pw) with a standard error, 0.220 ± 0.0093 (using the Duffy blood group gene Fy~), and because it was based on large samples (more than 3,000 each of Blacks and Whites), it remains the best single estimate for non-Southern American Blacks. I contend that, because of their methodology, the two studies cited above—Loehlin, Vandenberg, and Osborne (1973) and Scarr, Pakstis, Katz, and Barker (1977)–did not adequately test the possible association of cognitive ability with Pw” Consequently, their negative results provide no evidence against the genetic hypothesis. I suggest a method that, had it been used with data of the second study and if the genetic hypothesis is true, probably would have confirmed the genetic hypothesis. The methodologies of these two studies share a basic misconception–that all blood (and serum) groups are useful in estimating P. This is plainly false, as I (Reed, 1969) showed. The P estimate in this population, w using the A and B genes of the ABO blood groups, was 0.200 ± 0.044; the above esti- mate with Fy’ provides (.044)V(.0093) 2 = 22 times more information than this ABO estimate. If I had estimated Pw using the MN blood groups (both the Loehlin and Scarr groups used them), the standard error would have been even much larger than for ABO and would have been worthless (see below). The racial informativeness of a gene used to estimate P (measured by the reciprocal of the variance of Pw) is a function of its relative frequencies in the two ancestral populations, African and White. A genetic Locus I is perfectly informative (an “ideal locus”; MacLean et al., 1974; Reed, 1973) when it has two codominant alleles (genes; say I and 12), with one allele being homozygous (i.e., PI ]) in all individuals of one ancestral population and the other allele being homozygnus (I 2I 2) in all individuals of the other ancestral population. Thus, when testing an American Black, every allele at this ideal locus derived from a White ancestor is recognized as such. The Gm serum group locus (testing for nine factors) closely approximates such an ideal locus, but with multiple alleles; three are White alleles and four are sub-Saharan African alleles (Roychoudhury & Nei, 1988). The Fy ~ allele alone, with a frequency of about .43 in Whites and about 01 in Africans, is not ideal. When present in. an American Black person, we are reason- ably sure that it came from a White ancestor, but other White matings could have contributed an Fy b allele (frequency about .57 in Whites and about .01 in Africans) and so would not be recognized (when testing only for Fy~). But contrast this with the situation using the MN blood groups: In both Whites and Africans, the M and N alleles each have frequencies close to .50. This locus provides essentially no information on the ancestry of American Blacks! The consequences of using all blood and serum groups available, without regard to their great differences in racial informativeness, as the Loehlin (Loehlin et al., 1973) and Scarr (Scarr et al., 1977) teams did, are severe." —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.65.235.88 ( talk) 02:42, 14 February 2011 (UTC)
Under the "Degree of geographic ancestry" section you include the following:
"Rushton (2008) in a study of South African university students, found that the IQ of Coloured, a mixed-race group, was between that of blacks and whites."
Rushton (2008) was a racial hybrid study. It might be worth making a separate section on this as there were two additional such studies:
Rowe, 2002. IQ, birth weight, and number of sexual partners in White, African American, and mixed race adolescents. Willerman, 1974. Intellectual development of children from interracial matings: Performance in infancy and at 4 years
At very least, it might be informative to mention these studies. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.65.235.88 ( talk) 02:56, 14 February 2011 (UTC)
In this section, Flynn is references. Levitt and Fryer (2006), in "Testing for racial differences in the mental ability of young children," make a similar argument. They could also be noted.
Additionally, Rushton and Jensen are references: "Rushton and Jensen argue that the black-white IQ difference of one SD is present at the age of 3 and does not change significantly afterwards."
There are two (inconsistent) hereditarian replies: 1) the gap emerges by age 3 and does not change afterwards (Jensen and Rushton), and 2) the gap's increase with age is consistent with the hereditarian hypothesis as geneotypic differences express themselves with age (Murray, 2005). Murray makes the last point in the "The inequality taboo" (fully annotated version):
"32. The black-white difference emerges as early as IQ can be tested, but the gap is usually smaller in pre-adolescence. Among pre-schoolers, the gap can be just a few IQ points. Why does it increase with age? One obvious hypothesis is inferior schooling—e.g., Fryer and Levitt (2004). But black children attending excellent schools also fall behind their white counterparts, as discussed subsequently in the text and in note 14. The alternative explanation is that the heritability of IQ increases with age for people of all races, and this is reflected in black IQ scores in adolescence and adulthood. See Jensen (1998): 178." —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.65.235.88 ( talk) 03:33, 14 February 2011 (UTC)
I propose that Effort optimism be merged into Race and intelligence. One sentence article. Wikipedia:Wikipedia is not a dictionary. Miradre ( talk) 04:53, 15 February 2011 (UTC)
The section on heritability and group differences doesn't make sense.
You have:
And then you start talking about X-factors.
This is a fairly complex issue; let me try to outline it and then you can decide if it's worth making changes. ............................................................................................................................................
Lewontin and others have pointed out that one can not infer between population heritability from within population heritability; Jensen, however, argues that high within group heritability constrains environmental explanations for between group differences[1]. Flynn has summarized the argument thusly [2]:
Given the high within population heritability, Jensen maintains that environmentalists need to posit an implausible X-factor to explain group differences [4]. Given the accumulated evidence, Both Flynn and Nisbett, two leading environmentalists, now agree that X-factors are implausible [2] [3]. Nisbett, however, maintains that the heritability within the Black population is lower than Jensen's estimate and that high within group heritability only rules out major, single environmental causes of the gap; he argues that the gap can be explained by many small factors [4]. Hunt and Carlson agree, stating that "[i]t is quite possible that the present discrepancy in achievement is due to multiple small and subtle social effects, many of which may be due to cultural practices in the affected groups, such as attitudes toward education, indirect effects of health practices, and relative degrees of family solidarity." [4] Flynn, on the other hand, argues that the conventional understanding of heritability is incorrect; he maintains that the Flynn effect demonstrates this [5]. Flynn states that [2]:
Flynn's interpretation of heritability and intelligence has been challenged by Linda Gottfredson and others [6] [7] [8]
[1] Sesardic, 2000. Philosophy of Science that Ignores Science: Race, IQ and Heritability, Philosophy of Science [2] Flynn. 2010. The spectacles through which I see the race and IQ debate [3] Nisbett, 2010. Intelligence and How to Get It: Why Schools and Cultures Count. [4] Nielson, 2010. Intelligence of Culture. Contemporary sociology. [4] Hunt and Carlson, 2007. Research on group differences in intelligence is scientifically valid and socially important [5] Taylor, 2006. Heritability and Heterogeneity: The Irrelevance of Heritability in Explaining Differences between Means for Different Human Groups or Generations [6] Gottfredson, 2007. Shattering logic to explain the Flynn Effect. [7] Rowe, et al., 2001. Expanding variance and the case of historical changes in IQ means: A critique of Dickens and Flynn [8] Mingroni, 2007. Resolving the IQ paradox: Heterosis as a cause of the Flynn effect and other trends ....
Hope that helps. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.65.235.88 ( talk) 19:35, 15 February 2011 (UTC)
This section could use some editing. This is how I would put it: .......................................................................................................................................
"Jensen and Hans Eysenck reasoned that if average racial differences in IQ had a genetic basis, then the average IQs of black and whites would show regression towards their respective population means [2] [3]. Studies have confirmed that blacks and whites do regress towards their respective population means [1]. Jensen and Eysenck argued that this provides evidence for genetic based differences in IQ. This line of argument, however, has been criticized [2].
Nisbett (2009) agrees that blacks and whites do regress towards their population means, but he argues that this effect would also be expected if environmental factors depressed the average black IQ more than average white IQ.[19] Rushton and Jensen have replied that the results are seen for siblings who should have a very similar environment, that low scoring blacks regress upwards, and that, when looking at the magnitude of regression, the results are as predicted by a partial genetic hypothesis [20]. Rushton agrees that the differential regression could be explain environmentally, but he argues that such an explanation would be contrived [4]"
[1] Murray, 1999. The Secular Increase in IQ and Longitudinal Changes in the Magnitude of the Black-White Difference: Evidence from the NLSY [2] Mackenzie, 1984. Explaining Race Differences in IQ: The Logic, the Methodology, and the Evidence. [3] By Sohan Modgil, Celia Modgil, Hans Jürgen Eysenck, 1986. Hans Eysenck: consensus and controversy. page. 116 [4] Rushton, "Race differences in g and the "Jensen effect." In "The scientific study of general intelligence: tribute to Arthur R. Jensen" H. Nyborg (ed.). Pergamon, London, 2003 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.65.235.88 ( talk) 20:42, 15 February 2011 (UTC)
Some of the numbers are off in the section on "universal rearing conditions."
Ignore the previous comment on the Moore study.
In the Minnesota study, there was attrition. At age 7, there were 143 biological white, 25 adopted white, 68 adopted biracial, and 29 adopted black. At age 17 there were 104 biological white, 17 adopted white, 55 biracial, and 21 black.
In Eyferth there were 98 interracial and 83 white children. In Tizard et al. (1972)the numbers (and scores) vary depending on the assessment you are talking about (there were four different ones). Look up: Tizard, 1974. Race and IQ. The only statistically significant finding was on the Minnesota non-verbal test (White N=24, 101.3; BW N= 15, 109.8; Black N= 15, 105.7.) The highest Ns were in the Reynell's comprehension and Reynell's expression assessment, which are not IQ tests. Those N's were White = 39, BW =24, Black = 22. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.65.235.88 ( talk) 21:19, 15 February 2011 (UTC)
There is one hereditarian line of argument that you forgot: relative rates of dysgenic fertility. Shockely, Jensen, and others have made this. They argue that given a non-zero heritability and differential reproduction patterns a genotypic gap is inevitable; they then cite evidence showing that African-Americans have more dysgenic fertility than European Americans.
From: Jensen, 1998. Population Differences In Intelligence: Causal Hypotheses. In: The g Factor: The Science of Mental Ability
"Genetic Implications of IQ and Fertility for Black and White Women.
If IQ were more negatively correlated with fertility in one population than in another (for example, the American black and white populations), over two or more generations the difference between the two populations’ mean IQs would be expected to diverge increasingly in each successive generation. Since some part of the total IQ variance within each population is partly genetic (i.e., the heritability), the intergenerational divergence in population means would also have to be partly genetic. It could not be otherwise, unless one assumed that the mother-child correlation for IQ is entirely environmental (an assumption that has been conclusively ruled out by adoption studies). Therefore, in each successive generation, as long as there is a fairly consistent difference in the correlation between IQ and fertility for the black and white populations, some part of the increasing mean group difference in IQ is necessarily genetic. If fertility is negatively correlated with a desirable trait that has a genetic component, IQ for example, the trend is called dysgenic; if positively correlated, eugenic...
Is there any evidence for such a trend in the American black and white populations? There is, at least presently and during the last half of this century, since U.S. Census data relevant to this question have been available. A detailed study based on data from the U.S. Census Bureau and affiliated agencies was conducted by Daniel Vining, a demographer at the University of Pennsylvania. His analyses indicate that, if IQ is, to some degree heritable (which it is), then throughout most of this century (and particularly since about 1950) there has been an overall downward trend in the genotypic IQ of both the white and the black populations. The trend has been more unfavorable for the black population."
References
Jensen, 1998. The G-Factor Meisenberg, 2010. The reproduction of intelligence Shockely, 1972. Dysgenics, Geneticity, Raceology: A Chalenge to the Intelectual Responsibility of Educator Vining, 1982. On the possibility of the reemergence of a dysgenic trend with respect to intelligence in American fertility differentials —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.65.235.88 ( talk) 03:53, 22 February 2011 (UTC)
If you don't think it adds to the discussion don't add it.
"Others argue against expecting the Flynn Effect to narrow the US black-white IQ gap since they see that gap as mostly genetic in origin.[53]"
You might mention that Wicherts, Dolan, Hessen, et al. (2004) [1] found the the Flynn effect was qualitatively different from the US Black-White gap.
"This clearly contrasts with our current findings on the Flynn effect. It appears therefore that the nature of the Flynn effect is qualitatively different from the nature of B–W differences in the United States. Each comparison of groups should be investigated separately. IQ gaps between cohorts do not teach us anything about IQ gaps between contemporary groups, except that each IQ gap should not be confused with real (i.e., latent) differences in intelligence. Only after a proper analysis of measurement invariance of these IQ gaps is conducted can anything be concluded concerning true differences between groups."
Wicherts, Dolan, Hessen, et al. 2004. Are intelligence tests measurement invariant over time? Investigating the nature of the Flynn effect —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.65.235.88 ( talk) 04:18, 22 February 2011 (UTC)
"I never claimed that the Flynn Effect had causal relevance for the black/white IQ gap. I claimed that it had analytic relevance. Jensen had argued that environment (at least between groups both located in a modern Western society) was so feeble that an astronomical environmental difference had to be posited to explain a one SD IQ gap. The Dutch showed that the environmental difference in question was less than whatever environmental enhancement they had enjoyed over 30 years. The gap needed was dragged out of the stars down to earth." Miradre ( talk) 09:14, 23 February 2011 (UTC)
Hangul is not logographic, and Koreans have the highest national IQ. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.176.14.52 ( talk) 11:16, 20 February 2011 (UTC) Which kind of precludes writing system to intelligence causality. Also trans-national adoption does not affect IQ distribution. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.176.14.52 ( talk) 18:23, 20 February 2011 (UTC)
Also Vietnam and Japan dropped their logographic systems. In Vietnam it was done recently and the adoption is complete. In Japan the adoption is not complete and very long and gradual. There is a mixed logographic with syllabary system with continuously growing syllabary part usage. Also the Chinese themselves simplified their writing in mainland China. And the now trend is growing logographic illiteracy due to technology, so younger generation forget how to actually write the complicated characters by hand, since there are written from choose-and-pick input systems. I think these situations must have influence on intelligence. But is there any research on that ? pwjbbb ( talk) 10:57, 8 March 2011 (UTC)
I feel this should be removed now after much of the article being rewritten since I do not think the article currently has systematic POV problems. There may possible still be POV problems but then a more constructive approach would be to mark a specific section or sentence with POV tags and explain the reason. Miradre ( talk) 10:35, 23 February 2011 (UTC)
OK. 1. I don't like what you've done with the lead. It does not seem very biased but it doesn't adequately describe what the actual issue is and why it is contentious. And rather than a summary of the article it gives cherry picked bits of information. 2. The history section is now simply a chronological list of hereditarian publications, that are not put into historical context, it seems very lopsidedly focused on hereditarian publications and describe their viewpoints in more detail than the opposing side. It mentions the 52 signatories in favor of the hereditarian hypothesis, but none of the much larger mobilizations against it. It also fails to supply the relevant historical context of most of the events: The relation between IQ testing and the eugenics movement in the early 20th century. Jensens original paper was written in the context of the supreme court case regarding segregation in the school system, that is relevant for understanding the events. When it does provide historical context it does so in a tendentious fashion - e.g. noting that Stalin and Hitler were against IQ testing, but not mentioning that their eugenic policies were similar to the one's advocated by those who investigated the relation between IQ and race at that time. It also suggests that the environmental view became standard because of fear of repressalia rather than because of the overwhelming evidence in favor. The validity of race and IQ section make the fallacy of attributing widely held consensus views, such as the invalidity of race as a biological concept to a single proponent (not just Sternberg rejectes the validity of race - the entire profession of anthropologists do so). Such as misrepresentation is classic POV tool. By putting Rowe's and Hunt and Carlson's problematic statements before the critics it suggests that race is generally accepted as a valid biological category with only a few fringe critics - that is at best a gross oversimplification and at worst a complete falsification of the actual state of affairs. In all earnestness - the past two times that someone said that they wanted to remove the POV I have given detailed accounts of the POV issues - you do not seem to have taken them into account in your rewriting of the article at all. In fact I would say that the problems have become worse. ·Maunus·ƛ· 13:18, 24 February 2011 (UTC)
By the way, the statement that "Stalin banned intelligence testing as bourgeois", cited to Eysenck, is questionable. Eysenck was not an expert on Soviet social science. In fact the USSR had its own school of psychology, founded by Lev Vygotsky, who died before Stalin came to power. Vygotsky was highly critical of Cyril Burt's "psychology of individual difference". So intelligence testing was never really on the agenda in the USSR. Itsmejudith ( talk) 14:28, 24 February 2011 (UTC)
After some concrete and constructive criticism the article has been modified and improved. I feel that the concrete objections regarding POV has been answered. Are there anything more concrete that is problematic? Then please state it so the situation can be corrected. I will eventually remove the NPOV tag if no more concrete POV problems can be identified. Miradre ( talk) 16:48, 24 February 2011 (UTC)
So in sum, the NPOV tag should stay. aprock ( talk) 17:34, 24 February 2011 (UTC)
I will summarize what has been claimed to be POV in the past and why this does not apply currently:
I think that when concrete suggestions of what is not POV have been made, then the article has improved in response. If there are remaining concrete objections, then please state them. I will otherwise soon remove the tag. Miradre ( talk) 13:18, 28 February 2011 (UTC)
By all means see the extensive discussion above about some of the NPOV issues. aprock ( talk) 01:35, 5 March 2011 (UTC)
I cannot provide a citation that a majority of social scientists consider historical and political processes to be the cause of global inequality. And I shouldn't have to. Lynn and Vanhanen's view is so fringe that nobody in the field of global economics or development even take it into account. Books about global inequality and the north south divide do not mention lynn and vanhanen at all. We mention them here because they are related to the topic of the article, but we shouldn't try to fool the reader into thinking that this theory has any currency in the field of international development or political and economic history. ·Maunus·ƛ· 15:20, 1 March 2011 (UTC)
The APA report as well as the US census prefer the first alternative (see Race and ethnicity in the United States Census). In the literature it seems that hereditarians often prefer the first alternative while all-environmentalists often prefer the second alternative. Are there any WP guidelines? I do not feel strongly about either alternative but the article should be consistent. Miradre ( talk) 16:35, 2 March 2011 (UTC)
Because I am of limited time, I will attempt to go through the article section by section. Many of the problems I'm listing are WP:POV issues, but some of them are not. I will go over the lede today, but I make no claim that I have found all the issues.
As time permits, I will go over more sections. I will be happy to discuss any of the issues above as long the discussion continues to be productive. aprock ( talk) 01:17, 6 March 2011 (UTC)
So to summarize, generally very unclear and often unsourced claims. Be specific and give sources for claims. Miradre ( talk) 03:10, 6 March 2011 (UTC)
Here are some explanation of where the article is POV and some concrete suggestions on how to improve the article: The entire article is constructed in a way that gives undue weight to a particular viewpoint that is clearly in the minority. The proponents of that viepoint themselves acknowledge in all of their writings that they are in the minority - they even claim to be persecuted and denied access to publish because the majority opinion disfavours their view. The article makes it not only seem as if the issue of race and intelligence is mostly a question of answering the question of what causes the racial IQ gap, but it also very consistently privileges arguments for and against a hereditarian viewpoint, but does not explore at all the various mainstream explanations of the cause of the gap. Mainstream viewpoint is that the gap is caused by social and environmental factors. Jensen. Rushton and Lynn acknowledge that this is the mainstream viewpoint, they argue that the mainstream viewpoint is not supported by fact but is politically motivated. Even if this is the case it does not mean that it is not the majority viewpoint. The article should describe the topic with due weight to the majority viewpoint and it doesn't. The article can be improved by restructuring the article so that it describes the controversy not as a debate between equally weighted viewpoints but as a minority viewpoint that is arguing against a majority view. This includes including much better explanations of all of the studies that have documented correlations between social, cultural and economic factors and intelligence. It also includes providing a much better explanation of the reasoning behind the reluctance of a majority (the politically correct majority) to accept the arguments of the minority group - in order to explain this reasoning it is crucial to provide ample political and historical context - not simply a list of publications about the topic since 1960. ·Maunus·ƛ· 18:16, 6 March 2011 (UTC)
sociology and anthropology, but in psychology there is neither consensus nor mainstream opinion one way or the other. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.65.235.88 ( talk) 17:03, 9 March 2011 (UTC)
This section clearly has significant pov problems. The biggest problem is that section is not a proper summary of the main article, and does not follow WP:SUMMARY style. This has lead to an agrandizement of the hereditarian viewpoint, and a minimization of the mainstream viewpoint.
Probably the best way to handle this section is to reduce it's size using proper WP:SUMMARY style. As time permits, I will review more sections. aprock ( talk) 18:19, 9 March 2011 (UTC)
Science is not determined by political decisions.
And here communication officially breaks down. I don't even think there is a name for that logical fallacy you just commited, but I definitely can't continue discussion at this level. I'll be looking for the appropriate venue to get some community involvement in this issue. ·Maunus·ƛ· 21:25, 9 March 2011 (UTC)
Of these 2) is trivially false as is 3) when you think about it. My guess is that 1) is meant. Perhaps Maunus can inform us as to his interpretation. The interpretation in important since the hereditarian hypothesis says nothing about the collective abilities of peoples. Jensen (1973) makes this rather clear. The hereditarian hypothesis concerns itself strictly with between population ratios and says nothing about collective capacity; the two may be related but they may not be. I would suggest that the UNESCO position, as such, in no way conflicts with the hereditarian hypothesis. I could be wrong, but we would need more information than can be found in the paper to determine this. We will have to wait until Maunus locates that information.
So are there reasons for the tags? I would be glad to discuss any objections... Miradre ( talk) 12:54, 9 April 2011 (UTC)
"He also argues that phrasing the question in terms of heritability is useless since heritability applies only within groups, but cannot be used to compare traits across groups. Templeton argues that the only way to design a study of the genetic contrtibution to intelligence would be to study populations of hybrid individuals in a Mendelian "common garden" design, and he further argues that when this design has been carried out it has shown no significant correlation between any cognitive and the degree of African or European ancestry."
In short, there is nothing new in this section. His arguments are: 1. Race does not exist. Discussed in the "The validity of "race" and "IQ"" section. 2. Repeating Leowontin's argument. Discussed in the "Heritability within and between groups" section. 3. Ancient blood group studies. Discussed in the "Degree of geographic ancestry" section. In short, there is nothing here that is not already covered elsewhere so I see no need for this section. Miradre ( talk) 03:26, 9 April 2011 (UTC)
(This argument is important because it has been commonly employed by Hereditarians and critiqued by environmentalists . Jensen made it in 1973, 1982, 1998. Murray and Herrnstein made it in the Bell Curve. Sesardic made it on 2000 and 2005. Nelson points to it in 2010.)
Here is a balanced coherent rewrite of the argument: "Hereditarians have argued that the high within group heritability of IQ in conjunction with the magnitude of the gap makes it likely that the Black-White gap has a partial genetic basis [1]. James Flynn has outlined the argument [2]:
Originally, Jensen argued: (1) the heritability of IQ within whites and probably within blacks was 0.80 and between family factors accounted for only 0.12 of IQ variance — with only the latter relevant to group differences; (2) the square root of the percentage of variance explained gives the correlation between between-family environment and IQ, a correlation of about 0.33 (square root of 0.12=0.34); (3) if there is no genetic difference, blacks can be treated as a sample of the white population selected out by environmental inferiority; (4) enter regression to the mean — for blacks to be one SD below whites for IQ, they would have to be 3 Sds (3 ×.33 =1) below the white mean for quality of environment; (5) no sane person can believe that — it means the average black cognitive environment is below the bottom 0.2% of white environments; (6) evading this dilemma entails positing a fantastic “factor X”, something that blights the environment of every black to the same degree (and thus does not reduce within-black heritability estimates), while being totally absent among whites (thus having no effect onwithin-white heritability estimates).
This argument has been criticized for a number of reasons. Richard Nisbett has argued that the heritability of IQ is significantly less that .8 for both Blacks and Whites; he has also argued that the Black-White gap could be caused by numerous environmental effects which add up to explain the difference [3]. Dickens and Flynn have argued that the secular increase in IQ (i.e the Flynn effect) demonstrates that the conventional interpretation of heritability is flawed; they maintain that the conventional interpretation ignores the role of feedback between factors, such as those with a small initial IQ advantage, genetic or environmental, seeking out more stimulating environments which will gradually greatly increase their advantage, which, as one consequence in their alternative model, would mean that the "heritability" figure is only in part due to direct effects of genotype on IQ [2].
Hereditarians have replied in turn that the heritability of IQ peeks in adulthood and is consistently shown to be above .70 [5]; They also maintain that the Black-White difference represents a difference in general intelligence, while the Flynn effect does not; as such, they argue that the nature of the Flynn effect is different from that of the Black-White gap [5]. Additionally, Jensen has argued that a non-conventional interpretation of heritability (a la Flynn and Dickens)implies between group genetic differences [6].
[1] Sesardic, 2000. Philosophy of Science that Ignores Science: Race, IQ and Heritability [2] Flynn, 2010. The spectacles through which I see the race and IQ debate [3] Nielson, 2010. Intelligence of Culture. [4] Rushton and Jensen, 2010. The rise and fall of the Flynn Effect as a reason to expect a narrowing of the Black-White IQ gap [5] Rushton and Jensen, 2010. Race and IQ: A theory-based review of the research in Richard Nisbett's Intelligence and How to Get It [6] Jensen, 1973. Educatability and group differences.
As stated above there is nothing the "Race and genetics" section not covered elsewhere. So I think it should be removed. Any objections with explanations? Miradre ( talk) 12:23, 18 April 2011 (UTC)
The IQ Controversy, the Media, and Public Policy - the two sentences for this book do not support each other. The first says the author accused the press of liberal bias. The second reports on a survey they did (but does not describe how the survey was conducted). There is nothing that tells how the book was related to public policy, either. These ideas do not seem to be connected and the paragraph needs expansion to make the point, whatever it is. Parkwells ( talk) 17:52, 20 April 2011 (UTC)
"Both the American Psychological Association[dubious – discuss] and the American Anthropological Association have issued statements that there is little evidence of a connection between race and intelligence, and whatever small link might exist, is not genetic in nature"
African-American IQ scores have long averaged about 15 points below those of Whites, with correspondingly lower scores on academic achievement tests. In recent years the achievement-test gap has narrowed appreciably. It is possible that the IQ-score differential is narrowing as well, but this has not been clearly established. The cause of that differential is not known; it is apparently not due to any simple form of bias in the content or administration of the tests themselves. The Flynn effect shows that environmental factors can produce differences of at least this magnitude, but that effect is mysterious in its own right. Several culturally based explanations of the Black/ White IQ differential have been proposed; some are plausible, but so far none has been conclusively supported. There is even less empirical support for a genetic interpretation. In short, no adequate explanation of the differential between the IQ means of Blacks and Whites is presently available.
Better, but I think that the new version of the second paragraph in the lead is slightly misrepresenting the UNESCO statement. Here's that part of the UNESCO report:
According to present knowledge there is no proof that the groups of mankind differ in their innate mental characteristics, whether in respect of intelligence or temperament. The scientific evidence indicates that the range of mental capacities in all ethnic groups is much the same.
According to the paragraph in the article, the UNESCO report says that "there is no evidence for innate differences in mental capacity between races." Saying that there is no proof is not exactly the same as saying that there is no evidence, and I think the article should make it clearer what UNESCO actually says.
I'm also not sure this should go in the lead section. The lead is supposed to be summarizing the rest of the article, and this isn't summarizing any other part of the article. It's also somewhat redundant with the summary of the APA report in the last paragraph of the lead. Could this paragraph be moved to another section of the article? Boothello ( talk) 21:10, 22 April 2011 (UTC)
Physical, cultural and social environments influence the behavioral differences among individuals in society. Although heredity influences the behavioral variability of individuals within a given population, it does not affect the ability of any such population to function in a given social setting. The genetic capacity for intellectual development is one of the biological traits of our species essential for its survival. This genetic capacity is known to differ among individuals. The peoples of the world today appear to possess equal biological potential for assimilating any human culture. Racist political doctrines find no foundation in scientific knowledge concerning modern or past human populations.
In response to the publication of The Bell Curve, the American Psychological Association (APA) convened a task force of psychologists representing the prevalent attitudes, values, and practices of the psychology profession. Based on the work of this task force, the APA published a report, Intelligence: Knowns and Unknowns (Neisser et al., 1995). The report did not disagree with the data presented in The Bell Curve; however, it interpreted the data differently and concluded that although no one knows why the difference exists, there is no support for the notion that the 15-point IQ difference between Black and White Americans is due to genetics.
Following the publication of The Bell Curve, the American Psychological Assocation (APA), felt a need to form a task force to examine the state of knowledge on IQ. (Neisser et al., 1996). The final report from the task force noted several key findings including the consensus that IQ tests "... do in fact predict school achievement fairly well ... They also predict scores on school achievement tests, designed to measure knowledge of the curriculum" (Neisser et al., 1996, p.81). The report also acknowledges that there are differences in IQ by [racial] group (see pp. 92-95). However, after reviewing the empirical evidence, the task force concluded "[there is] no adequate explanation of the differential between the IQ means of Blacks and Whites" (p. 97).
Jensen’s position on racial IQ differences is largely endorsed by the American Psychological Association. A task force of 11 members of APA published a report called Intelligence: Knowns and Unknowns (1996). The authors agreed that differences in intelligence exist, can be measured fairly, are partly genetic, an influence life outcomes. These basic facts should not hide the reality that the left among psychologists disagreed strongly with Jensen and tried to demonize him.
Boothello, "consensus" cannot be held hostage by a couple intransigent editors and you can't remove sourced content based only on a IDON'TLIKEIT reason. In fact removing sourced content can be seen as disruptive. A particular misrepresentation of WP:CONSENSUS does NOT trump WP:NPOV and WP:V. So yes, I added the content. It is sourced. The only objections to it appear to be that a particular editor or two disagrees with what the source says - but the threshold for inclusion is "verifiability" (from reliable secondary sources) not "truth". In this case I think both are met but only WP:V is necessary. Volunteer Marek ( talk) 16:41, 23 April 2011 (UTC)
There's no reason for the article to repeat Paige and Witty's claim while ignoring Troost's claim - actually there is. Paige and Witty are a reliable secondary source. Troost is a self published vanity press unreliable source. Volunteer Marek ( talk) 06:22, 24 April 2011 (UTC)
This blanket revert of my edits [10]
Quite simply, that was a blind, blanket battleground edit - it doesn't even look like SightWatcher bothered to actually read the edits. He certainly did not give a reason for #s 2-5 and gave a specious and false reason for 1 ("I'm reverting you because one of my buddies reverted you". It's also false that there has been no discussion - did you bother actually looking at the talk page?).
SW, you've removed two pieces of sourced text. Both were inlined cited to reliable sources and are very pertinent to the topic of this article. I would appreciate it if you self reverted as there's just no justification for this kind of disruptive behavior. Volunteer Marek ( talk) 05:34, 23 April 2011 (UTC)
...and I most certainly don't see SightWatcher participating in discussion anywhere on this page. Volunteer Marek ( talk) 05:57, 23 April 2011 (UTC)
it's quite obvious that this article has been hijacked by single purpose accounts. the copious amount of unreliable sources. the undue weight given to fringe views, and miadre's hundred-edits-a-day makes it impossible for other wikipedians to check the massive pov-pushing that is going on. the article has degraded long enough. an administrative measure is needed.-- mustihussain ( talk) 09:14, 24 April 2011 (UTC)
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Possibly, but certainly not into those areas presented in the section "Debate overview". Either before or after adding "The validity of "Race" and "IQ"". As such this sentence should be removed. Miradre ( talk) 00:59, 28 January 2011 (UTC)
"Nichols (1987)[62] critically summarized the argument as follows: We do not know what causes the test score changes over time. We do not know what causes racial differences in intelligence. Since both causes are unknown, they must, therefore, be the same. Since the unknown cause of changes over time cannot be shown to be genetic, it must be environmental. Therefore, racial differences in intelligence are environmental in origin."
Summarized what argument? Never seen non-hereditarians use this flawed argument. Most likely the old quote is misleading due to lack of context. Looks like a straw man representation of the non-hereditarian side. Therefore I suggest it should be removed. Miradre ( talk) 15:58, 25 January 2011 (UTC)
I see it is a straw man argument. However, that is not a reason to remove it, because if we remove all the straw man arguments, there will be nothing left. This whole controversy is based on straw man arguments. Each side is so outraged at the other making large claims with no evidence that they'd claim the opposite (also without evidence) in revenge. Since neither side has any evidence, they resorts to criticizing the other side for their lack of evidence. So in this case, straw man arguments should STAY, as it is everything this controversy is about. If you don't like straw man arguments, don't take part of the controversy (not saying that you did). 173.183.79.81 ( talk) 01:24, 2 February 2011 (UTC)
Is largely unsourced. One supposed source is "Nisbett 2009". This is likely this, http://www.scribd.com/doc/29596219/Appendix-B-to-Intelligence-and-How-to-Get-It-by-Richard-Nisbett, in which case the content has little similarity to the source. Also undue weight for something with so low a correlation with IQ. As such this section should be grealy pruned and made to resemble a source. Miradre ( talk) 15:45, 29 January 2011 (UTC)
Now the text contains way too much uninteresting and irrelevant information about how RT works. Those interested can look that up in the main article about reaction time. It is not the purpose of this article to explain what MRI or reaction time is in great detail. As such as I think the following should be removed: "Reaction time (RT) is the elapsed time between the presentation of a sensory stimulus and the subsequent behavioral response by the participant. RT is often used in experimental psychology to measure the duration of mental operations, an area of research known as mental chronometry. In psychometric psychology, RT is considered to be an index of speed of processing. That is, RT indicates how fast the thinker can execute the mental operations needed by the task at hand. In turn, speed of processing is considered an index of processing efficiency. The behavioral response is typically a button press but can also be an eye movement, a vocal response, or some other observable behavior.[123] Scores on most types of RT tasks tend to correlate with standard IQ tests, but the exact amount of correlation varies a great deal and depends mostly on number of possible choices in the task: in general, the more choices, the higher the correlation. RT tasks also tend to correlate with g, and no relationship has been found between RT and any other psychometric factors independent of g. The correlation of both IQ and g to RT tends to be more pronounced for elementary cognitive tasks (ECTs) than other types of RT tasks. Like IQ, the correlation between g and RT varies depending on the type of task preformed." Miradre ( talk) 09:00, 1 February 2011 (UTC)
The ArbCom case on Race and intelligence is mentioned in a letter to The Economist. [1] -- WeijiBaikeBianji ( talk, how I edit) 01:34, 1 February 2011 (UTC)
The article has numerous problems of every kind but here I will focus on the overall structure.
1. The "History" and "Current debate" sections. Consists mainly of a long chronological list of the titles of various publications and by whom. Most likely completely uninteresting to almost everyone. The sections should be combined, the content greatly pruned, and most of the list moved to the "History of the race and intelligence controversy" article. Some other material like policy and research implications should be moved to the "Policy relevance" section.
2. The "Debate overview" and "Variables potentially affecting intelligence in groups" sections. Extremely unclear what the is supposed the the differences between these sections. Instead I propose two new logical sections: "Environmental factors potentially causing racial IQ differences" (with subsections such as nutrition, test bias, SES, and so on) and "Evidence against and for genetics causing racial IQ differences" (with subsections such as brain size, adoption, inbreeding depression, and so on). Miradre ( talk) 13:08, 1 February 2011 (UTC)
Let me just say that I think "presentation of the evidence" is very much a dangerous and difficult path to travel. The main problem with this is that evidence presented to the laymen tends to be like reading tea leaves or horoscopes. People see what that they want to see, and ignore the stuff they don't want to see. Taking this tack as the primary structure of the article exposes the problem multiple times. First, when editors try and sift through the mountain of data trying to determine which evidence is "good" and which is "bad", all the while presenting argument and counter-argument for the data. Second, such a presentation encourages readers to synethesize their own conclusions, with little regard to what the science says. Third, this leads to endless strife amongst maintainers who then have to tirelessly check and recheck all the edits that various POV pushers come in to "tweak" or "correct" the evidence. If there is one thing I think would improve the article while simultaneously make it more stable, that would be moving away from evidentiary exposition and more into summary of conclusions with the appropriate weighting. That's not to say there is no place for some explanation of specific evidence, but my guess is that most of that would be best handled in sub articles. aprock ( talk) 23:41, 3 February 2011 (UTC)
The figure of 5 or 6 is incorrect. This figure is a projection. Rushton and Jensen (The totality of available evidence shows race-IQ gap still remains 2006) point out that the actual figure is 3.44. In addition Rusthon and Jensen point out that Flynn and Dickens excluded several tests that all showed little to no decrease in the Black-White American IQ gap. Rushton and Jensen state that the actual figure, when including these excluded tests, is 2.1 and not 3.44 and again state that Flynn and Dickens use the projected score to exaggerate the trend line. (The rise and fall of the Flynn Effect as a reason to expect a narrowing of the Black-White IQ gap 2010)
Rushton and Jensen note, at the end of the 2006 article cited above, that the 3.44 figure is well within their own estimated h²/e² 80/20. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.170.43.133 ( talk) 02:38, 4 February 2011 (UTC)
The article IQ testing environmental variances has been proposed for deletion. The proposed-deletion notice added to the article should explain why.
While all contributions to Wikipedia are appreciated, content or articles may be deleted for any of several reasons.
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Victor Chmara (
talk)
15:43, 25 January 2011 (UTC)
Source | % Variance | Average IQ Difference | |
---|---|---|---|
Between races (within social classes) | 14 | 30 | 12 |
Between social classes (within races) | 8 | 6 | |
Interaction of race and social class | 8 | N/A | |
Between families (within race and social class) | 26 | 65 | 9 |
Within families (siblings) | 39 | 11 | |
Measurement error | 5 | 7 | |
Total | 100 | 17 |
Should be part of the test scores section because it demonstrates that racial differences are a small fraction of total IQ differences (i.e., there is more variance within than between races).This is commonly accepted, but numbers speak louder than words in making the point. -- Cant1lev3r ( talk) 00:17, 6 February 2011 (UTC)
The problem with using bell curves is that they tend to conflate model with reality. Actual intelligence scores are not distributed on a bell curve. Rather the actual distributions are well modeled by bell curves. aprock ( talk) 06:49, 6 February 2011 (UTC)
I just created this graph of WAIS-IV data:
What do you think?-- Victor Chmara ( talk) 16:08, 6 February 2011 (UTC)
I believe the image is essentially what Rageh Omaar drew by hand in his BBC special while making the same point. The use of normal curves to show how the means and variances measured reflect overlapping distributions is also in Jensen (1998). -- Cant1lev3r ( talk) 17:31, 7 February 2011 (UTC)
So, does someone want to add this to the article? I agree with Victor Chmara and Miradre that it would help illustrate how IQ scores are distributed, and that the scores of all racial groups overlap more than they differ. And if anyone really thinks that IQ scores being distributed on a bell curve is an unpublished idea, it's pretty easy to find a source for that. Boothello ( talk) 19:36, 9 February 2011 (UTC)
I'm not sure what you're asking here. If you have a specific question about policies, I suggest that you bring it up on the appropriate noticeboard. aprock ( talk) 21:44, 11 February 2011 (UTC)
The degree of ancestry section fails to note the specific Hereditarian reply on a few issues. Since Flynn, Nisbett, and others give much weight to these studies, it might be more balanced to note the specific criticisms. Each criticism can be abbreviated in one sentence.
1. Human skin color: "Nisbett writes that the correlation between US skin color and IQ are very weak, typically in the range of 0.1-0.15. The correlations between facial features rated as stereotypically African and IQ are similarly low in a 1966 study. Nibett argues that even if one ignores the possible advantages a whiter skin color may give this is inconsistent with a strong genetic influence"
Jensen discussed this issue in his 1974 work "Educatability and group differences (p. 222-223)." According to Jensen (1974), the skin color correlation could be .2 at maximum.
To quote: "The highest correlation that can be obtained between the two measures is the square root of the product of their reliabilities. So the highest correlation we could expect to find between IQ and skin color would be sqrt [(.16)(.25)]= .20. Any higher correlation than this would most probably be attributed to factors other than racial admixture, per se."
[Reliability is the square of the correlation between two factors; Jensen argued that the ancestry-skin correlation for African Americans is about .4 and that the maximum the ancestry-IQ correlation could be, assuming that the Hereditarian hypothesis is correct, is .5.]
2. Prodigiousness Black Children: "A study from 1934 and 1936 of black schoolchildren with high IQ examined their self-reported family history and found that they had slightly less European ancestry than the black average at that time.[19]"
According to Mackenzie (1984), in "Explaining race differences in IQ: The logic, the methodology, and the evidence," the study invalidly compared the sample group to an unrepresentative national sample.
To quote: "The Witty and Jenkins study. In their reviews of studies on race differences in IQ, Loehlin et al. (1975) and Flynn (1980) both placed considerable emphasis on a study of 63 black Chicago schoolchildren by Witty and Jenkins (1936). In fact, the study cannot support a heavy weight of interpretation, but it does have some uniquely relevant features in its design. Witty and Jenkins did not compare the IQs of blacks with different proportions of white ancestry. Instead, they focused on the distribution of ancestry in a selected high IQ sample of black students. Their rationale was that "the hypothesis that Negroes are inferior to whites in mental ability" should generate the prediction that "Negroes who make the very highest scores on mental tests should be those who come from admixtures predominantly white" (Witty & Jenkins, 1936, p. 180). They therefore estimated their subjects' racial admixture, on the basis of parent interviews, as N (all Negro), NNW (more Negro than white), NW (equally Negro and white), or NWW (more white than Negro) and compared the distribution of reported ancestry to that found in a national sample of adult blacks by Herskovits (1930). There were no significant differ1226 ences between the two distributions, and the small differences that existed were not in a consistent direction. They concluded that their findings provided fairly strong evidence against the "hypothesis of Negro inferiority" (p. 191). In fact, however, these findings do not provide such evidence, even if the genealogical estimates are taken at face value. For Witty and Jenkins's findings to have any value as evidence, it is essential that their comparison sample (Herskovits's national sample) be an appropriate one. An appropriate sample would be one that represented the population from which the children were drawn, that is, a comparison sample of black Chicago schoolchildren. This point is not mere nit-picking; in Reed's (1969) figures, blacks in Chicago have less white ancestry than the average for the black population in the U.S. If the same was true in 1936, then a Chicago sample matched to a national sample would have more white ancestry than the local average. More important, Herskovits's national sample cannot be considered representative. About 32% of his sample was composed of Howard University undergraduates, and another 16% was taken from the "well-to-do and professional portion of the population of the Harlem district of New York City" (Herskovits, 1930, p. 5). Thus, almost half of Herskovits's national sample was highly selected for scholastic achievement or SES.3 A genetic hypothesis for race differences in IQ is not embarrassed by the finding that such a sample had a similar distribution of ancestry to a smaller sample that was highly selected for IQ. A genetic hypothesis is not actually supported by this finding, because it remains an open question whether the national sample itself had more white ancestry than the average for the black population. It is clear, however, that as it stands, the Witty and Jenkins study yields no interpretable results."
3. Blood group studies: "The frequency of different blood types vary with race. Correlations between degree of European blood types and IQ have varied between 0.05 and -0.38 in two studies from 1973 and 1977. Nisbett writes that one problem is that white blood genes are very weakly, if at all, associated with one another, and therefore they may not be associated with white IQ genes.[19]"
According to Reed (1997,"The Genetic Hypothesis: It Was Not Tested but It Could Have Been"), an expert on blood groups, given the methodology used, these studies were unable to detect any difference.
To quote: "I wish to comment on “The genetic hypothesis” (p. 95; for the Black-White difference in psychometric intelligence) in the Neisser et al. (February 1996) article, particularly the reference to two studies that used blood groups to estimate the degree of African ancestry in American Blacks in relation to their IQ scores (they found no relation). I have experience in such admixture estimation (e.g., Reed, 1969, 1973) and, as mentioned in the target article (Reed & Jensen, 1992, 1993), in studying biological factors in intelligence. My 1969 article gave the fast estimate of the proportion of White ancestry in American Blacks (Pw) with a standard error, 0.220 ± 0.0093 (using the Duffy blood group gene Fy~), and because it was based on large samples (more than 3,000 each of Blacks and Whites), it remains the best single estimate for non-Southern American Blacks. I contend that, because of their methodology, the two studies cited above—Loehlin, Vandenberg, and Osborne (1973) and Scarr, Pakstis, Katz, and Barker (1977)–did not adequately test the possible association of cognitive ability with Pw” Consequently, their negative results provide no evidence against the genetic hypothesis. I suggest a method that, had it been used with data of the second study and if the genetic hypothesis is true, probably would have confirmed the genetic hypothesis. The methodologies of these two studies share a basic misconception–that all blood (and serum) groups are useful in estimating P. This is plainly false, as I (Reed, 1969) showed. The P estimate in this population, w using the A and B genes of the ABO blood groups, was 0.200 ± 0.044; the above esti- mate with Fy’ provides (.044)V(.0093) 2 = 22 times more information than this ABO estimate. If I had estimated Pw using the MN blood groups (both the Loehlin and Scarr groups used them), the standard error would have been even much larger than for ABO and would have been worthless (see below). The racial informativeness of a gene used to estimate P (measured by the reciprocal of the variance of Pw) is a function of its relative frequencies in the two ancestral populations, African and White. A genetic Locus I is perfectly informative (an “ideal locus”; MacLean et al., 1974; Reed, 1973) when it has two codominant alleles (genes; say I and 12), with one allele being homozygous (i.e., PI ]) in all individuals of one ancestral population and the other allele being homozygnus (I 2I 2) in all individuals of the other ancestral population. Thus, when testing an American Black, every allele at this ideal locus derived from a White ancestor is recognized as such. The Gm serum group locus (testing for nine factors) closely approximates such an ideal locus, but with multiple alleles; three are White alleles and four are sub-Saharan African alleles (Roychoudhury & Nei, 1988). The Fy ~ allele alone, with a frequency of about .43 in Whites and about 01 in Africans, is not ideal. When present in. an American Black person, we are reason- ably sure that it came from a White ancestor, but other White matings could have contributed an Fy b allele (frequency about .57 in Whites and about .01 in Africans) and so would not be recognized (when testing only for Fy~). But contrast this with the situation using the MN blood groups: In both Whites and Africans, the M and N alleles each have frequencies close to .50. This locus provides essentially no information on the ancestry of American Blacks! The consequences of using all blood and serum groups available, without regard to their great differences in racial informativeness, as the Loehlin (Loehlin et al., 1973) and Scarr (Scarr et al., 1977) teams did, are severe." —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.65.235.88 ( talk) 02:42, 14 February 2011 (UTC)
Under the "Degree of geographic ancestry" section you include the following:
"Rushton (2008) in a study of South African university students, found that the IQ of Coloured, a mixed-race group, was between that of blacks and whites."
Rushton (2008) was a racial hybrid study. It might be worth making a separate section on this as there were two additional such studies:
Rowe, 2002. IQ, birth weight, and number of sexual partners in White, African American, and mixed race adolescents. Willerman, 1974. Intellectual development of children from interracial matings: Performance in infancy and at 4 years
At very least, it might be informative to mention these studies. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.65.235.88 ( talk) 02:56, 14 February 2011 (UTC)
In this section, Flynn is references. Levitt and Fryer (2006), in "Testing for racial differences in the mental ability of young children," make a similar argument. They could also be noted.
Additionally, Rushton and Jensen are references: "Rushton and Jensen argue that the black-white IQ difference of one SD is present at the age of 3 and does not change significantly afterwards."
There are two (inconsistent) hereditarian replies: 1) the gap emerges by age 3 and does not change afterwards (Jensen and Rushton), and 2) the gap's increase with age is consistent with the hereditarian hypothesis as geneotypic differences express themselves with age (Murray, 2005). Murray makes the last point in the "The inequality taboo" (fully annotated version):
"32. The black-white difference emerges as early as IQ can be tested, but the gap is usually smaller in pre-adolescence. Among pre-schoolers, the gap can be just a few IQ points. Why does it increase with age? One obvious hypothesis is inferior schooling—e.g., Fryer and Levitt (2004). But black children attending excellent schools also fall behind their white counterparts, as discussed subsequently in the text and in note 14. The alternative explanation is that the heritability of IQ increases with age for people of all races, and this is reflected in black IQ scores in adolescence and adulthood. See Jensen (1998): 178." —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.65.235.88 ( talk) 03:33, 14 February 2011 (UTC)
I propose that Effort optimism be merged into Race and intelligence. One sentence article. Wikipedia:Wikipedia is not a dictionary. Miradre ( talk) 04:53, 15 February 2011 (UTC)
The section on heritability and group differences doesn't make sense.
You have:
And then you start talking about X-factors.
This is a fairly complex issue; let me try to outline it and then you can decide if it's worth making changes. ............................................................................................................................................
Lewontin and others have pointed out that one can not infer between population heritability from within population heritability; Jensen, however, argues that high within group heritability constrains environmental explanations for between group differences[1]. Flynn has summarized the argument thusly [2]:
Given the high within population heritability, Jensen maintains that environmentalists need to posit an implausible X-factor to explain group differences [4]. Given the accumulated evidence, Both Flynn and Nisbett, two leading environmentalists, now agree that X-factors are implausible [2] [3]. Nisbett, however, maintains that the heritability within the Black population is lower than Jensen's estimate and that high within group heritability only rules out major, single environmental causes of the gap; he argues that the gap can be explained by many small factors [4]. Hunt and Carlson agree, stating that "[i]t is quite possible that the present discrepancy in achievement is due to multiple small and subtle social effects, many of which may be due to cultural practices in the affected groups, such as attitudes toward education, indirect effects of health practices, and relative degrees of family solidarity." [4] Flynn, on the other hand, argues that the conventional understanding of heritability is incorrect; he maintains that the Flynn effect demonstrates this [5]. Flynn states that [2]:
Flynn's interpretation of heritability and intelligence has been challenged by Linda Gottfredson and others [6] [7] [8]
[1] Sesardic, 2000. Philosophy of Science that Ignores Science: Race, IQ and Heritability, Philosophy of Science [2] Flynn. 2010. The spectacles through which I see the race and IQ debate [3] Nisbett, 2010. Intelligence and How to Get It: Why Schools and Cultures Count. [4] Nielson, 2010. Intelligence of Culture. Contemporary sociology. [4] Hunt and Carlson, 2007. Research on group differences in intelligence is scientifically valid and socially important [5] Taylor, 2006. Heritability and Heterogeneity: The Irrelevance of Heritability in Explaining Differences between Means for Different Human Groups or Generations [6] Gottfredson, 2007. Shattering logic to explain the Flynn Effect. [7] Rowe, et al., 2001. Expanding variance and the case of historical changes in IQ means: A critique of Dickens and Flynn [8] Mingroni, 2007. Resolving the IQ paradox: Heterosis as a cause of the Flynn effect and other trends ....
Hope that helps. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.65.235.88 ( talk) 19:35, 15 February 2011 (UTC)
This section could use some editing. This is how I would put it: .......................................................................................................................................
"Jensen and Hans Eysenck reasoned that if average racial differences in IQ had a genetic basis, then the average IQs of black and whites would show regression towards their respective population means [2] [3]. Studies have confirmed that blacks and whites do regress towards their respective population means [1]. Jensen and Eysenck argued that this provides evidence for genetic based differences in IQ. This line of argument, however, has been criticized [2].
Nisbett (2009) agrees that blacks and whites do regress towards their population means, but he argues that this effect would also be expected if environmental factors depressed the average black IQ more than average white IQ.[19] Rushton and Jensen have replied that the results are seen for siblings who should have a very similar environment, that low scoring blacks regress upwards, and that, when looking at the magnitude of regression, the results are as predicted by a partial genetic hypothesis [20]. Rushton agrees that the differential regression could be explain environmentally, but he argues that such an explanation would be contrived [4]"
[1] Murray, 1999. The Secular Increase in IQ and Longitudinal Changes in the Magnitude of the Black-White Difference: Evidence from the NLSY [2] Mackenzie, 1984. Explaining Race Differences in IQ: The Logic, the Methodology, and the Evidence. [3] By Sohan Modgil, Celia Modgil, Hans Jürgen Eysenck, 1986. Hans Eysenck: consensus and controversy. page. 116 [4] Rushton, "Race differences in g and the "Jensen effect." In "The scientific study of general intelligence: tribute to Arthur R. Jensen" H. Nyborg (ed.). Pergamon, London, 2003 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.65.235.88 ( talk) 20:42, 15 February 2011 (UTC)
Some of the numbers are off in the section on "universal rearing conditions."
Ignore the previous comment on the Moore study.
In the Minnesota study, there was attrition. At age 7, there were 143 biological white, 25 adopted white, 68 adopted biracial, and 29 adopted black. At age 17 there were 104 biological white, 17 adopted white, 55 biracial, and 21 black.
In Eyferth there were 98 interracial and 83 white children. In Tizard et al. (1972)the numbers (and scores) vary depending on the assessment you are talking about (there were four different ones). Look up: Tizard, 1974. Race and IQ. The only statistically significant finding was on the Minnesota non-verbal test (White N=24, 101.3; BW N= 15, 109.8; Black N= 15, 105.7.) The highest Ns were in the Reynell's comprehension and Reynell's expression assessment, which are not IQ tests. Those N's were White = 39, BW =24, Black = 22. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.65.235.88 ( talk) 21:19, 15 February 2011 (UTC)
There is one hereditarian line of argument that you forgot: relative rates of dysgenic fertility. Shockely, Jensen, and others have made this. They argue that given a non-zero heritability and differential reproduction patterns a genotypic gap is inevitable; they then cite evidence showing that African-Americans have more dysgenic fertility than European Americans.
From: Jensen, 1998. Population Differences In Intelligence: Causal Hypotheses. In: The g Factor: The Science of Mental Ability
"Genetic Implications of IQ and Fertility for Black and White Women.
If IQ were more negatively correlated with fertility in one population than in another (for example, the American black and white populations), over two or more generations the difference between the two populations’ mean IQs would be expected to diverge increasingly in each successive generation. Since some part of the total IQ variance within each population is partly genetic (i.e., the heritability), the intergenerational divergence in population means would also have to be partly genetic. It could not be otherwise, unless one assumed that the mother-child correlation for IQ is entirely environmental (an assumption that has been conclusively ruled out by adoption studies). Therefore, in each successive generation, as long as there is a fairly consistent difference in the correlation between IQ and fertility for the black and white populations, some part of the increasing mean group difference in IQ is necessarily genetic. If fertility is negatively correlated with a desirable trait that has a genetic component, IQ for example, the trend is called dysgenic; if positively correlated, eugenic...
Is there any evidence for such a trend in the American black and white populations? There is, at least presently and during the last half of this century, since U.S. Census data relevant to this question have been available. A detailed study based on data from the U.S. Census Bureau and affiliated agencies was conducted by Daniel Vining, a demographer at the University of Pennsylvania. His analyses indicate that, if IQ is, to some degree heritable (which it is), then throughout most of this century (and particularly since about 1950) there has been an overall downward trend in the genotypic IQ of both the white and the black populations. The trend has been more unfavorable for the black population."
References
Jensen, 1998. The G-Factor Meisenberg, 2010. The reproduction of intelligence Shockely, 1972. Dysgenics, Geneticity, Raceology: A Chalenge to the Intelectual Responsibility of Educator Vining, 1982. On the possibility of the reemergence of a dysgenic trend with respect to intelligence in American fertility differentials —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.65.235.88 ( talk) 03:53, 22 February 2011 (UTC)
If you don't think it adds to the discussion don't add it.
"Others argue against expecting the Flynn Effect to narrow the US black-white IQ gap since they see that gap as mostly genetic in origin.[53]"
You might mention that Wicherts, Dolan, Hessen, et al. (2004) [1] found the the Flynn effect was qualitatively different from the US Black-White gap.
"This clearly contrasts with our current findings on the Flynn effect. It appears therefore that the nature of the Flynn effect is qualitatively different from the nature of B–W differences in the United States. Each comparison of groups should be investigated separately. IQ gaps between cohorts do not teach us anything about IQ gaps between contemporary groups, except that each IQ gap should not be confused with real (i.e., latent) differences in intelligence. Only after a proper analysis of measurement invariance of these IQ gaps is conducted can anything be concluded concerning true differences between groups."
Wicherts, Dolan, Hessen, et al. 2004. Are intelligence tests measurement invariant over time? Investigating the nature of the Flynn effect —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.65.235.88 ( talk) 04:18, 22 February 2011 (UTC)
"I never claimed that the Flynn Effect had causal relevance for the black/white IQ gap. I claimed that it had analytic relevance. Jensen had argued that environment (at least between groups both located in a modern Western society) was so feeble that an astronomical environmental difference had to be posited to explain a one SD IQ gap. The Dutch showed that the environmental difference in question was less than whatever environmental enhancement they had enjoyed over 30 years. The gap needed was dragged out of the stars down to earth." Miradre ( talk) 09:14, 23 February 2011 (UTC)
Hangul is not logographic, and Koreans have the highest national IQ. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.176.14.52 ( talk) 11:16, 20 February 2011 (UTC) Which kind of precludes writing system to intelligence causality. Also trans-national adoption does not affect IQ distribution. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.176.14.52 ( talk) 18:23, 20 February 2011 (UTC)
Also Vietnam and Japan dropped their logographic systems. In Vietnam it was done recently and the adoption is complete. In Japan the adoption is not complete and very long and gradual. There is a mixed logographic with syllabary system with continuously growing syllabary part usage. Also the Chinese themselves simplified their writing in mainland China. And the now trend is growing logographic illiteracy due to technology, so younger generation forget how to actually write the complicated characters by hand, since there are written from choose-and-pick input systems. I think these situations must have influence on intelligence. But is there any research on that ? pwjbbb ( talk) 10:57, 8 March 2011 (UTC)
I feel this should be removed now after much of the article being rewritten since I do not think the article currently has systematic POV problems. There may possible still be POV problems but then a more constructive approach would be to mark a specific section or sentence with POV tags and explain the reason. Miradre ( talk) 10:35, 23 February 2011 (UTC)
OK. 1. I don't like what you've done with the lead. It does not seem very biased but it doesn't adequately describe what the actual issue is and why it is contentious. And rather than a summary of the article it gives cherry picked bits of information. 2. The history section is now simply a chronological list of hereditarian publications, that are not put into historical context, it seems very lopsidedly focused on hereditarian publications and describe their viewpoints in more detail than the opposing side. It mentions the 52 signatories in favor of the hereditarian hypothesis, but none of the much larger mobilizations against it. It also fails to supply the relevant historical context of most of the events: The relation between IQ testing and the eugenics movement in the early 20th century. Jensens original paper was written in the context of the supreme court case regarding segregation in the school system, that is relevant for understanding the events. When it does provide historical context it does so in a tendentious fashion - e.g. noting that Stalin and Hitler were against IQ testing, but not mentioning that their eugenic policies were similar to the one's advocated by those who investigated the relation between IQ and race at that time. It also suggests that the environmental view became standard because of fear of repressalia rather than because of the overwhelming evidence in favor. The validity of race and IQ section make the fallacy of attributing widely held consensus views, such as the invalidity of race as a biological concept to a single proponent (not just Sternberg rejectes the validity of race - the entire profession of anthropologists do so). Such as misrepresentation is classic POV tool. By putting Rowe's and Hunt and Carlson's problematic statements before the critics it suggests that race is generally accepted as a valid biological category with only a few fringe critics - that is at best a gross oversimplification and at worst a complete falsification of the actual state of affairs. In all earnestness - the past two times that someone said that they wanted to remove the POV I have given detailed accounts of the POV issues - you do not seem to have taken them into account in your rewriting of the article at all. In fact I would say that the problems have become worse. ·Maunus·ƛ· 13:18, 24 February 2011 (UTC)
By the way, the statement that "Stalin banned intelligence testing as bourgeois", cited to Eysenck, is questionable. Eysenck was not an expert on Soviet social science. In fact the USSR had its own school of psychology, founded by Lev Vygotsky, who died before Stalin came to power. Vygotsky was highly critical of Cyril Burt's "psychology of individual difference". So intelligence testing was never really on the agenda in the USSR. Itsmejudith ( talk) 14:28, 24 February 2011 (UTC)
After some concrete and constructive criticism the article has been modified and improved. I feel that the concrete objections regarding POV has been answered. Are there anything more concrete that is problematic? Then please state it so the situation can be corrected. I will eventually remove the NPOV tag if no more concrete POV problems can be identified. Miradre ( talk) 16:48, 24 February 2011 (UTC)
So in sum, the NPOV tag should stay. aprock ( talk) 17:34, 24 February 2011 (UTC)
I will summarize what has been claimed to be POV in the past and why this does not apply currently:
I think that when concrete suggestions of what is not POV have been made, then the article has improved in response. If there are remaining concrete objections, then please state them. I will otherwise soon remove the tag. Miradre ( talk) 13:18, 28 February 2011 (UTC)
By all means see the extensive discussion above about some of the NPOV issues. aprock ( talk) 01:35, 5 March 2011 (UTC)
I cannot provide a citation that a majority of social scientists consider historical and political processes to be the cause of global inequality. And I shouldn't have to. Lynn and Vanhanen's view is so fringe that nobody in the field of global economics or development even take it into account. Books about global inequality and the north south divide do not mention lynn and vanhanen at all. We mention them here because they are related to the topic of the article, but we shouldn't try to fool the reader into thinking that this theory has any currency in the field of international development or political and economic history. ·Maunus·ƛ· 15:20, 1 March 2011 (UTC)
The APA report as well as the US census prefer the first alternative (see Race and ethnicity in the United States Census). In the literature it seems that hereditarians often prefer the first alternative while all-environmentalists often prefer the second alternative. Are there any WP guidelines? I do not feel strongly about either alternative but the article should be consistent. Miradre ( talk) 16:35, 2 March 2011 (UTC)
Because I am of limited time, I will attempt to go through the article section by section. Many of the problems I'm listing are WP:POV issues, but some of them are not. I will go over the lede today, but I make no claim that I have found all the issues.
As time permits, I will go over more sections. I will be happy to discuss any of the issues above as long the discussion continues to be productive. aprock ( talk) 01:17, 6 March 2011 (UTC)
So to summarize, generally very unclear and often unsourced claims. Be specific and give sources for claims. Miradre ( talk) 03:10, 6 March 2011 (UTC)
Here are some explanation of where the article is POV and some concrete suggestions on how to improve the article: The entire article is constructed in a way that gives undue weight to a particular viewpoint that is clearly in the minority. The proponents of that viepoint themselves acknowledge in all of their writings that they are in the minority - they even claim to be persecuted and denied access to publish because the majority opinion disfavours their view. The article makes it not only seem as if the issue of race and intelligence is mostly a question of answering the question of what causes the racial IQ gap, but it also very consistently privileges arguments for and against a hereditarian viewpoint, but does not explore at all the various mainstream explanations of the cause of the gap. Mainstream viewpoint is that the gap is caused by social and environmental factors. Jensen. Rushton and Lynn acknowledge that this is the mainstream viewpoint, they argue that the mainstream viewpoint is not supported by fact but is politically motivated. Even if this is the case it does not mean that it is not the majority viewpoint. The article should describe the topic with due weight to the majority viewpoint and it doesn't. The article can be improved by restructuring the article so that it describes the controversy not as a debate between equally weighted viewpoints but as a minority viewpoint that is arguing against a majority view. This includes including much better explanations of all of the studies that have documented correlations between social, cultural and economic factors and intelligence. It also includes providing a much better explanation of the reasoning behind the reluctance of a majority (the politically correct majority) to accept the arguments of the minority group - in order to explain this reasoning it is crucial to provide ample political and historical context - not simply a list of publications about the topic since 1960. ·Maunus·ƛ· 18:16, 6 March 2011 (UTC)
sociology and anthropology, but in psychology there is neither consensus nor mainstream opinion one way or the other. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.65.235.88 ( talk) 17:03, 9 March 2011 (UTC)
This section clearly has significant pov problems. The biggest problem is that section is not a proper summary of the main article, and does not follow WP:SUMMARY style. This has lead to an agrandizement of the hereditarian viewpoint, and a minimization of the mainstream viewpoint.
Probably the best way to handle this section is to reduce it's size using proper WP:SUMMARY style. As time permits, I will review more sections. aprock ( talk) 18:19, 9 March 2011 (UTC)
Science is not determined by political decisions.
And here communication officially breaks down. I don't even think there is a name for that logical fallacy you just commited, but I definitely can't continue discussion at this level. I'll be looking for the appropriate venue to get some community involvement in this issue. ·Maunus·ƛ· 21:25, 9 March 2011 (UTC)
Of these 2) is trivially false as is 3) when you think about it. My guess is that 1) is meant. Perhaps Maunus can inform us as to his interpretation. The interpretation in important since the hereditarian hypothesis says nothing about the collective abilities of peoples. Jensen (1973) makes this rather clear. The hereditarian hypothesis concerns itself strictly with between population ratios and says nothing about collective capacity; the two may be related but they may not be. I would suggest that the UNESCO position, as such, in no way conflicts with the hereditarian hypothesis. I could be wrong, but we would need more information than can be found in the paper to determine this. We will have to wait until Maunus locates that information.
So are there reasons for the tags? I would be glad to discuss any objections... Miradre ( talk) 12:54, 9 April 2011 (UTC)
"He also argues that phrasing the question in terms of heritability is useless since heritability applies only within groups, but cannot be used to compare traits across groups. Templeton argues that the only way to design a study of the genetic contrtibution to intelligence would be to study populations of hybrid individuals in a Mendelian "common garden" design, and he further argues that when this design has been carried out it has shown no significant correlation between any cognitive and the degree of African or European ancestry."
In short, there is nothing new in this section. His arguments are: 1. Race does not exist. Discussed in the "The validity of "race" and "IQ"" section. 2. Repeating Leowontin's argument. Discussed in the "Heritability within and between groups" section. 3. Ancient blood group studies. Discussed in the "Degree of geographic ancestry" section. In short, there is nothing here that is not already covered elsewhere so I see no need for this section. Miradre ( talk) 03:26, 9 April 2011 (UTC)
(This argument is important because it has been commonly employed by Hereditarians and critiqued by environmentalists . Jensen made it in 1973, 1982, 1998. Murray and Herrnstein made it in the Bell Curve. Sesardic made it on 2000 and 2005. Nelson points to it in 2010.)
Here is a balanced coherent rewrite of the argument: "Hereditarians have argued that the high within group heritability of IQ in conjunction with the magnitude of the gap makes it likely that the Black-White gap has a partial genetic basis [1]. James Flynn has outlined the argument [2]:
Originally, Jensen argued: (1) the heritability of IQ within whites and probably within blacks was 0.80 and between family factors accounted for only 0.12 of IQ variance — with only the latter relevant to group differences; (2) the square root of the percentage of variance explained gives the correlation between between-family environment and IQ, a correlation of about 0.33 (square root of 0.12=0.34); (3) if there is no genetic difference, blacks can be treated as a sample of the white population selected out by environmental inferiority; (4) enter regression to the mean — for blacks to be one SD below whites for IQ, they would have to be 3 Sds (3 ×.33 =1) below the white mean for quality of environment; (5) no sane person can believe that — it means the average black cognitive environment is below the bottom 0.2% of white environments; (6) evading this dilemma entails positing a fantastic “factor X”, something that blights the environment of every black to the same degree (and thus does not reduce within-black heritability estimates), while being totally absent among whites (thus having no effect onwithin-white heritability estimates).
This argument has been criticized for a number of reasons. Richard Nisbett has argued that the heritability of IQ is significantly less that .8 for both Blacks and Whites; he has also argued that the Black-White gap could be caused by numerous environmental effects which add up to explain the difference [3]. Dickens and Flynn have argued that the secular increase in IQ (i.e the Flynn effect) demonstrates that the conventional interpretation of heritability is flawed; they maintain that the conventional interpretation ignores the role of feedback between factors, such as those with a small initial IQ advantage, genetic or environmental, seeking out more stimulating environments which will gradually greatly increase their advantage, which, as one consequence in their alternative model, would mean that the "heritability" figure is only in part due to direct effects of genotype on IQ [2].
Hereditarians have replied in turn that the heritability of IQ peeks in adulthood and is consistently shown to be above .70 [5]; They also maintain that the Black-White difference represents a difference in general intelligence, while the Flynn effect does not; as such, they argue that the nature of the Flynn effect is different from that of the Black-White gap [5]. Additionally, Jensen has argued that a non-conventional interpretation of heritability (a la Flynn and Dickens)implies between group genetic differences [6].
[1] Sesardic, 2000. Philosophy of Science that Ignores Science: Race, IQ and Heritability [2] Flynn, 2010. The spectacles through which I see the race and IQ debate [3] Nielson, 2010. Intelligence of Culture. [4] Rushton and Jensen, 2010. The rise and fall of the Flynn Effect as a reason to expect a narrowing of the Black-White IQ gap [5] Rushton and Jensen, 2010. Race and IQ: A theory-based review of the research in Richard Nisbett's Intelligence and How to Get It [6] Jensen, 1973. Educatability and group differences.
As stated above there is nothing the "Race and genetics" section not covered elsewhere. So I think it should be removed. Any objections with explanations? Miradre ( talk) 12:23, 18 April 2011 (UTC)
The IQ Controversy, the Media, and Public Policy - the two sentences for this book do not support each other. The first says the author accused the press of liberal bias. The second reports on a survey they did (but does not describe how the survey was conducted). There is nothing that tells how the book was related to public policy, either. These ideas do not seem to be connected and the paragraph needs expansion to make the point, whatever it is. Parkwells ( talk) 17:52, 20 April 2011 (UTC)
"Both the American Psychological Association[dubious – discuss] and the American Anthropological Association have issued statements that there is little evidence of a connection between race and intelligence, and whatever small link might exist, is not genetic in nature"
African-American IQ scores have long averaged about 15 points below those of Whites, with correspondingly lower scores on academic achievement tests. In recent years the achievement-test gap has narrowed appreciably. It is possible that the IQ-score differential is narrowing as well, but this has not been clearly established. The cause of that differential is not known; it is apparently not due to any simple form of bias in the content or administration of the tests themselves. The Flynn effect shows that environmental factors can produce differences of at least this magnitude, but that effect is mysterious in its own right. Several culturally based explanations of the Black/ White IQ differential have been proposed; some are plausible, but so far none has been conclusively supported. There is even less empirical support for a genetic interpretation. In short, no adequate explanation of the differential between the IQ means of Blacks and Whites is presently available.
Better, but I think that the new version of the second paragraph in the lead is slightly misrepresenting the UNESCO statement. Here's that part of the UNESCO report:
According to present knowledge there is no proof that the groups of mankind differ in their innate mental characteristics, whether in respect of intelligence or temperament. The scientific evidence indicates that the range of mental capacities in all ethnic groups is much the same.
According to the paragraph in the article, the UNESCO report says that "there is no evidence for innate differences in mental capacity between races." Saying that there is no proof is not exactly the same as saying that there is no evidence, and I think the article should make it clearer what UNESCO actually says.
I'm also not sure this should go in the lead section. The lead is supposed to be summarizing the rest of the article, and this isn't summarizing any other part of the article. It's also somewhat redundant with the summary of the APA report in the last paragraph of the lead. Could this paragraph be moved to another section of the article? Boothello ( talk) 21:10, 22 April 2011 (UTC)
Physical, cultural and social environments influence the behavioral differences among individuals in society. Although heredity influences the behavioral variability of individuals within a given population, it does not affect the ability of any such population to function in a given social setting. The genetic capacity for intellectual development is one of the biological traits of our species essential for its survival. This genetic capacity is known to differ among individuals. The peoples of the world today appear to possess equal biological potential for assimilating any human culture. Racist political doctrines find no foundation in scientific knowledge concerning modern or past human populations.
In response to the publication of The Bell Curve, the American Psychological Association (APA) convened a task force of psychologists representing the prevalent attitudes, values, and practices of the psychology profession. Based on the work of this task force, the APA published a report, Intelligence: Knowns and Unknowns (Neisser et al., 1995). The report did not disagree with the data presented in The Bell Curve; however, it interpreted the data differently and concluded that although no one knows why the difference exists, there is no support for the notion that the 15-point IQ difference between Black and White Americans is due to genetics.
Following the publication of The Bell Curve, the American Psychological Assocation (APA), felt a need to form a task force to examine the state of knowledge on IQ. (Neisser et al., 1996). The final report from the task force noted several key findings including the consensus that IQ tests "... do in fact predict school achievement fairly well ... They also predict scores on school achievement tests, designed to measure knowledge of the curriculum" (Neisser et al., 1996, p.81). The report also acknowledges that there are differences in IQ by [racial] group (see pp. 92-95). However, after reviewing the empirical evidence, the task force concluded "[there is] no adequate explanation of the differential between the IQ means of Blacks and Whites" (p. 97).
Jensen’s position on racial IQ differences is largely endorsed by the American Psychological Association. A task force of 11 members of APA published a report called Intelligence: Knowns and Unknowns (1996). The authors agreed that differences in intelligence exist, can be measured fairly, are partly genetic, an influence life outcomes. These basic facts should not hide the reality that the left among psychologists disagreed strongly with Jensen and tried to demonize him.
Boothello, "consensus" cannot be held hostage by a couple intransigent editors and you can't remove sourced content based only on a IDON'TLIKEIT reason. In fact removing sourced content can be seen as disruptive. A particular misrepresentation of WP:CONSENSUS does NOT trump WP:NPOV and WP:V. So yes, I added the content. It is sourced. The only objections to it appear to be that a particular editor or two disagrees with what the source says - but the threshold for inclusion is "verifiability" (from reliable secondary sources) not "truth". In this case I think both are met but only WP:V is necessary. Volunteer Marek ( talk) 16:41, 23 April 2011 (UTC)
There's no reason for the article to repeat Paige and Witty's claim while ignoring Troost's claim - actually there is. Paige and Witty are a reliable secondary source. Troost is a self published vanity press unreliable source. Volunteer Marek ( talk) 06:22, 24 April 2011 (UTC)
This blanket revert of my edits [10]
Quite simply, that was a blind, blanket battleground edit - it doesn't even look like SightWatcher bothered to actually read the edits. He certainly did not give a reason for #s 2-5 and gave a specious and false reason for 1 ("I'm reverting you because one of my buddies reverted you". It's also false that there has been no discussion - did you bother actually looking at the talk page?).
SW, you've removed two pieces of sourced text. Both were inlined cited to reliable sources and are very pertinent to the topic of this article. I would appreciate it if you self reverted as there's just no justification for this kind of disruptive behavior. Volunteer Marek ( talk) 05:34, 23 April 2011 (UTC)
...and I most certainly don't see SightWatcher participating in discussion anywhere on this page. Volunteer Marek ( talk) 05:57, 23 April 2011 (UTC)
it's quite obvious that this article has been hijacked by single purpose accounts. the copious amount of unreliable sources. the undue weight given to fringe views, and miadre's hundred-edits-a-day makes it impossible for other wikipedians to check the massive pov-pushing that is going on. the article has degraded long enough. an administrative measure is needed.-- mustihussain ( talk) 09:14, 24 April 2011 (UTC)