![]() | This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 1 | ← | Archive 3 | Archive 4 | Archive 5 | Archive 6 | Archive 7 | Archive 8 |
Concerns have been raised about 'cherry picking' sources (particularly data-centric sources) to promote a particular ideology. Let's address that in this section. Wapondaponda, can you lay out the problem, please?
The subject of race and intelligence isn't part of the mainstream academic curriculum. Much of the data on the RI controversy has been published by just a few authors, chiefly Jensen, Rushton and a few other recipients of Pioneer Fund grants. Their publications are in the minority position in this controversy. A data-centric article would be heavily reliant on data from Jensen and Rushton and as a result, a data-centric article will give undue weight to the minority position.
The issue of a data-centric article has arisen because a data-centric model is believed to have introduced some stability to the race and crime articles. However race and crime is a different subject, and what may have worked in race and crime is not necessarily applicable to race and intelligence. Crime statistics in the US are published by government agencies. The statistics are hard facts that are quite uncontroversial. OTOH IQ test score data and its analysis lie at the heart of this controversy. AFAIK, the US government doesn't have much of an official race/IQ policy, but they do have policies directed towards the achievement gap. Race/IQ data is primarily of interest to a few academicians. In short race/IQ data doesn't have mainstream credibility or authority like crime data. I believe it is not yet possible to separate the race/IQ data from the controversy because the data is the controversy.
For example, Richard Lynn and others have published data that suggests that Sub-Saharan Africans have an average IQ of 70. An IQ of 70 in the US implies borderline mental retardation. This data suggests that half of all Africans are mentally retarded, a suggestion that some find preposterous and one that even perplexes racial hereditarians. See also Talk:Race and intelligence/Archive 74. I don't believe that it is appropriate to present IQ data with little or no context, criticism or analysis. Wapondaponda ( talk) 14:30, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
I would like to respond to Muntuwandi's comments point by point:
To summarize: After reviewing Muntuwandi's comments, I do not see at present any reason why we should not apply the proposed sectioning-off of the data and the interpretations to the article. -- Aryaman (talk) 17:24, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
I was about to re-rebut but since it is likely to lead to a protracted argument, I will avoid doing so and instead briefly summarize my concerns. Whenever I have done some research on this topic, whether online or in a library, I have had difficulties in finding information on the subject that isn't in some way based on, or related to, the studies of Jensen and Rushton. This has been my experience, it may be different for others. If someone wanted data on the subject of RI, I would suggest The Bell Curve or Jensen's magnum opus, The g Factor. Both these books are filled with data( means, medians, correlations, variances SDs etc). Yet these books are highly controversial and the theories in these books have not gained mainstream acceptance. OTOH, if someone wanted data on crime statistics, they can easily be obtained from The Bureau of Justice Statistics. There isn't much controversy regarding the actual data, rather the controversies exist about public policy on crime. AFAIK, there isn't an equivalent government website that has race/IQ stats in such detail. Data may exist for SAT scores, and SAT may have a "g" component but this isn't explicit IQ data. To address Ludwig's concern about data, my impression is that a data-centric article will have data that is similar to the data found in publications such as The Bell Curve and The g Factor. This is my main concern about a data-centric article, that it will directly or indirectly give undue weight to hereditarian theories as suggested by Jensen and others. Wapondaponda ( talk) 00:42, 7 February 2010 (UTC)
I would like to point out that it's impossible to have a data-centric article about race and intelligence as you can not measure intelligence, partly because you can't even define it. The data measures tests scores on IQ tests and other tests. That does not measure intelligence, but how good you are at taking these kinds of tests. A data centric article would have to be renamed "Race and IQ". The problems with the lack of data and the minority centric view would then be relevant, but for Race and Intelligence it's not relevant as there simply is no data whatsoever. -- OpenFuture ( talk) 09:05, 6 March 2010 (UTC)
discussion about whether it be useful/acceptable to choose one editor to revise the article broadly, with other editors restricting themselves to talk page contributions. Naturally, all editors would have the opportunity to reject the final result, but the hope would be that a single editor (acting without interference and in good faith) might be able to create a version acceptable to all parties.
I think this is a good idea if DJ would be the person writing the article. Virtually all of his/her contributions to the article have been neutral and beneficial, and very few users here have expressed any problems with them. Based on the way he handled the Race and Crime article, I think Varoon Arya could also do a good job writing this, but I think DJ would be the best choice. --
Captain Occam (
talk)
02:48, 7 February 2010 (UTC)
I don't think it's a good idea. I don't trust people who say there's no such thing as biological race to write an unbiased article about whether it's related to intelligence. Nor could I write a decent article explaining that Dr. King isn't really negro and that believing he is just someone's opinion. It's not literally impossible, but it's like expecting creationists to write the article about evolution. Each section should be written by someone who believes what he's writing about belongs in Wikipedia, reviewed by the rest of us, and then defended here like a dissertation. Also:
Tucking away some extended content, because this runs off topic for this section. I think it belongs in the #social vs. genetic section, maybe? |
---|
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it. |
"...And therefore it's not true." The fact that some people find it preposterous only means that the common use of the word "retarded" is inaccurate and cruel, and that people don't have to be drooling mongoloids in order to have an IQ of 70.
To say that self-reported race is different from biological race one must believe either:
1) That there is no correlation between self-reported race and (trivial) physical features such as dark skin and wide noses, or
2) That differences in these physical features are not due to differences in DNA.
Including this fringe idea in Wikipedia at all is improper, but I'm willing to compromise and let it be one short section, modulo it include a statement that most experts DO believe that there are three (main) races of humans, that the contrary assertion appears only or almost only in R/I debates, and that other fields of science have no problem with the concept of biological race. However I'm willing to forgo including those statements in the name of consensus, so we can get this article completed and I can go back to learning stuff instead of defending the publication of that which is already known.
Finally, I think I ought to say that per request of the new moderator, I'm trying hard not to say things that are "objectionable". Sadly, I guess I should have expected it from an anti-heriditarian moderator, but:
1) It's the implications of legitimate research which some people find objectionable.
2) Politeness is something autistics can barely even detect, much less generate. If this post makes some people pissed off (or however you say it politely), I apologize because that's not my motivation for spending over an hour writing it and I really don't want to get banned from another online forum.
TechnoFaye Kane
08:13, 7 February 2010 (UTC)
|
I think DJ or VA singlehandedly putting together a first version is fine (if they are happy with this). I guess someone will have to think up a structure plan at some point, before writing the article. It would do no harm to put that up for comment while work progresses. mikemikev ( talk) 16:02, 7 February 2010 (UTC)
I expect that Varoon Arya would be a good editor to do a rewrite of the article. He seems to have the ability and the energy, and seems generally receptive to alternate viewpoints. That said, I think this only works if he works well with a reliable set of editors (I would suggest Alun or Slrubenstein as primary editor). As I said above, the editors probably should not edit the article directly themselves. Of course, it may be that the final version of the article isn't acceptable, and we still find ourselves spinning our wheels. A.Prock 05:57, 9 February 2010 (UTC)
Ok, I think we have hammered out most of the points that we can for the moment. I suggest that we adopt this 'single editor' approach and get a version of the article created. then we can examine the result and see if any new concerns raise themselves. I'll add an FAQ of the current resolveds here in this section in a bit.
DJ and Varoon Arya seem to have consensus for making a draft - does one of you want to accept the task? -- Ludwigs2 19:02, 26 February 2010 (UTC)
Cap'n Occ - as far as I'm concerned, if there is an editor who disagrees sufficiently to make a point of it, there is no consensus. there may have been a consensus before, and that might be a good place to start to refine a new consensus, but no one is honor-bound to conform to a previous agreement against their will.
With respect to the data-driven model: there were some contentions over that idea that were based on worries that a data-driven model - actually, a replication of the model used on race and intelligence - would unfairly privilege some perspectives over others (I believe the phrase used was 'cherry-picking data that supported particular POVs', from Wapondaponda) and that trying to solve the problem by defining the structure would be ineffective (from AProck). I think there was a lot of support for the idea, but not unanimous agreement. rather than deciding the issue now as a finality, I might suggest that we start by using a data-centric model, just to get the ball rolling, but leave our options open if it looks like it's leading the article astray. I'm open to other suggestions, of course - what do you all think? -- Ludwigs2 08:54, 27 February 2010 (UTC)
I would suggest that anyone willing to make major changes can create a temporary draft in a subfolder for the talk page of R/I and can use the Template:Workpage. Participants can review and if there is a consensus the changes can be implemented. If rejected the draft should be deleted. If a draft is of better quality than previous versions, then it doesn't matter whether it is datacentric or not. When we signed on to this mediation, the agreement was that during the process, no edits, except if there is a consensus, would be made to the article. I believe that most of us have refrained from editing the article during this mediation, but nonetheless the article may have evolved somewhat during the mediation. This mediation should include the "do nothing option", which in this case refers to the stable version that existed prior to the dispute. Apart from the "hereditarian arguments", the only other major problem with the pre-dispute version was that the article was too long. Wapondaponda ( talk) 10:53, 27 February 2010 (UTC)
Sorry I've been absent lately, but recent developments in RL are eating up all of my spare time - and then some. Even if we had an agreement on the 'one editor' proposal and folks could handle me doing it, I simply don't have the time the job requires, and won't for several months.
At this point - and taking the climate of this mediation into consideration - my earnest suggestion to Ludwigs is to begin by mercilessly stubbing the article down to the section currently labeled "Overview". That is the only section which has near-universal editorial consensus behind it, which is entirely on-topic and which is as non-POV as we can hope to get right now.
Of course, such a stub would need to be expanded. But every new piece of information added to the article would need to be written up as a proposal, discussed and tweaked/voted on as a group before being added. And, I think the only way to do this is for Ludwigs to act as the buffer between the editors and the article every step of the way. It's ridiculous, but it seems the situation requires it. -- Aryaman (talk) 13:46, 27 February 2010 (UTC)
I think one editor is the only workable plan. Of course they would have to be as neutral as possible. IMHO: TechnoFaye and I are too hereditarian (although I accept the environmental possibility, not sure if Faye does); Alun, Wapondaponda, Aprock and Slrubenstein are too environmentalist; Occam, Aryaman, David Kane, Ludwig and DJ are roughly neutral. I would be happy with any of the neutral editors. Is Ludwig compromised as an option? mikemikev ( talk) 10:35, 1 March 2010 (UTC)
I do not know that I have ever asserted any claim about either the hereditarian or environmentalist positions, specifically. I think Aryaman and Muntuwandi seem equally neutral. Slrubenstein | Talk 14:10, 1 March 2010 (UTC) [1] mikemikev ( talk) 18:53, 1 March 2010 (UTC)
ok, so let me see if I understand the current idea: David.Kane will be the one revising the article, with input from Brian Pesta as a technical adviser? It is assumed that (a) David will do his best to write from NPOV, and (b) that he will pay attention to comments and considerations that other mediation-bound editors have made here and will make on the article talk page. I'll help Brian out with the wikipedia fine points as needed, and I'll moderate the talk page discussion. I also think we should do this first revision quickly - david, do you think you can dedicate a couple of days to just buckle down and edit? The longer we draws out the editing process, the more chance there is that outside editors will show up and start making other changes, and the more chance there is that we'll get bogged down in nit-picky details. Think of this first draft as shaping the forest- we can get to pruning the trees after it's done. {{ tick}} or {{ cross}} your support/problems. -- Ludwigs2 17:52, 5 March 2010 (UTC)
At Ludwig’s suggestion, I’ve gone ahead with my proposal now. Something I’d like everyone to keep in mind about this is that I came up with almost none of this myself. Since the data-centric approach was DJ’s idea, and the current assumption (which may change, but it’s what’s been discussed so far) is that DJ will be writing the final version of the article, the structure I’ve come up with is based almost entirely on the proposals that DJ has made already.
Most of the structure is based on the article structure that DJ came up with in December, during the time when the article briefly existed under the name Between-group differences in IQ, and which existed under the article’s current name until Ramdrake reverted it back two months on January 22nd. The new items I’ve added are the ones that DJ proposed in his opening statement, which is where he originally suggested the idea of the article using a data-centric approach.
The only thing I’ve added here that was my own idea, rather than DJ’s, is the idea of dividing the data between “factors potentially affecting group IQ” and “data and interpretations”. I think this is a natural division for it to have: the first category is factors which have been proposed to account for the IQ difference, and the question is whether they do or not; in other words hypotheses about this that have been proposed and then are tested. The “data and interpretations” section is for information that goes in the opposite direction: starting with specific lines of data, and then proposing explanations for them.
There are some items where I’m not completely sure which section they belong in, particularly “evolutionary scenarios.” According to DJ’s opening statement (which he posted in November), this was discussed in the January issue of PAID, and I’m assuming he meant the January 2009 issue because at that point the January 2010 issue hadn’t been published yet. I’ve looked through the January 2009 issue, though, and can’t easily tell what it is that he was referring to there. So depending on what this is, it’s possible that it’s something which belongs in the “factors potentially affecting group IQ” section.
I think it would be useful if DJ could give us his input about this, especially since some of us are hoping that he’ll be the one to eventually write the article. He hasn’t been active on Wikipedia in around two weeks; does anyone know how to get in contact with him? -- Captain Occam ( talk) 07:29, 9 February 2010 (UTC)
It seems that we should specifically have sections early in the article which address the most contentious topics that we've seen in moderation. Specifically, a discussion of sociological race versus genetic race, and a discussion of exactly what the mainstream consensus is at this point in time. A.Prock 17:20, 9 February 2010 (UTC)
A suggestion. let's make specific requests for change using {{ Question-icon}} as follows:
then, if there are no objections raised we can edit the change in. this should separate specific requests from the surrounding commentary. I trust that we can let anyone edit the list for now; if there's anything contentious, ask Captain Occam or myself to edit in.
I'll leave a note for DJ telling him his attention is requested. -- Ludwigs2 19:15, 9 February 2010 (UTC)
mikemikev ( talk) 15:31, 10 February 2010 (UTC)
Reviewing the outline, it is currently far skewed toward the hereditarian hypothesis. A.Prock 15:57, 6 March 2010 (UTC)
Sorry for being MIA. I'm afraid that will continue for some time. Let me reiterate what I originally meant by a data-centric approach. First, what it is not -- It is in contrast to an explanation-centric approach. The point of a data-centric approach is not to alter the scope of the article or the level of detail given. It is not an invitation to conduct original research or synthesis -- the point is still to explain what the relevant published views are. This isn't a major departure from standard practice and policy. Second, what I meant -- Primarily the idea is that the subheadings of the relevant section of the article should be kinds of data/experiments (e.g. admixture studies, Flynn effect). The results of these studies should be presented in whatever details is appropriate -- less is better I would think. The major interpretations of the data should be given -- attributed as appropriate. All relevant views about how to interpret the data should be given in the same subsection. The state of the science being what it is, there is always going to be at least two notable opinions about how to interpret a study. Third, why this is useful -- The goal is to provide an organizational structure that is more easily made compliant with NPOV. An explanation-centric approach would be worse... if the major opinion in the field is that no one knows what causes IQ differences then there's no reason to try to write an article that is structured around contrasting extreme poles of opinion about what the cause really is. The data-centric approach will make the source of the uncertainty clearer. It should also be most sustainable because there will be less temptation to add one more detail pro or con a particular interpretation if the organization isn't structured around explanations themselves. -- DJ ( talk) 02:49, 8 March 2010 (UTC)
This is my suggestion for the basic structure of the article
These sections are what I believe are the core issues in this controversy. To make the article easier to read, I suggest that like material should be placed together when possible. The current proposal has genetic and environmental arguments sprinkled all over the article. Maybe it would be better if genetic arguments were concentrated in one section and the same for environmental arguments. This would help us to address the how much weight to allocate each hypothesis.
At present, I do not have much time for editing, but I am available to give opinions on any proposed content. Wapondaponda ( talk) 05:39, 8 March 2010 (UTC)
I've gone ahead and modified the outline to try to capture the discussion that's going on here - I think the two points of view are integrable. everything above the dividing line is the revised outline; material below the line is old points that should be integrated into the above portion (or discarded).
hopefully I didn't screw things up worse with this. comments? -- Ludwigs2 07:32, 10 March 2010 (UTC)
I had some time so I sat down and put together a rough outline of the article as I envision it. If I were writing it, this is what I would start with and see where it goes from there. I've intentionally omitted the lead, as I like to write that last. Here's the outline with a brief description of what each section should cover.
-- Aryaman (talk) 13:06, 10 March 2010 (UTC)
off-topic |
---|
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it. |
|
Occam: The section you linked to is a good one, and I would put it in the same place as it appears there, i.e. prior to the Policy Implications. As for time: I have some, but I don't want to waste it on bickering with people here. ;)
Slrubenstein: My starting point for that assumption is the Snyderman & Rothman study, in which both the 100% genetic and the 100% environmental positions were clearly minority views. Add to that the conclusions of the Mainstream article and the APA report, and I think it's pretty clear that neither of those views are dominant. As I've said several times, I think the mainstream view is agnosticism.
Regarding your being "uncomfortable": Hereditarianism (ca. 50% environment and 50% genes) and the genetic hypothesis (100% genes) are simply not the same thing. Environmentalism is the belief that all of the differences in IQ between races can be explained by recourse to differences in environmental factors alone. Most if not all experts would agree without hesitation that environmental factors play a large role here. But how many are willing to stick their necks out and say categorically that genes play no role at all? Knowing what we do about the development of intelligence in individuals, i.e. that both the environment and genes are important, assuming that this is not the case simply because we're comparing people of different races runs contrary to common sense and would require some exceptionally good evidence. (This is the basis of the so-called "default hypothesis".) On the other hand, while hereditarianism fits well with what we know about the development of intelligence in individuals, it can't be proven (yet). And that leads us to agnosticism pending further research - the least offensive and most defensible position.
Muntuwandi: As I said to Occam, I did not eliminate the "History of the controversy" material, I just moved it to the intro of the hypotheses section. As for your objection regarding the title "Group differences in intelligence" as being "POV": I have a hard time taking this seriously. Your objection amounts to saying "The article title Nativity of Christ is POV because there are individuals who deny the existence of a historical Jesus". As for the rest, I concur with Mike.
Ludwigs: See my comments to Slrubenstein above. Environmentalism denies any genetic contribution to between-group differences in IQ. Hereditarianism grants some genetic contribution, with the proportion of environment/genetics being variable. The 100% genetic hypothesis denies any environmental contribution. "Environmental" factors are generally broken down into "social" factors (e.g. SES) and "biological" factors (e.g. lead poisoning). Of course, some environmental factors can be "heritable", which is why research is conducted to isolate and control for such factors. -- Aryaman (talk) 16:02, 11 March 2010 (UTC)
A couple of notes about VA's outline.
Finally, I'll clarify the positions since everyone seems to be messing them up. It's not "Environmentalism denies any genetic contribution to between-group differences in IQ.". Environmentalism is the position that environmental factors dominate the variation in inter racial IQ scores. Likewise, it should be pointed out that the Hereditarianism position is not 50%/50% genetics and environment. Rather, it is the position that the genetic component is large enough to effect the aggregate intelligence of races significantly. A.Prock 18:09, 11 March 2010 (UTC)
Aprock: You wrote "The history section has to be somewhere". I'm assuming you've read my responses to Occam and Muntuwandi, so I don't get your point here. Are you saying you object to having this material as an introduction to the Hypotheses section? Also, the official statements make little sense until the reader has been sufficiently prepared for them. We can summarize the thrust of these statements in the lead, though, and I'd like to think that would satisfy the "get the right version out there first" impulse. Besides, the APA report was published 15 years ago, so calling it "current" would be stretching things a little. I'm sorry that the difference between studies on factors potentially affecting group IQ scores and the pseudo-philosophical attitudes people take towards the issue of causation is not sufficiently clear to you. Perhaps you could list some of the studies you think should not be discussed and we can evaluate them as a group? As for defining environmentalism and hereditarianism, we can quote Jensen & Rushton:
It is essential to keep in mind precisely what the two rival positions do and do not say—about a 50% genetic–50% environmental etiology for the hereditarian view versus an effectively 0% genetic–100% environmental etiology for the culture-only theory. The defining difference is whether any significant part of the mean Black–White IQ difference is genetic rather than purely cultural or environmental in origin. Hereditarians use the methods of quantitative genetics, and they can and do seek to identify the environmental components of observed group differences. Culture-only theorists are skeptical that genetic factors play any independently effective role in explaining group differences. Most of those who have taken a strong position in the scientific debate about race and IQ have done so as either hereditarians or culture-only theorists. Intermediate positions (e.g., gene– environment interaction) can be operationally assigned to one or the other of the two positions depending on whether they predict any significant heritable component to the average group difference in IQ. For example, if gene–environment interactions make it impossible to disentangle causality and apportion variance, for pragmatic purposes that view is indistinguishable from the 100% culture-only program because it denies any potency to the genetic component proposed by hereditarians. (pg. 238)
Slrubenstein: No, I don't understand your point. Please refer to the quote from Jensen & Rushton above, and ask whether your beef is with me or with the experts. -- Aryaman (talk) 13:09, 12 March 2010 (UTC)
Comparison of outlines | |
---|---|
Wapondaponda's outline | Aryaman's outline |
|
|
I've put the two suggested outlines next to each other for comparison here - Aryman's is more detailed, of course, (Wapondaponda - maybe you want to flesh yours out), but let's compare them. If we can agree on which sections we all agree must be there, then I can get David Kane to start working on those while we debate the sections that are still debatable. -- Ludwigs2 22:17, 11 March 2010 (UTC)
Occam: I reorganized the list of factors under the "Variables" heading with short explanations of what would go where. Several of the others should probably be discussed in other sections, as you note above. As I said before, it may make sense to briefly list the methods used in these studies in the introduction to the section along with important theoretical and manipulatory concepts. As for "Evolutionary models", my reading of Jensen & Rushton leads me to suspect that this may be presented by its proponents as an alternative to "canonical" hereditarianism and/or environmentalism. I'm not familiar enough with this aspect to say for sure, and would appreciate more information. -- Aryaman (talk) 19:30, 12 March 2010 (UTC)
Spearman's hypothesis: I would be inclined to put this in the "History" section, though I could also see this going in the introduction to "Group differences in intelligence". This is something we could discuss as a group.
Structural equation modelling and regression analysis: As long as we're talking about methods of data manipulation, I'd discuss these in the introductory paragraphs to the "Variables" section. If we're talking about specific results which arise as a result of, say, applying regression analysis to sibling data, then we would need to look at the specific research to find a better fit.
The wording of the "Hypotheses" section obviously was not working, so I've gone ahead and modified it, changing the title and sub-titles to something I think takes your concerns into account, as well as those of Slrubenstein. Let me know what you think.
The articles you've listed definitely need to be obtained before we can make a decision on the "evolutionary models". Do we know if DJ has access to them? One possibility, though, is that, provided we go with the new title, we could write a sub-section on this at a later point in time. -- Aryaman (talk) 13:04, 13 March 2010 (UTC)
Ignoring the minor details, it seems that Occam, Mike and I agree that this outline is slowly shaping up to be good enough to use as a framework for our first serious revision. Slrubenstein has commented on it favourably without voicing explicit approval. The others have not commented (yet). I really hope someone isn't avoiding commenting now with the intention of chiming in when it comes time to take action with the blanket "I-don't-like-it-so-let's-reject-it" vote. Now is the best time to voice concerns and make suggestions for changes. Case in point: Slrubenstein voiced his concern with the word "hypotheses", I agreed this was probably not the best choice, and it has been changed - hopefully to our mutual approval. I'm not expecting everyone to comment here, but I'd like to hear from Aprock and David in particular as to whether they could live with using this for our first draft. Thanks, -- Aryaman (talk) 16:57, 13 March 2010 (UTC)
notes on VA's outline:
A.Prock ( talk) 16:25, 15 March 2010 (UTC)
You are misrepresenting me. I said no such thing. Please respond to what I did write, but do not misrepresent what I wrote. Slrubenstein | Talk 11:08, 18 March 2010 (UTC)
No it is not a line of data both sides discuss consistently, it is a line of argumentation that one side gives one page in a sixty page article to. Moreover, regression to the mean is not data, it is a statistical phenomenon. Slrubenstein | Talk 11:08, 18 March 2010 (UTC)
I certainly agree with that summary. If you don't, then maybe we should revisit the issue? I still don't see how one page in a review, and a mention in an apendix constitutes a significant body of research. I don't see your drawing a line in the sand as very useful. I think it's much better to be flexible and open to compromise. As I said above, I'm willing to look at the original articles, or any other primary articles which mention this line of evidence. A.Prock ( talk) 18:27, 17 March 2010 (UTC)Research into race and intelligence is not "fringe", some of the conclusions drawn from that research are highly contentious and need to be presented as such in the article.
Thak you for representing me accurately. This is precisely what I said, and I stand by it. Slrubenstein | Talk 11:08, 18 March 2010 (UTC)
We are seeking mediation to come up with ONE outline for the article. In the end there is no "my outline" versus "your outline," there is just the outline we will use. And if you do not understand what regression to the mean is, then I advise you to listen to people who do, in devising the outline we will use for this article. Slrubenstein | Talk 11:08, 18 March 2010 (UTC)
Occam, A.Prock - you are talking past each other in unproductive ways. I suggest you stop making assumptions about what the other person means, and instead ask them directly for clarification on things that bother you. people are usually much more responsive to that approach.
slrubenstein - cutting numerous comments into the discussion that way is crazy-making for everyone. can you re-indent and lump your responses together in the future, please? -- Ludwigs2 17:34, 18 March 2010 (UTC)
There are several things I don't like about Muntuwandi's proposed outline, but the glaring fault from where I sit is the division into "environmental" and "genetic" factors when discussing variables potentially affecting intelligence in groups. For example, is SES an "environmental" factor? What about the quality of one's eduction? If an "environmental" factor such as SES is itself determined by IQ to any significant degree, its value as evidence supporting the environmental thesis is greatly diminished, as Dr. Pesta indicated. Environmentalists treat SES as an environment-only factor. Hereditarians see SES as being at least partly dependent upon genetic differences in intelligence. So, how can we tout SES as an "environmental" factor, as in Muntuwandi's outline? The same could be said for length of education, quality of education, and other so-called "environmental" factors. To avoid this problem, we needs to present the potential variables independent of the "environmental/hereditarian" dichotomy. -- Aryaman (talk) 18:39, 17 March 2010 (UTC)
We probably need to come to some consensus on how large should the article should be. There is a lot of information concerning the RI controversy, but we need to decide how much of it should be in the article. If we decide to have a large article, then we can try to fit almost every aspect of the controversy. If we decide to have a smaller article, then obviously not every point will be included. As previously mentioned, the suggested outline has taken into account article size, so some material has been left out, mostly the material which I thought wasn't central to the controversy. Again as previously mentioned regression to the mean has been mentioned by Rushton and Jensen in relation to the RI controversy, the subject is eligible for inclusion. My concerns were, is regression to the mean central to the controversy, and would including it give too much weight to either "hypothesis". I don't have strong feelings about leaving it out or including, but I do feel it is not the most important subjects of the controversy. Wapondaponda ( talk) 22:25, 17 March 2010 (UTC)
Aprock, it seems we're getting down to the scraps now, which is good. I can't predict how long each section is going to be, but I don't think this body of editors will allow any section to grow past what is absolutely necessary to convey the necessary information. There is some talk of splitting the article down. I request that we hold off on pursuing that until we get the rough draft finished and can hand it over to Dr. Pesta for a critical review. Can we give David the green light for revising the article? -- Aryaman (talk) 12:50, 18 March 2010 (UTC)
this sounds like a perfect explanation for why it's not relevant to this article. I'm really having a hard time seeing how variation which is mostly unrelated to race is relevant for an article which is about race. On the other hand, I would support the idea of summarizing and linking to Intelligence quotient#Positive correlations with IQ. A.Prock ( talk) 18:05, 18 March 2010 (UTC)"The distribution of IQ scores among individuals of each race overlap substantially. In a random sample of equal numbers of US Blacks and Whites, Jensen[7] estimates most variance in IQ would be unrelated to race or social class."
Re: "Group differences in intelligence": Where is the dispute here? We're allowed to say there is a significant difference in the results of tests which measure intelligence, but we're not allowed to say there is a significant difference in intelligence? If there is more substance here than semantics, I'm missing it. Regardless, if others agree, I'm fine with renaming it to "Group differences in IQ" provided that would settle the matter.
Re: "Data gathering methods": I'm surprised to see objections to this, unless there's a misunderstanding regarding what's intended. Methods for the manipulation of data are not to be discussed here. This section is simply for mentioning the main tests used to determine IQ, with links where appropriate, as well as the criteria used to establish race, i.e. SIRE. I'm also suprised to see this regarded to as "Muntuwandi's" suggestion, as it has been an integral part of the outline since I first posted it. I can't see the difference between what I've written and what's being requested, so help me out.
Re: "Significance": The article is about "race and IQ". How is material on the social significance of IQ differences between races not relevant here? And where would the rest of the obviously relevant material (such as "Correcting for IQ") go?
Aprock quoted the current opening sentence of the section as proving that the material is irrelevant. The argument he provided makes no sense to me. By the same token we would be justified in eliminating all the literature which claims there is no significant correlation between race and IQ, because - follow the logic here - the article is about the correlation between race and IQ. I'd prefer if someone other than Aprock could try and clarify to me why this section is irrelevant to this topic.
As a note: I'll be busy over the next few days, and won't have much time to keep up with the minutiae of this discussion. I request that the editors overlook the minor details (which is really all we're discussing at this point) and get on with revising the article. If it's still an issue, just tell David to focus on those parts of the outline which are generally agreed upon, which is the bulk of it, and we can work out the details afterwards. -- Aryaman (talk) 19:10, 18 March 2010 (UTC)
question - If I take Occam literally, then he will support Varoon Arya’s outline so long as it includes the “significance” information in some capacity. can we agree that it will do so, accept the outline, and leave the question of how far this 'capacity' goes until later in the writing? -- Ludwigs2 03:51, 20 March 2010 (UTC)
okay, this is getting too personal. can someone please explain to me what exactly is being disagreed over here? how much of the outline is acceptable to all, and what are the specific points of contention. please try to do this without making any reference to people at all - e.g. "it's a dispute over whether X should be included at A or at B". -- Ludwigs2 18:33, 20 March 2010 (UTC)
. A.Prock ( talk) 18:56, 20 March 2010 (UTC)In a random sample of equal numbers of US Blacks and Whites, Jensen[7] estimates most variance in IQ would be unrelated to race or social class
Please don't conclude anything until the major players have had a chance to read all of this. It's been 4 months, it can wait a couple of days.
ALSO: did "we" decide to rename this "race and IQ?" I very much hope not. Decisions are being made too fast. If an editor misses a single day of this, he/she finds they were left out.
ALSO: is there a single place where we document all our decisions so we don't have to dig through all this when we need to refer to them when writing and editing?
Ok, I'm going to TRY to catch up now... TechnoFaye Kane 04:02, 21 March 2010 (UTC)
A.Prock, there's a good example of a discussion of "WHY STUDY RACIAL DIFFERENCES?" in this paper. Social significance and suitability for study could be discussed in the same or different sections. -- DJ ( talk) 22:27, 21 March 2010 (UTC)
No, we didn't agree this. This is just one of the silly things you said, and it is very clear I did not agree. If you lie again I will report you. mikemikev ( talk) 23:02, 23 March 2010 (UTC)
I don't like the fact that this has gone to ANI, but I do think that Mathsci has a point that I've let things get a bit out of control here. so, I am going to start taking stronger measures, as follows:
Stay clear, stay focused, stay concise, and do not comment on other editors if you wish to continue to participate in this mediation.
tomorrow evening (unless you all reach an agreement ahead of me) I will choose an outline which will be some compromise based on the discussions above. no one will like it, I'm sure, but it will work as a starting point so that david can begin editing. we can hash out further details based on that decision as a starting point.
Different approach - let's see how it works. -- Ludwigs2 08:32, 25 March 2010 (UTC)
I think we should include the R/I analysis of Thomas Jefferson in Notes on the State of Virginia (1787):
It is not against experience to suppose that different species of the same genus, or varieties of the same species, may possess different qualifications.
Comparing them by their faculties of memory, reason, and imagination, it appears to me, that in memory the blacks are equal to the whites; in reason much inferior, as I think one could scarcely be found capable of tracing and comprehending the investigations of Euclid; and that in imagination they are dull, tasteless, and anomalous.
The Indians astonish you with strokes of the most sublime oratory; such as prove their reason and sentiment strong, their imagination glowing and elevated. But never yet could I find that a black had uttered a thought above the level of plain narration; never see even an elementary trait, of painting or sculpture. In music they are more generally gifted than the whites with accurate ears for tune and time. Whether they will be equal to the composition of a more extensive run of melody, or of complicated harmony, is yet to be proved.
Misery is often the parent of the most affecting touches in poetry. Among the blacks is misery enough, God knows, but no poetry. Love is the peculiar rœstrum of the poet. Their love is ardent, but it kindles the senses only, not the imagination.
They are more ardent after their female: but love seems with them to be more an eager desire than a tender delicate mixture of sentiment and sensation. Their griefs are transient. Those numberless afflictions, which render it doubtful whether heaven has given life to us in mercy or in wrath, are less felt, and sooner forgotten with them.
The negroes are at least as brave, and more adventuresome than whites. But this may perhaps proceed from a want of forethought, which prevents their seeing a danger till it be present. When present, they do not go through it with more coolness or steadiness than the whites.
Where our conclusion would degrade a whole race of men from the rank in the scale of beings which their Creator may perhaps have given them, to our reproach it must be said that though for a century and a half we have had under our eyes the races of black and of red men, they have never yet been viewed by us as subjects of natural history. I advance it therefore as a suspicion only, that the blacks, whether originally a distinct race, or made distinct by time and circumstances, are inferior to the whites in the endowment of mind. TechnoFaye Kane 13:46, 25 March 2010 (UTC)
off-topic for mediation
|
---|
Wapondaponda tried to get me banned from Wikipedia in the crudest,sleaziest possible way, and when admin after admin blew him off, he raised so much hell that it awoke one of the Lords of Cobol, " matsci". His words from on high:
This mathsci guy doesn't like us, like, at ALL. He told his archangel Ludwig that he's considering smiting us:
God speaks to Ludwig, the biased moderator:
Say, where else have I heard THAT charge made? But then, this charade never WAS about being fair and objective, was it? Dr. Roberts told me to take some time off from this. TechnoFaye Kane 14:29, 25 March 2010 (UTC) |
them be fightin' words.
![]() |
---|
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it. |
|
If the article name "Race and Intelligence" is used, be careful that the article does not become a synthesis. There is some controversy over whether an IQ test score (a single number) for adults is a complete measure their "intelligence". The one thing that can be said for certain is that a timed IQ test measures the speed at which someone can answer some or all of the questions on the test correctly as opposed to simply their ability to answer the questions correctly. -- 98.191.81.47 ( talk) 19:17, 21 March 2010 (UTC)
shall we rename the article to Race and IQ? {{ tick}} or {{ cross}} as usual. also specify if you have a preference between 'race' and 'ethnicity' -- Ludwigs2 23:41, 8 March 2010 (UTC)
Support renaming to
Race and IQ. "Race" and "ethnicity" certainly overlap here, with ethnicity probably being the more redeemable of the two, so I can understand why "ethnicity" might seem better to some. However, I think "race" is the term used most frequently in the literature, particularly in article and book titles. --
Aryaman
(talk)
07:49, 9 March 2010 (UTC)
Oppose renaming. While I agree that the majority of the data on this topic comes from IQ tests, renaming the article to "Race and IQ" would imply that IQ is the only source of data about it, which isn't the case. Some of the literature on this topic focuses specifically on reaction time and/or scholastic achievement, which can be considered aspects of intelligence or mental ability, but would not be included under the heading "IQ". Because of its relevance to this topic, I don't think such literature should be excluded from the article, but I also think that renaming the article to "Race and IQ" while it includes this material would imply that it has a narrower scope than it actually does. --
Captain Occam (
talk)
08:13, 9 March 2010 (UTC)
archiving some cross talk |
---|
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it. |
|
Oppose renaming. I don't have strong feelings about this, but I think 'Race and Intelligence' is the best name. The tag This article also discusses issues regarding ethnicity and intelligence covers ethnicity. Since race is the superset of ethnicity it's the most salient term, and as Aryaman said it's the frequent term in the literature and popular understanding. And as Occam said, IQ is not the only measure of intelligence used. The question of whether IQ tests are a good way of measuring intelligence of 'hunter-gatherers' is relevant to the article, but no reason to rename it.
mikemikev (
talk)
11:15, 9 March 2010 (UTC) I'm assuming that if the name is changed (which I oppose) the other names will redirect?
Support renaming to
Race and IQ. "intelligence" as that APA notes means many different things. The debates that have led to this prolongued (but productive) mediation have to do with IQ scors. Precision is a virtue in encyclopedia articles; it is a necessity in science. I have strong feelings about this - adjunct issus would belong in linked articles.
Slrubenstein |
Talk
13:28, 9 March 2010 (UTC)
Support renaming to
Ethnicity and intelligence research. Intelligence is undefined, and race does not exist. A data centric article can not be based on things that do not exist. I'm not sure a data-centric approach is the best solution , but as that seems to be the consensus... --
OpenFuture (
talk)
14:06, 9 March 2010 (UTC)
Support support. There is an argument for
Ethnicity and IQ since nearly all the research is done with respect to SIRE, but reliance on SIRE will hopefully start to wane, so I think
Race and IQ is fine. There is the problem that Occam mentions that there are smatterings of non-SIRE research, and non-IQ research, but I think we can handle that within the article. A.Prock 17:58, 9 March 2010 (UTC)
Oppose renaming.
David.Kane (
talk)
18:29, 9 March 2010 (UTC)
Oppose. 1) Many of the sources used refer to "g", which is not IQ. They even talk about the difference between g and IQ. 2) Many of the cited articles use "intelligence" in their name, not "IQ". 3) The article is about race and intelligence. 4) the controversy is about race and intelligence; the fact that one race has much lower average IQ scores is uncontroversial. 4) Blatant and cowardly attempt to push a POV into the title, indicative of the bias some editors harbor, the subtle ways they seek to insert propaganda, and the reason their statements on this page can not be assumed to be made in good faith.
TechnoFaye Kane
08:47, 11 March 2010 (UTC)
FWIW: The Wonderlic is a highly regarded IQ test. It's been around for decades and 100s of millions of people have taken it (it's in the news every year as the NFL uses it on draftees and current players).
Also, how big / important / practically significant a difference is is well captured by a measure called effect size (Cohen's D). It's basically the standardized mean difference between two groups (i.e., the mean difference divided by a standard deviation).
Cohen is not an IQ researcher but a statistician, and his estimates are well-accepted by the scientific community: .20 = small effect .40 = medium .60 = large
In all these cases, the distributions would overlap substantially. Yet, .60 (a mean difference of less than 1 sd) is still considered large.
The b/w difference is d=1.0 for context...
Bpesta22 ( talk) 19:20, 18 March 2010 (UTC)
Aprock, this last series of edits you've made borders on the comical: 1, 2, 3, 4. Why not do some research before forming an opinion? Or at least getting your story straight prior to posting? It would go a long way in helping others assume you're a neutral editor instead of a misinformed POV-pusher. -- Aryaman (talk) 20:09, 18 March 2010 (UTC)
{{ archive top}} {{ quote box}} One thing that may not be clear from the above back and forth is that it's certainly the case that sociological race has a biological component. It's certainly possible to reach genetic conclusions about any population of people. So in the sense that you might be able to study the gene population of any given group and come up with a conclusion, it's certainly possible to do that with sociological race. You could do the same thing with height, eye color, hair color, weight, or any other phenotypical trait. You can also create genetic clusters based on phenotypical traits if those very same traits are used to guide the clustering algorithms.
Above Aryaman writes:
The distinction set up below between "race as a social construct" and "race as a biological category" is an inflammatory and largely false dichotomy.
And in some sense he's correct. For the greatest part, SIRE is determined by skin color, and the SIRE of your parents. And just like eye color, you can create genetic clusters based on that information. But that's putting the cart before the horse. At 23 and me [9] there are over 100 genetic traits that can be tested for. We could pick any small subset of these traits and create genetic clusters about them. We could construct the genetic clusters for the "Cystic Fibrosis/Type 1 Diabetes" races. We could create clusters for the "Bloom's Syndrome/eye color" race. I think what confuses a lot of people is that these genetic+SIRE clusters do not indicate anything more an external structure imposed on genetic data.
But (again) that's not to say that genetic inferences cannot be made by studying the IQ results of the "Cystic Fibrosis/Type 1 Diabetes" races. The gene clusters do represent different sets of gene pools. But it's still an open questions as to whether these clustering techniques capture significant genetic variation beyond the trait from which they were constructed.
Given that all of the research generally uses SIRE information, and it's not clear that SIRE based genetic clustering captures significant human variation beyond SIRE information, and given that we currently have no definition of distinct genetic races, the conclusions that are made about studies based on SIRE information really only speak to the populations defined by SIRE information, as opposed to genetic information.
This is illustrated particularly well in the study discussed above [10]. The researchers started with a body of data where participants had selected one of five different racial categories (plus other). But using genetic clustering, they could not create the five clusters corresponding to the SIRE information without using the self reported data. In fact, as input the software required the researchers to identify the number of clusters to construct. They were not able to infer the number of racial genetic clusters directly from the data. There is a wonderful image on the Human genetic clustering page which also illustrates this. Are there 2, 3, 4, 5, or 6 genetic races? Is there only one genetic race? Are there more than six? In fact, with enough data you should be able to extract hundreds (or thousands) of clusters which generally correspond to subtrees in the human hereditary tree. Does that mean that there are hundreds of races? A.Prock 17:42, 8 February 2010 (UTC)
If the genetic cluster business is not relevant, we are back to the point that race is not a reliable indicator of the heritability of intelligence. I do not see Mikemikev asatisfactorally responding to Aprock, and I think Aprock is bringing up a very important point.
Mikmikev suggests that race is arbitraary and thus uninformative and I think is mixing up the argument. The point is that race, biologically conceived, is to a degree arbitrary with regards to much of the genome and thus uninformative. But race viewed as a social construct is highly informative. For example, race socially sonctructed could in the 1940s help one predict where in the bus a particular person would sit, if they were travelling in Missisipi. race also was highly predictive of the quality of schooling one had, which some people ar eleast consider relevant to IQ score. Slrubenstein | Talk 16:02, 9 February 2010 (UTC)
(ec)My apologies. What I meant to say was this: you referred to a certain conceptualization of race as "arbitrarily constructed" and therefore "pointless." Yet you seem to believe that some kind of biologically based concept of race is not arbitrary and has a point. To be clear: Rushton's use of race is fringe science because it is arbitrarily constructed and pointless. Social scientists look at race as socially constructed. This does not mean it is arbitrarily constructed, and if we were to say so in an article we would be misrepresenting the science. Moreover, not being arbitrarily constructed, there are contexts in which it has great predictive power. Right now it seems to have predictive power for mean IQ scores. But we are still talking about a social construction, not a biological category or group. Why race and certain mean IQ scores correlate is still an unknown. I hope I have not misrepresented anyone in this. Slrubenstein | Talk 18:43, 9 February 2010 (UTC)
Where precisely is the contradiction? Slrubenstein | Talk 15:55, 10 February 2010 (UTC)
reading this, I think part of the problem here is a confusion about the difference between 'race' (which I take to be an effort to group individuals in the present tense) and 'genetic heritage' (which I take to be effort to determine ancestral roots). for example, I'm quite sure that a geneticist could identify genes in me that derive from ancestral Irish (gaelic) peoples, and could also identify genes that derive specifically from Italian (mediterranean) groups. Likewise, I have a friend who has gaelic roots and Pacific Islander (south-east Asian) roots. neither of us identifies with any of these ancestral roots, however, and we're both typically American, with none of the behavioral or cultural identifications of any of them. It's possible even that I have some African ancestry in my genome (southern Italians have more than a little mixing with north African peoples). I don't see a problem with the 'genetic heritage' point, but I personally would find it a bit odd for some geneticist to declare that I am Irish because I have some cluster of Irish genes, and I'd find it absurd if that geneticist then attached a value-laden racial claim (e.g. that I'm at risk of being a drunk) because of that clustering. Don't get me wrong: if a geneticist discovered the genes that code for alcoholism and found that those genes actually are associated with Irish genetic heritage, that would be one thing, but mixing a loose 'genetic heritage' idea with a set of cultural preconceptions (not to mention stereotypes) to create a value-laden definition of race strikes me as a stretch. do any scholarly sources actually take it that far? -- Ludwigs2 18:31, 11 February 2010 (UTC)
Ludwig, I apologise if my tone appears too aggressive. I think it will be helpful if I can give a summary of my position, and it's relation to what I see as the positions of others.
Slrubenstein and others appear to arguing against the biological validity of race. Their objective appears to be replacing the word race with superset or synonomous weasel words such as "group", "biogeographic ancestry" or "genetic heritage", and possibly also going as far as breaking up or deleting the article. I have referenced several very reliable biologists who have explicitly stated that race, despite being poorly defined and with many grey areas, is a useful scientific concept. I have requested many times that the others provide contemporary, reliable references to the contrary, a request they have consistently ignored, all the while asking me for more references, and maintaining that their opinion is "mainstream", despite providing as yet zero references.
I am a little disappointed that you have not addressed this, Ludwig.
In addition, even if some scholars thought race was not useful or scientifically valid, it would not affect the article. R&I scholars think it is useful. They are well aware of race/ethnicity distinctions and mixed-race issues, actually they address these points in detail. All we can do is present their arguments neutrally, because there is no solid evidence they are wrong. There is no problem with including a (well referenced) section saying that some scholars (I don't know of any) say race is too vague to be useful/predictive.
What I'm arguing for, quite simply, is to go ahead with data-centric proposal, as I see no reasonable objection. mikemikev ( talk) 09:37, 12 February 2010 (UTC)
Well Ludwig, I completely agree that SIRE is a perfectly valid scientific approach to race without any genetic elements. I suggested this section as a compromise to Slrubenstein/Wapondaponda, even though I really think such a section and indeed this whole mediation digression (which I didn't start) belongs in "Race and genetics". I think such a section would capture the discussion above: some scholars think race is too vague to be informative, some don't. This would necessarily include some genetic points. Considering the APA fall into the first category, trying to anchor the article to their statement is the real POV pushing here. The AAA and APA statements are POV. We cannot base this article on them. And can I ask SLR/WPP if the data-centric proposal is unacceptable to them? mikemikev ( talk) 19:32, 12 February 2010 (UTC)
I did not object to using the APA/AAA statements. I objected to using them as the basis for the article. Again you misrepresent me. They are one POV and should be included.
We don't need to explain the meaning of race. This is done in the "Race" article. We don't need to explain the meaning of "Height" in the "Height and Intelligence" article. If people want a precise discussion they can go to the relevant article. This is how wikipedia works. All we need to do is state the selection method used (SIRE).
Since R&I involves making genetic claims about races we need to ask geneticists whether this is reasonable, not just the APA or AAA, who only address the sociological vagueness of race in the USA, and are severely ill-informed with regard to biological aspects. My understanding is that geneticists consider both sides in the R&I debate reasonable.
I'm sorry but the APA does not represent the international scientific community.
I understand that this makes writing the article more difficult, but for it to be balanced we have no choice.
So to answer your question there is no mainstream, minority or fringe view, just equally plausible hypotheses which should be represented in the article.
I hope I have satisfied your concerns and we can move on. mikemikev ( talk) 10:10, 13 February 2010 (UTC)
OK, let's not have a section on the scientific validity of race, I'm glad we agree there.
Just so we know we are on the same page, which year AAA statement on race are you refering to?
Yes, I'm well aware there are more than exactly two non-overlapping positions. My point was refering to two ends of a continuum. Did you really think I was refering to the pre-natal environment (generally known to be trivial in intelligence development outside severe malnutrition/poisoning)?
So my question is: what year AAA report are you refering to? mikemikev ( talk) 14:15, 13 February 2010 (UTC)
The 1996 AAA statement is based on Lewontin's fallacy and can be disregarded. The 2009 AAPA statement seems fine, except for this:
Generally, the traits used to characterize a population are either independently inherited or show only varying degrees of association with one another within each population. Therefore, the combination of these traits in an individual very commonly deviates from the average combination in the population. This fact renders untenable the idea of discrete races made up chiefly of typical representatives.
I would like a reference to a paper proving this statement. mikemikev ( talk) 01:21, 14 February 2010 (UTC)
Wapondaponda ( talk) 11:14, 14 February 2010 (UTC)
Slrubenstein, I feel I have made a valid point. I believe you cannot address it so you are resorting to ad hominem. I strongly resent and deny your allegations.
I am genuinely concerned with what I believe to be inaccuracy being put into wikipedia.
My credentials do not affect my point. I have no desire or obligation to provide personal information. If I am unversed in these issues you will be able to address my points rather than my credentials, unless of course it is you who is unversed in genetics.
Please name some of these major scientists who endorse this AAPA statement. mikemikev ( talk) 14:08, 14 February 2010 (UTC)
I don't think that trying to rewrite race and genetics as part of this article is going to be worthwhile. The relavant question for this article is much more narrow. Consider what Nisbett wrote on this:
That captures most of what's relevant: some people think there's something to be known a priori about the cause of group differences and some think that it's an open empirical question. -- DJ ( talk) 19:52, 14 February 2010 (UTC)
where are we on this discussion point? I though we were close to resolved on it, and I'm not sure how much it overlaps other points that we have resolved. opinions? -- Ludwigs2 02:42, 23 February 2010 (UTC)
Geez, I take a few days off and what happens? look, the AAPA and AAA are (so far as I can tell) perfectly valid and noteworthy sources on this issue. What we have here is not a question of inclusion/exclusion, but rather a question of balance. If you're asking me to make the decision, I would say that we include these sources, and then we can save all this wrangling over how best to present them neutrally in the article.
I want everyone to remember that we have a field here that Kuhn would have called pre-paradigmatic - there is no single wholly accepted viewpoint, but rather an assortment of viewpoints still vying for ascendency. Nothing being presented by reliable sources should be excluded, per crystal ball; it's more a question of balancing things to prevent undue prominence. does that resolve the issue? -- Ludwigs2 17:30, 5 March 2010 (UTC)
I'd like to point something out. Hopefully it will help to get us back on track.
"Gene" in psychometric research is a stand-in substantive for "hereditary". Psychometricians can measure the degree to which a trait is heritable - which is, of course, not the same thing as identifying specific genes which are involved in the expression of that trait. The actual "genetic" research which is pulled into this debate is secondary in the sense that it attempts to corroborate psychometric findings regarding heritability. When a psychometrician says a trait has a large "genetic" component, he's saying it is highly heritable. He's not claiming to have identified "genes" for intelligence - though he may well take information from genetic research to corroborate his psychometric claim. The use of "race" in psychometric research should be understood and presented in light of this fact. In other words, whether "races" can be described "genetically" is of little to no interest to the psychometrician. What is of great interest to him is the fact that "races" appear to differ significantly in their expression of a highly heritable trait. This debate centres around trying to figure out why that is. -- Aryaman (talk) 06:07, 9 February 2010 (UTC)
{{ archive bottom}}
Sorry; seems like I put my comment here in the wrong section. I find browsing through all this info less than straightforward.
I can dig up the cite if you think it's helpful, but scores on the WPT correlate something like .90 with scores on the WAIS. The WPT takes only 12 minutes to administer...
184.59.172.151 ( talk) 23:10, 18 March 2010 (UTC)
off-topic |
---|
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it. |
This is only to document the obvious bias of the new moderator and his gang for a future challenge of the validity of the scientifically-laughable propaganda he and his friends intend to force onto wikipedia. It may also be useful to a 23rd-century graduate student reasearching her dissertation: "Self-Delusion and Science in Uncivilized Times". I don't expect a reply--at least, not one that adresses my objections. So, to whom it may concern: I asked the moderator several specific questions illustrating the logical absurdity and contradictions inherent in his justification for suppressing legitimate peer-reviewed research and substituting doubletalk. For example, ludwig said "I understand there is research that links SIRE to clusters of genes, but...", and I asked him if he would now promise not to say that no genetic link with SIRE has been shown. He answered NONE of these very relevant questions. It can reasonably inferred that this is because either he hasn't visited this page in five days, or because he's painted himself into a logic corner--to reply, he'd have to do the logical equivalent of proving that 2+2=5. In other contexts, they call this "checkmate". Had this been done by any other editor, the moderator would step in and request responses to my objections and answers to my questions. But in the present case, it is the moderator himself who ignored my concerns--tending to illustrate the bias and cynical disingenuity of the PC pablum about to be added to Wikipedia. I then asked to see the source of what appears to be a political statement masquerading as a scientific one. I asked: "What psychology article concluded that there is no evidence that these loci correlate with race?" But he ignored that question too. What he DID do was insert more non-sequitor doubletalk, to wit:
...except that none of my objections were that something is "obvious". In fact, that word does not appear in my post.
...Which is exactly what I am (or was) trying to make happen, until I "wised up" and realized just what was actually going on here. For example, he said that correlation does not imply causation. I replied: |
Those specific [race] genes don't HAVE to be proven to influence intelligence! They only need to CORRELATE with intelligence for us to say so.
The cave men just had to notice that pregnancy only happens after f*cking. They don't need to understand estrogen hydrolysis to infer that the latter is probably the cause of the former.
But his response was to repeat the statement I had just pointed out was a non-sequitor:
That is to say, my objection was not addressed.
Another question I'd like an answer to:
Give an example of this "synthesys" you say is taking place, wherein two unrelated facts are juxtaposed to fallsely imply that the facts ARE related. And don't say "Every6 time ice cream consumption in America rises, the cholera mortality rate rises on an identical curve [because they both happen in the summer]" Give an example of synthesis from this mediation. I have to understand what it is so I can make sure not to do it.
Now, with characteristic childlike gullibility, I will assume that this is an honest discussion instead of the POV charade we all know it to be, and reply to "correlation does not equal causation" again:
a) So what?
b) No, but who said it was?
c) That's not good enough a reason to suppress publication of strong correllations.
d) No, but correllation is the smoke to the fire of certainty. It tells scientists where to look for the smoking gun
One more question:
Do you intend to tell our curious readers (assuming proper citations):
I think this should go at the very top, in the summary, because it's extremely relevant to the question this article addresses, which is "why do some races appear to be either more or less intelligent than other races"?
If you elect not to present this true and uncontested information, please tell me the untrue or contested part.
off-topic |
---|
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it. |
Because if you don't, and instead ignore this question (and the others in my previous post) I shall assume you have no objection to my adding it to the top of whatever "sanitized" version you eventually come up with. In particular, you cannot validly say "this was resolved in mediation which she was part of; ban her for being disruptive". In short, I expect that this shameful outrage will continue until an "official" article on R/I is published containing statements by the unqualified, (e.g. ASA), contradictions of proven facts, omission of conclusive but inconvienient facts for trivial, nonsensical or no reason, and mischaracterization of positions contrary to the Mandatory Belief which is compromising the integrity of Wikipedia. TechnoFaye Kane 13:59, 25 February 2010 (UTC) |
I've been facing incessant reversion at Conservativism in the United States and Modern liberalism in the United States over a sentence I've tried to add:
After some unusual excuses (an American Sociological Association press release isn't good enough; they need to go over the full text of the primary paper) one editor got to the meat of the matter
Specifically referencing this article as a precedent. [16]
This is the second study reporting such a correlation. [17]
I haven't edited Race and intelligence, but I hope this parallel situation will inform the mediators. Wnt ( talk) 04:00, 27 February 2010 (UTC)
P.S. Have you considered
epigenetics?
Trofim Lysenko had a point:
[18] In near future your gap should be gone.
Wapondaponda writes "However I haven't seen any progress on the core problem, which is how much of the hereditarian hypothesis would be included in the article." I agree that this is the core problem. I would be interested to know what other editors think is the answer. David.Kane ( talk) 17:29, 1 March 2010 (UTC)
A.Prock 00:02, 4 March 2010 (UTC)Research into race and intelligence is not "fringe", some of the conclusions drawn from that research are highly contentious and need to be presented as such in the article.
I don't have the faintest idea what you're arguing about. this seems very straight-forward:
the rest is balancing. as we write, we just need to take care that the research on the hereditarian stuff doesn't turn into an ever-expanding mass that dominates the article. that may mean being selective about what we include, or excluding the more fringish hereditarian positions, or at extreme need creating a content fork that deals specifically with the hereditarian view. but these are all points that are undecidable until we start writing and revising. I see this debate as a non-starter. -- Ludwigs2 17:37, 5 March 2010 (UTC)
Hello
I was asked by a user here about the possibility of contributing to this wiki topic. I have zero experience editing wiki, so if this is the wrong place to discuss the issue, my apologies.
My name is Bryan Pesta. I have 5 articles on intelligence; one specifically on race and IQ. While I do think I am qualified to discuss this stuff, I have no expertise nor interest in the genetics of race. I see most of the discussion here seems to hinge on this.
My personal take is that self-reports of race have scientific "baggage" but are indeed a good proxy for the biology of race (whatever that is). I also believe we can measure things before we have a complete definition of what exactly we're measuring. I often see people argue that unless we can define race with 100% certainty as a biological / genetic construct, then the construct has no scientific merit. In my opinion, that's stupid.
Since people can't be randomly assigned to races, and since social-cultural baggage is attached to the term, the burden of proof (initially) is one those who claim biological race is predictive. I think we now have decades of research showing this burden's been met (i.e., controlling for factor x variables in the environment-- gobs of them-- does not remove the race difference. And, the difference maps on to basic brain and mental processes...).
So, my opinion is that the burden's now on those who claim race is 100% cultural or social. Explain how these data are possible.
I link below to my IQ articles. I don't have lots of time to devote to debating this back and forth here, but if you think I can make a contribution, I would be willing to give it a shot (again depending on time factors and how much work this would be).
Thanks.
http://facultyprofile.csuohio.edu/csufacultyprofile/publications.cfm?FacultyID=B_PESTA —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.65.173.106 ( talk) 01:06, 7 March 2010 (UTC)
Thanks techno faye! Btw, I obviously don't have a clue with regard to editing wiki so if I'm not supposed to be posting here, I apologize. I also posted a few paragraphs two days ago, but it must not have gone through.
The gist was without a more narrow focus, I don't see you all completing this wiki. One doesn't need a 100% precise genetic definition or race (nor IQ) to review the large literature on self-reported race and IQ scores. Enough variables now have been statistically controlled to make some tentative conclusions. I think people set the bar too high in this area (obviously, the topic is emotional, but at base it is no different from any other topic in terms of evidence needed. For example, evidence for stereotype threat if gobs more suspect than is evidence for race differences on IQ scores).
99.65.173.106 ( talk) 04:37, 12 March 2010 (UTC)
Continuing (sorry, IF should be IS in my last sentence above):
My opinion is that links to the genetics of race and links to IQ scores as a proxy for g could be featured in the stub (?) here. Disclaimers that neither genetic-race nor IQ can be defined with 100% precision (depending on what level of reductionism one requires) could go in this stub. A disclaimer that this is not necessary to scientifically study both topics should then be added as well.
I also think that expertise is not a dichotomy but a continuum. One might have Read Mismeasure, or took an undergrad class in psychometrics, or got a graduate degree in the area, or publishes a bit in the best journals in the field, or publishes LOTS in the best journals.
Even journals vary in quality and relevance to the field. I hope that users here would agree that Intelligence is the premiere journal in the field and articles therein should get much consideration for citation here.
Some things I think the field "knows":
1. Race is indeed a biological construct, QED. It causes changes in skin color across humans and some other "stereotypical" physical differences across race. I'm ok with defining race, for now, as skin color and all (biologically) that correlates with it. In fact, let the geneticists figure it out in a different stub (I personally have little interest in the genetics of race).
2a. Race is not a dichotomy (not black and white...). It's rather a continuum. Demanding that a line be drawn in the sand that discretely separates white from black (e.g.) is unfair / too high a burden, especially if no such line exists (it's the fuzzy categories idea).
2b. I think the handedness is a perfect analogy. There is no clear distinction between left and right handed. It's a continuum. Some people (me) are wholly left handed and can't do anything well right handed. Others lean moreso to the left; some are ambidextrous, and the continuum continues for right handedness. There are even scales that measure handedness on a continuum. Same applies to race (dunno how many arguments I've been in where someone shows me a mixed race person and demands that I classify him as black or white. Failure to do so, in their mind, proves that races don't exist). Do left handers and right handers not exist because we can search the internet and find someone truly ambidextrous?
3a. No environmental manipulation, nor no study that controls (via regression or multiple regression) environmental factors explains the gap. There's so much of the research that the "weakest" conclusion is: No simple environmental factor(s) explain the gap. A stronger conclusion appeals to genes. I'm not there yet personally. I think the difference is biological (faster, more efficient brains ON AVERAGE across race groups). I'm not convinced this can't be environmental (some multiple regression yet to be done including pre-natal development, nutrition levels and other stuff might remove the gap). On the other hand, I'm not sure what the next research project is for people who claim it's 100% environmental.
4a. Realize that categorization forms a heirarchy. Superordinate level (human) Basic level (race) sub-ordinate (korean, japanese).
Too many people in my past point to some sub-ordinate category, point out problems in classification, and suggest that that creates problems for the basic-level category. It does not.
5. Utility: This is a poor argument. The increase in human well-being that could come from solving this problem is vast. Just looking a simple z score analysis proves this. The over or under representation of individuals in groups where the mean difference is 1 standard deviation is vast. At the aggregate level, race differences on IQ provide a parsimonious explanation (not saying it's the correct explanation-- more data are needed) for the massive race inequality experienced in most every country. This stuff is not trivial, whatever the explanation. I believe that no other problem (perhaps global warming) would have a higher ROI, were we to invest money in figuring it out and solving it. Good luck there (see last point).
Last point. True experts in the field are being demeaned, defamed and marginalized. This is important and should be mentioned. There are perhaps many motives to study race and IQ. Not all of them are to show the white man is the shits. Not all of them are racist. To the extent I do another race and iq study, it will be focused on using science to predict/control/understand something in the interest of increasing human well-being.
Sorry for any typos-- getting late here
99.65.173.106 ( talk) 05:06, 12 March 2010 (UTC)
Sorry, I didn't notice this comment til just now. I suspect the bigger SD for blacks in my study was due to the fact I ran far fewer of them compared with whites. SD involves dividing by sample size, so that might explain it (it could also be that blacks are more variable...I dunno).
re race: if only hair color inequality were a huge issue with respect to human well-being, I'd agree. Hair colors are not over or under-represented on many key outcome variables (job opps; education; health, crime, etc). As far as I know, hair color doesn't correlate with anything. Whatever the cause, race-inequality has been a major issue for likely 1000s of years. If indeed there is something biological-- or genetic -- causing the gap, then we should study it and fix it. Not studying it scientifically is ostrich like and immoral (my assumption is that if there is a way to fix it, only science will figure it out).
It is unfortunate that racists get off on this research, but not everyone interested in this topic is a racist (Jensen, Rushton, Lynn, all believe the Asian mean IQ is higher than the White IQ, which to me is an odd kind of racism, unless people assert that they're publishing data on Asian's only as a short-term ruse to get people to accept the black/white difference. That sounds too conspiracy theorist to me). I had limited interactions with all 3 at ISIR two years ago. We did not hold any white pride rallies...fwiw.
I think Gould's heart was in the right place, but not his "science". He's a brilliant writer, but my opinion is his book here did a dis-service to reality. Resolving this is as important as figuring out global warming (imo). I can't think of any other area where a scientific fix would so vastly increase human well-being. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.65.173.184 ( talk) 02:23, 14 March 2010 (UTC)
Ooop, keep forgetting to sign off.
99.65.173.184 ( talk) 02:23, 14 March 2010 (UTC)
I meant to change that to 100s of years; point conceded.
99.65.173.184 ( talk) 16:47, 14 March 2010 (UTC)
It should be noted that I asked the moderator several specific, relevant questions illustrating the logical contradictions inherent in his justification for suppressing legitimate peer-reviewed research. My questions were serious and clearly relevant (e.g., when someone pushing the same POV quoted "a psychology article" I asked for the source of the article.)
When I pointed out that his reply answered none of these relevant questions, he buried that statement as "off topic".
Later, I said that on average, people calling themselves "African-American" have an average IQ of 80. The moderator said my statement was "unsourced", even though that IQ gap is the topic of this article. He then said "I don't know whether [that statement is] true or false, myself, but I have not yet seen [it in] a reliable source." I include this here because his objection is observed to be insincere when compared with his earlier statement: "To my understanding, there is a statistically significant difference in IQ scores between races"' -- indicating a political agenda subcontext. TechnoFaye Kane 09:07, 11 March 2010 (UTC)
Ludwig requested sources for these statements:
STATEMENT 1:
On average, people calling themselves "African-American" have an IQ score of approximately 80; 70 in subsaharan Africa".
SOURCES:
Roth, P. L., Bevier, C. A., Bobko, P., Switzer, F. S., III, & Tyler, P. (2001). Ethnic group differences in cognitive ability in employment. This is a meta-review of hundreds of studies which reach this conclusion-- a conclusion no longer considered controversial in the scientific community, as Ludwig well knows.
STATEMENT 2:
On average, people calling themselves "African-American" have a brain size 5% smaller than the brains of people calling themselves "white".
SOURCES:
Harvey, I., Persaud, R., Ron, M. A., Baker, G., & Murray, R. M. (1994). Volumetric MRI measurements in bipolars compared.
Beals, K. L., Smith, C. L., & Dodd, S. M. (1984). Brain size, cranial morphology, climate, and time machines. Current Anthropology, 25, 301–330.
Ho, K. C., Roessmann, U., Straumfjord, J. V., & Monroe, G. (1980). Analysis of brain weight: I and II. Archives of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, 104, 635–645.
Johnson FW. Race and sex differences in head size and IQ. Intelligence 1994; 18: 309-33.
Joiner TE. Head size as an explanation of the race-measured IQ
relation: negative evidence from child and adolescent samples. Sci
Rev Ment Health Prac 2004; 3: 23-32.
Simmons K. Cranial capacities by both plastic and water techniques with cranial linear measurements. Hum Biol 1942; 14: 473-98.
Rushton JP. Cranial size and IQ in Asian Americans from birth to age seven. Intelligence 1997; 25: 7-20.
Rushton JP. Mongoloid-Caucasoid differences in brain size from
military samples [and NASA]. Intelligence 1991; 15: 351-9.
Statement 2 has been acknowledged as true by Ulri Neisser, Chair of the APA’s Task Force on intelligence,. Neisser, U. (1997). Never a dull moment. American Psychologist, 52, 79–81.
Statement 2 has also been acknowledged as true by Richard Nisbett, the major opponent of the hereditarian model: "According to a number of studies, Blacks have smaller brains than Whites." Nisbett, R.E. Intelligence and how to get it: why schools and cultures count. New York: Norton 2009.
But just to be sure, Ludwig2 threw another roadblock to presenting the horrible truth in Wikipedia:
SOURCES RELATING BRAIN SIZE AND IQ:
Gignac G, Vernon PA,Wickett JC. Factors influencing the relationship
between brain size and intelligence. In: Nyborg H, Ed. The
scientific study of general intelligence: Tribute to Arthur R. Jensen.
London: Elsevier 2003; pp. 93-106.
"It is true that the correlation between brain size and IQ may be as high as .40." Nisbett, R.E. Intelligence and how to get it: why schools and cultures count. New York: Norton 2009.
I now request that statements 1, 2 be included in the R/I article, as stated earlier by the moderator, who said:
The moderator's new excuse for omitting relevant, published, noncontroversial data after saying he would if I sourced it will be the next installment of "documenting this biased moderation". -- Faye Kane, Homeless Brain
TechnoFaye Kane
07:52, 11 March 2010 (UTC)
Some comments on that section. I started a new topic, since I am a newb, and that section said do not modify...
1. All experts are not equal. If one accepts that Intelligence is the premier journal in the field (it is the only journal solely devoted to this topic) then the best experts are those who publish regularly in this journal. These people are devoting their academic lives to studying this topic; they hands down know it better than anyone else. "Science's" view on IQ is best represented by them, and not some other field.
2. Many many popular books attacking IQ research (from Gould to Nisbett) come from people out of field. As far as I know, neither Gould, nor Nisbett have published in Intelligence. They are certainly not regular contributors now (or when Gould was alive). Most of these books are much about politics than science.
3. If you don't accept Intelligence as the premier authority, then the burden's on you to explain why (it's peer-reviewed; the best scholars in the field sit as editors; and it's impact factor is above 3.0). The mainstream view *is* Intelligence, as any other journal or field lacks the expertise (which places the burden on others to show why the stuff published in Intelligence should be disregarded-- or even why it's so often ignored whereas this much data on any other topic would lead to no-brainer acceptance).
4. Neither Jensen, Lynn nor Rushton are therefore fringe. All of them sit on the editorial board. Jensen would easily make an objective list of top 100 psychologists all time (using scholarly output and impact as measures, even if time shows everything he said to be wrong). Look at either Lynn or Rushton's vita. They would get full professor at any school in the world were their work not so controversial. Both have published in elite journals outside their field (APA journals as well). Gottfredson even has an article/letter/commentary in Science.
5. I agree that there's not enough evidence to state strongly that the genetic hypothesis is true. What makes me inclined to consider it is the abject failure of the environmental hypothesis to explain most any of the data. Since if it's not environmental/cultural, it has to be genetic (excluded middle?), it seems to me like the 100% environmental model is doomed. That becomes only indirect (though perhaps valid-deductively) evidence for genetics, however.
6. My hunch is that the hardcore of regular contributors would by a majority (but not 100%) agree that the 100% environmental hypothesis is false. I have no data on this, it's an impression based on my interaction with some of them, and publishing (just 3) articles there, and peer-reviewing for the journal more than a few times.
Bpesta22 ( talk) 20:04, 12 March 2010 (UTC)
Thanks Slrubenstein. I too would rather not start a huge debate here on the topic. I was expressing my opinion as someone with a relatively minor contribution to the literature.
I must say one thing though, it's simply not true that Gould's Mismeasure is well-respected. It's an utter piece of crap. It's been wholly ignored by people in field because it's irrelevant to anything the field is doing now. Citing Gould in the stub here might be popular, but it would be irrelevant to the truth of the issue.
I think the "environmental hypothesis" should be as defined by Rushton and Jenson (their 60 page review of race differences on IQ). To me, the pure 100% EH states that any race difference on IQ test scores is due to either the invalidity of IQ (including test bias) or to confounding environmental variables (race covaries with many things that might affect IQ-- SES, education, etc). In other words, no part of the IQ difference is caused by whatever the biology of race is.
I don't think that's vague at all. It makes very simple predictions (controlling for environmental variables should eliminate the difference). It's just the predictions have never been confirmed in decades of trying. Certainly, the burden's on the EH people to show us that any of those dozens of environmental variables actually statistically explain the gap.
I also never meant to imply the genetic hypothesis is false. I think there is no direct evidence for it, currently. As indirect evidence, the GH > 0 seems far more parsimonious than the 100% EH.
It's a huge (and likely unrealistic) burden to claim that x = 0 (genes) and y = 100% (environment). Given decades of failure at finding the factor x(s) in the environment that explain the gap, it's not unreasonable to assume that x > 0. But the evidence for x > 0 seems indirect to me (which doesn't mean it's wrong, and it is often the case in social science that evidence is indirect-- we can't randomly assign people to black or white, e.g.).
To me, hypothesis are either true or false (as they are usually single statements). They cannot be falsified, but by modus tolens can falsify the theory they're derived from. Seems like many on the internet disagree, but that's how I read Popper.
Your point 2: Hard to test directly until and unless we identify race genes (or clusters of genes) that when controlled for explain the gap. We have much data on biological and cognitive-psychological differences across race that can explain the gap (RT and IT in my paper completely mediates the black/white difference on the Wonderlic), but no consensus exists on the genetics of race and so no smoking gun study can yet be conducted on this hypothesis.
It's falsified by showing environmental variables are enough to explain the gap (though one could argue that IQ causes things like SES and education, but that's another can of worms).
3. I think GH predicts biological differences that should mediate the b/w gap. And, that's true (my study is an example). But, it's the fallacy of affirming the consequent to use these data to "prove" the GH. So, I think there is indirect support for GH (rather than no support, as you claim I implied earlier above).
Crap, I did just contribute to a debate here-- really not my intent. No obligation to reply nor to use anything I say in the final product. I am giving one opinion as a "semi-expert" in this area.
Thanks! —Preceding unsigned comment added by Bpesta22 ( talk • contribs) 03:18, 13 March 2010 (UTC)
Slrubenstein said:
No, I really am not, and that's the problem here. It goes back to my point on expertise. The experts in the area (those who have contributed peer review / new knowledge to the field) do not debate, cite nor worry about Gould. That's the worst thing that can happen to a "scientific" contribution. There's nothing in Gould remotely relevant to anything anyone in the field has been doing in recent history. The worst scientific contributions are not the ones smacked down by experts in the field. They are the ones that are completely ignored. That is Gould.
Beyond perhaps a book review of Nisbett's new book in Intelligence, watch how the field ignores it.
I'm not sure it's appropriate to share this here, but it makes the point nicely. One of my papers on IQ cited Gould in an attempt to provide a balanced lit review. An anonymous peer reviewer said: "Why cite gould. The man is an idiot. He's an advocate, not a scientist. Would the authors cite a paper on young earth creationism in a paper about geography?"
Quoting mismeasure in the stub, I think, weakens it greatly if one wants to be relevant and summarize state of the art. Not my call, though, and I suspect Gould will remain in whatever the final version is.
I do think EH is straightforward. It's the idea that self-reports of race are correlated with many important environmental variables that affect human well-being. It's also very simple to identify important environmental variables. Education. Nutrition. Access to Health care. Single parent versus mom and dad. White teacher/black teacher. Eating a good breakfast or not. Having internet access or not. The list is easy to produce and goes on and on.
No one study will ever control all these, but no one study needs to for at least one reason: The only way these factors (whether singly or in combo) can explain the gap is if they are CONFOUNDED with self reports of race.
If they are not confounded, they are simply a source of error variance and cannot explain the gap.
This is a critically important point. I spent days trying to get this point across to very smart people (I'll provide the link below) and they still didn't get it.
In my opinion, the biggest reason why you might not get consensus here is that I bet few wiki editors have 10 plus years experience and graduate study on the scientific method in general and this area specifically. It's very hard to no what's relevant and what's not without having the background. I say this not to demean, and it still might be the case that all my statements are false, but there is a reason why successfully contributing to the scientific literature typically requires a huge investment of time and education. There's a standard saying in social science (though the principal has exceptions): You wont discover anything important before age 40. There's a reason why that's "true".
Indirect evidence for GH: Biology and cognitive psychology mediate the gap. Reaction time and inspection time measures of IQ explain statistically paper and pencil IQ score differences across race. Many of the factors R&J offer as proof of GH (inbreeding depression; maturational differences) also in my opinion provide indirect evidence.
This link is people at scienceblogs desperate to debunk my ideas on race and IQ. They solicited a ph.d. student to review my article (she was very good!). If you peruse this, my apologies for any snark. This post occurred after I spent literally two weeks of my life in a jaw-droppingly unfair debate on the topic. By this point I was so frustrated that in many places I was not nice. It does however cover the idea of a confound versus source of error.
http://almostdiamonds.blogspot.com/2009/12/reaction-times-and-iq-tests.html
Bpesta22 (
talk)
16:06, 13 March 2010 (UTC)
Fair enough, I don't think I disagree with anything you said. Thanks too for discussing rationally.
I think my role-- if any-- should be this: So as not to further delay the project, you guys should continue on as planned. I offer to peer-review the final product and make (non-binding) recommendations. You all can then agree whether to incorporate my comments or not.
This would require far less time than me becoming a Wiki expert and would at least give you some sense of what a psychologist thinks of your stub. It might be a good idea to solicit an expert in genetics to peer review the gene/race stuff-- this would likely get you an even more balanced product.
Bpesta22 ( talk) 17:27, 13 March 2010 (UTC)
At a time when we need it most, God sent us a genuine expert in the field. Finally, we can make progress!
Dr. Pesta (with a"D") is an associate professor who has published many articles in the field, including one about R/I. He also won an award at Harvard. But unlike Rushton, his main interest is not race. In fact, we do not find it in this list:
Research Interests:
The Wonderlic Personnel Test.
The structure of general intelligence.
The cognitive science of general mental ability.
The role of g in work settings.
Individual and group differences in general mental ability.
Elementary cognitive tasks as IQ tests and predictors of work outcomes.
Sexual harassment
Employment discrimination Law
Decision making
HR selection / employment testing
Religiosity and performance
In short, Jay-zuss has taken mercy on us and sent us a guardian angel who is EXACTLY the person we need to complete this, and know we are doing it correctly.
TechnoFaye Kane
09:32, 16 March 2010 (UTC)
Extended content minimized |
---|
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it. |
But look what happened: 1) He introduces himself
Using himself as an example, professor Pesta states that he studies R/I not to prove the Master Race, but with the goal of using science to understand, predict, and control something in the interest of increasing human well-being. It should be noted that his Harvard award was for advancing humanitarian principles.
6) Dr. Pesta politely corrects Wapondaponda, saying that he has met Jensen, Rushton, and Lynn; and they're not racists. He also gives evidence. He also gives a different opinion of Gould. "I think Gould's heart was in the right place, but not his science. He's a brilliant writer, but my opinion is his book here did a disservice to reality." 7) But Wapondaponda corrects Dr. Pesta again. "I do not know of any scientist who has disprove any of Gould's claims about race", and characterizes Gould as "an evolutionary scientist" with "expertise." 8) Rubenstein chimes in again, informing the professor that he found a dumb statistical error he made in an article published in a peer-reviewed academic journal. 9) Dr. Pesta, realizing that the people he came here to help turn out to be ignorant bozos who contradict him and argue about subjects he has a doctorate in, quietly changes the subject and returns to giving us the advice we so desperately need in this mediation:
10) Instead of thanking Dr. Pesta for his sage advice and taking time from his research to help us, Rubenstein spits in his face. "Intelligence may be the leading journal on intelligence research, but it is not at all the leading journal on research into race." He pointedly ignores the fact that R/I research is about psychometrics, not race. "Race research", if there is such a thing, has the single function of telling psychometricians the race of the test subjects. Nothing else. After dismissing the peer-reviewed academic journal in which most R/I research is published, Rubenstein tells this authority in the field that the most authoratative publication is Gould's popular-audience paperback: "it is a well-respected study on research on race." Note that Gould did no research on either intelligence or race. After repeatedly telling Dr Pesta he doesn't know what he's talking about in his own field, Rubenstein asks for his opinion: "Can you state for me what the "environmental hypothesis" is? There is much talk about it here but i have yet to be told what the hypothesis is." Integrity demands I acknowledge that Rubinstein did prove me wrong about one of my beliefs. I had previously believed he was only FEIGNING profound stupidity, as a stall tactic. As has been discussed for months here, the hypothesis--one of only two possible--is that the IQ gap is 100% cultural and environmental. Worried that he might have shown insufficient disrespect, Rubenstein then informs the professor that his reasoning is "a non-sequitor" and "silly on its face." As justification for his rude insolence, Rubenstein misquotes Dr. Pesta: "You have already agreed that the genetics hypothesis is not true"-- immediately after this expert just finished explaining why that hypothesis probably IS true. What he really said was that we don't have enough evidence yet to STRONGLY state that the gap is genetic [such as a "stupid gene"], there is sufficient indirect evidence, to logically accept it--including the fact that the only other possible hypothesis has been conclusively proven false. 10) Aryaman politely informs Rubenstein that he's an assh*le, and implies that he should shut up. 11) Rubenstein figures he'd better stop being rude and insulting, so he takes up confusion and bewilderment instead.
11) Professor Pesta now realizes that that everyone he's talked to at Wikipedia is an presumptuous, arrogant fool, so he rephrases the scientific community's opinion of Gould in a way more likely to be understood by people who can't understand things very well: "It's simply not true that Gould's Mismeasure is well-respected. It's an utter piece of crap. It's been wholly ignored by people in field because it's irrelevant to anything the field is doing now. Citing Gould in [the R/I article] might be popular, but it would be irrelevant to the truth." He also clarifies that "I never meant to imply the genetic hypothesis is false." He also says "We have much data on biological and cognitive-psychological differences across race that can explain the gap", and that the genetic explanation makes certain testable predictions which are in fact, found. He says that "direct evidence" means nothing less than finding the "smoking gun" -- specific gene(s) which correlate strongly with both race and intelligence. [Such genes would have evolved in the humans who left Africa 100,000 years ago.] And he ends by expressing regret that he's getting into an argument here [as opposed to merely answering questions]. 12) Rubenstein tells Dr. Pesta-again--that he is "misinformed" [about Gould's authority in Dr. Pesta's field of expertise]. He also says that our article can't define "the environmentalist hypothesis" as "the gap is solely environmental" because that's how rushton and jenson describe it. With the logic of a drunken 10 year-old, Rubinstein decides that we can only use the term "environmental hypothesis" to mean "the gap is solely environmental" after someone who believes that the gap is solely environmental has proved that it is. He then suggests that Dr. Pesta doesn't really believe what he wrote and that he only said that "environmental variables can be controlled for" because he was in a hurry and typed it accident. He proceeds to educate the expert in statistical analysis by teaching his student what "controlling environmental variables" means: controlling the the environment of the test subject by making sure the humidity in the room is the same for everyone and that Rushton didn't dim the lights when the blacks took the IQ test. He also gives an stricter definition: "controlling environmental variables" means controlling the test subjects' environment (e.g. humidity) for his entire life. For his next lesson in research design, Rubenstein teaches Dr. Pesta that if he cannot control for all of these environmental variables (like temperature, humidity, and lighting in the IQ test room, then he does not have one single "environmental hypothesis", but many -- one for temperature, one for humidity, etc. He also expresses doubt that Dr. Pesta says what he does in good faith, implying that maybe the professor is deliberately lying to us, and demands examples of of indirect evidence for the genetic hypothesis, even though that's what Dr. Pesta just did. Rubenstein then scolds the professor for his "non-sequitor" reasoning, saying that that his evidence for the genetic hypothesis could also support theories of Aether and phlogisten. After some garbled, incomprehensible rambling, he compares Dr. Pesta to a creationist. Sadly, Dr. Pesta takes this cynical abuse seriously and responds to it. Rubenstein replies as he has always done, saying that:
Dr. Pesta finally bails. He agrees that Rubenstein's doubletalk is corrrect, and says he won't participate in this mediation anymore (except to review the final product). The moderator, being a hereditarian, said nothing during the eight days it took for Rubenstein to chase the anti-hereditarian expert away. There are several possible explainations for Rubinstein: -- He is exceedingly stupid. That is obviously not the case. -- He is a teenager who thinks he can fool the grownups -- He is schizophrenic -- But by far, the most likely explanation is that he is a troll, with the specific purpose of gumming up the works with delay and meaningless objections. At this point, a REAL moderator would ban Rubinstein from this mediation for manifestly bad faith. However this won't be done, as the biased moderator doesn't like what the expert said any more than Rubenstein did. Finally, weeks ago I asked several sensible, very relevant questions of the moderator. I have repeated them periodically. He has yet to reply. Those they can't chase away, they stonewall. For that reason, after clicking "Save Page", I will begin researching actions I can take with Wikipedia administration to terminate this mediation cabal, lock this page, and resolve the issue formally through the arbitration committee. I will also pursue getting slrubenstien sanctioned for giving the only expert we have the bum's rush. In the meantime, I suppose will continue commenting here. Because the current group is biased and farcical, I consider it to be without standing and will begin editing the R/I article again myself. I hope the bad faith editors leave my changes in place, but if this starts an edit war, then at least it will draw the attention of a wiki manager. One more thing. Though Dr. Pesta didn't work out, Dr. R., who teaches Research Design, will be joining us shortly (after I get around to setting up his account specifically for the R/I article). However, unlike Dr. Pesta, he will be as difficult to intimidate as myself: he worked for Jensen and I work for him. TechnoFaye Kane 09:32, 16 March 2010 (UTC)
|
Any way you can remove that picture of me. I hate it!
This one is preferred:
http://c2.ac-images.myspacecdn.com/images01/93/l_60d7f438e63c06a3e145609308d50b19.jpg
(it's a myspace thing / inside joke -- that's what I won the humanist award for).
I was not intimidated here, nor offended. My only concern is time. My impression is that the discussion here seemed reasonable, especially compared with my recent experiences at "science" blogs.
Bpesta22 ( talk) 16:06, 16 March 2010 (UTC)
Yeah, those were the stubbornest people I've ever seen on the internet! Slippery, too. It just shows that people believe whatever their emotions tell them. And I have NO idea why, when (non-autistic) people are shown something they don't want to believe, they don't THANK the messenger for opening their eyes; they get ANGRY(!) at someone who didn't do anything but tell them the truth! My boss can't use his work for Jensen on his CV because the one time he mentioned it, the guy got mad and showed him him the door. Yet all he ever did was run data through SPSS and SAS. For that matter, that's really all Jensen did too.
But like you said, only the worthless theories get ignored. The reason otherwise-smart people get so upset by R/I research is that they know, deep down, that it's real. At an astrophysics site I hang around, when crackpots present their "new theory of space and time that proves einstein wrong", the guys don't get angry, they just say "bullshit" and dismiss it. Only the crackpot gets mad, because he was just told something he doesn't want to hear, and realizes it's true. TechnoFaye Kane 02:51, 17 March 2010 (UTC)
Faye, I think that's a workable idea. if the others agree to it, I'm behind it. I'll also suggest that he send you more pictures: it seems to do good things for your... uhh... mood.
--
Ludwigs2
04:00, 17 March 2010 (UTC)
Thanks TF! Most people are not that enthusiastic about my work:)
I'm not sure my say should be binding. Other than that, I would like to offer a "peer review" of whatever the final product is. 184.59.172.151 ( talk) 04:25, 17 March 2010 (UTC)
If you wish to challenge anything here, change it's status to "under discussion", add to the discussion section, and then change status when we have consensus.
List items have 3 possible statuses:
1) under discussion
2) agreed
3) rejected
Before using it to write the article, we need to run this entire list by Our Mentor for his blessing.
My personal view: We need to stop trying (and failing) to make our own interpretations of R/I. We need to shut up and defer to those who know vastly more about the subject than you or I or anyone else in the world. It's not our place to figure out questions like how much of the gap is environmental, whether the genetic explanation is fringe science, or whether SIRE is valid. Our job is to report what the mainstream experts believe.
We were thrashing in that quagmire for months before Dr, Pesta kindly informing us of what the experts agree on. His word should be respected by us and taken as true, but still must be sourced in credible literature if used in the article. Note that some statements below are not useful in the article, but are for our use in this mediation. Remember to sign your comments in the discussion area TechnoFaye Kane 07:30, 21 March 2010 (UTC)
1) can you get a journal article for us to read if we specify which one so we can better understand what's going on? TechnoFaye Kane 07:30, 21 March 2010 (UTC)
2) What is what is "RT and IT"? TechnoFaye Kane 07:38, 21 March 2010 (UTC)
3) What do you mean by "The IQ difference maps onto demonstrably different brain and mental processes in different races."? TechnoFaye Kane 08
4) What does the mainstream think of the theory that the IQ difference is due to everyone else believing that blacks are stupid "caste-like" minorities? TechnoFaye Kane 12:21, 21 March 2010 (UTC)
5) Had you been born sooner, would you have dated me signed the
the statement made by 50 other intelligence
researchers which contradicts
the APA statement?
TechnoFaye Kane
12:21, 21 March 2010 (UTC)
6) We need a referee call at the bottom of [ this] discussion TechnoFaye Kane 21:19, 21 March 2010 (UTC)
7) We need your sage advice here too, Master Yoda. TechnoFaye Kane 21:19, 21 March 2010 (UTC)
8) And here, if you would be so very kind! TechnoFaye Kane 21:22, 21 March 2010 (UTC)
9) I think it is particularly important that you answer this one. TechnoFaye Kane 22:00, 21 March 2010 (UTC)
I may be mistaken about consensus for some items. If so, change the status and tell why in the discussion section.
I have a problem with you listing this as "under discussion", with the assumption that it needs to be discussed more than it has been already. We've already resolved the question of social vs. biological race as much as is necessary for the purpose of revising the article -- Captain Occam ( talk) 03:05, 22 March 2010 (UTC)
Can I change the summary here to “race is both social and biological”? That’s what we agreed in the earlier discussion about this, so if we’re trying to summarize the agreements we’ve reached (which is the whole point of this section), then just saying “race is biological” leaves out part of it. -- Captain Occam ( talk) 06:06, 23 March 2010 (UTC)
and it took us quite a while, so I'd rather not have to repeat the discussion about this a second time. What we resolved is that race (as used in studies of race and intelligence) is socially defined, but that it also correlates strongly with biogeographical ancestry, and for that reason biological differences that exist between biogeographical groups also exist between socially-defined races. Or to put it more simply, race is a socially-defined entity that also has a biological component. If you'd rather think of it as a biological entity whose divisions are influenced by social factors, that probably amounts to close to the same thing; the important thing we've resolved is just that it's both biological and social.
Can you change your summary to reflect this? Even if you don't agree with it, the purpose of what you're doing here is to summarize the points that have been resolved during the mediation, and this is the decision we reached. -- Captain Occam ( talk) 03:05, 22 March 2010 (UTC)
Presumably, when the ancestors of modern Europeans for example migrated from Africa, they appeared similar to other Africans. However, over time, they changed in appearance. During the time they were changing in appearance, there were likely other changes occurring that were not so apparent. During this time the gene flow between Europe and Africa was restricted. Europeans can be said to have become a race. There perhaps was a time long ago when Europeans did not know that their ancestors had migrated from Africa and changed over time. I'm not sure why some people are now trying to deny that the Europeans became a biological race. Should we instead refer to them as the white-skinned European Africans? Whites in the United States could be called European African Americans. -- 98.191.81.47 ( talk) 13:16, 22 March 2010 (UTC)
"I do not know where we agreed that race is both biological and sociological"
Ludwig has archived the discussion about this now, so you’ll have to ask him where it can be found—I’m not able to find it myself anymore. However, I can quote the resolution we reached in it:
- All current research on race in relation to IQ scores is based in SIRE information.
- Some research shows that race (defined by SIRE) correlates highly with certain genetic markers (markers which are obviously inherited, but which are chosen to specifically to reflect biogeographical ancestry.)
- Research suggests that 40-70% of the variation in IQ scores within the same population owes to genetic factiors. A few specific genes have been identified as likely candidates, but none has been conclusively shown to do so.
- There is no definitive research (as yet) that speaks to whether the genes that affect intelligence in individuals are part of the cluster of genes mentioned above.
I’ve changed “race” to “biogeographical ancestry” in the second point, because that’s more specifically what this study was saying, so presumably changing this won’t be controversial. Other than that, this does not have any modifications from the summary we agreed on. Slrubenstein, you were fine with this summary apart from a few changes which you wanted made to it, and which I’ve incorporated into it. And Muntuwandi, I recall you having nothing to say about this summary at all, other than wanting to resolve the question of whether and how much the article would discuss studies linking IQ to specific genes.
If either of you have any problems with this summary that go beyond the suggestions Slrubenstein requested and which have now been incorporated, at this point I think it’s too late to want to re-discuss it. Resolving this was one of the most time-consuming aspects of the mediation process, and both of you had ample time to bring up any further objections to this summary if you had any. If you did, the time to bring them up was during the several weeks while this was being discussed, not now that it’s been resolved.
The purpose of the current discussion is not to re-discuss these points; it’s to summarize what we’ve resolved already. I think that saying “race is both social and biological” is an accurate way of summarizing the resolved points that I quoted above, but if any of you think there’s a better way to summarize them, I’m open to suggestions. -- Captain Occam ( talk) 20:36, 23 March 2010 (UTC)
No, the argument has not come to an end. Bryan Pesta is not an expert on race. His expertise on psychometrics is not in question. But he is not an expert on race. The science that has expertise on race is anthropology, so we should go by the statements of the AAA and the AAPA. Slrubenstein | Talk 14:21, 24 March 2010 (UTC)
From the AAA: "Race and ethnicity both represent social or cultural constructs for categorizing people based on perceived differences in biology (physical appearance) and behavior." The AAA discourages the use of the word "race" because of its association with things like the Holocaust, Apartheid, etc., and wants to replace it with "ethnic origin" or "geographic ancestry" or some other supposedly innocuous phrase. Relying heavily upon the AAA for this article would be a mistake IMO, primarily because their reasoning for rejecting "race" is directly contradicted by the very subject under discussion. The AAA writes "Differentiating species into biologically defined "races" has proven meaningless and unscientific as a way of explaining variation". In other words, the AAA is telling us that the scientific community has determined that "race" is useless concept when discussing human variation, as the distinctions its use entails are of no value to science. Well, this is obviously refuted simply by mentioning the academic controversy surrounding race and IQ. The truth is, the tiny governing body of the AAA wants very much for all scientists to reject the term "race", but this has not happened, and this controversy demonstrates that fact. Any authority the AAA could have on this subject is drawn directly from those experts who have studied the particular phenomena in question, so, given the number of qualified experts who argue for the utility of "race" in discussions of human variation, their statement on race and IQ amounts to little more than wishful thinking on their part. -- Aryaman (talk) 15:48, 24 March 2010 (UTC)
I definitely agree that race has biological correlates, but a correlate is another word for an imperfect relationship or association. SIRE will correlate strongly with skin color. But the traditional view has been that pigmentation traits are "trivial" because in the animal kingdom, pigmentation can vary within a population. A dog or cat can have a litter of pups with individuals that have different coat colors. SIRE does correlate with the risk of acquiring diseases, for example people of African descent have a higher risk of getting prostate cancer, but this doesn't mean that people of European or Asian descent don't get prostate cancer.
With regards to the statements that Ludwigs sumarized, this would be my preference
Wapondaponda ( talk) 02:23, 25 March 2010 (UTC)
{{
cite book}}
: External link in |chapterurl=
(
help); Unknown parameter |chapterurl=
ignored (|chapter-url=
suggested) (
help){{
cite journal}}
: Cite journal requires |journal=
(
help); Explicit use of et al. in: |last=
(
help){{
cite journal}}
: Cite journal requires |journal=
(
help); Explicit use of et al. in: |last=
(
help)Wapondaponda ( talk) 05:34, 25 March 2010 (UTC)
STATUS: agreed SOURCE: consensus DISCUSSION: Okay guys, every item in this list has to be a statement we either agree or disagree on. This is the list item for "social race", a concept some of you seem keen to inject into this issue.
But remember that we are arguing about THE MEANING OF A WORD. But there IS no such thing. Words do NOT have any inherent meaning. They mean whatever the speaker intends them to mean. Either you agree with this list-item's statement or you don't. The same with the previous statement about genetic race. TechnoFaye Kane 05:56, 25 March 2010 (UTC)
Copy the above 4-line template as it appears in the editing window, not as it appears in the talk page itself. Please copy it into a new list item; don't just use this one.
The easiest way to do that is [in the editing window] copy the four lines above, then paste the copy directly above what you just copied
...Thank you
Hi all.
Quick note to say I have some comments re the new stuff. I hope to address them later tonight, or most likely by Tuesday night.
Thanks
Bpesta22 ( talk) 18:34, 21 March 2010 (UTC)
Ah, I just now realized I had some messages -- sorry for not replying. I'm not as clueless as it seems here. I've been posting on internet forums for about 20 years. Wiki seems very odd to me, in terms of how posts are laid out and replied to. My apologies.
Re The biology of race.
I don't know; nor do I think anyone knows exactly what the biology of race is. Even given that, I personally find claims that race is 100% social kind of silly. So, depending on the environment one is raised in, could you take a white skinned kid and have him grow up to be black (or vice versa)? My tentative definition is "skin color and it's biological co-variates." That definition needs more precision-- is certainly not 100% precise-- but I'll defer to the geneticists.
We can study things (especially the effects of things) without having them 100% precisely defined. Welcome to social science. Many constructs here are ill-defined (motivation; leadership; intelligence, etc). Anything we measure, though, is "good" to the extent it is both reliable and valid. SIRE seems to have high reliability (there are many ways to conceptualize this, but I suspect that people consistently check the same box when asked, or that raters would consistently agree on race for most people. None of this would be 100% precise, but no measurement ever is. My guess is the reliability of race as a measure would be well above the conventional threshold-- .70-- for having utility).
Is SIRE valid? My guess is yes, but not perfectly so. If one day science agrees on the exact genetic patterns that differentiate white from black, I'd bet a large sum that these patterns would correlate very strongly with SIRE. Indirect measurement is quite common in psychology. We can't see how you encode/store/retrieve information, e.g., but we can make inferences about these processes by looking at error rates or reaction time (that is the idea behind cognitive psychology-- we can study un-observable mental processes indirectly but validly by looking at observable things like errors or speed). The whole idea in testing is that we can't look at you and tell how smart you are (the latent / unobservable construct here being intelligence) but we can create a test (the manifest indicator) and the test scores being observable can be used to make inferences about how much of the latent construct you possess. I think skin color is a valid (but not perfect) manifest indicator for the (as yet unknown) genetics of race (the latent construct).
The solution seems to be linking to another wiki stub that gets into what race means, but sticking here to only discussion of *IQ scores* (whether true measures of human intelligence, or junk science) and *race* differences (whether SIRE is a highly accurate proxy for the biology of race or not).
If you all are still debating the practical significance / utility of all this, then appeal to effect sizes is the way to go. Effect sizes (versus statistical significance) get at practical significance. Using conventions here, the race effects are huge. It is rare to see effects this large in social science. The practical implications are vast. IQ offers a potentially parsimonious explanation for a host of variables where races come out unequal. When you aggregate the effects to groups of people (versus individuals) the effects become even more important. If this is too vague, let me know and I will follow up on it when I get more time.
Bpesta22 ( talk) 04:26, 24 March 2010 (UTC)
I am not a geneticist nor an expert on race. If there is a biology of race, I suspect it's a fuzzy category (a continuum versus a dichotomy). That doesn't bother me personally because social science is all about fuzziness. But, if race exists at all biologically then I would bet lots that a simple measure of skin color would correlate very strongly with whatever clusters that biologists identify as "race". So, I think it's a moot point (I can't imagine a scenario where when biology makes a definitive statement on the biology of race, that their definition will not correlate very largely with skin color and SIRE).
As practical measures, proxies become more and more useful as the correlation between them and what they're a proxy for increases. So, in my opinion, it's reasonable to study this stuff using a less than perfect proxy, rather than be handcuffed by those who demand a 100% accurate/precise definition of the construct before any data on the topic can be taken seriously.
That said, it's true that the social aspects of race are perfectly confounded with whatever the biology is. That demands serious study before inferences can be made. Many studies have been done, though, and I think we can come to some tentative but scientific conclusions (i.e., that no simple social/environmental confounding variable is the magic bullet. And, that many indirect predictions made by the genes > 0 seem supported, whereas despite decades of study, no factor x's in the environment explain the gap).
So, my suggestion is to be very literal. We're talking here about the relationship between "SIRE" (and the baggage behind that) and "scores on an IQ test" (and the baggage behind that). Links to what race is, and to what IQ is, could satisfy the interested reader. This stub, however, should focus on the data relevant to these two variables, and how genes versus environment make different predictions regarding what should happen when potential confounding variables are controlled.Researchers who study this stuff are obviously aware of the confound, and have made attempts to tease out the genes/biology versus environment. That's what the article here should focus on.
It's late; sorry if my writing here sucks!
184.59.172.151 ( talk) 04:42, 25 March 2010 (UTC)
My name Is Dr. Tony Roberts. I teach research design, statistics, ethics, and other subjects. My web page is here. I am sorry to enter this discussion so late in the game. I probably won't contribute a lot, but I find it fascinating to watch this process unfold. Someone could do a thesis on the social dynamics of this discussion. Yes, I know the editor Faye, but since bat-shit insanity is not contagious, I find her quite harmless. Dr.TMRoberts ( talk) 05:08, 24 March 2010 (UTC)
|}
{{
cite journal}}
: Explicit use of et al. in: |author=
(
help); Unknown parameter |month=
ignored (
help)CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (
link)
![]() | This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 1 | ← | Archive 3 | Archive 4 | Archive 5 | Archive 6 | Archive 7 | Archive 8 |
Concerns have been raised about 'cherry picking' sources (particularly data-centric sources) to promote a particular ideology. Let's address that in this section. Wapondaponda, can you lay out the problem, please?
The subject of race and intelligence isn't part of the mainstream academic curriculum. Much of the data on the RI controversy has been published by just a few authors, chiefly Jensen, Rushton and a few other recipients of Pioneer Fund grants. Their publications are in the minority position in this controversy. A data-centric article would be heavily reliant on data from Jensen and Rushton and as a result, a data-centric article will give undue weight to the minority position.
The issue of a data-centric article has arisen because a data-centric model is believed to have introduced some stability to the race and crime articles. However race and crime is a different subject, and what may have worked in race and crime is not necessarily applicable to race and intelligence. Crime statistics in the US are published by government agencies. The statistics are hard facts that are quite uncontroversial. OTOH IQ test score data and its analysis lie at the heart of this controversy. AFAIK, the US government doesn't have much of an official race/IQ policy, but they do have policies directed towards the achievement gap. Race/IQ data is primarily of interest to a few academicians. In short race/IQ data doesn't have mainstream credibility or authority like crime data. I believe it is not yet possible to separate the race/IQ data from the controversy because the data is the controversy.
For example, Richard Lynn and others have published data that suggests that Sub-Saharan Africans have an average IQ of 70. An IQ of 70 in the US implies borderline mental retardation. This data suggests that half of all Africans are mentally retarded, a suggestion that some find preposterous and one that even perplexes racial hereditarians. See also Talk:Race and intelligence/Archive 74. I don't believe that it is appropriate to present IQ data with little or no context, criticism or analysis. Wapondaponda ( talk) 14:30, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
I would like to respond to Muntuwandi's comments point by point:
To summarize: After reviewing Muntuwandi's comments, I do not see at present any reason why we should not apply the proposed sectioning-off of the data and the interpretations to the article. -- Aryaman (talk) 17:24, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
I was about to re-rebut but since it is likely to lead to a protracted argument, I will avoid doing so and instead briefly summarize my concerns. Whenever I have done some research on this topic, whether online or in a library, I have had difficulties in finding information on the subject that isn't in some way based on, or related to, the studies of Jensen and Rushton. This has been my experience, it may be different for others. If someone wanted data on the subject of RI, I would suggest The Bell Curve or Jensen's magnum opus, The g Factor. Both these books are filled with data( means, medians, correlations, variances SDs etc). Yet these books are highly controversial and the theories in these books have not gained mainstream acceptance. OTOH, if someone wanted data on crime statistics, they can easily be obtained from The Bureau of Justice Statistics. There isn't much controversy regarding the actual data, rather the controversies exist about public policy on crime. AFAIK, there isn't an equivalent government website that has race/IQ stats in such detail. Data may exist for SAT scores, and SAT may have a "g" component but this isn't explicit IQ data. To address Ludwig's concern about data, my impression is that a data-centric article will have data that is similar to the data found in publications such as The Bell Curve and The g Factor. This is my main concern about a data-centric article, that it will directly or indirectly give undue weight to hereditarian theories as suggested by Jensen and others. Wapondaponda ( talk) 00:42, 7 February 2010 (UTC)
I would like to point out that it's impossible to have a data-centric article about race and intelligence as you can not measure intelligence, partly because you can't even define it. The data measures tests scores on IQ tests and other tests. That does not measure intelligence, but how good you are at taking these kinds of tests. A data centric article would have to be renamed "Race and IQ". The problems with the lack of data and the minority centric view would then be relevant, but for Race and Intelligence it's not relevant as there simply is no data whatsoever. -- OpenFuture ( talk) 09:05, 6 March 2010 (UTC)
discussion about whether it be useful/acceptable to choose one editor to revise the article broadly, with other editors restricting themselves to talk page contributions. Naturally, all editors would have the opportunity to reject the final result, but the hope would be that a single editor (acting without interference and in good faith) might be able to create a version acceptable to all parties.
I think this is a good idea if DJ would be the person writing the article. Virtually all of his/her contributions to the article have been neutral and beneficial, and very few users here have expressed any problems with them. Based on the way he handled the Race and Crime article, I think Varoon Arya could also do a good job writing this, but I think DJ would be the best choice. --
Captain Occam (
talk)
02:48, 7 February 2010 (UTC)
I don't think it's a good idea. I don't trust people who say there's no such thing as biological race to write an unbiased article about whether it's related to intelligence. Nor could I write a decent article explaining that Dr. King isn't really negro and that believing he is just someone's opinion. It's not literally impossible, but it's like expecting creationists to write the article about evolution. Each section should be written by someone who believes what he's writing about belongs in Wikipedia, reviewed by the rest of us, and then defended here like a dissertation. Also:
Tucking away some extended content, because this runs off topic for this section. I think it belongs in the #social vs. genetic section, maybe? |
---|
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it. |
"...And therefore it's not true." The fact that some people find it preposterous only means that the common use of the word "retarded" is inaccurate and cruel, and that people don't have to be drooling mongoloids in order to have an IQ of 70.
To say that self-reported race is different from biological race one must believe either:
1) That there is no correlation between self-reported race and (trivial) physical features such as dark skin and wide noses, or
2) That differences in these physical features are not due to differences in DNA.
Including this fringe idea in Wikipedia at all is improper, but I'm willing to compromise and let it be one short section, modulo it include a statement that most experts DO believe that there are three (main) races of humans, that the contrary assertion appears only or almost only in R/I debates, and that other fields of science have no problem with the concept of biological race. However I'm willing to forgo including those statements in the name of consensus, so we can get this article completed and I can go back to learning stuff instead of defending the publication of that which is already known.
Finally, I think I ought to say that per request of the new moderator, I'm trying hard not to say things that are "objectionable". Sadly, I guess I should have expected it from an anti-heriditarian moderator, but:
1) It's the implications of legitimate research which some people find objectionable.
2) Politeness is something autistics can barely even detect, much less generate. If this post makes some people pissed off (or however you say it politely), I apologize because that's not my motivation for spending over an hour writing it and I really don't want to get banned from another online forum.
TechnoFaye Kane
08:13, 7 February 2010 (UTC)
|
I think DJ or VA singlehandedly putting together a first version is fine (if they are happy with this). I guess someone will have to think up a structure plan at some point, before writing the article. It would do no harm to put that up for comment while work progresses. mikemikev ( talk) 16:02, 7 February 2010 (UTC)
I expect that Varoon Arya would be a good editor to do a rewrite of the article. He seems to have the ability and the energy, and seems generally receptive to alternate viewpoints. That said, I think this only works if he works well with a reliable set of editors (I would suggest Alun or Slrubenstein as primary editor). As I said above, the editors probably should not edit the article directly themselves. Of course, it may be that the final version of the article isn't acceptable, and we still find ourselves spinning our wheels. A.Prock 05:57, 9 February 2010 (UTC)
Ok, I think we have hammered out most of the points that we can for the moment. I suggest that we adopt this 'single editor' approach and get a version of the article created. then we can examine the result and see if any new concerns raise themselves. I'll add an FAQ of the current resolveds here in this section in a bit.
DJ and Varoon Arya seem to have consensus for making a draft - does one of you want to accept the task? -- Ludwigs2 19:02, 26 February 2010 (UTC)
Cap'n Occ - as far as I'm concerned, if there is an editor who disagrees sufficiently to make a point of it, there is no consensus. there may have been a consensus before, and that might be a good place to start to refine a new consensus, but no one is honor-bound to conform to a previous agreement against their will.
With respect to the data-driven model: there were some contentions over that idea that were based on worries that a data-driven model - actually, a replication of the model used on race and intelligence - would unfairly privilege some perspectives over others (I believe the phrase used was 'cherry-picking data that supported particular POVs', from Wapondaponda) and that trying to solve the problem by defining the structure would be ineffective (from AProck). I think there was a lot of support for the idea, but not unanimous agreement. rather than deciding the issue now as a finality, I might suggest that we start by using a data-centric model, just to get the ball rolling, but leave our options open if it looks like it's leading the article astray. I'm open to other suggestions, of course - what do you all think? -- Ludwigs2 08:54, 27 February 2010 (UTC)
I would suggest that anyone willing to make major changes can create a temporary draft in a subfolder for the talk page of R/I and can use the Template:Workpage. Participants can review and if there is a consensus the changes can be implemented. If rejected the draft should be deleted. If a draft is of better quality than previous versions, then it doesn't matter whether it is datacentric or not. When we signed on to this mediation, the agreement was that during the process, no edits, except if there is a consensus, would be made to the article. I believe that most of us have refrained from editing the article during this mediation, but nonetheless the article may have evolved somewhat during the mediation. This mediation should include the "do nothing option", which in this case refers to the stable version that existed prior to the dispute. Apart from the "hereditarian arguments", the only other major problem with the pre-dispute version was that the article was too long. Wapondaponda ( talk) 10:53, 27 February 2010 (UTC)
Sorry I've been absent lately, but recent developments in RL are eating up all of my spare time - and then some. Even if we had an agreement on the 'one editor' proposal and folks could handle me doing it, I simply don't have the time the job requires, and won't for several months.
At this point - and taking the climate of this mediation into consideration - my earnest suggestion to Ludwigs is to begin by mercilessly stubbing the article down to the section currently labeled "Overview". That is the only section which has near-universal editorial consensus behind it, which is entirely on-topic and which is as non-POV as we can hope to get right now.
Of course, such a stub would need to be expanded. But every new piece of information added to the article would need to be written up as a proposal, discussed and tweaked/voted on as a group before being added. And, I think the only way to do this is for Ludwigs to act as the buffer between the editors and the article every step of the way. It's ridiculous, but it seems the situation requires it. -- Aryaman (talk) 13:46, 27 February 2010 (UTC)
I think one editor is the only workable plan. Of course they would have to be as neutral as possible. IMHO: TechnoFaye and I are too hereditarian (although I accept the environmental possibility, not sure if Faye does); Alun, Wapondaponda, Aprock and Slrubenstein are too environmentalist; Occam, Aryaman, David Kane, Ludwig and DJ are roughly neutral. I would be happy with any of the neutral editors. Is Ludwig compromised as an option? mikemikev ( talk) 10:35, 1 March 2010 (UTC)
I do not know that I have ever asserted any claim about either the hereditarian or environmentalist positions, specifically. I think Aryaman and Muntuwandi seem equally neutral. Slrubenstein | Talk 14:10, 1 March 2010 (UTC) [1] mikemikev ( talk) 18:53, 1 March 2010 (UTC)
ok, so let me see if I understand the current idea: David.Kane will be the one revising the article, with input from Brian Pesta as a technical adviser? It is assumed that (a) David will do his best to write from NPOV, and (b) that he will pay attention to comments and considerations that other mediation-bound editors have made here and will make on the article talk page. I'll help Brian out with the wikipedia fine points as needed, and I'll moderate the talk page discussion. I also think we should do this first revision quickly - david, do you think you can dedicate a couple of days to just buckle down and edit? The longer we draws out the editing process, the more chance there is that outside editors will show up and start making other changes, and the more chance there is that we'll get bogged down in nit-picky details. Think of this first draft as shaping the forest- we can get to pruning the trees after it's done. {{ tick}} or {{ cross}} your support/problems. -- Ludwigs2 17:52, 5 March 2010 (UTC)
At Ludwig’s suggestion, I’ve gone ahead with my proposal now. Something I’d like everyone to keep in mind about this is that I came up with almost none of this myself. Since the data-centric approach was DJ’s idea, and the current assumption (which may change, but it’s what’s been discussed so far) is that DJ will be writing the final version of the article, the structure I’ve come up with is based almost entirely on the proposals that DJ has made already.
Most of the structure is based on the article structure that DJ came up with in December, during the time when the article briefly existed under the name Between-group differences in IQ, and which existed under the article’s current name until Ramdrake reverted it back two months on January 22nd. The new items I’ve added are the ones that DJ proposed in his opening statement, which is where he originally suggested the idea of the article using a data-centric approach.
The only thing I’ve added here that was my own idea, rather than DJ’s, is the idea of dividing the data between “factors potentially affecting group IQ” and “data and interpretations”. I think this is a natural division for it to have: the first category is factors which have been proposed to account for the IQ difference, and the question is whether they do or not; in other words hypotheses about this that have been proposed and then are tested. The “data and interpretations” section is for information that goes in the opposite direction: starting with specific lines of data, and then proposing explanations for them.
There are some items where I’m not completely sure which section they belong in, particularly “evolutionary scenarios.” According to DJ’s opening statement (which he posted in November), this was discussed in the January issue of PAID, and I’m assuming he meant the January 2009 issue because at that point the January 2010 issue hadn’t been published yet. I’ve looked through the January 2009 issue, though, and can’t easily tell what it is that he was referring to there. So depending on what this is, it’s possible that it’s something which belongs in the “factors potentially affecting group IQ” section.
I think it would be useful if DJ could give us his input about this, especially since some of us are hoping that he’ll be the one to eventually write the article. He hasn’t been active on Wikipedia in around two weeks; does anyone know how to get in contact with him? -- Captain Occam ( talk) 07:29, 9 February 2010 (UTC)
It seems that we should specifically have sections early in the article which address the most contentious topics that we've seen in moderation. Specifically, a discussion of sociological race versus genetic race, and a discussion of exactly what the mainstream consensus is at this point in time. A.Prock 17:20, 9 February 2010 (UTC)
A suggestion. let's make specific requests for change using {{ Question-icon}} as follows:
then, if there are no objections raised we can edit the change in. this should separate specific requests from the surrounding commentary. I trust that we can let anyone edit the list for now; if there's anything contentious, ask Captain Occam or myself to edit in.
I'll leave a note for DJ telling him his attention is requested. -- Ludwigs2 19:15, 9 February 2010 (UTC)
mikemikev ( talk) 15:31, 10 February 2010 (UTC)
Reviewing the outline, it is currently far skewed toward the hereditarian hypothesis. A.Prock 15:57, 6 March 2010 (UTC)
Sorry for being MIA. I'm afraid that will continue for some time. Let me reiterate what I originally meant by a data-centric approach. First, what it is not -- It is in contrast to an explanation-centric approach. The point of a data-centric approach is not to alter the scope of the article or the level of detail given. It is not an invitation to conduct original research or synthesis -- the point is still to explain what the relevant published views are. This isn't a major departure from standard practice and policy. Second, what I meant -- Primarily the idea is that the subheadings of the relevant section of the article should be kinds of data/experiments (e.g. admixture studies, Flynn effect). The results of these studies should be presented in whatever details is appropriate -- less is better I would think. The major interpretations of the data should be given -- attributed as appropriate. All relevant views about how to interpret the data should be given in the same subsection. The state of the science being what it is, there is always going to be at least two notable opinions about how to interpret a study. Third, why this is useful -- The goal is to provide an organizational structure that is more easily made compliant with NPOV. An explanation-centric approach would be worse... if the major opinion in the field is that no one knows what causes IQ differences then there's no reason to try to write an article that is structured around contrasting extreme poles of opinion about what the cause really is. The data-centric approach will make the source of the uncertainty clearer. It should also be most sustainable because there will be less temptation to add one more detail pro or con a particular interpretation if the organization isn't structured around explanations themselves. -- DJ ( talk) 02:49, 8 March 2010 (UTC)
This is my suggestion for the basic structure of the article
These sections are what I believe are the core issues in this controversy. To make the article easier to read, I suggest that like material should be placed together when possible. The current proposal has genetic and environmental arguments sprinkled all over the article. Maybe it would be better if genetic arguments were concentrated in one section and the same for environmental arguments. This would help us to address the how much weight to allocate each hypothesis.
At present, I do not have much time for editing, but I am available to give opinions on any proposed content. Wapondaponda ( talk) 05:39, 8 March 2010 (UTC)
I've gone ahead and modified the outline to try to capture the discussion that's going on here - I think the two points of view are integrable. everything above the dividing line is the revised outline; material below the line is old points that should be integrated into the above portion (or discarded).
hopefully I didn't screw things up worse with this. comments? -- Ludwigs2 07:32, 10 March 2010 (UTC)
I had some time so I sat down and put together a rough outline of the article as I envision it. If I were writing it, this is what I would start with and see where it goes from there. I've intentionally omitted the lead, as I like to write that last. Here's the outline with a brief description of what each section should cover.
-- Aryaman (talk) 13:06, 10 March 2010 (UTC)
off-topic |
---|
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it. |
|
Occam: The section you linked to is a good one, and I would put it in the same place as it appears there, i.e. prior to the Policy Implications. As for time: I have some, but I don't want to waste it on bickering with people here. ;)
Slrubenstein: My starting point for that assumption is the Snyderman & Rothman study, in which both the 100% genetic and the 100% environmental positions were clearly minority views. Add to that the conclusions of the Mainstream article and the APA report, and I think it's pretty clear that neither of those views are dominant. As I've said several times, I think the mainstream view is agnosticism.
Regarding your being "uncomfortable": Hereditarianism (ca. 50% environment and 50% genes) and the genetic hypothesis (100% genes) are simply not the same thing. Environmentalism is the belief that all of the differences in IQ between races can be explained by recourse to differences in environmental factors alone. Most if not all experts would agree without hesitation that environmental factors play a large role here. But how many are willing to stick their necks out and say categorically that genes play no role at all? Knowing what we do about the development of intelligence in individuals, i.e. that both the environment and genes are important, assuming that this is not the case simply because we're comparing people of different races runs contrary to common sense and would require some exceptionally good evidence. (This is the basis of the so-called "default hypothesis".) On the other hand, while hereditarianism fits well with what we know about the development of intelligence in individuals, it can't be proven (yet). And that leads us to agnosticism pending further research - the least offensive and most defensible position.
Muntuwandi: As I said to Occam, I did not eliminate the "History of the controversy" material, I just moved it to the intro of the hypotheses section. As for your objection regarding the title "Group differences in intelligence" as being "POV": I have a hard time taking this seriously. Your objection amounts to saying "The article title Nativity of Christ is POV because there are individuals who deny the existence of a historical Jesus". As for the rest, I concur with Mike.
Ludwigs: See my comments to Slrubenstein above. Environmentalism denies any genetic contribution to between-group differences in IQ. Hereditarianism grants some genetic contribution, with the proportion of environment/genetics being variable. The 100% genetic hypothesis denies any environmental contribution. "Environmental" factors are generally broken down into "social" factors (e.g. SES) and "biological" factors (e.g. lead poisoning). Of course, some environmental factors can be "heritable", which is why research is conducted to isolate and control for such factors. -- Aryaman (talk) 16:02, 11 March 2010 (UTC)
A couple of notes about VA's outline.
Finally, I'll clarify the positions since everyone seems to be messing them up. It's not "Environmentalism denies any genetic contribution to between-group differences in IQ.". Environmentalism is the position that environmental factors dominate the variation in inter racial IQ scores. Likewise, it should be pointed out that the Hereditarianism position is not 50%/50% genetics and environment. Rather, it is the position that the genetic component is large enough to effect the aggregate intelligence of races significantly. A.Prock 18:09, 11 March 2010 (UTC)
Aprock: You wrote "The history section has to be somewhere". I'm assuming you've read my responses to Occam and Muntuwandi, so I don't get your point here. Are you saying you object to having this material as an introduction to the Hypotheses section? Also, the official statements make little sense until the reader has been sufficiently prepared for them. We can summarize the thrust of these statements in the lead, though, and I'd like to think that would satisfy the "get the right version out there first" impulse. Besides, the APA report was published 15 years ago, so calling it "current" would be stretching things a little. I'm sorry that the difference between studies on factors potentially affecting group IQ scores and the pseudo-philosophical attitudes people take towards the issue of causation is not sufficiently clear to you. Perhaps you could list some of the studies you think should not be discussed and we can evaluate them as a group? As for defining environmentalism and hereditarianism, we can quote Jensen & Rushton:
It is essential to keep in mind precisely what the two rival positions do and do not say—about a 50% genetic–50% environmental etiology for the hereditarian view versus an effectively 0% genetic–100% environmental etiology for the culture-only theory. The defining difference is whether any significant part of the mean Black–White IQ difference is genetic rather than purely cultural or environmental in origin. Hereditarians use the methods of quantitative genetics, and they can and do seek to identify the environmental components of observed group differences. Culture-only theorists are skeptical that genetic factors play any independently effective role in explaining group differences. Most of those who have taken a strong position in the scientific debate about race and IQ have done so as either hereditarians or culture-only theorists. Intermediate positions (e.g., gene– environment interaction) can be operationally assigned to one or the other of the two positions depending on whether they predict any significant heritable component to the average group difference in IQ. For example, if gene–environment interactions make it impossible to disentangle causality and apportion variance, for pragmatic purposes that view is indistinguishable from the 100% culture-only program because it denies any potency to the genetic component proposed by hereditarians. (pg. 238)
Slrubenstein: No, I don't understand your point. Please refer to the quote from Jensen & Rushton above, and ask whether your beef is with me or with the experts. -- Aryaman (talk) 13:09, 12 March 2010 (UTC)
Comparison of outlines | |
---|---|
Wapondaponda's outline | Aryaman's outline |
|
|
I've put the two suggested outlines next to each other for comparison here - Aryman's is more detailed, of course, (Wapondaponda - maybe you want to flesh yours out), but let's compare them. If we can agree on which sections we all agree must be there, then I can get David Kane to start working on those while we debate the sections that are still debatable. -- Ludwigs2 22:17, 11 March 2010 (UTC)
Occam: I reorganized the list of factors under the "Variables" heading with short explanations of what would go where. Several of the others should probably be discussed in other sections, as you note above. As I said before, it may make sense to briefly list the methods used in these studies in the introduction to the section along with important theoretical and manipulatory concepts. As for "Evolutionary models", my reading of Jensen & Rushton leads me to suspect that this may be presented by its proponents as an alternative to "canonical" hereditarianism and/or environmentalism. I'm not familiar enough with this aspect to say for sure, and would appreciate more information. -- Aryaman (talk) 19:30, 12 March 2010 (UTC)
Spearman's hypothesis: I would be inclined to put this in the "History" section, though I could also see this going in the introduction to "Group differences in intelligence". This is something we could discuss as a group.
Structural equation modelling and regression analysis: As long as we're talking about methods of data manipulation, I'd discuss these in the introductory paragraphs to the "Variables" section. If we're talking about specific results which arise as a result of, say, applying regression analysis to sibling data, then we would need to look at the specific research to find a better fit.
The wording of the "Hypotheses" section obviously was not working, so I've gone ahead and modified it, changing the title and sub-titles to something I think takes your concerns into account, as well as those of Slrubenstein. Let me know what you think.
The articles you've listed definitely need to be obtained before we can make a decision on the "evolutionary models". Do we know if DJ has access to them? One possibility, though, is that, provided we go with the new title, we could write a sub-section on this at a later point in time. -- Aryaman (talk) 13:04, 13 March 2010 (UTC)
Ignoring the minor details, it seems that Occam, Mike and I agree that this outline is slowly shaping up to be good enough to use as a framework for our first serious revision. Slrubenstein has commented on it favourably without voicing explicit approval. The others have not commented (yet). I really hope someone isn't avoiding commenting now with the intention of chiming in when it comes time to take action with the blanket "I-don't-like-it-so-let's-reject-it" vote. Now is the best time to voice concerns and make suggestions for changes. Case in point: Slrubenstein voiced his concern with the word "hypotheses", I agreed this was probably not the best choice, and it has been changed - hopefully to our mutual approval. I'm not expecting everyone to comment here, but I'd like to hear from Aprock and David in particular as to whether they could live with using this for our first draft. Thanks, -- Aryaman (talk) 16:57, 13 March 2010 (UTC)
notes on VA's outline:
A.Prock ( talk) 16:25, 15 March 2010 (UTC)
You are misrepresenting me. I said no such thing. Please respond to what I did write, but do not misrepresent what I wrote. Slrubenstein | Talk 11:08, 18 March 2010 (UTC)
No it is not a line of data both sides discuss consistently, it is a line of argumentation that one side gives one page in a sixty page article to. Moreover, regression to the mean is not data, it is a statistical phenomenon. Slrubenstein | Talk 11:08, 18 March 2010 (UTC)
I certainly agree with that summary. If you don't, then maybe we should revisit the issue? I still don't see how one page in a review, and a mention in an apendix constitutes a significant body of research. I don't see your drawing a line in the sand as very useful. I think it's much better to be flexible and open to compromise. As I said above, I'm willing to look at the original articles, or any other primary articles which mention this line of evidence. A.Prock ( talk) 18:27, 17 March 2010 (UTC)Research into race and intelligence is not "fringe", some of the conclusions drawn from that research are highly contentious and need to be presented as such in the article.
Thak you for representing me accurately. This is precisely what I said, and I stand by it. Slrubenstein | Talk 11:08, 18 March 2010 (UTC)
We are seeking mediation to come up with ONE outline for the article. In the end there is no "my outline" versus "your outline," there is just the outline we will use. And if you do not understand what regression to the mean is, then I advise you to listen to people who do, in devising the outline we will use for this article. Slrubenstein | Talk 11:08, 18 March 2010 (UTC)
Occam, A.Prock - you are talking past each other in unproductive ways. I suggest you stop making assumptions about what the other person means, and instead ask them directly for clarification on things that bother you. people are usually much more responsive to that approach.
slrubenstein - cutting numerous comments into the discussion that way is crazy-making for everyone. can you re-indent and lump your responses together in the future, please? -- Ludwigs2 17:34, 18 March 2010 (UTC)
There are several things I don't like about Muntuwandi's proposed outline, but the glaring fault from where I sit is the division into "environmental" and "genetic" factors when discussing variables potentially affecting intelligence in groups. For example, is SES an "environmental" factor? What about the quality of one's eduction? If an "environmental" factor such as SES is itself determined by IQ to any significant degree, its value as evidence supporting the environmental thesis is greatly diminished, as Dr. Pesta indicated. Environmentalists treat SES as an environment-only factor. Hereditarians see SES as being at least partly dependent upon genetic differences in intelligence. So, how can we tout SES as an "environmental" factor, as in Muntuwandi's outline? The same could be said for length of education, quality of education, and other so-called "environmental" factors. To avoid this problem, we needs to present the potential variables independent of the "environmental/hereditarian" dichotomy. -- Aryaman (talk) 18:39, 17 March 2010 (UTC)
We probably need to come to some consensus on how large should the article should be. There is a lot of information concerning the RI controversy, but we need to decide how much of it should be in the article. If we decide to have a large article, then we can try to fit almost every aspect of the controversy. If we decide to have a smaller article, then obviously not every point will be included. As previously mentioned, the suggested outline has taken into account article size, so some material has been left out, mostly the material which I thought wasn't central to the controversy. Again as previously mentioned regression to the mean has been mentioned by Rushton and Jensen in relation to the RI controversy, the subject is eligible for inclusion. My concerns were, is regression to the mean central to the controversy, and would including it give too much weight to either "hypothesis". I don't have strong feelings about leaving it out or including, but I do feel it is not the most important subjects of the controversy. Wapondaponda ( talk) 22:25, 17 March 2010 (UTC)
Aprock, it seems we're getting down to the scraps now, which is good. I can't predict how long each section is going to be, but I don't think this body of editors will allow any section to grow past what is absolutely necessary to convey the necessary information. There is some talk of splitting the article down. I request that we hold off on pursuing that until we get the rough draft finished and can hand it over to Dr. Pesta for a critical review. Can we give David the green light for revising the article? -- Aryaman (talk) 12:50, 18 March 2010 (UTC)
this sounds like a perfect explanation for why it's not relevant to this article. I'm really having a hard time seeing how variation which is mostly unrelated to race is relevant for an article which is about race. On the other hand, I would support the idea of summarizing and linking to Intelligence quotient#Positive correlations with IQ. A.Prock ( talk) 18:05, 18 March 2010 (UTC)"The distribution of IQ scores among individuals of each race overlap substantially. In a random sample of equal numbers of US Blacks and Whites, Jensen[7] estimates most variance in IQ would be unrelated to race or social class."
Re: "Group differences in intelligence": Where is the dispute here? We're allowed to say there is a significant difference in the results of tests which measure intelligence, but we're not allowed to say there is a significant difference in intelligence? If there is more substance here than semantics, I'm missing it. Regardless, if others agree, I'm fine with renaming it to "Group differences in IQ" provided that would settle the matter.
Re: "Data gathering methods": I'm surprised to see objections to this, unless there's a misunderstanding regarding what's intended. Methods for the manipulation of data are not to be discussed here. This section is simply for mentioning the main tests used to determine IQ, with links where appropriate, as well as the criteria used to establish race, i.e. SIRE. I'm also suprised to see this regarded to as "Muntuwandi's" suggestion, as it has been an integral part of the outline since I first posted it. I can't see the difference between what I've written and what's being requested, so help me out.
Re: "Significance": The article is about "race and IQ". How is material on the social significance of IQ differences between races not relevant here? And where would the rest of the obviously relevant material (such as "Correcting for IQ") go?
Aprock quoted the current opening sentence of the section as proving that the material is irrelevant. The argument he provided makes no sense to me. By the same token we would be justified in eliminating all the literature which claims there is no significant correlation between race and IQ, because - follow the logic here - the article is about the correlation between race and IQ. I'd prefer if someone other than Aprock could try and clarify to me why this section is irrelevant to this topic.
As a note: I'll be busy over the next few days, and won't have much time to keep up with the minutiae of this discussion. I request that the editors overlook the minor details (which is really all we're discussing at this point) and get on with revising the article. If it's still an issue, just tell David to focus on those parts of the outline which are generally agreed upon, which is the bulk of it, and we can work out the details afterwards. -- Aryaman (talk) 19:10, 18 March 2010 (UTC)
question - If I take Occam literally, then he will support Varoon Arya’s outline so long as it includes the “significance” information in some capacity. can we agree that it will do so, accept the outline, and leave the question of how far this 'capacity' goes until later in the writing? -- Ludwigs2 03:51, 20 March 2010 (UTC)
okay, this is getting too personal. can someone please explain to me what exactly is being disagreed over here? how much of the outline is acceptable to all, and what are the specific points of contention. please try to do this without making any reference to people at all - e.g. "it's a dispute over whether X should be included at A or at B". -- Ludwigs2 18:33, 20 March 2010 (UTC)
. A.Prock ( talk) 18:56, 20 March 2010 (UTC)In a random sample of equal numbers of US Blacks and Whites, Jensen[7] estimates most variance in IQ would be unrelated to race or social class
Please don't conclude anything until the major players have had a chance to read all of this. It's been 4 months, it can wait a couple of days.
ALSO: did "we" decide to rename this "race and IQ?" I very much hope not. Decisions are being made too fast. If an editor misses a single day of this, he/she finds they were left out.
ALSO: is there a single place where we document all our decisions so we don't have to dig through all this when we need to refer to them when writing and editing?
Ok, I'm going to TRY to catch up now... TechnoFaye Kane 04:02, 21 March 2010 (UTC)
A.Prock, there's a good example of a discussion of "WHY STUDY RACIAL DIFFERENCES?" in this paper. Social significance and suitability for study could be discussed in the same or different sections. -- DJ ( talk) 22:27, 21 March 2010 (UTC)
No, we didn't agree this. This is just one of the silly things you said, and it is very clear I did not agree. If you lie again I will report you. mikemikev ( talk) 23:02, 23 March 2010 (UTC)
I don't like the fact that this has gone to ANI, but I do think that Mathsci has a point that I've let things get a bit out of control here. so, I am going to start taking stronger measures, as follows:
Stay clear, stay focused, stay concise, and do not comment on other editors if you wish to continue to participate in this mediation.
tomorrow evening (unless you all reach an agreement ahead of me) I will choose an outline which will be some compromise based on the discussions above. no one will like it, I'm sure, but it will work as a starting point so that david can begin editing. we can hash out further details based on that decision as a starting point.
Different approach - let's see how it works. -- Ludwigs2 08:32, 25 March 2010 (UTC)
I think we should include the R/I analysis of Thomas Jefferson in Notes on the State of Virginia (1787):
It is not against experience to suppose that different species of the same genus, or varieties of the same species, may possess different qualifications.
Comparing them by their faculties of memory, reason, and imagination, it appears to me, that in memory the blacks are equal to the whites; in reason much inferior, as I think one could scarcely be found capable of tracing and comprehending the investigations of Euclid; and that in imagination they are dull, tasteless, and anomalous.
The Indians astonish you with strokes of the most sublime oratory; such as prove their reason and sentiment strong, their imagination glowing and elevated. But never yet could I find that a black had uttered a thought above the level of plain narration; never see even an elementary trait, of painting or sculpture. In music they are more generally gifted than the whites with accurate ears for tune and time. Whether they will be equal to the composition of a more extensive run of melody, or of complicated harmony, is yet to be proved.
Misery is often the parent of the most affecting touches in poetry. Among the blacks is misery enough, God knows, but no poetry. Love is the peculiar rœstrum of the poet. Their love is ardent, but it kindles the senses only, not the imagination.
They are more ardent after their female: but love seems with them to be more an eager desire than a tender delicate mixture of sentiment and sensation. Their griefs are transient. Those numberless afflictions, which render it doubtful whether heaven has given life to us in mercy or in wrath, are less felt, and sooner forgotten with them.
The negroes are at least as brave, and more adventuresome than whites. But this may perhaps proceed from a want of forethought, which prevents their seeing a danger till it be present. When present, they do not go through it with more coolness or steadiness than the whites.
Where our conclusion would degrade a whole race of men from the rank in the scale of beings which their Creator may perhaps have given them, to our reproach it must be said that though for a century and a half we have had under our eyes the races of black and of red men, they have never yet been viewed by us as subjects of natural history. I advance it therefore as a suspicion only, that the blacks, whether originally a distinct race, or made distinct by time and circumstances, are inferior to the whites in the endowment of mind. TechnoFaye Kane 13:46, 25 March 2010 (UTC)
off-topic for mediation
|
---|
Wapondaponda tried to get me banned from Wikipedia in the crudest,sleaziest possible way, and when admin after admin blew him off, he raised so much hell that it awoke one of the Lords of Cobol, " matsci". His words from on high:
This mathsci guy doesn't like us, like, at ALL. He told his archangel Ludwig that he's considering smiting us:
God speaks to Ludwig, the biased moderator:
Say, where else have I heard THAT charge made? But then, this charade never WAS about being fair and objective, was it? Dr. Roberts told me to take some time off from this. TechnoFaye Kane 14:29, 25 March 2010 (UTC) |
them be fightin' words.
![]() |
---|
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it. |
|
If the article name "Race and Intelligence" is used, be careful that the article does not become a synthesis. There is some controversy over whether an IQ test score (a single number) for adults is a complete measure their "intelligence". The one thing that can be said for certain is that a timed IQ test measures the speed at which someone can answer some or all of the questions on the test correctly as opposed to simply their ability to answer the questions correctly. -- 98.191.81.47 ( talk) 19:17, 21 March 2010 (UTC)
shall we rename the article to Race and IQ? {{ tick}} or {{ cross}} as usual. also specify if you have a preference between 'race' and 'ethnicity' -- Ludwigs2 23:41, 8 March 2010 (UTC)
Support renaming to
Race and IQ. "Race" and "ethnicity" certainly overlap here, with ethnicity probably being the more redeemable of the two, so I can understand why "ethnicity" might seem better to some. However, I think "race" is the term used most frequently in the literature, particularly in article and book titles. --
Aryaman
(talk)
07:49, 9 March 2010 (UTC)
Oppose renaming. While I agree that the majority of the data on this topic comes from IQ tests, renaming the article to "Race and IQ" would imply that IQ is the only source of data about it, which isn't the case. Some of the literature on this topic focuses specifically on reaction time and/or scholastic achievement, which can be considered aspects of intelligence or mental ability, but would not be included under the heading "IQ". Because of its relevance to this topic, I don't think such literature should be excluded from the article, but I also think that renaming the article to "Race and IQ" while it includes this material would imply that it has a narrower scope than it actually does. --
Captain Occam (
talk)
08:13, 9 March 2010 (UTC)
archiving some cross talk |
---|
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it. |
|
Oppose renaming. I don't have strong feelings about this, but I think 'Race and Intelligence' is the best name. The tag This article also discusses issues regarding ethnicity and intelligence covers ethnicity. Since race is the superset of ethnicity it's the most salient term, and as Aryaman said it's the frequent term in the literature and popular understanding. And as Occam said, IQ is not the only measure of intelligence used. The question of whether IQ tests are a good way of measuring intelligence of 'hunter-gatherers' is relevant to the article, but no reason to rename it.
mikemikev (
talk)
11:15, 9 March 2010 (UTC) I'm assuming that if the name is changed (which I oppose) the other names will redirect?
Support renaming to
Race and IQ. "intelligence" as that APA notes means many different things. The debates that have led to this prolongued (but productive) mediation have to do with IQ scors. Precision is a virtue in encyclopedia articles; it is a necessity in science. I have strong feelings about this - adjunct issus would belong in linked articles.
Slrubenstein |
Talk
13:28, 9 March 2010 (UTC)
Support renaming to
Ethnicity and intelligence research. Intelligence is undefined, and race does not exist. A data centric article can not be based on things that do not exist. I'm not sure a data-centric approach is the best solution , but as that seems to be the consensus... --
OpenFuture (
talk)
14:06, 9 March 2010 (UTC)
Support support. There is an argument for
Ethnicity and IQ since nearly all the research is done with respect to SIRE, but reliance on SIRE will hopefully start to wane, so I think
Race and IQ is fine. There is the problem that Occam mentions that there are smatterings of non-SIRE research, and non-IQ research, but I think we can handle that within the article. A.Prock 17:58, 9 March 2010 (UTC)
Oppose renaming.
David.Kane (
talk)
18:29, 9 March 2010 (UTC)
Oppose. 1) Many of the sources used refer to "g", which is not IQ. They even talk about the difference between g and IQ. 2) Many of the cited articles use "intelligence" in their name, not "IQ". 3) The article is about race and intelligence. 4) the controversy is about race and intelligence; the fact that one race has much lower average IQ scores is uncontroversial. 4) Blatant and cowardly attempt to push a POV into the title, indicative of the bias some editors harbor, the subtle ways they seek to insert propaganda, and the reason their statements on this page can not be assumed to be made in good faith.
TechnoFaye Kane
08:47, 11 March 2010 (UTC)
FWIW: The Wonderlic is a highly regarded IQ test. It's been around for decades and 100s of millions of people have taken it (it's in the news every year as the NFL uses it on draftees and current players).
Also, how big / important / practically significant a difference is is well captured by a measure called effect size (Cohen's D). It's basically the standardized mean difference between two groups (i.e., the mean difference divided by a standard deviation).
Cohen is not an IQ researcher but a statistician, and his estimates are well-accepted by the scientific community: .20 = small effect .40 = medium .60 = large
In all these cases, the distributions would overlap substantially. Yet, .60 (a mean difference of less than 1 sd) is still considered large.
The b/w difference is d=1.0 for context...
Bpesta22 ( talk) 19:20, 18 March 2010 (UTC)
Aprock, this last series of edits you've made borders on the comical: 1, 2, 3, 4. Why not do some research before forming an opinion? Or at least getting your story straight prior to posting? It would go a long way in helping others assume you're a neutral editor instead of a misinformed POV-pusher. -- Aryaman (talk) 20:09, 18 March 2010 (UTC)
{{ archive top}} {{ quote box}} One thing that may not be clear from the above back and forth is that it's certainly the case that sociological race has a biological component. It's certainly possible to reach genetic conclusions about any population of people. So in the sense that you might be able to study the gene population of any given group and come up with a conclusion, it's certainly possible to do that with sociological race. You could do the same thing with height, eye color, hair color, weight, or any other phenotypical trait. You can also create genetic clusters based on phenotypical traits if those very same traits are used to guide the clustering algorithms.
Above Aryaman writes:
The distinction set up below between "race as a social construct" and "race as a biological category" is an inflammatory and largely false dichotomy.
And in some sense he's correct. For the greatest part, SIRE is determined by skin color, and the SIRE of your parents. And just like eye color, you can create genetic clusters based on that information. But that's putting the cart before the horse. At 23 and me [9] there are over 100 genetic traits that can be tested for. We could pick any small subset of these traits and create genetic clusters about them. We could construct the genetic clusters for the "Cystic Fibrosis/Type 1 Diabetes" races. We could create clusters for the "Bloom's Syndrome/eye color" race. I think what confuses a lot of people is that these genetic+SIRE clusters do not indicate anything more an external structure imposed on genetic data.
But (again) that's not to say that genetic inferences cannot be made by studying the IQ results of the "Cystic Fibrosis/Type 1 Diabetes" races. The gene clusters do represent different sets of gene pools. But it's still an open questions as to whether these clustering techniques capture significant genetic variation beyond the trait from which they were constructed.
Given that all of the research generally uses SIRE information, and it's not clear that SIRE based genetic clustering captures significant human variation beyond SIRE information, and given that we currently have no definition of distinct genetic races, the conclusions that are made about studies based on SIRE information really only speak to the populations defined by SIRE information, as opposed to genetic information.
This is illustrated particularly well in the study discussed above [10]. The researchers started with a body of data where participants had selected one of five different racial categories (plus other). But using genetic clustering, they could not create the five clusters corresponding to the SIRE information without using the self reported data. In fact, as input the software required the researchers to identify the number of clusters to construct. They were not able to infer the number of racial genetic clusters directly from the data. There is a wonderful image on the Human genetic clustering page which also illustrates this. Are there 2, 3, 4, 5, or 6 genetic races? Is there only one genetic race? Are there more than six? In fact, with enough data you should be able to extract hundreds (or thousands) of clusters which generally correspond to subtrees in the human hereditary tree. Does that mean that there are hundreds of races? A.Prock 17:42, 8 February 2010 (UTC)
If the genetic cluster business is not relevant, we are back to the point that race is not a reliable indicator of the heritability of intelligence. I do not see Mikemikev asatisfactorally responding to Aprock, and I think Aprock is bringing up a very important point.
Mikmikev suggests that race is arbitraary and thus uninformative and I think is mixing up the argument. The point is that race, biologically conceived, is to a degree arbitrary with regards to much of the genome and thus uninformative. But race viewed as a social construct is highly informative. For example, race socially sonctructed could in the 1940s help one predict where in the bus a particular person would sit, if they were travelling in Missisipi. race also was highly predictive of the quality of schooling one had, which some people ar eleast consider relevant to IQ score. Slrubenstein | Talk 16:02, 9 February 2010 (UTC)
(ec)My apologies. What I meant to say was this: you referred to a certain conceptualization of race as "arbitrarily constructed" and therefore "pointless." Yet you seem to believe that some kind of biologically based concept of race is not arbitrary and has a point. To be clear: Rushton's use of race is fringe science because it is arbitrarily constructed and pointless. Social scientists look at race as socially constructed. This does not mean it is arbitrarily constructed, and if we were to say so in an article we would be misrepresenting the science. Moreover, not being arbitrarily constructed, there are contexts in which it has great predictive power. Right now it seems to have predictive power for mean IQ scores. But we are still talking about a social construction, not a biological category or group. Why race and certain mean IQ scores correlate is still an unknown. I hope I have not misrepresented anyone in this. Slrubenstein | Talk 18:43, 9 February 2010 (UTC)
Where precisely is the contradiction? Slrubenstein | Talk 15:55, 10 February 2010 (UTC)
reading this, I think part of the problem here is a confusion about the difference between 'race' (which I take to be an effort to group individuals in the present tense) and 'genetic heritage' (which I take to be effort to determine ancestral roots). for example, I'm quite sure that a geneticist could identify genes in me that derive from ancestral Irish (gaelic) peoples, and could also identify genes that derive specifically from Italian (mediterranean) groups. Likewise, I have a friend who has gaelic roots and Pacific Islander (south-east Asian) roots. neither of us identifies with any of these ancestral roots, however, and we're both typically American, with none of the behavioral or cultural identifications of any of them. It's possible even that I have some African ancestry in my genome (southern Italians have more than a little mixing with north African peoples). I don't see a problem with the 'genetic heritage' point, but I personally would find it a bit odd for some geneticist to declare that I am Irish because I have some cluster of Irish genes, and I'd find it absurd if that geneticist then attached a value-laden racial claim (e.g. that I'm at risk of being a drunk) because of that clustering. Don't get me wrong: if a geneticist discovered the genes that code for alcoholism and found that those genes actually are associated with Irish genetic heritage, that would be one thing, but mixing a loose 'genetic heritage' idea with a set of cultural preconceptions (not to mention stereotypes) to create a value-laden definition of race strikes me as a stretch. do any scholarly sources actually take it that far? -- Ludwigs2 18:31, 11 February 2010 (UTC)
Ludwig, I apologise if my tone appears too aggressive. I think it will be helpful if I can give a summary of my position, and it's relation to what I see as the positions of others.
Slrubenstein and others appear to arguing against the biological validity of race. Their objective appears to be replacing the word race with superset or synonomous weasel words such as "group", "biogeographic ancestry" or "genetic heritage", and possibly also going as far as breaking up or deleting the article. I have referenced several very reliable biologists who have explicitly stated that race, despite being poorly defined and with many grey areas, is a useful scientific concept. I have requested many times that the others provide contemporary, reliable references to the contrary, a request they have consistently ignored, all the while asking me for more references, and maintaining that their opinion is "mainstream", despite providing as yet zero references.
I am a little disappointed that you have not addressed this, Ludwig.
In addition, even if some scholars thought race was not useful or scientifically valid, it would not affect the article. R&I scholars think it is useful. They are well aware of race/ethnicity distinctions and mixed-race issues, actually they address these points in detail. All we can do is present their arguments neutrally, because there is no solid evidence they are wrong. There is no problem with including a (well referenced) section saying that some scholars (I don't know of any) say race is too vague to be useful/predictive.
What I'm arguing for, quite simply, is to go ahead with data-centric proposal, as I see no reasonable objection. mikemikev ( talk) 09:37, 12 February 2010 (UTC)
Well Ludwig, I completely agree that SIRE is a perfectly valid scientific approach to race without any genetic elements. I suggested this section as a compromise to Slrubenstein/Wapondaponda, even though I really think such a section and indeed this whole mediation digression (which I didn't start) belongs in "Race and genetics". I think such a section would capture the discussion above: some scholars think race is too vague to be informative, some don't. This would necessarily include some genetic points. Considering the APA fall into the first category, trying to anchor the article to their statement is the real POV pushing here. The AAA and APA statements are POV. We cannot base this article on them. And can I ask SLR/WPP if the data-centric proposal is unacceptable to them? mikemikev ( talk) 19:32, 12 February 2010 (UTC)
I did not object to using the APA/AAA statements. I objected to using them as the basis for the article. Again you misrepresent me. They are one POV and should be included.
We don't need to explain the meaning of race. This is done in the "Race" article. We don't need to explain the meaning of "Height" in the "Height and Intelligence" article. If people want a precise discussion they can go to the relevant article. This is how wikipedia works. All we need to do is state the selection method used (SIRE).
Since R&I involves making genetic claims about races we need to ask geneticists whether this is reasonable, not just the APA or AAA, who only address the sociological vagueness of race in the USA, and are severely ill-informed with regard to biological aspects. My understanding is that geneticists consider both sides in the R&I debate reasonable.
I'm sorry but the APA does not represent the international scientific community.
I understand that this makes writing the article more difficult, but for it to be balanced we have no choice.
So to answer your question there is no mainstream, minority or fringe view, just equally plausible hypotheses which should be represented in the article.
I hope I have satisfied your concerns and we can move on. mikemikev ( talk) 10:10, 13 February 2010 (UTC)
OK, let's not have a section on the scientific validity of race, I'm glad we agree there.
Just so we know we are on the same page, which year AAA statement on race are you refering to?
Yes, I'm well aware there are more than exactly two non-overlapping positions. My point was refering to two ends of a continuum. Did you really think I was refering to the pre-natal environment (generally known to be trivial in intelligence development outside severe malnutrition/poisoning)?
So my question is: what year AAA report are you refering to? mikemikev ( talk) 14:15, 13 February 2010 (UTC)
The 1996 AAA statement is based on Lewontin's fallacy and can be disregarded. The 2009 AAPA statement seems fine, except for this:
Generally, the traits used to characterize a population are either independently inherited or show only varying degrees of association with one another within each population. Therefore, the combination of these traits in an individual very commonly deviates from the average combination in the population. This fact renders untenable the idea of discrete races made up chiefly of typical representatives.
I would like a reference to a paper proving this statement. mikemikev ( talk) 01:21, 14 February 2010 (UTC)
Wapondaponda ( talk) 11:14, 14 February 2010 (UTC)
Slrubenstein, I feel I have made a valid point. I believe you cannot address it so you are resorting to ad hominem. I strongly resent and deny your allegations.
I am genuinely concerned with what I believe to be inaccuracy being put into wikipedia.
My credentials do not affect my point. I have no desire or obligation to provide personal information. If I am unversed in these issues you will be able to address my points rather than my credentials, unless of course it is you who is unversed in genetics.
Please name some of these major scientists who endorse this AAPA statement. mikemikev ( talk) 14:08, 14 February 2010 (UTC)
I don't think that trying to rewrite race and genetics as part of this article is going to be worthwhile. The relavant question for this article is much more narrow. Consider what Nisbett wrote on this:
That captures most of what's relevant: some people think there's something to be known a priori about the cause of group differences and some think that it's an open empirical question. -- DJ ( talk) 19:52, 14 February 2010 (UTC)
where are we on this discussion point? I though we were close to resolved on it, and I'm not sure how much it overlaps other points that we have resolved. opinions? -- Ludwigs2 02:42, 23 February 2010 (UTC)
Geez, I take a few days off and what happens? look, the AAPA and AAA are (so far as I can tell) perfectly valid and noteworthy sources on this issue. What we have here is not a question of inclusion/exclusion, but rather a question of balance. If you're asking me to make the decision, I would say that we include these sources, and then we can save all this wrangling over how best to present them neutrally in the article.
I want everyone to remember that we have a field here that Kuhn would have called pre-paradigmatic - there is no single wholly accepted viewpoint, but rather an assortment of viewpoints still vying for ascendency. Nothing being presented by reliable sources should be excluded, per crystal ball; it's more a question of balancing things to prevent undue prominence. does that resolve the issue? -- Ludwigs2 17:30, 5 March 2010 (UTC)
I'd like to point something out. Hopefully it will help to get us back on track.
"Gene" in psychometric research is a stand-in substantive for "hereditary". Psychometricians can measure the degree to which a trait is heritable - which is, of course, not the same thing as identifying specific genes which are involved in the expression of that trait. The actual "genetic" research which is pulled into this debate is secondary in the sense that it attempts to corroborate psychometric findings regarding heritability. When a psychometrician says a trait has a large "genetic" component, he's saying it is highly heritable. He's not claiming to have identified "genes" for intelligence - though he may well take information from genetic research to corroborate his psychometric claim. The use of "race" in psychometric research should be understood and presented in light of this fact. In other words, whether "races" can be described "genetically" is of little to no interest to the psychometrician. What is of great interest to him is the fact that "races" appear to differ significantly in their expression of a highly heritable trait. This debate centres around trying to figure out why that is. -- Aryaman (talk) 06:07, 9 February 2010 (UTC)
{{ archive bottom}}
Sorry; seems like I put my comment here in the wrong section. I find browsing through all this info less than straightforward.
I can dig up the cite if you think it's helpful, but scores on the WPT correlate something like .90 with scores on the WAIS. The WPT takes only 12 minutes to administer...
184.59.172.151 ( talk) 23:10, 18 March 2010 (UTC)
off-topic |
---|
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it. |
This is only to document the obvious bias of the new moderator and his gang for a future challenge of the validity of the scientifically-laughable propaganda he and his friends intend to force onto wikipedia. It may also be useful to a 23rd-century graduate student reasearching her dissertation: "Self-Delusion and Science in Uncivilized Times". I don't expect a reply--at least, not one that adresses my objections. So, to whom it may concern: I asked the moderator several specific questions illustrating the logical absurdity and contradictions inherent in his justification for suppressing legitimate peer-reviewed research and substituting doubletalk. For example, ludwig said "I understand there is research that links SIRE to clusters of genes, but...", and I asked him if he would now promise not to say that no genetic link with SIRE has been shown. He answered NONE of these very relevant questions. It can reasonably inferred that this is because either he hasn't visited this page in five days, or because he's painted himself into a logic corner--to reply, he'd have to do the logical equivalent of proving that 2+2=5. In other contexts, they call this "checkmate". Had this been done by any other editor, the moderator would step in and request responses to my objections and answers to my questions. But in the present case, it is the moderator himself who ignored my concerns--tending to illustrate the bias and cynical disingenuity of the PC pablum about to be added to Wikipedia. I then asked to see the source of what appears to be a political statement masquerading as a scientific one. I asked: "What psychology article concluded that there is no evidence that these loci correlate with race?" But he ignored that question too. What he DID do was insert more non-sequitor doubletalk, to wit:
...except that none of my objections were that something is "obvious". In fact, that word does not appear in my post.
...Which is exactly what I am (or was) trying to make happen, until I "wised up" and realized just what was actually going on here. For example, he said that correlation does not imply causation. I replied: |
Those specific [race] genes don't HAVE to be proven to influence intelligence! They only need to CORRELATE with intelligence for us to say so.
The cave men just had to notice that pregnancy only happens after f*cking. They don't need to understand estrogen hydrolysis to infer that the latter is probably the cause of the former.
But his response was to repeat the statement I had just pointed out was a non-sequitor:
That is to say, my objection was not addressed.
Another question I'd like an answer to:
Give an example of this "synthesys" you say is taking place, wherein two unrelated facts are juxtaposed to fallsely imply that the facts ARE related. And don't say "Every6 time ice cream consumption in America rises, the cholera mortality rate rises on an identical curve [because they both happen in the summer]" Give an example of synthesis from this mediation. I have to understand what it is so I can make sure not to do it.
Now, with characteristic childlike gullibility, I will assume that this is an honest discussion instead of the POV charade we all know it to be, and reply to "correlation does not equal causation" again:
a) So what?
b) No, but who said it was?
c) That's not good enough a reason to suppress publication of strong correllations.
d) No, but correllation is the smoke to the fire of certainty. It tells scientists where to look for the smoking gun
One more question:
Do you intend to tell our curious readers (assuming proper citations):
I think this should go at the very top, in the summary, because it's extremely relevant to the question this article addresses, which is "why do some races appear to be either more or less intelligent than other races"?
If you elect not to present this true and uncontested information, please tell me the untrue or contested part.
off-topic |
---|
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it. |
Because if you don't, and instead ignore this question (and the others in my previous post) I shall assume you have no objection to my adding it to the top of whatever "sanitized" version you eventually come up with. In particular, you cannot validly say "this was resolved in mediation which she was part of; ban her for being disruptive". In short, I expect that this shameful outrage will continue until an "official" article on R/I is published containing statements by the unqualified, (e.g. ASA), contradictions of proven facts, omission of conclusive but inconvienient facts for trivial, nonsensical or no reason, and mischaracterization of positions contrary to the Mandatory Belief which is compromising the integrity of Wikipedia. TechnoFaye Kane 13:59, 25 February 2010 (UTC) |
I've been facing incessant reversion at Conservativism in the United States and Modern liberalism in the United States over a sentence I've tried to add:
After some unusual excuses (an American Sociological Association press release isn't good enough; they need to go over the full text of the primary paper) one editor got to the meat of the matter
Specifically referencing this article as a precedent. [16]
This is the second study reporting such a correlation. [17]
I haven't edited Race and intelligence, but I hope this parallel situation will inform the mediators. Wnt ( talk) 04:00, 27 February 2010 (UTC)
P.S. Have you considered
epigenetics?
Trofim Lysenko had a point:
[18] In near future your gap should be gone.
Wapondaponda writes "However I haven't seen any progress on the core problem, which is how much of the hereditarian hypothesis would be included in the article." I agree that this is the core problem. I would be interested to know what other editors think is the answer. David.Kane ( talk) 17:29, 1 March 2010 (UTC)
A.Prock 00:02, 4 March 2010 (UTC)Research into race and intelligence is not "fringe", some of the conclusions drawn from that research are highly contentious and need to be presented as such in the article.
I don't have the faintest idea what you're arguing about. this seems very straight-forward:
the rest is balancing. as we write, we just need to take care that the research on the hereditarian stuff doesn't turn into an ever-expanding mass that dominates the article. that may mean being selective about what we include, or excluding the more fringish hereditarian positions, or at extreme need creating a content fork that deals specifically with the hereditarian view. but these are all points that are undecidable until we start writing and revising. I see this debate as a non-starter. -- Ludwigs2 17:37, 5 March 2010 (UTC)
Hello
I was asked by a user here about the possibility of contributing to this wiki topic. I have zero experience editing wiki, so if this is the wrong place to discuss the issue, my apologies.
My name is Bryan Pesta. I have 5 articles on intelligence; one specifically on race and IQ. While I do think I am qualified to discuss this stuff, I have no expertise nor interest in the genetics of race. I see most of the discussion here seems to hinge on this.
My personal take is that self-reports of race have scientific "baggage" but are indeed a good proxy for the biology of race (whatever that is). I also believe we can measure things before we have a complete definition of what exactly we're measuring. I often see people argue that unless we can define race with 100% certainty as a biological / genetic construct, then the construct has no scientific merit. In my opinion, that's stupid.
Since people can't be randomly assigned to races, and since social-cultural baggage is attached to the term, the burden of proof (initially) is one those who claim biological race is predictive. I think we now have decades of research showing this burden's been met (i.e., controlling for factor x variables in the environment-- gobs of them-- does not remove the race difference. And, the difference maps on to basic brain and mental processes...).
So, my opinion is that the burden's now on those who claim race is 100% cultural or social. Explain how these data are possible.
I link below to my IQ articles. I don't have lots of time to devote to debating this back and forth here, but if you think I can make a contribution, I would be willing to give it a shot (again depending on time factors and how much work this would be).
Thanks.
http://facultyprofile.csuohio.edu/csufacultyprofile/publications.cfm?FacultyID=B_PESTA —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.65.173.106 ( talk) 01:06, 7 March 2010 (UTC)
Thanks techno faye! Btw, I obviously don't have a clue with regard to editing wiki so if I'm not supposed to be posting here, I apologize. I also posted a few paragraphs two days ago, but it must not have gone through.
The gist was without a more narrow focus, I don't see you all completing this wiki. One doesn't need a 100% precise genetic definition or race (nor IQ) to review the large literature on self-reported race and IQ scores. Enough variables now have been statistically controlled to make some tentative conclusions. I think people set the bar too high in this area (obviously, the topic is emotional, but at base it is no different from any other topic in terms of evidence needed. For example, evidence for stereotype threat if gobs more suspect than is evidence for race differences on IQ scores).
99.65.173.106 ( talk) 04:37, 12 March 2010 (UTC)
Continuing (sorry, IF should be IS in my last sentence above):
My opinion is that links to the genetics of race and links to IQ scores as a proxy for g could be featured in the stub (?) here. Disclaimers that neither genetic-race nor IQ can be defined with 100% precision (depending on what level of reductionism one requires) could go in this stub. A disclaimer that this is not necessary to scientifically study both topics should then be added as well.
I also think that expertise is not a dichotomy but a continuum. One might have Read Mismeasure, or took an undergrad class in psychometrics, or got a graduate degree in the area, or publishes a bit in the best journals in the field, or publishes LOTS in the best journals.
Even journals vary in quality and relevance to the field. I hope that users here would agree that Intelligence is the premiere journal in the field and articles therein should get much consideration for citation here.
Some things I think the field "knows":
1. Race is indeed a biological construct, QED. It causes changes in skin color across humans and some other "stereotypical" physical differences across race. I'm ok with defining race, for now, as skin color and all (biologically) that correlates with it. In fact, let the geneticists figure it out in a different stub (I personally have little interest in the genetics of race).
2a. Race is not a dichotomy (not black and white...). It's rather a continuum. Demanding that a line be drawn in the sand that discretely separates white from black (e.g.) is unfair / too high a burden, especially if no such line exists (it's the fuzzy categories idea).
2b. I think the handedness is a perfect analogy. There is no clear distinction between left and right handed. It's a continuum. Some people (me) are wholly left handed and can't do anything well right handed. Others lean moreso to the left; some are ambidextrous, and the continuum continues for right handedness. There are even scales that measure handedness on a continuum. Same applies to race (dunno how many arguments I've been in where someone shows me a mixed race person and demands that I classify him as black or white. Failure to do so, in their mind, proves that races don't exist). Do left handers and right handers not exist because we can search the internet and find someone truly ambidextrous?
3a. No environmental manipulation, nor no study that controls (via regression or multiple regression) environmental factors explains the gap. There's so much of the research that the "weakest" conclusion is: No simple environmental factor(s) explain the gap. A stronger conclusion appeals to genes. I'm not there yet personally. I think the difference is biological (faster, more efficient brains ON AVERAGE across race groups). I'm not convinced this can't be environmental (some multiple regression yet to be done including pre-natal development, nutrition levels and other stuff might remove the gap). On the other hand, I'm not sure what the next research project is for people who claim it's 100% environmental.
4a. Realize that categorization forms a heirarchy. Superordinate level (human) Basic level (race) sub-ordinate (korean, japanese).
Too many people in my past point to some sub-ordinate category, point out problems in classification, and suggest that that creates problems for the basic-level category. It does not.
5. Utility: This is a poor argument. The increase in human well-being that could come from solving this problem is vast. Just looking a simple z score analysis proves this. The over or under representation of individuals in groups where the mean difference is 1 standard deviation is vast. At the aggregate level, race differences on IQ provide a parsimonious explanation (not saying it's the correct explanation-- more data are needed) for the massive race inequality experienced in most every country. This stuff is not trivial, whatever the explanation. I believe that no other problem (perhaps global warming) would have a higher ROI, were we to invest money in figuring it out and solving it. Good luck there (see last point).
Last point. True experts in the field are being demeaned, defamed and marginalized. This is important and should be mentioned. There are perhaps many motives to study race and IQ. Not all of them are to show the white man is the shits. Not all of them are racist. To the extent I do another race and iq study, it will be focused on using science to predict/control/understand something in the interest of increasing human well-being.
Sorry for any typos-- getting late here
99.65.173.106 ( talk) 05:06, 12 March 2010 (UTC)
Sorry, I didn't notice this comment til just now. I suspect the bigger SD for blacks in my study was due to the fact I ran far fewer of them compared with whites. SD involves dividing by sample size, so that might explain it (it could also be that blacks are more variable...I dunno).
re race: if only hair color inequality were a huge issue with respect to human well-being, I'd agree. Hair colors are not over or under-represented on many key outcome variables (job opps; education; health, crime, etc). As far as I know, hair color doesn't correlate with anything. Whatever the cause, race-inequality has been a major issue for likely 1000s of years. If indeed there is something biological-- or genetic -- causing the gap, then we should study it and fix it. Not studying it scientifically is ostrich like and immoral (my assumption is that if there is a way to fix it, only science will figure it out).
It is unfortunate that racists get off on this research, but not everyone interested in this topic is a racist (Jensen, Rushton, Lynn, all believe the Asian mean IQ is higher than the White IQ, which to me is an odd kind of racism, unless people assert that they're publishing data on Asian's only as a short-term ruse to get people to accept the black/white difference. That sounds too conspiracy theorist to me). I had limited interactions with all 3 at ISIR two years ago. We did not hold any white pride rallies...fwiw.
I think Gould's heart was in the right place, but not his "science". He's a brilliant writer, but my opinion is his book here did a dis-service to reality. Resolving this is as important as figuring out global warming (imo). I can't think of any other area where a scientific fix would so vastly increase human well-being. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.65.173.184 ( talk) 02:23, 14 March 2010 (UTC)
Ooop, keep forgetting to sign off.
99.65.173.184 ( talk) 02:23, 14 March 2010 (UTC)
I meant to change that to 100s of years; point conceded.
99.65.173.184 ( talk) 16:47, 14 March 2010 (UTC)
It should be noted that I asked the moderator several specific, relevant questions illustrating the logical contradictions inherent in his justification for suppressing legitimate peer-reviewed research. My questions were serious and clearly relevant (e.g., when someone pushing the same POV quoted "a psychology article" I asked for the source of the article.)
When I pointed out that his reply answered none of these relevant questions, he buried that statement as "off topic".
Later, I said that on average, people calling themselves "African-American" have an average IQ of 80. The moderator said my statement was "unsourced", even though that IQ gap is the topic of this article. He then said "I don't know whether [that statement is] true or false, myself, but I have not yet seen [it in] a reliable source." I include this here because his objection is observed to be insincere when compared with his earlier statement: "To my understanding, there is a statistically significant difference in IQ scores between races"' -- indicating a political agenda subcontext. TechnoFaye Kane 09:07, 11 March 2010 (UTC)
Ludwig requested sources for these statements:
STATEMENT 1:
On average, people calling themselves "African-American" have an IQ score of approximately 80; 70 in subsaharan Africa".
SOURCES:
Roth, P. L., Bevier, C. A., Bobko, P., Switzer, F. S., III, & Tyler, P. (2001). Ethnic group differences in cognitive ability in employment. This is a meta-review of hundreds of studies which reach this conclusion-- a conclusion no longer considered controversial in the scientific community, as Ludwig well knows.
STATEMENT 2:
On average, people calling themselves "African-American" have a brain size 5% smaller than the brains of people calling themselves "white".
SOURCES:
Harvey, I., Persaud, R., Ron, M. A., Baker, G., & Murray, R. M. (1994). Volumetric MRI measurements in bipolars compared.
Beals, K. L., Smith, C. L., & Dodd, S. M. (1984). Brain size, cranial morphology, climate, and time machines. Current Anthropology, 25, 301–330.
Ho, K. C., Roessmann, U., Straumfjord, J. V., & Monroe, G. (1980). Analysis of brain weight: I and II. Archives of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, 104, 635–645.
Johnson FW. Race and sex differences in head size and IQ. Intelligence 1994; 18: 309-33.
Joiner TE. Head size as an explanation of the race-measured IQ
relation: negative evidence from child and adolescent samples. Sci
Rev Ment Health Prac 2004; 3: 23-32.
Simmons K. Cranial capacities by both plastic and water techniques with cranial linear measurements. Hum Biol 1942; 14: 473-98.
Rushton JP. Cranial size and IQ in Asian Americans from birth to age seven. Intelligence 1997; 25: 7-20.
Rushton JP. Mongoloid-Caucasoid differences in brain size from
military samples [and NASA]. Intelligence 1991; 15: 351-9.
Statement 2 has been acknowledged as true by Ulri Neisser, Chair of the APA’s Task Force on intelligence,. Neisser, U. (1997). Never a dull moment. American Psychologist, 52, 79–81.
Statement 2 has also been acknowledged as true by Richard Nisbett, the major opponent of the hereditarian model: "According to a number of studies, Blacks have smaller brains than Whites." Nisbett, R.E. Intelligence and how to get it: why schools and cultures count. New York: Norton 2009.
But just to be sure, Ludwig2 threw another roadblock to presenting the horrible truth in Wikipedia:
SOURCES RELATING BRAIN SIZE AND IQ:
Gignac G, Vernon PA,Wickett JC. Factors influencing the relationship
between brain size and intelligence. In: Nyborg H, Ed. The
scientific study of general intelligence: Tribute to Arthur R. Jensen.
London: Elsevier 2003; pp. 93-106.
"It is true that the correlation between brain size and IQ may be as high as .40." Nisbett, R.E. Intelligence and how to get it: why schools and cultures count. New York: Norton 2009.
I now request that statements 1, 2 be included in the R/I article, as stated earlier by the moderator, who said:
The moderator's new excuse for omitting relevant, published, noncontroversial data after saying he would if I sourced it will be the next installment of "documenting this biased moderation". -- Faye Kane, Homeless Brain
TechnoFaye Kane
07:52, 11 March 2010 (UTC)
Some comments on that section. I started a new topic, since I am a newb, and that section said do not modify...
1. All experts are not equal. If one accepts that Intelligence is the premier journal in the field (it is the only journal solely devoted to this topic) then the best experts are those who publish regularly in this journal. These people are devoting their academic lives to studying this topic; they hands down know it better than anyone else. "Science's" view on IQ is best represented by them, and not some other field.
2. Many many popular books attacking IQ research (from Gould to Nisbett) come from people out of field. As far as I know, neither Gould, nor Nisbett have published in Intelligence. They are certainly not regular contributors now (or when Gould was alive). Most of these books are much about politics than science.
3. If you don't accept Intelligence as the premier authority, then the burden's on you to explain why (it's peer-reviewed; the best scholars in the field sit as editors; and it's impact factor is above 3.0). The mainstream view *is* Intelligence, as any other journal or field lacks the expertise (which places the burden on others to show why the stuff published in Intelligence should be disregarded-- or even why it's so often ignored whereas this much data on any other topic would lead to no-brainer acceptance).
4. Neither Jensen, Lynn nor Rushton are therefore fringe. All of them sit on the editorial board. Jensen would easily make an objective list of top 100 psychologists all time (using scholarly output and impact as measures, even if time shows everything he said to be wrong). Look at either Lynn or Rushton's vita. They would get full professor at any school in the world were their work not so controversial. Both have published in elite journals outside their field (APA journals as well). Gottfredson even has an article/letter/commentary in Science.
5. I agree that there's not enough evidence to state strongly that the genetic hypothesis is true. What makes me inclined to consider it is the abject failure of the environmental hypothesis to explain most any of the data. Since if it's not environmental/cultural, it has to be genetic (excluded middle?), it seems to me like the 100% environmental model is doomed. That becomes only indirect (though perhaps valid-deductively) evidence for genetics, however.
6. My hunch is that the hardcore of regular contributors would by a majority (but not 100%) agree that the 100% environmental hypothesis is false. I have no data on this, it's an impression based on my interaction with some of them, and publishing (just 3) articles there, and peer-reviewing for the journal more than a few times.
Bpesta22 ( talk) 20:04, 12 March 2010 (UTC)
Thanks Slrubenstein. I too would rather not start a huge debate here on the topic. I was expressing my opinion as someone with a relatively minor contribution to the literature.
I must say one thing though, it's simply not true that Gould's Mismeasure is well-respected. It's an utter piece of crap. It's been wholly ignored by people in field because it's irrelevant to anything the field is doing now. Citing Gould in the stub here might be popular, but it would be irrelevant to the truth of the issue.
I think the "environmental hypothesis" should be as defined by Rushton and Jenson (their 60 page review of race differences on IQ). To me, the pure 100% EH states that any race difference on IQ test scores is due to either the invalidity of IQ (including test bias) or to confounding environmental variables (race covaries with many things that might affect IQ-- SES, education, etc). In other words, no part of the IQ difference is caused by whatever the biology of race is.
I don't think that's vague at all. It makes very simple predictions (controlling for environmental variables should eliminate the difference). It's just the predictions have never been confirmed in decades of trying. Certainly, the burden's on the EH people to show us that any of those dozens of environmental variables actually statistically explain the gap.
I also never meant to imply the genetic hypothesis is false. I think there is no direct evidence for it, currently. As indirect evidence, the GH > 0 seems far more parsimonious than the 100% EH.
It's a huge (and likely unrealistic) burden to claim that x = 0 (genes) and y = 100% (environment). Given decades of failure at finding the factor x(s) in the environment that explain the gap, it's not unreasonable to assume that x > 0. But the evidence for x > 0 seems indirect to me (which doesn't mean it's wrong, and it is often the case in social science that evidence is indirect-- we can't randomly assign people to black or white, e.g.).
To me, hypothesis are either true or false (as they are usually single statements). They cannot be falsified, but by modus tolens can falsify the theory they're derived from. Seems like many on the internet disagree, but that's how I read Popper.
Your point 2: Hard to test directly until and unless we identify race genes (or clusters of genes) that when controlled for explain the gap. We have much data on biological and cognitive-psychological differences across race that can explain the gap (RT and IT in my paper completely mediates the black/white difference on the Wonderlic), but no consensus exists on the genetics of race and so no smoking gun study can yet be conducted on this hypothesis.
It's falsified by showing environmental variables are enough to explain the gap (though one could argue that IQ causes things like SES and education, but that's another can of worms).
3. I think GH predicts biological differences that should mediate the b/w gap. And, that's true (my study is an example). But, it's the fallacy of affirming the consequent to use these data to "prove" the GH. So, I think there is indirect support for GH (rather than no support, as you claim I implied earlier above).
Crap, I did just contribute to a debate here-- really not my intent. No obligation to reply nor to use anything I say in the final product. I am giving one opinion as a "semi-expert" in this area.
Thanks! —Preceding unsigned comment added by Bpesta22 ( talk • contribs) 03:18, 13 March 2010 (UTC)
Slrubenstein said:
No, I really am not, and that's the problem here. It goes back to my point on expertise. The experts in the area (those who have contributed peer review / new knowledge to the field) do not debate, cite nor worry about Gould. That's the worst thing that can happen to a "scientific" contribution. There's nothing in Gould remotely relevant to anything anyone in the field has been doing in recent history. The worst scientific contributions are not the ones smacked down by experts in the field. They are the ones that are completely ignored. That is Gould.
Beyond perhaps a book review of Nisbett's new book in Intelligence, watch how the field ignores it.
I'm not sure it's appropriate to share this here, but it makes the point nicely. One of my papers on IQ cited Gould in an attempt to provide a balanced lit review. An anonymous peer reviewer said: "Why cite gould. The man is an idiot. He's an advocate, not a scientist. Would the authors cite a paper on young earth creationism in a paper about geography?"
Quoting mismeasure in the stub, I think, weakens it greatly if one wants to be relevant and summarize state of the art. Not my call, though, and I suspect Gould will remain in whatever the final version is.
I do think EH is straightforward. It's the idea that self-reports of race are correlated with many important environmental variables that affect human well-being. It's also very simple to identify important environmental variables. Education. Nutrition. Access to Health care. Single parent versus mom and dad. White teacher/black teacher. Eating a good breakfast or not. Having internet access or not. The list is easy to produce and goes on and on.
No one study will ever control all these, but no one study needs to for at least one reason: The only way these factors (whether singly or in combo) can explain the gap is if they are CONFOUNDED with self reports of race.
If they are not confounded, they are simply a source of error variance and cannot explain the gap.
This is a critically important point. I spent days trying to get this point across to very smart people (I'll provide the link below) and they still didn't get it.
In my opinion, the biggest reason why you might not get consensus here is that I bet few wiki editors have 10 plus years experience and graduate study on the scientific method in general and this area specifically. It's very hard to no what's relevant and what's not without having the background. I say this not to demean, and it still might be the case that all my statements are false, but there is a reason why successfully contributing to the scientific literature typically requires a huge investment of time and education. There's a standard saying in social science (though the principal has exceptions): You wont discover anything important before age 40. There's a reason why that's "true".
Indirect evidence for GH: Biology and cognitive psychology mediate the gap. Reaction time and inspection time measures of IQ explain statistically paper and pencil IQ score differences across race. Many of the factors R&J offer as proof of GH (inbreeding depression; maturational differences) also in my opinion provide indirect evidence.
This link is people at scienceblogs desperate to debunk my ideas on race and IQ. They solicited a ph.d. student to review my article (she was very good!). If you peruse this, my apologies for any snark. This post occurred after I spent literally two weeks of my life in a jaw-droppingly unfair debate on the topic. By this point I was so frustrated that in many places I was not nice. It does however cover the idea of a confound versus source of error.
http://almostdiamonds.blogspot.com/2009/12/reaction-times-and-iq-tests.html
Bpesta22 (
talk)
16:06, 13 March 2010 (UTC)
Fair enough, I don't think I disagree with anything you said. Thanks too for discussing rationally.
I think my role-- if any-- should be this: So as not to further delay the project, you guys should continue on as planned. I offer to peer-review the final product and make (non-binding) recommendations. You all can then agree whether to incorporate my comments or not.
This would require far less time than me becoming a Wiki expert and would at least give you some sense of what a psychologist thinks of your stub. It might be a good idea to solicit an expert in genetics to peer review the gene/race stuff-- this would likely get you an even more balanced product.
Bpesta22 ( talk) 17:27, 13 March 2010 (UTC)
At a time when we need it most, God sent us a genuine expert in the field. Finally, we can make progress!
Dr. Pesta (with a"D") is an associate professor who has published many articles in the field, including one about R/I. He also won an award at Harvard. But unlike Rushton, his main interest is not race. In fact, we do not find it in this list:
Research Interests:
The Wonderlic Personnel Test.
The structure of general intelligence.
The cognitive science of general mental ability.
The role of g in work settings.
Individual and group differences in general mental ability.
Elementary cognitive tasks as IQ tests and predictors of work outcomes.
Sexual harassment
Employment discrimination Law
Decision making
HR selection / employment testing
Religiosity and performance
In short, Jay-zuss has taken mercy on us and sent us a guardian angel who is EXACTLY the person we need to complete this, and know we are doing it correctly.
TechnoFaye Kane
09:32, 16 March 2010 (UTC)
Extended content minimized |
---|
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it. |
But look what happened: 1) He introduces himself
Using himself as an example, professor Pesta states that he studies R/I not to prove the Master Race, but with the goal of using science to understand, predict, and control something in the interest of increasing human well-being. It should be noted that his Harvard award was for advancing humanitarian principles.
6) Dr. Pesta politely corrects Wapondaponda, saying that he has met Jensen, Rushton, and Lynn; and they're not racists. He also gives evidence. He also gives a different opinion of Gould. "I think Gould's heart was in the right place, but not his science. He's a brilliant writer, but my opinion is his book here did a disservice to reality." 7) But Wapondaponda corrects Dr. Pesta again. "I do not know of any scientist who has disprove any of Gould's claims about race", and characterizes Gould as "an evolutionary scientist" with "expertise." 8) Rubenstein chimes in again, informing the professor that he found a dumb statistical error he made in an article published in a peer-reviewed academic journal. 9) Dr. Pesta, realizing that the people he came here to help turn out to be ignorant bozos who contradict him and argue about subjects he has a doctorate in, quietly changes the subject and returns to giving us the advice we so desperately need in this mediation:
10) Instead of thanking Dr. Pesta for his sage advice and taking time from his research to help us, Rubenstein spits in his face. "Intelligence may be the leading journal on intelligence research, but it is not at all the leading journal on research into race." He pointedly ignores the fact that R/I research is about psychometrics, not race. "Race research", if there is such a thing, has the single function of telling psychometricians the race of the test subjects. Nothing else. After dismissing the peer-reviewed academic journal in which most R/I research is published, Rubenstein tells this authority in the field that the most authoratative publication is Gould's popular-audience paperback: "it is a well-respected study on research on race." Note that Gould did no research on either intelligence or race. After repeatedly telling Dr Pesta he doesn't know what he's talking about in his own field, Rubenstein asks for his opinion: "Can you state for me what the "environmental hypothesis" is? There is much talk about it here but i have yet to be told what the hypothesis is." Integrity demands I acknowledge that Rubinstein did prove me wrong about one of my beliefs. I had previously believed he was only FEIGNING profound stupidity, as a stall tactic. As has been discussed for months here, the hypothesis--one of only two possible--is that the IQ gap is 100% cultural and environmental. Worried that he might have shown insufficient disrespect, Rubenstein then informs the professor that his reasoning is "a non-sequitor" and "silly on its face." As justification for his rude insolence, Rubenstein misquotes Dr. Pesta: "You have already agreed that the genetics hypothesis is not true"-- immediately after this expert just finished explaining why that hypothesis probably IS true. What he really said was that we don't have enough evidence yet to STRONGLY state that the gap is genetic [such as a "stupid gene"], there is sufficient indirect evidence, to logically accept it--including the fact that the only other possible hypothesis has been conclusively proven false. 10) Aryaman politely informs Rubenstein that he's an assh*le, and implies that he should shut up. 11) Rubenstein figures he'd better stop being rude and insulting, so he takes up confusion and bewilderment instead.
11) Professor Pesta now realizes that that everyone he's talked to at Wikipedia is an presumptuous, arrogant fool, so he rephrases the scientific community's opinion of Gould in a way more likely to be understood by people who can't understand things very well: "It's simply not true that Gould's Mismeasure is well-respected. It's an utter piece of crap. It's been wholly ignored by people in field because it's irrelevant to anything the field is doing now. Citing Gould in [the R/I article] might be popular, but it would be irrelevant to the truth." He also clarifies that "I never meant to imply the genetic hypothesis is false." He also says "We have much data on biological and cognitive-psychological differences across race that can explain the gap", and that the genetic explanation makes certain testable predictions which are in fact, found. He says that "direct evidence" means nothing less than finding the "smoking gun" -- specific gene(s) which correlate strongly with both race and intelligence. [Such genes would have evolved in the humans who left Africa 100,000 years ago.] And he ends by expressing regret that he's getting into an argument here [as opposed to merely answering questions]. 12) Rubenstein tells Dr. Pesta-again--that he is "misinformed" [about Gould's authority in Dr. Pesta's field of expertise]. He also says that our article can't define "the environmentalist hypothesis" as "the gap is solely environmental" because that's how rushton and jenson describe it. With the logic of a drunken 10 year-old, Rubinstein decides that we can only use the term "environmental hypothesis" to mean "the gap is solely environmental" after someone who believes that the gap is solely environmental has proved that it is. He then suggests that Dr. Pesta doesn't really believe what he wrote and that he only said that "environmental variables can be controlled for" because he was in a hurry and typed it accident. He proceeds to educate the expert in statistical analysis by teaching his student what "controlling environmental variables" means: controlling the the environment of the test subject by making sure the humidity in the room is the same for everyone and that Rushton didn't dim the lights when the blacks took the IQ test. He also gives an stricter definition: "controlling environmental variables" means controlling the test subjects' environment (e.g. humidity) for his entire life. For his next lesson in research design, Rubenstein teaches Dr. Pesta that if he cannot control for all of these environmental variables (like temperature, humidity, and lighting in the IQ test room, then he does not have one single "environmental hypothesis", but many -- one for temperature, one for humidity, etc. He also expresses doubt that Dr. Pesta says what he does in good faith, implying that maybe the professor is deliberately lying to us, and demands examples of of indirect evidence for the genetic hypothesis, even though that's what Dr. Pesta just did. Rubenstein then scolds the professor for his "non-sequitor" reasoning, saying that that his evidence for the genetic hypothesis could also support theories of Aether and phlogisten. After some garbled, incomprehensible rambling, he compares Dr. Pesta to a creationist. Sadly, Dr. Pesta takes this cynical abuse seriously and responds to it. Rubenstein replies as he has always done, saying that:
Dr. Pesta finally bails. He agrees that Rubenstein's doubletalk is corrrect, and says he won't participate in this mediation anymore (except to review the final product). The moderator, being a hereditarian, said nothing during the eight days it took for Rubenstein to chase the anti-hereditarian expert away. There are several possible explainations for Rubinstein: -- He is exceedingly stupid. That is obviously not the case. -- He is a teenager who thinks he can fool the grownups -- He is schizophrenic -- But by far, the most likely explanation is that he is a troll, with the specific purpose of gumming up the works with delay and meaningless objections. At this point, a REAL moderator would ban Rubinstein from this mediation for manifestly bad faith. However this won't be done, as the biased moderator doesn't like what the expert said any more than Rubenstein did. Finally, weeks ago I asked several sensible, very relevant questions of the moderator. I have repeated them periodically. He has yet to reply. Those they can't chase away, they stonewall. For that reason, after clicking "Save Page", I will begin researching actions I can take with Wikipedia administration to terminate this mediation cabal, lock this page, and resolve the issue formally through the arbitration committee. I will also pursue getting slrubenstien sanctioned for giving the only expert we have the bum's rush. In the meantime, I suppose will continue commenting here. Because the current group is biased and farcical, I consider it to be without standing and will begin editing the R/I article again myself. I hope the bad faith editors leave my changes in place, but if this starts an edit war, then at least it will draw the attention of a wiki manager. One more thing. Though Dr. Pesta didn't work out, Dr. R., who teaches Research Design, will be joining us shortly (after I get around to setting up his account specifically for the R/I article). However, unlike Dr. Pesta, he will be as difficult to intimidate as myself: he worked for Jensen and I work for him. TechnoFaye Kane 09:32, 16 March 2010 (UTC)
|
Any way you can remove that picture of me. I hate it!
This one is preferred:
http://c2.ac-images.myspacecdn.com/images01/93/l_60d7f438e63c06a3e145609308d50b19.jpg
(it's a myspace thing / inside joke -- that's what I won the humanist award for).
I was not intimidated here, nor offended. My only concern is time. My impression is that the discussion here seemed reasonable, especially compared with my recent experiences at "science" blogs.
Bpesta22 ( talk) 16:06, 16 March 2010 (UTC)
Yeah, those were the stubbornest people I've ever seen on the internet! Slippery, too. It just shows that people believe whatever their emotions tell them. And I have NO idea why, when (non-autistic) people are shown something they don't want to believe, they don't THANK the messenger for opening their eyes; they get ANGRY(!) at someone who didn't do anything but tell them the truth! My boss can't use his work for Jensen on his CV because the one time he mentioned it, the guy got mad and showed him him the door. Yet all he ever did was run data through SPSS and SAS. For that matter, that's really all Jensen did too.
But like you said, only the worthless theories get ignored. The reason otherwise-smart people get so upset by R/I research is that they know, deep down, that it's real. At an astrophysics site I hang around, when crackpots present their "new theory of space and time that proves einstein wrong", the guys don't get angry, they just say "bullshit" and dismiss it. Only the crackpot gets mad, because he was just told something he doesn't want to hear, and realizes it's true. TechnoFaye Kane 02:51, 17 March 2010 (UTC)
Faye, I think that's a workable idea. if the others agree to it, I'm behind it. I'll also suggest that he send you more pictures: it seems to do good things for your... uhh... mood.
--
Ludwigs2
04:00, 17 March 2010 (UTC)
Thanks TF! Most people are not that enthusiastic about my work:)
I'm not sure my say should be binding. Other than that, I would like to offer a "peer review" of whatever the final product is. 184.59.172.151 ( talk) 04:25, 17 March 2010 (UTC)
If you wish to challenge anything here, change it's status to "under discussion", add to the discussion section, and then change status when we have consensus.
List items have 3 possible statuses:
1) under discussion
2) agreed
3) rejected
Before using it to write the article, we need to run this entire list by Our Mentor for his blessing.
My personal view: We need to stop trying (and failing) to make our own interpretations of R/I. We need to shut up and defer to those who know vastly more about the subject than you or I or anyone else in the world. It's not our place to figure out questions like how much of the gap is environmental, whether the genetic explanation is fringe science, or whether SIRE is valid. Our job is to report what the mainstream experts believe.
We were thrashing in that quagmire for months before Dr, Pesta kindly informing us of what the experts agree on. His word should be respected by us and taken as true, but still must be sourced in credible literature if used in the article. Note that some statements below are not useful in the article, but are for our use in this mediation. Remember to sign your comments in the discussion area TechnoFaye Kane 07:30, 21 March 2010 (UTC)
1) can you get a journal article for us to read if we specify which one so we can better understand what's going on? TechnoFaye Kane 07:30, 21 March 2010 (UTC)
2) What is what is "RT and IT"? TechnoFaye Kane 07:38, 21 March 2010 (UTC)
3) What do you mean by "The IQ difference maps onto demonstrably different brain and mental processes in different races."? TechnoFaye Kane 08
4) What does the mainstream think of the theory that the IQ difference is due to everyone else believing that blacks are stupid "caste-like" minorities? TechnoFaye Kane 12:21, 21 March 2010 (UTC)
5) Had you been born sooner, would you have dated me signed the
the statement made by 50 other intelligence
researchers which contradicts
the APA statement?
TechnoFaye Kane
12:21, 21 March 2010 (UTC)
6) We need a referee call at the bottom of [ this] discussion TechnoFaye Kane 21:19, 21 March 2010 (UTC)
7) We need your sage advice here too, Master Yoda. TechnoFaye Kane 21:19, 21 March 2010 (UTC)
8) And here, if you would be so very kind! TechnoFaye Kane 21:22, 21 March 2010 (UTC)
9) I think it is particularly important that you answer this one. TechnoFaye Kane 22:00, 21 March 2010 (UTC)
I may be mistaken about consensus for some items. If so, change the status and tell why in the discussion section.
I have a problem with you listing this as "under discussion", with the assumption that it needs to be discussed more than it has been already. We've already resolved the question of social vs. biological race as much as is necessary for the purpose of revising the article -- Captain Occam ( talk) 03:05, 22 March 2010 (UTC)
Can I change the summary here to “race is both social and biological”? That’s what we agreed in the earlier discussion about this, so if we’re trying to summarize the agreements we’ve reached (which is the whole point of this section), then just saying “race is biological” leaves out part of it. -- Captain Occam ( talk) 06:06, 23 March 2010 (UTC)
and it took us quite a while, so I'd rather not have to repeat the discussion about this a second time. What we resolved is that race (as used in studies of race and intelligence) is socially defined, but that it also correlates strongly with biogeographical ancestry, and for that reason biological differences that exist between biogeographical groups also exist between socially-defined races. Or to put it more simply, race is a socially-defined entity that also has a biological component. If you'd rather think of it as a biological entity whose divisions are influenced by social factors, that probably amounts to close to the same thing; the important thing we've resolved is just that it's both biological and social.
Can you change your summary to reflect this? Even if you don't agree with it, the purpose of what you're doing here is to summarize the points that have been resolved during the mediation, and this is the decision we reached. -- Captain Occam ( talk) 03:05, 22 March 2010 (UTC)
Presumably, when the ancestors of modern Europeans for example migrated from Africa, they appeared similar to other Africans. However, over time, they changed in appearance. During the time they were changing in appearance, there were likely other changes occurring that were not so apparent. During this time the gene flow between Europe and Africa was restricted. Europeans can be said to have become a race. There perhaps was a time long ago when Europeans did not know that their ancestors had migrated from Africa and changed over time. I'm not sure why some people are now trying to deny that the Europeans became a biological race. Should we instead refer to them as the white-skinned European Africans? Whites in the United States could be called European African Americans. -- 98.191.81.47 ( talk) 13:16, 22 March 2010 (UTC)
"I do not know where we agreed that race is both biological and sociological"
Ludwig has archived the discussion about this now, so you’ll have to ask him where it can be found—I’m not able to find it myself anymore. However, I can quote the resolution we reached in it:
- All current research on race in relation to IQ scores is based in SIRE information.
- Some research shows that race (defined by SIRE) correlates highly with certain genetic markers (markers which are obviously inherited, but which are chosen to specifically to reflect biogeographical ancestry.)
- Research suggests that 40-70% of the variation in IQ scores within the same population owes to genetic factiors. A few specific genes have been identified as likely candidates, but none has been conclusively shown to do so.
- There is no definitive research (as yet) that speaks to whether the genes that affect intelligence in individuals are part of the cluster of genes mentioned above.
I’ve changed “race” to “biogeographical ancestry” in the second point, because that’s more specifically what this study was saying, so presumably changing this won’t be controversial. Other than that, this does not have any modifications from the summary we agreed on. Slrubenstein, you were fine with this summary apart from a few changes which you wanted made to it, and which I’ve incorporated into it. And Muntuwandi, I recall you having nothing to say about this summary at all, other than wanting to resolve the question of whether and how much the article would discuss studies linking IQ to specific genes.
If either of you have any problems with this summary that go beyond the suggestions Slrubenstein requested and which have now been incorporated, at this point I think it’s too late to want to re-discuss it. Resolving this was one of the most time-consuming aspects of the mediation process, and both of you had ample time to bring up any further objections to this summary if you had any. If you did, the time to bring them up was during the several weeks while this was being discussed, not now that it’s been resolved.
The purpose of the current discussion is not to re-discuss these points; it’s to summarize what we’ve resolved already. I think that saying “race is both social and biological” is an accurate way of summarizing the resolved points that I quoted above, but if any of you think there’s a better way to summarize them, I’m open to suggestions. -- Captain Occam ( talk) 20:36, 23 March 2010 (UTC)
No, the argument has not come to an end. Bryan Pesta is not an expert on race. His expertise on psychometrics is not in question. But he is not an expert on race. The science that has expertise on race is anthropology, so we should go by the statements of the AAA and the AAPA. Slrubenstein | Talk 14:21, 24 March 2010 (UTC)
From the AAA: "Race and ethnicity both represent social or cultural constructs for categorizing people based on perceived differences in biology (physical appearance) and behavior." The AAA discourages the use of the word "race" because of its association with things like the Holocaust, Apartheid, etc., and wants to replace it with "ethnic origin" or "geographic ancestry" or some other supposedly innocuous phrase. Relying heavily upon the AAA for this article would be a mistake IMO, primarily because their reasoning for rejecting "race" is directly contradicted by the very subject under discussion. The AAA writes "Differentiating species into biologically defined "races" has proven meaningless and unscientific as a way of explaining variation". In other words, the AAA is telling us that the scientific community has determined that "race" is useless concept when discussing human variation, as the distinctions its use entails are of no value to science. Well, this is obviously refuted simply by mentioning the academic controversy surrounding race and IQ. The truth is, the tiny governing body of the AAA wants very much for all scientists to reject the term "race", but this has not happened, and this controversy demonstrates that fact. Any authority the AAA could have on this subject is drawn directly from those experts who have studied the particular phenomena in question, so, given the number of qualified experts who argue for the utility of "race" in discussions of human variation, their statement on race and IQ amounts to little more than wishful thinking on their part. -- Aryaman (talk) 15:48, 24 March 2010 (UTC)
I definitely agree that race has biological correlates, but a correlate is another word for an imperfect relationship or association. SIRE will correlate strongly with skin color. But the traditional view has been that pigmentation traits are "trivial" because in the animal kingdom, pigmentation can vary within a population. A dog or cat can have a litter of pups with individuals that have different coat colors. SIRE does correlate with the risk of acquiring diseases, for example people of African descent have a higher risk of getting prostate cancer, but this doesn't mean that people of European or Asian descent don't get prostate cancer.
With regards to the statements that Ludwigs sumarized, this would be my preference
Wapondaponda ( talk) 02:23, 25 March 2010 (UTC)
{{
cite book}}
: External link in |chapterurl=
(
help); Unknown parameter |chapterurl=
ignored (|chapter-url=
suggested) (
help){{
cite journal}}
: Cite journal requires |journal=
(
help); Explicit use of et al. in: |last=
(
help){{
cite journal}}
: Cite journal requires |journal=
(
help); Explicit use of et al. in: |last=
(
help)Wapondaponda ( talk) 05:34, 25 March 2010 (UTC)
STATUS: agreed SOURCE: consensus DISCUSSION: Okay guys, every item in this list has to be a statement we either agree or disagree on. This is the list item for "social race", a concept some of you seem keen to inject into this issue.
But remember that we are arguing about THE MEANING OF A WORD. But there IS no such thing. Words do NOT have any inherent meaning. They mean whatever the speaker intends them to mean. Either you agree with this list-item's statement or you don't. The same with the previous statement about genetic race. TechnoFaye Kane 05:56, 25 March 2010 (UTC)
Copy the above 4-line template as it appears in the editing window, not as it appears in the talk page itself. Please copy it into a new list item; don't just use this one.
The easiest way to do that is [in the editing window] copy the four lines above, then paste the copy directly above what you just copied
...Thank you
Hi all.
Quick note to say I have some comments re the new stuff. I hope to address them later tonight, or most likely by Tuesday night.
Thanks
Bpesta22 ( talk) 18:34, 21 March 2010 (UTC)
Ah, I just now realized I had some messages -- sorry for not replying. I'm not as clueless as it seems here. I've been posting on internet forums for about 20 years. Wiki seems very odd to me, in terms of how posts are laid out and replied to. My apologies.
Re The biology of race.
I don't know; nor do I think anyone knows exactly what the biology of race is. Even given that, I personally find claims that race is 100% social kind of silly. So, depending on the environment one is raised in, could you take a white skinned kid and have him grow up to be black (or vice versa)? My tentative definition is "skin color and it's biological co-variates." That definition needs more precision-- is certainly not 100% precise-- but I'll defer to the geneticists.
We can study things (especially the effects of things) without having them 100% precisely defined. Welcome to social science. Many constructs here are ill-defined (motivation; leadership; intelligence, etc). Anything we measure, though, is "good" to the extent it is both reliable and valid. SIRE seems to have high reliability (there are many ways to conceptualize this, but I suspect that people consistently check the same box when asked, or that raters would consistently agree on race for most people. None of this would be 100% precise, but no measurement ever is. My guess is the reliability of race as a measure would be well above the conventional threshold-- .70-- for having utility).
Is SIRE valid? My guess is yes, but not perfectly so. If one day science agrees on the exact genetic patterns that differentiate white from black, I'd bet a large sum that these patterns would correlate very strongly with SIRE. Indirect measurement is quite common in psychology. We can't see how you encode/store/retrieve information, e.g., but we can make inferences about these processes by looking at error rates or reaction time (that is the idea behind cognitive psychology-- we can study un-observable mental processes indirectly but validly by looking at observable things like errors or speed). The whole idea in testing is that we can't look at you and tell how smart you are (the latent / unobservable construct here being intelligence) but we can create a test (the manifest indicator) and the test scores being observable can be used to make inferences about how much of the latent construct you possess. I think skin color is a valid (but not perfect) manifest indicator for the (as yet unknown) genetics of race (the latent construct).
The solution seems to be linking to another wiki stub that gets into what race means, but sticking here to only discussion of *IQ scores* (whether true measures of human intelligence, or junk science) and *race* differences (whether SIRE is a highly accurate proxy for the biology of race or not).
If you all are still debating the practical significance / utility of all this, then appeal to effect sizes is the way to go. Effect sizes (versus statistical significance) get at practical significance. Using conventions here, the race effects are huge. It is rare to see effects this large in social science. The practical implications are vast. IQ offers a potentially parsimonious explanation for a host of variables where races come out unequal. When you aggregate the effects to groups of people (versus individuals) the effects become even more important. If this is too vague, let me know and I will follow up on it when I get more time.
Bpesta22 ( talk) 04:26, 24 March 2010 (UTC)
I am not a geneticist nor an expert on race. If there is a biology of race, I suspect it's a fuzzy category (a continuum versus a dichotomy). That doesn't bother me personally because social science is all about fuzziness. But, if race exists at all biologically then I would bet lots that a simple measure of skin color would correlate very strongly with whatever clusters that biologists identify as "race". So, I think it's a moot point (I can't imagine a scenario where when biology makes a definitive statement on the biology of race, that their definition will not correlate very largely with skin color and SIRE).
As practical measures, proxies become more and more useful as the correlation between them and what they're a proxy for increases. So, in my opinion, it's reasonable to study this stuff using a less than perfect proxy, rather than be handcuffed by those who demand a 100% accurate/precise definition of the construct before any data on the topic can be taken seriously.
That said, it's true that the social aspects of race are perfectly confounded with whatever the biology is. That demands serious study before inferences can be made. Many studies have been done, though, and I think we can come to some tentative but scientific conclusions (i.e., that no simple social/environmental confounding variable is the magic bullet. And, that many indirect predictions made by the genes > 0 seem supported, whereas despite decades of study, no factor x's in the environment explain the gap).
So, my suggestion is to be very literal. We're talking here about the relationship between "SIRE" (and the baggage behind that) and "scores on an IQ test" (and the baggage behind that). Links to what race is, and to what IQ is, could satisfy the interested reader. This stub, however, should focus on the data relevant to these two variables, and how genes versus environment make different predictions regarding what should happen when potential confounding variables are controlled.Researchers who study this stuff are obviously aware of the confound, and have made attempts to tease out the genes/biology versus environment. That's what the article here should focus on.
It's late; sorry if my writing here sucks!
184.59.172.151 ( talk) 04:42, 25 March 2010 (UTC)
My name Is Dr. Tony Roberts. I teach research design, statistics, ethics, and other subjects. My web page is here. I am sorry to enter this discussion so late in the game. I probably won't contribute a lot, but I find it fascinating to watch this process unfold. Someone could do a thesis on the social dynamics of this discussion. Yes, I know the editor Faye, but since bat-shit insanity is not contagious, I find her quite harmless. Dr.TMRoberts ( talk) 05:08, 24 March 2010 (UTC)
|}
{{
cite journal}}
: Explicit use of et al. in: |author=
(
help); Unknown parameter |month=
ignored (
help)CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (
link)