Cannabis Ruderalis

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Former good article nomineeRace and intelligence was a good articles nominee, but did not meet the good article criteria at the time. There may be suggestions below for improving the article. Once these issues have been addressed, the article can be renominated. Editors may also seek a reassessment of the decision if they believe there was a mistake.
Article milestones
DateProcessResult
June 14, 2005Articles for deletionKept
June 24, 2005Peer reviewReviewed
July 18, 2005Featured article candidateNot promoted
August 25, 2006Good article nomineeNot listed
December 4, 2006Articles for deletionKept
April 11, 2011Articles for deletionKept
February 29, 2020Articles for deletionKept
February 24, 2020Deletion reviewOverturned
Current status: Former good article nominee


Global variation of IQ scores

I've removed the Global variation of IQ scores section. My rationale is that this section is off topic because it deals with differences in IQ scores between nations, not "races". Please discuss any concerns here. –dlthewave ☎ 03:31, 15 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I reverted. I haven't seen you actually wanting to improve the article. You seem to just want to destroy it. But if some editors who are not in favor of destroying this article think you did a good thing, I would abide by that no problem. Peregrine Fisher (talk) 03:44, 15 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
The content if off-topic. Separately, I haven't seen you actually wanting to improve the article. You seem to just want to destroy it. is contrary to Wikipedia:Focus on content not contributor. I recommend self-reverting. --K.e.coffman (talk) 03:51, 15 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
This guy and 123 think the way to help this article is to remove 5000kb chunks from it, one chunk after another. I just call em as I see em. I don't remember you. You may not be aware of these shenanigans. Check the history if you're interested. Peregrine Fisher (talk) 03:57, 15 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
If you have an issue with a particular contributor's editing, the place to raise these concerns is on their user talk page or at an appropriate admin noticeboard. This is not what article talk pages are for. --K.e.coffman (talk) 04:22, 15 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I support Peregrine Fisher's restoration of this content. dlthewave, it's not off topic, as it's talking about "patterns of difference between continental populations similar to those associated with race". There are clearly meaningful differences in racial/ethnic composition between many of the world's nations. Jweiss11 (talk) 03:52, 15 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
If you were to look at the sources for that section, you would see that a large portion of them discuss nationality and race in combination with one another. There's a significant amount of overlap between the source literature about race and intelligence and the source literature about international difference in test scores, which is why it's appropriate for international differences to be mentioned in this article. 2600:1004:B14C:A0C6:64AD:3A01:C6B4:B236 (talk) 03:53, 15 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
If that us truly the case, then perhaps you would be willing to rewrite the section with a focus on the "Race and Intelligence" topic. The section should not be retained in its current state. –dlthewave ☎ 04:06, 15 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
It's already focused on the topic: "patterns of difference between continental populations similar to those associated with race". Jweiss11 (talk) 04:10, 15 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
similar to those associated with race -- according to whom? --K.e.coffman (talk) 04:22, 15 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
K.e.coffman, anyone who uses common sense and/or skims the demographic summaries of the various nations around the world? Jweiss11 (talk) 05:45, 15 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Thats a very bad argument. Horse Eye Jack (talk) 06:04, 15 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
There are three reasons for me to not rewrite that section.
1: The article is semi-protected, so only registered users can edit it.
2: Even if it weren't, I'd like to wait until the DRV is resolved before putting a lot of effort into improving the article, because our efforts might be a waste of time if the article ends up being deleted.
3: It isn't entirely clear what it is that you're objecting to in that section. The pattern of international differences in test scores is that the countries with the highest average scores are Japan, China, Singapore, and South Korea, and the countries with the lowest average scores tend to be countries in sub-Saharan Africa, with European countries in between. This mirrors the pattern of average test scores among Asian Americans, white Americans and African Americans in the United States. This is what the article means when it refers to "patterns of difference between continental populations similar to those associated with race". Are you suggesting the section should be more specific that the average scores of nations tend to align with the average scores of populations with ancestry from those regions, and therefore the question of the causes of both types of difference are part of the same debate? 2600:1004:B14C:A0C6:64AD:3A01:C6B4:B236 (talk) 04:40, 15 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
The sources were unreliable and the section was undue. Onetwothreeip (talk) 07:19, 15 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Wasn't it just explained to you a few days ago that you shouldn't be attempting to strip massive amounts of content out of the article while the DRV is underway? The previous time you tried to do this was when the article was at AFD rather than DRV, but the same principle applies. 2600:1004:B10A:3B8D:688D:3BC5:92A1:5CF6 (talk) 10:58, 15 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
That's not a rule. –dlthewave ☎ 13:17, 15 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Oldstone James: You've reinstated this section without discussing it [1]. Please join us here. –dlthewave ☎ 15:08, 15 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

As per Jweiss and 2600, I think the relevance of this section to the article is pretty clear. Also, as per my edsum, some geographical areas, such as sub-Saharan Africa, are populated predominantly by members of one race, so this section would be relevant even if "patterns of difference between continental populations" weren't "similar to those associated with race". O̲L̲D̲S̲T̲O̲N̲E̲J̅A̅M̅E̅S̅ 15:11, 15 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, several editors have asserted that there is clear or self-evident connection between geography and race, but no source has been provided. The section only discusses geography not race. Do you have a reliable source that supports this? –dlthewave ☎ 15:22, 15 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
This is discussed in chapter 11 of Earl Hunt's textbook. With respect to the higher average scores of both East Asian countries and Asian Americans, Hunt says "The US results are mirrored on the international scene" (page 421). With respect to the data from African Americans and from countries in sub-Saharan Africa, Hunt presents these two lines of data several pages apart, but when discussing the worldwide distribution of scores from all countries, he mentions on page 439 that one hypothesis to explain these differences is due to "differences in the racial composition of the national and regional population". Hunt argues that this hypothesis "cannot be ruled out", but also that it "goes far beyond the data". Then on pages 446-447, he argues that the most important factor in causing the lower average scores of both Africans Americans and countries in sub-Saharan Africa is their limited access to schooling and social opportunities. This source is a good example of how in academic sources about race and intelligence, the data from international comparisons and from ethnic groups within a country often are presented together, with the author suggesting that both types of difference have similar causes.
Nicholas Mackintosh takes a similar approach with the section of his own textbook titled "National or ethnic differences", which discusses both types of difference in combination. I've focused on Earl Hunt's book because it seems to be more highly-regarded of the two sources, but they are both high-quality secondary sources. Both of these sources bring up international differences in the context of discussing race and intelligence, so the Wikipedia article should reflect the source literature in this regard. 2600:1004:B15D:697F:F1AB:F59B:5A3B:897D (talk) 17:13, 15 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
By the way, this material has been in the article for something like a decade. Before removing it and demanding that others provide sources to justify its inclusion, why can't you look in the talk page archives to see whether a similar objection has been made before? It probably has been, and it's disrespectful of others' time for you to demand that others re-explain things that probably have been explained on this page many times over. 2600:1004:B15D:697F:F1AB:F59B:5A3B:897D (talk) 17:24, 15 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for clarifying. From your description, using Hunt to support a connection between race, nation and intelligence is a shaky proposition to say the least; it seems that these are similar phenomena but not connected phenomena. In other words, just because the claimed racial and regional differences are thought to have similar environmental causes doesn't mean that they're associated with each other. Even if we did have solid sourcing to support this section, we would need to rewrite it to clarify the relevance to this topic. In its current state it is off-topic and should, in my opinion, be removed until someone rewrites it. By the way an unregistered user can suggest changes/rewrites on the talk page as you've been doing or register an account to directly edit the semi-protected page. –dlthewave ☎ 18:18, 15 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I see we've found the person who didn't look through the archives before posting. The relevance of Global variation of IQ scores to this article doesn't seem to have been discussed in detail and certainly hasn't been explained many times over.
Demanding that others justify their claims is indeed how things work around here. The onus to provide sourcing rests on those wishing to include the content. –dlthewave ☎ 18:18, 15 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
By "associated" or "connected", I assume you mean whether or not there is a direct causal relation between the two types of difference, but that isn't relevant to whether the section belongs in the article. On a topic as controversial as race and intelligence, we can't base the article structure on a judgment about what causal relations do or don't exist, because there is a vast amount of disagreement among sources in that area. What we should do is try to present the topic in a similar way to how it's presented in secondary sources. As I just explained, two of the most important secondary sources about race and intelligence include international differences as part of their discussion, so that should be an adequate reason for the Wikipedia article to also include a discussion of those differences.
However, if you need a source that argues there is a causal relationship between race differences and international differences, Rindermann's Cognitive Capitalism makes that argument on pages 287-323. 2600:1004:B15D:697F:F1AB:F59B:5A3B:897D (talk) 19:09, 15 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Heiner Rindermann is certainly not a reliable secondary source, and neither was Earl Hunt. Making the implication that national differences are the same or similar to racial differences is improper synthesis and can't be included in the article. Onetwothreeip (talk) 21:25, 15 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Hunt's and Rindermann's books both were published by Cambridge University Press. Please remember what multiple other editors have told you about your WP:IDHT attitude: you have been making this argument for the past two months both here and at the RS noticeboard, and in both places no one else has agreed with you that these aren't reliable sources. The reason I'm replying to you is that I don't want you to think my lack of response gives you license to continue edit warring to remove the section, but I'm not going to re-explain this principle about sources to you yet again. 2600:1004:B15D:697F:F1AB:F59B:5A3B:897D (talk) 21:45, 15 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
It is not the publisher in this case that is unreliable, it is the authors themselves. Wikipedia policy excludes using unreliable authors as sources for content. Onetwothreeip (talk) 21:51, 15 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
There are plenty of sources for global variation in IQs (national IQs). Even some people who aren't intelligence researchers have been publishing on this. For instance, 2018 The Lancet paper, or the World Bank in 2019 (only a preprint), or this review about national IQs in the journal International Journal of Developmental Disabilities (2017). A few economists have been using national IQ data for over a decade, e.g. this 2006 paper, or this 2014 follow up. One can easily find many more. AndewNguyen (talk) 13:37, 18 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

To summarize the discussion:

  • Keep: Editor wants to destroy the article; continental and racial differences are "similar"; sources discuss race and nationality; the connection between race and nationality is "common sense; mass content removal shouldn't take place during DRV; some geographical areas are predominantly populated by a single race; content has been in the article for a decade; editor should have checked talk archives for prior discussion before removing; plenty of sources exist.
  • Remove: Off topic (discusses nationality, not IQ); content is undue and supported by unreliable sources.

Many of the "keep" points are focused on editor behavior or cite nonexistent policies. Although the race-nationality connection is apparently discussed by several sources, the degree to which they actually make the connection and the reliability of the sources are questionable. Most importantly, the section in its current state does not actually discuss the relevance to this topic and nobody is willing to rewrite it. Based on this assessment, I will remove the section and provide a link to the current version in case anyone would like to rewrite it in the future. –dlthewave ☎ 03:28, 26 February 2020 (UTC) Removed section can be found here. –dlthewave ☎ 03:29, 26 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

  • If this section is rewritten, it would need to cover not just the global variation in IQ scores but also its relationship to racial variation in IQ scores. For example, if we're going to discuss Lynn and Vanhanen, we should mention their claim that national differences in intelligence are largely due to racial composition, along with mainstream critical analysis of this claim. This should preferably come from a secondary source that discusses the overall debate.
Any rewrite would also need to comply with WP:WEIGHT. Keep in mind that even if a source is considered "reliable", we still need to determine whether or not the viewpoint is prominent enough for inclusion here. Being published in a reliable source does not automatically merit inclusion.
I'm happy to discuss and assist with a potential rewrite, however we all need to be open to the possibility that the connection between race, nationality and intelligence may not have sufficient RS coverage to support a section. If this is the case then removal may be appropriate. –dlthewave ☎ 01:31, 1 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Jweiss11: You've restored the contested content despite the unaddressed concerns of other editors in this discussion. The only reason you've given was that it included the phrase "... patterns of difference between continental populations similar to those associated with race", however this sentence was unsourced. Please join this discussion to help address the concerns that have been raised. –dlthewave ☎ 04:00, 2 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

"patterns of difference between continental populations similar to those associated with race" is WP:BLUESKY. Jweiss11 (talk) 04:07, 2 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
It's not. You've been asked to provide a source and have not done so. Which "demographic studies" were you referring to above, and which source connects them to race and intelligence so that we can include it without using WP:SYNTH? –dlthewave ☎ 04:12, 2 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Do you want a source that shows that most citizens of sub-Saharan African nations are black or that most citizens of East Asian nations are East Asian? Jweiss11 (talk) 04:14, 2 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
We need a source that discusses the relationship between nationality, race and intelligence, and the section needs to be rewritten to reflect it. We also need a source for the statement "patterns of difference between continental populations similar to those associated with race" if it is to be included, you can't keep citing BLUESKY and your insistence on doing so is becoming disruptive. –dlthewave ☎ 04:25, 2 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
How many times have I cited BLUESKY? Your entire approach on this topic is hostile and disruptive. Please also stop leaving passive-aggressive templates on my talk page. Thanks, Jweiss11 (talk) 05:44, 2 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@Jweiss11: I will not engage with comments about my behavior on this talk page. Please focus on the content being discussed. –dlthewave ☎ 13:20, 2 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
If you won't engage with comments about behavior on this talk page, then why did you introduce discussion about mine ("your insistence on doing so is becoming disruptive")? Jweiss11 (talk) 13:32, 2 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry, I don't see how that is BLUESKY. If race is a social construct, are you saying that these patterns in IQ follow what would be expected based on a social construct? In addition, of course, "a number of studies" isn't BLUESKY - it's a specific factual claim that, without support, would run into WP:WEASEL concerns. Guettarda (talk) 14:01, 2 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Guettarda, what I'm arguing is BLUESKY is the claim that residents of sub-Saharan Africa are overwhelming black and that residents of East Asia are overwhelmingly East Asian. I don't think race and ethnicity are entirely is social constructs, as there is a genetic basis to them. I also think that the IQ testing differences we see between ethnic and racial groups are largely social/cultural. Jweiss11 (talk) 03:21, 4 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@Jweiss11: residents of sub-Saharan Africa are overwhelming black and that residents of East Asia are overwhelmingly East Asian: Sure, if you define the "black race" as "the race of most people who live in sub-Saharan Africa", then sure, most people who live in sub-Saharan Africa are black. But that doesn't make biological race real. Human variation is clinal, it's continuous. There's no point where you say that everyone up to this village is black, but starting from the next village on, the people are white (which is what you'd expect if biological race was real). Race "exists" where people from distant parts of the continuum are thrown together, and people construct ideas about us and them.
It doesn't matter whether biological races are real, or variation is clinal and race is a social construct. What matters is that you can't make claims one way or the other and say they don't need sourcing per BLUESKY. (As for ethnicity, ethnic groups often include completely unrelated people who are thrown together and united by cultural factors. Ethnogenesis is about the development of cultural cohesion within groups. There doesn't have to be any genetic relatedness.) Guettarda (talk) 05:16, 5 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Both of you, please see my comments below suggesting that this sentence could be re-worded and cited to Rindermann's book. While there are other sources that could potentially be used such as Earl Hunt's textbook, I think the Rindermann source is the best option, because its discussion about the relation between ethnicity and international differences is all in one place, rather than in several parts throughout the chapter as it is in Hunt's book.
If anyone is interested in compromising here, restoring the section with the first sentence cited to Rindermann is a potential compromise between those who don't want the sentence to remain unsourced, and those who object to this section of the article being removed entirely. 2600:1004:B12C:3F1:5D:BFBB:13A7:BC8F (talk) 05:51, 5 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

"We need a source that discusses the relationship between nationality, race and intelligence" Dlthewave, I listed five such sources in the discussion below. When I asked you what you specifically expected to be changed about this section before it could be restored, your response was evasive. I asked you that question twice, first here and again here, and you did not answer it either time.

Despite that, you subsequently claimed "I explained what should be changed in the Global variation of IQ scores discussion above." It is disruptive of you to claim that while simultaneously refusing to answer my question about this exact thing. This looks a lot like a deliberate attempt to avoid being specific about what you want changed in that section. 2600:1004:B12D:741A:C15B:1789:8738:CD03 (talk) 14:14, 2 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, the "I explained" comment was meant to direct you to [this explanation] which I had posted minutes earlier. As I've also explained, we need to not only show that sources exist but also rewrite the section to reflect them. Additionally, I would suggest that you discuss with editors who have raised objections to the sources provided. –dlthewave ☎ 14:47, 2 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
You're repeating yourself without answering the specific thing I asked. Did you not read either of my earlier comments?
In the linked comment you said, "it would need to cover not just the global variation in IQ scores but also its relationship to racial variation in IQ scores." And in my own comment, I had pointed out that the section you removed had already mentioned "patterns of difference between continental populations similar to those associated with race". And I asked, "Are you suggesting the section should be more specific that the average scores of nations tend to align with the average scores of populations with ancestry from those regions, and therefore the question of the causes of both types of difference are part of the same debate?" You still haven't answered that. If your problem was that the existing wording was too vague, I also don't see why you couldn't improve that yourself instead of removing the entire section. 2600:1004:B12D:741A:C15B:1789:8738:CD03 (talk) 15:04, 2 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I wasn't suggesting that specifically. Yes, this is the type of data that would fit within the "global variation of IQ scores" topic, however it would need to be reliably sourced, compliant with NPOV and also connected to race specifically, not just regional ancestry. "NPOV" means that it would need to reflect the mainstream viewpoint and receive very significant coverage; being published in a reliable source does not automatically merit inclusion since peer-reviewed journals often publish emerging or minority views. "patterns of difference between continental populations similar to those associated with race" was unsourced, so its presence does not make the section relevant to race and intelligence; did you notice that I mentioned this above in response to JWeiss? –dlthewave ☎ 13:33, 3 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I was asking you to be specific what you want changed about this section, because I wanted to make sure you'd allow it to be added back if your requirements were met.
I would suggest rewriting the first sentence of that section to say, A number of studies have found that differences in average scores between racial or ethnic groups tend to be similar regardless of the region they inhabit, and whether they are a majority or minority group within a country. For example, Chinese, Japanese, Korean and Vietnamese people tend to have higher average scores in both East Asian countries and as immigrant populations in Western countries, while the same is also true of the lower average scores of people of sub-Saharan African origin. And this would be cited to pages 288-289 in Rindermann's Cognitive Capitalism. Rindermann's book specifically mentions Chinese, Japanese, Korean Vietnamese, and sub-Saharan African people, so this is a direct paraphrase of what the source says. Note that Rindermann's book was discussed at RSN here, and the discussion there concluded that it's a reliable source. Would this change address your concern? 2600:1004:B105:F5A1:A997:5864:C95E:CEE5 (talk) 21:27, 3 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
That's a start. It's good that you provided a specific example along with a citation. However, I'm still concerned about the sourcing. The RSN discussion closes with "we can give the views of Rindermann and Hunt, sourced to their books published by the Cambridge University Press, but take care not to promote their views as widely accepted unless/until sources can be found which indicate their views are widely accepted". Sourcing the opening paragraph to Rindermann seems to give undue weight to his viewpoint. It would be good to back up the claim with mainstream sources; if it is widely accepted, this should not be a problem.
The other paragraphs in the section would also need to be rewritten to show a race/nationality/intelligence connection, again sourced to reliable sources and presented in accordance with WP:DUE WEIGHT. Rewriting the first paragraph does not make the entire section on-topic.
I don't have any special requirements for the section, just our standard RS and NPOV policies as well as the special sourcing restriction that is in effect here. It's not my call, a number of concerns were raised by a number of editors. I can't give you a list of specific changes that need to be made, but an editor with access to the right sources should be able to find a way to address the problems. This responsibility lies with editors who wish to include the content. –dlthewave ☎ 02:49, 4 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
As I said before, Hunt's textbook discusses this also, but in Hunt's book the discussion is split between a few different places in the chapter. (He discusses East Asians in one place, and sub-Saharan Africans in a different place.) The Rindermann source is good because it has an overall discussion about the relation between racial IQ gaps and international differences in those two pages.
This lack of specificity about what you want changed about the section is what I've been objecting to. How can you expect other editors to change the section to your satisfaction, when you won't even tell us what specific changes you want? If I'm understanding your comment correctly, it sounds as though you don't even have access to the sources for this section, so your judgement about what is or isn't relevant or NPOV is based on guesswork. You're the person who's boldly removing a section that's been in the article for 5+ years, so are the person who should be justifying your bold change, rather than trying to shift the burden to other editors. 2600:1004:B105:F5A1:A997:5864:C95E:CEE5 (talk) 03:47, 4 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • The content should stay removed. I had a similar concern about the content not being explicitly related by the sources to race. The exchange was:
    • (Me): similar to those associated with race -- according to whom?
    • (Reply): K.e.coffman, anyone who uses common sense and/or skims the demographic summaries of the various nations around the world?
This is not sufficient. --K.e.coffman (talk) 05:22, 3 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • The section has once again been restored, this time to a version that does not discuss race. The edit summary "not off topic; the nation discussed are here a reasonable proxy for ethnic and racial groups" is not sufficient, we need appropriate sources to support this and we need to rewrite the content to reflect those sources. Jweiss11 please join us in addressing these issues. –dlthewave ☎ 03:28, 4 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Again, as I stated above, my argument is that the claim that residents of sub-Saharan Africa are overwhelming black or that residents of East Asia are overwhelmingly East Asian is BLUESKY. Jweiss11 (talk) 03:31, 4 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
As Horse Eye Jack said when you made a similar claim, "That's a very bad argument." –dlthewave ☎ 03:42, 4 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Neither one of you have made a substantive refutation of it. Isn't it the case that residents of sub-Saharan Africa are overwhelming black or that residents of East Asia are overwhelmingly East Asian? Jweiss11 (talk) 03:45, 4 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Exclude IP accounts

In light of the fact that this page is mentioned on several neo-Nazi webpages (I shall refrain from linking to them) and there are a number of banned/blocked users that have previously been active, I more to ban all IP edits from this article and the talkpage. jps (talk) 21:42, 16 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

  • Endorse as proposer. jps (talk) 21:42, 16 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose IPs are already banned from editing the article page, due to it being semi-protected. I don't see the point of them being banned from the talk page as well, given that they should be allowed to have at least the chance to propose their ideas; speaking of which, the IP starting with 2600 had already proposed useful edits and provided helpful sources and arguments in the past. O̲L̲D̲S̲T̲O̲N̲E̲J̅A̅M̅E̅S̅ 22:02, 16 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment Since this proposal is obviously directed against me, I won't vote, but I'd like everyone to be aware that this proposal is a clear case of forum shopping. JPS previously requested that this page be semi-protected, so only registered users can edit it, on January 28, and his request was declined. How many times does he intend to keep requesting this? 2600:1004:B117:10E5:D530:D014:5920:FA1 (talk) 22:18, 16 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support - Blocks and bans apply to talk pages as well; semi-protection of the article does not entirely prevent block evasion. Protecting this page would help ensure that arbitration decisions are being enforced. –dlthewave ☎ 22:38, 16 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support per jps and dlthewave, although that restriction will probably have only a minor impact. My impression is that, historically, the problematic editors both on the article and the talk-page have not been predominantly IP-editors. On the other hand, (1) just one or two IP-editors can do a lot of bludgeoning, and (2) an IP-editor might be less inhibited in making white-supremacist or anti-semitic comments. NightHeron (talk) 01:10, 17 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@Horse Eye Jack: Citation needed. Can you please provide examples? On the contrary, I've seen excellent contributions from 2600, and this move seems to be entirely directed at him. Toomim (talk) 23:32, 17 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
It's largely impossible to provide examples as the IP address changes daily; see sample: Special:Contributions/2600:1004:B15D:697F:F1AB:F59B:5A3B:897D. What I can observe is that the IP is currently a SPA for this page + related discussions on various admin noticeboards, although it's impossible to know what other pages they have edited prior to this one. --K.e.coffman (talk) 02:49, 18 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
So are you saying that you can find edits by 2600, but that you think it is impossible to find examples of those edits being problematic? Or did I mis-understand you? Toomim (talk) 11:30, 18 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose I agree that 2600's contributions have been of the most civil and consensus-building of anyone. I think he's done a better job than me to bring together both sides, and that's what this article needs, given how contentious it is. Without him, I fear this process would get even uglier. Finally, the proposer hasn't given us any examples of the problem edits that they are supposedly trying to prevent. Toomim (talk) 23:32, 17 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
And one more important point -- since this issue is so politically-charged, people might be risking their jobs or friends to speak up about it, and we should should allow anonymous edits so that these people can still have a voice. Toomim (talk) 23:36, 17 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
This makes no sense. IP editing is less anonymous than editing with an account, and editors are responsible for what they say and do on the project as a whole, not just in isolation. Grayfell (talk) 00:59, 18 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Now you are saying that IP editing is *less* anonymous. But that's self-contradicting -- if IP editing is *less* anonymous, then there wouldn't be any "bad people" doing IP editing. They would make accounts. And this whole "ban the IPs" idea would do the opposite of its claimed purpose. --Toomim (talk) 11:56, 18 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I think there's a confusion here between two different types of reasons for anonymity. If users want to simply protect themselves from off-wiki consequences of their editing (such as doxxing/harassment or repercussions at work or with friends/family), the best way to do this is to have an account with a pseudonym. If users want to make it harder for admins to follow what they're doing and impose sanctions when necessary, the surest way to do that is to be an IP-editor with changing IPs. NightHeron (talk) 13:16, 18 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support: Given the previous history of site bans / topic bans for this subject and associated Talk pages. Additionally, using a dynamic IP to edit in a contentious topic area is inappropriate since the constantly changing address helps evade scrutiny by making an entire editing history extremely difficult to trace. Lastly, I don't find this argument about engaging with the topic area compelling: ...people might be risking their jobs or friends to speak up about it, and we should allow anonymous edits so that these people can still have a voice. The same would apply to conspiracy theorists, alt-righters, neo-Nazis, casual racists, anti-semites, etc. It's not important for Wikipedia that their voices be heard. --K.e.coffman (talk) 00:50, 18 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
You have provided no examples of these problems.
Also, you cannot censor right-wing POVs from Wikipedia while allowing left-wing POVs. That is an egregious violation of NPOV. (And I am a liberal myself.) --Toomim (talk) 10:02, 18 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
It's not a political issue, so please don't make it into one. The issue is WP:FRINGE. The anti-vaccine movement is usually associated more with the left than the right (e.g., Jill Stein for a while was supporting it). If IP editors were persistently trying to get the anti-vaxx POV into a Wikipedia article and were bludgeoning on the talk page, then it would similarly make sense to block IP editors from those pages. The issue is not left vs right, but rather science vs fringe. Just because in this instance the white-supremacist fringe POV is supported by alt-right sources, that does not mean that people who want to treat that POV in accordance with WP:FRINGE are advancing a left-wing POV. NightHeron (talk) 11:16, 18 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not the one who made it political — K.e.coffman did by saying we should block IP addresses in order to prevent "alt-righters" from participating. He didn't use the word "fringe"; he used the word "right". That is the political right. Trying to block a political orientation from participating in Wikipedia is an egregious violation of NPOV. You are defending that behavior. --Toomim (talk) 11:27, 18 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I read the comment by K.e.coffman to be a list of the types of people who push for fringe views and do not contribute constructively to Wikipedia. There are leftist conspiracy theorists and leftist anti-semites, as you're probably aware, and so K.e.coffman's list is not only of rightists. Also, the term alt-right refers to the fringe wing of the right, not to mainstream conservatives. No one is saying that editors who are on the political right cannot contribute constructively. NightHeron (talk) 13:13, 18 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
The alt-right is a political orientation that describes many millions of people. If you are arguing to block these people from editing Wikipedia, then you are in gross violation of Wikipedia's core principle of NPOV, and someone might report your account to administration. Tread carefully. Toomim (talk) 02:01, 19 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support - The best we've seen from IPs here is WP:CIVILPOV, and that's being generous. IP editing makes it more difficult to keep track of disruptive behavior and sock puppetry, which this article has been especially plagued with for over a decade. Grayfell (talk) 00:59, 18 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    Can we get some examples of this being a problem? Peregrine Fisher (talk) 03:01, 18 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Questions - Was there a precedent like this at other articles before? I know that there were occasional failed proposals to globally prevent IP editing. It may also be worth evaluating if some administrators occasionally applied such measures under ARBCOM dicretionary sanctions, or if it should eventually be part of them to protect pages for other reasons than vandalism and obvious edit warring (in this case to prevent IP editing)... In any case, it would never be a proper technical solution to the problem of socks, unless the software itself was improved to automatically report potential socks to admins with CU rights (i.e. with a private backlog of 30 days or more), or accounts had to be confirmed to an actual person's identity (i.e. at OTRS discretion). But it would indeed make it easier for other editors and discussion closers to identify SPAs, for admins to sanction disruptive editors and handle obvious socks manually, as well as for new editors on the topic to learn, as they would have a stable talk page. —PaleoNeonate – 04:41, 18 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not familiar with the circumstances that led to it, but Category:Wikipedia semi-protected talk pages shows that there is some precedent for semi-sprotecting article talk pages. –dlthewave ☎ 04:54, 18 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose Seems an obvious attempt to get rid of the contributions of the frequent 2600 IP editor. OP's unsubstantiated claim about Nazis posting this page are irrelevant to Wikipedia policies. I do not understand why we cannot just work within the normal rules on this page, but every lawyer trick in the book must be attempted. In any case, I don't think this is just something one can make a vote for, and then bring in one's friends for majority. AndewNguyen (talk) 13:24, 18 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
By implying that people you disagree with are canvassing, you are accusing other editors of acting in bad faith. This is also an odd point to make, since several of the people commenting here are near-WP:SPAs, including you. You cannot have it both ways. The article has a documented history of being targeted by multiple long-term abuse accounts. Sorry, but I'm not inclined to dig through the 100 pages of archives to point to specific examples right now. Also, Wikipedia is not a platform for Nazis, and linking to Nazi websites would be unacceptably disruptive, so saying this is "unsubstantiated " completely misses the point. Grayfell (talk) 21:39, 18 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Ok. None of you can provide any examples of the problems that blocking IP addresses will solve. It's time to give up on this idea. Also, that article on WP:NONAZIS says This is an essay. This page is not one of Wikipedia's policies or guidelines. Please don't masquerade that as an actual Wikipedia policy . --Toomim (talk) 23:21, 18 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I didn't vote yet but did include rationale: But it would indeed make it easier for other editors and discussion closers to identify SPAs, for admins to sanction disruptive editors and handle obvious socks manually, as well as for new editors on the topic to learn, as they would have a stable talk page. In any case, please let people vote instead of deciding for everyone yourself? —PaleoNeonate – 00:11, 19 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
This isn't a vote; it's a consensus process. Consensus requires both sides trying to find consensus. However, in this case, the 'support' side refuses to provide examples of the problems they are talking about. If they are not trying to find consensus, then consensus cannot proceed, and it's time to give this up. --Toomim (talk) 01:48, 19 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I am not currently getting involved in editing this page, nor taking sides in this or any other matter, but an example of the problem can be found on this page, scroll up to the rename section, and see the contributions from 2605:8D80:668:39E9:DB8E:11E8:912F:2CD0. These come from the (often) banned sock, Sprayitchyo[2]. -- Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 08:22, 19 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
ETA I will balance that comment with my observation (made elsewhere) that the IP editor 2600:1004:b1/40 appears to be in good faith, and has made a statement that they cannot use cookies. the Wikipedia technical FAQ is clear that cookies are required to edit with an account, and although most of us accept cookies as a norm, I do have sympathy for those who wish to reject all cookies. -- Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 09:18, 19 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
As several others have already pointed out, the context in which this proposal was made makes it obvious that it is directed against me, not against the other IP. (In fact, it was made directly in response to one of my posts.) If the purpose of this proposal were to exclude the other IP, it would have been made two weeks ago, which is the last - and I think, only - time the other IP has commented on this page. Almost all of the support for the proposal is coming from people who have disagreed with me about the content of this article.
Much has been made on this page about how "local consensus" isn't enough for certain proposals. I suppose we'll find out soon whether local consensus among the people who've disagreed with an editor on a page is enough to exclude that editor from commenting there. 2600:1004:B155:9EA4:EC0F:A884:87A9:BC55 (talk) 13:28, 19 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The articles and corresponding talk pages relating to Abortion shall be semi-protected for a period of three years from the conclusion of this case, such that no non-autoconfirmed editor (including IP address editors) shall edit them. Editors in good standing who wish to edit such topics under a single additional account not linked to their identity may do so under the provisions of WP:SOCK#LEGIT and WP:SOCK#NOTIFY.

I found this remedy very effective in reducing the need to continuously assume good faith with every new or random IP editor. On contentious articles such as this IP editors tend to be socks or meats more times than not. Their ability to game WP:AGF and use civil POV pushing tactics makes what is already a very difficult editing job into a practical impossibility. A decade is long enough. Any reasonable actions that will help editors work constructively on this article should be taken. —ArtifexMayhem (talk) 04:44, 19 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you very much, ArtifexMayhem. —PaleoNeonate – 04:52, 19 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support - Problematic-enough subject area to consider the measure. —PaleoNeonate – 04:52, 19 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong support. There is the serious likelihood of editors seeking to use IP addresses like sockpuppet accounts. Onetwothreeip (talk) 08:31, 19 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose While article talk pages are occasionally protected from IP editing, that's a last resort and in only the most egregious of cases (non-stop vandalism, libel, copyvios etc). I see no evidence that this page is anywhere near that stage (yet), and indeed, despite requests, there seems to be a curious inability to produce diffs (=evidence) of much IP wrongdoing at all.
    While I don't see it as being an obvious attempt to get rid of the contributions of anyone, I think it is a good faith attempt to solve a problem yet to occur, which is both against policy and is contrary to the open nature of Wikipedia. This should only be done in situations where blatant vandalism or disruption is occurring—a situation which seems yet to occur. ——SN54129 11:43, 25 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose Having skimmed through the "discussion" on this page a good bit, it seems obvious that this move is a targeted one that has everything to do with shutting down one specific contributor and nothing to do with the quality of the article or discussion on this talk page. Only the OP can know whether that's the case, or if this is actually a misguided attempt at stopping some unnamed wrongdoing that's yet to be presented here, some clarification would be appreciated. Going by what I can see, this looks to be an attempt to prevent discussion; not a move to better discuss the topic. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.255.198.2 (talk) 02:34, 4 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

"no non-circumstantial"

I hate that phrasing. It don't sound right. Do we mean "only circumstantial"? Peregrine Fisher (talk) 05:17, 17 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Have we verified that "circumstantial" is supported by a source? "No evidence" would be a better summary of the body. –dlthewave ☎ 05:22, 17 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
"no evidence" isn't something i've definitively read. Anyways, if you search the article for "circumstantial" you find stuff like "the evidence for a genetic influence has been circumstantial" and "Currently there is no non-circumstantial evidence that the test score gap has a genetic component,[127][62][128] although some researchers believe that the existing circumstantial evidence makes it plausible to believe that hard evidence for a genetic component will eventually appear." Peregrine Fisher (talk) 05:38, 17 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
The term used in Intelligence: Knowns and Unknowns, the statement published by the American Psychological Association in 1996, is that there is no "direct empirical support" for a genetic interpretation. I would be okay with saying "direct empirical evidence" instead of "non-circumstantial evidence". 2600:1004:B166:FE36:49EC:ECB6:3787:B508 (talk) 13:05, 17 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
2600, the full quote from the Test Scores section is "Explanations based on factors of caste and culture may be appropriate, but so far have little direct empirical support. There is certainly no such support for a genetic interpretation." I'm concerned that using qualifiers like "empirical" and "circumstantial" out of context in our article would imply the existence of non-empirical or non-circumstantial evidence, a conclusion that these sources don't support. –dlthewave ☎ 13:21, 17 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Does that mean "there's little support for nurture being the cause, but there's certainly no support for nature being the cause"? Peregrine Fisher (talk) 02:19, 18 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
The wording in the article can't be stronger than what's supported by its major sources such as the APA report. Also, while that report doesn't say anything either way about the existence or non-existence of indirect evidence for genetic factors, other sources such as Hunt's textbook argue that there is indirect evidence for a role of genetics. Therefore, I think including a qualifier such as "non-circumstantial evidence" or "direct empirical evidence" is necessary for the article's wording to be consistent with most of the sources that it cites. 2600:1004:B166:FE36:49EC:ECB6:3787:B508 (talk) 13:50, 17 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you -- I think that "no direct empirical evidence" is better than "no non-circumstantial evidence." This is partially to avoid the double negative, and partially because the term Circumstantial Evidence is typically used in court-room forensics to prove that somebody is guilty; not typically in science, where we want to know whether or not a theory has predictive power. It might also be possible that the distinction between "causal" vs. "correlative" evidence is relevant here; although I must claim ignorance -- I haven't researched this particular aspect of the topic in much depth. Toomim (talk) 23:51, 17 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I guess I could go with "no direct empirical evidence". At least get rid of the double negative. Peregrine Fisher (talk) 02:19, 18 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

No, that is not acceptable. Dlthewave correctly observed that using qualifiers like "empirical" and "circumstantial" out of context in our article would imply the existence of non-empirical or non-circumstantial evidence, a conclusion that these sources don't support. The use of such terminology goes against WP:Manual of Style, where the section WP:WEASEL defines weasel words as follows: Weasel words are words and phrases aimed at creating an impression that something specific and meaningful has been said, when in fact only a vague or ambiguous claim has been communicated. NightHeron (talk) 02:41, 18 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I don't want to disrupt the thread above, but others may find it interesting that A popular misconception is that circumstantial evidence is less valid or less important than direct evidence, according to the Wikipedia page on Circumstantial Evidence. It further explains: Indeed, the common metaphor for the strongest possible evidence in any case—the "smoking gun"—is an example of proof based on circumstantial evidence. Toomim (talk) 07:11, 18 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

It is poor phrasing. Yes, it relates to the previous situation of only circumstantial evidence. I think these reviews mean the lack of direct genetic data. However, such data has existed since 2013 (Davide Piffer's work), and continues to be published to this date. The main reviews used for sources on the page are out of date regarding this. That said, I support changing it to "only circumstantial" or "only indirect" until we move to using newer secondary sources. AndewNguyen (talk) 13:27, 18 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Concerning "such data has existed since 2013 (Davide Piffer's work)," indeed Davide Piffer is typical of the type of authors that advocates of Jensenism cite to support race-supremacist theories; for more info about Mr. Piffer, please see [3]. NightHeron (talk) 13:53, 18 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I'm having trouble remembering who is racist. Could you provide a shot list? Peregrine Fisher (talk) 10:00, 19 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Here's a very short list, quoted from the source cited in my last comment: "Piffer is a research fellow of the Ulster Institute for Social Research, a racist institute founded by Richard Lynn that publishes racist pseudoscience." NightHeron (talk) 10:25, 19 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
RationalWiki is not a reliable source. It's a wiki. Toomim (talk) 20:49, 19 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
This isnt text on the page... RationalWiki also happens to be right in this case. Are you denying that Piffer worked for the Ulster Institute for Social Research? Horse Eye Jack (talk) 22:04, 19 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
*Sigh* I think you all missed the joke. Accusing someone of racism is the new McCarthyism, and your desire to build a list of "accused racists" is no better than McCarthy's attempt to build a list of accused communists (usually just one's political opponents), and then blacklisting them from participating in society, or building a list of accused witches and then burning them alive. I think Peregrine Fisher was being sarcastic when he asked you to provide a short list, but here you're actually trying to do so. Not only is this behavior morally reprehensible -- it is not how Wikipedia works. We don't do witch hunts. We don't exclude minority viewpoints. We include information that is notable and reliable. Toomim (talk) 04:01, 20 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
We do in face exclude racists and their despicable worldview, see WP:NONAZIS. Horse Eye Jack (talk) 05:22, 20 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
WP:No_Nazis is just somebody's essay. It explicitly says This is an essay. This page is not one of Wikipedia's policies or guidelines. Toomim (talk) 07:12, 20 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Once again you missed the point so spectacularly that it is challenging to assume good faith. I think you’re WP:NOTHERE. Piffer is a racist, end of the story. If you don’t like how the story ends then go check out Conservapedia. Horse Eye Jack (talk) 15:01, 20 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Ha, ha, ha! Thank you for explaining that Peregrine Fisher was making a funny joke! Putting jokes aside, the relevant Wikipedia policy is WP:FRINGE. Authors who are way outside the mainstream of science and scholarship -- climate change deniers, flat earthers, creationists, quack cure charlatans, white supremacists (such as Davide Piffer and Richard Lynn), etc. -- must not be treated as reliable sources, but rather must be described for what they are. Your name-calling (McCarthyism and witch hunt and morally reprehensible) directed against other editors does not make those fringe writers into RS. NightHeron (talk) 04:51, 20 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
WP:FRINGE is about theories, not people. It explains how much representation to give to a theory in an article. It has no bearing on the reliability of a person or source. It is entirely irrelevant to your ad-hominem attack against Piffer. There is no Wikipedia principle that supports your witch-hunt. You are plainly accusing anyone on the nature side of the debate a "racist", just like McCarthy called any of his political opponents a "communist", in an attempt to exclude them. This behavior reeks of POV bias. Toomim (talk) 07:12, 20 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

One joke I've heard a lot recently is the one where an inexperienced editors lecture a talk page on how "Wikipedia works". Freedom isn't licence, and identifying pseudoscience doesn't lead to censorship or blacklisting, it leads to better science. Grayfell (talk) 05:10, 20 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Toomim: Yes, someone's writings can be an unreliable source per WP:FRINGE in one area and RS in another area. In that sense they're not ruled out as people. For example, William Shockley was a white supremacist fringe figure on race issues, but his writings on transistor technology (an area where he won a Nobel Prize) were RS. Piffer and Lynn are similar. For all I know they might have written on mountain climbing techniques or favorite recipes in mainstream publications, in which case those writings should not be ruled out as RS just because their authors are racists.

Your intemperate accusations of McCarthyism against other editors violates WP:AGF. NightHeron (talk) 15:43, 20 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Let's try to summarize the current consensus. Peregrine Fisher, 2600, AndrewNguyen, and myself support the phrase "no direct empirical evidence". (AndrewNguyen explicitly said "only circumstantial" or "only indirect"; but the latter is compatible with "no direct evidence".) AndrewNguyen further points out that the word circumstantial might not be necessary anymore—the article was written before the non-circumstantial evidence was found—but that we should upgrade the sources to include this evidence before removing the word "circumstantial."

On the other hand, NightHeron and dlthewave share the concern that "using qualifiers like `empirical` and `circumstantial` out of context in our article would imply the existence of non-empirical or non-circumstantial evidence, a conclusion that these sources don't support." I am not sure what they mean by this. The wording in question from the article is "At present, there is no non-circumstantial evidence that these differences in test scores have a genetic component." Are you guys concerned that this implies the existence of non-circumstantial evidence? I think that it says the opposite. Please clarify. Toomim (talk) 07:36, 20 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

No, as you've quoted, we're concerned that "no non-circumstantial" evidence implies the existence of "circumstantial" evidence. The body doesn't make clear exactly what circumstantial/indirect evidence we're talking about and, in any case, it doesn't carry enough weight to justify a prominent position in the lede. –dlthewave ☎ 13:16, 20 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
The trouble with the wording "no non-circumstantial evidence" or "only circumstantial evidence" is that circumstantial evidence is not a standard, understandable term in the sciences (although it is in criminal investigations). What does it mean? Does it just mean correlation? Encouraging readers to confuse correlation and causality is not what Wikipedia should do. Should Wikipedia have an article on Catholicism and pederasty claiming "circumstantial" evidence for a genetic connection because of all the cities in the US where the diocese declared bankruptcy because of sexual abuse lawsuits? Or would such a claim amount to just trash-talking and slandering Catholics?
The trouble with the wording "no direct empirical evidence" is that it strongly implies that there is non-empirical or indirect evidence, which is not supported by RS. What would that mean? Again, perhaps correlation. Or maybe conjectures based on fringe methodology.
In both cases the wording is confusing and misleading, what WP:MOS calls weasel words: Weasel words are words and phrases aimed at creating an impression that something specific and meaningful has been said, when in fact only a vague or ambiguous claim has been communicated. NightHeron (talk) 13:42, 20 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Just FYI Davide Piffer co-founded OpenPsych and his history is well known, no rational person can argue that he isnt a racist. There is nothing ad-hominem about calling a spade a spade and Piffer is a racist. Horse Eye Jack (talk) 15:01, 20 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

What is fringe? That races exist? That IQ measures intelligence? That there is an IQ gap between races? That there is a possibility that this is gap is partially genetic? Peregrine Fisher (talk) 16:30, 20 February 2020 (UTC) The gap is likely partially genetic? The gap is definitely partially genetic? Peregrine Fisher (talk) 16:32, 20 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Your sequence of claims (phrased as questions) is a good example of what's fringe: stringing together a sequence of broadly disputed claims in such a way as to suggest that some races are inferior to others. That's fringe. As explained in the first paragraph of the section Race of this article, there's a consensus that races are a sociopolitical construct, not a biological one. Similarly, most scholars would say that the claim that IQ measures intelligence is simplistic and misleading; intelligence is a loaded word that carries many other meanings besides whatever IQ measures. The notion that heritability of some trait among individuals implies a hereditary component in group differences is a well-known logical fallacy. If you string all this together and spin it so as to suggest racial inferiority/supremacy, then you have fringe. NightHeron (talk) 16:48, 20 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Agreed. As is common with fringe positions, every link in these chains can be propped-up, superficially, in various shoddy ways. Taking these things apart takes a bit of effort and nuance. It take more effort to debunk them than it does to share them and ignore the responses. By the time the point is properly addressed, fringe advocates have moved on to some other issue. It's not realistic to expect every one of these points to be addressed with care, because they were never well-supported to begin with. These racist ideas have been rejected for a lot of valid reasons, and ignoring those reasons won't make them go away. Grayfell (talk) 23:39, 20 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
OK, so NightHeron thinks race isn't real and the word intelligence is problematic and maybe not useful. Grayfell seems to agree, and anything beyond those two statments is fringe or heading into fringe. I'm sure there's plenty of nuance I'm missing. Just wanted to attempt to summarize before I spend time on the next response, which is long. Peregrine Fisher (talk) 03:03, 21 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
This was exactly what I was talking about. As far as I know, nobody here is saying "race isn't real". This is a straw-man that gets thrown around a lot on HBD forums and similar, but it badly misrepresents what we're trying to explain. Race is a social construct, and social constructs are real. Social constructs, like race, are very complicated, and very important to individuals, families, societies, legal institutions, etc. and need to be treated as such. Grayfell (talk) 06:18, 23 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
So race is real. It's a social construct and has zero biological underpinnings? Peregrine Fisher (talk) 02:19, 24 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
The biological underpinnings are weak. There are probably more genetic differences between your parents than between an average white person and an average black person. HiLo48 (talk) 02:36, 24 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, and even applying the concept of "biological underpinnings" to race is deeply flawed. The people trying to study these categories do not agree on who belongs, and they are not easily defined. Racial cateogires were designed for cultural reasons based on very obsolete scientific ideas, and they were not stable over time, and are still not stable. Again, nobody is saying it has "zero biological underpinnings", sources are saying it's very complicated. Sarcastically(?) putting it in simplistic terms isn't helpful. Grayfell (talk) 06:11, 24 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Here is what makes this sort of argument particularly ironic: when each "link in the chain" is presented by itself, it is generally regarded as mainstream. The mainstream position about the validity of IQ tests is presented in this section of the Intelligence Quotient article. Aside from the sources cited in that article, two more recent sources that regard IQ as a valid measure of mental ability are Bjorklund and Gray's textbook psychology (pp. 394-399), and Michael Ashton's textbook Individual Differences and Personality (the entirety of that book's tenth chapter). I'm deliberately citing broad-level psychology textbooks here so that people can't claim this viewpoint only exists in sources that are specifically about IQ testing.
The claim IQ is invalid is coming mostly from journalists or academics in fields like media studies or critical race theory, who make the claim in newspaper articles or in popular books. These people have no scientific credentials relevant to the subject, and the psychology academic community tends to ignore them. (Again, I am referring to psychology in general here, not just IQ testing.)
How about the biological meaning of race? This is covered in its own Wikipedia article, Race and genetics, which presents the mainstream view (that race is correlated with genetic variation) reasonably well. One of the most authoritative sources cited in that article is a special issue of the journal Nature Genetics that was devoted to this matter. Here is how the special issue's conclusions were summarized by Francis Collins, the director of the Human Genome Project:
Well-intentioned statements over the past few years, some coming from geneticists, might lead one to believe there is no connection whatsoever between self-identified race or ethnicity and the frequency of particular genetic variants. Increasing scientific evidence, however, indicates that genetic variation can be used to make a reasonably accurate prediction of geographic origins of an individual, at least if that individual's grandparents all came from the same part of the world. As those ancestral origins in many cases have a correlation, albeit often imprecise, with self-identified race or ethnicity, it is not strictly true that race or ethnicity has no biological connection. It must be emphasized, however, that the connection is generally quite blurry because of multiple other nongenetic connotations of race, the lack of defined boundaries between populations and the fact that many individuals have ancestors from multiple regions of the world.
Psychology and social science generally deal with correlations between variables, not in perfect relationships. The fact that IQ is correlated with race and that race is correlated with genetic variation does not necessarily mean that variance in average IQ across races has a genetic basis, but it means that people who have expertise in the relevant fields (psychology and genetics) aren't so hasty to dismiss the idea. Steven Pinker makes this argument in The Blank Slate, and more recently David Reich has made it in Who We Are and How We Got Here - that based on what we know of genetics, it is possible that this is indeed the case, and Reich's book specifically makes the point that we don't yet know enough to determine whether it's the case or not.
But at Wikipedia, a funny thing tends to happen when these two conclusions, that are relatively mainstream in their respective fields (psychology and human population genetics), are combined together. In the context of discussions about race and intelligence, the conclusion that IQ measures a real ability and that race is correlated with genetic variation are often described as "fringe". Because if we're certain that the hereditarian viewpoint about race and intelligence is fringe, then the various lines of research this conclusion is based upon must be fringe also, mustn't they?
@Peregrine Fisher: FYI, I'm explaining this mostly for your sake. I have no hope of getting through to Grayfell about any of this, but you seem much more open-minded, and I think you have the potential to become a highly valuable editor in this topic after you've learned more about the concepts involved. 2600:1004:B104:33EC:E853:9B6:F184:116C (talk) 00:57, 21 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I'll try to be brief and not attempt to compete with your WALLOFTEXT. You're playing the usual game of apologists for fringe when you cherry-pick sources and claim that they're saying the same thing you are, when in fact they aren't. Let's look at your long quote by Francis Collins, which starts by referring to statements by his colleagues that might lead one to believe there is no connection whatsoever between self-identified race or ethnicity and the frequency of particular genetic variants. He goes on to say that there are correlations with geographical region of ancestry, although it's generally quite blurry. Region of ancestry, in turn, has some correlation with self-identified ethnicity and race. Okay, so in certain regions over generations people may be exposed repeatedly to some disease and develop genetic resistance to it, or they might turn out to be particularly vulnerable to certain ailments. It was known for centuries that the Native people of North America were particularly susceptible to smallpox, and in fact settlers sometimes used this knowledge for genocidal purposes, see Population history of indigenous peoples of the Americas#Biological warfare. But none of this has anything to do with the sequence of links that certain editors are trying to make between race/IQ/intelligence/genetics. None of this supports the POV of editors who admire the white-supremacist writings of Jensen/Piffer/Lynn.
Grayfell is correct that it's not worth our time to pick apart all the fallacies and go through your mainstream sources one by one and explain that they're not agreeing with you and are not supporting white supremacy. NightHeron (talk) 01:54, 21 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
The argument you made was: "there's a consensus that races are a sociopolitical construct", and that to suggest otherwise is a "fringe" idea. Addressing that argument is why I cited the Collins source. The argument you seem to be making now is that race does have some correlation with biological variation, but that this only affects traits such as susceptibility to diseases, and has no relevance to psychological traits.
The Collins source doesn't directly address that point, but David Reich's book does, on pages 256-258. Reich mentions that studies have already identified genetic variants that affect several psychological traits, including intelligence, and that it remains to be seen whether those variants are among the genetic variants that differ in distribution between human populations. Reich says, "it seems a bad bet to argue that there cannot be similar average differences in cognitive or behavioral traits." (He is specifically referring to genetic variants here, not just to the measured IQ gaps themselves.)
As I said, I am not arguing that population differences in the distribution of genetic variants affecting cognitive ability definitely do exist. I consider Piffer's research in this area to be inconclusive. The point that's important is that mainstream geneticists such as David Reich don't regard this as an impossible or "fringe" idea, but rather as a scientific question to which we don't yet know the answer. 2600:1004:B160:E18D:59ED:E616:346B:2CF7 (talk) 02:48, 21 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
No, neither I nor the Collins quote says that race is a biological concept rather than a sociopolitical construct. It is because race is a sociopolitical construct that Collins uses "self-identified" as the only way to say what race someone supposedly belongs to. His point is that there are detectable genetic markers that can often be used to identify where someone's ancestors came from. This is generally quite blurry, and in any case has nothing to do with anything connected with intelligence. There is also a correlation between someone's geographical origin of ancestors (if they all came form the same region) and how the person self-identifies racially. But that does not contradict the consensus that there's no stable, consistent definition of different races; rather, racial distinctions are determined by social and political circumstances. The apartheid regime in South Africa rigidly classified people into races; most of the people who in the US self-identify as blacks would be classified as "colored" and not "black" in the South African system. Dividing people into races is done by politicians and social commentators, not by scientists.
Something does not have to be impossible to be fringe. We can speculate about unlikely (but not provably impossible) scenarios if we want. No one can say that it's impossible for a civilization to be living deep underground on the dark side of the moon, and for all sorts of adventures to be awaiting us when we finally make contact with them. A whole literary genre -- sci fi -- imagines such future scenarios. But Wikipedia does not do that, per WP:CRYSTAL.
It's bizarre that you say that Piffer's work is merely inconclusive. The guy's a crackpot. He doesn't have any academic qualifications (except a Masters degree), he works at an openly white-supremacist center, and he advocates for a range of loony psychic notions. NightHeron (talk) 03:36, 21 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Two relatively mainstream opinions can be fringe when combined together, nothing funny about it at all. Horse Eye Jack (talk) 01:38, 21 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I reverted

What are the policy and guideline reasons this should be removed? https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Race_and_intelligence&diff=942364950&oldid=942344049 Peregrine Fisher (talk) 06:20, 24 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

A policy was already given in the edit summary. These sources are WP:PRIMARY opinions with no indication of larger significance, and Wikipedia articles should not attempt to catalog minutia like this without a specific reason supported by secondary sources. Specifically, Rushton's and Jensen's inflammatory political opinions might belong at their respective articles, but only with support from reliable sources. Grayfell (talk) 06:29, 24 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Sounds like you are confusing PRIMARY, INDEPENDENT, and NOTABLE. Also that you have a POV to push when you say "inflammatory political opinions". Peregrine Fisher (talk) 06:59, 24 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@Grayfell: James R. Flynn writing in Nature, Linda Gottfredson writing in Intelligence, and Arthur Jensen & J. Philippe Rushton writing in Psychology, Public Policy, and Law about their academic field are not in any way WP:PRIMARY sources. Mind you, the requirement for secondary review articles only exists in WP:MEDRS. While it is your opinion that Jensen and Rushton hold "inflammatory political opinions", their article was published in the aforementioned peer-reviewed journal by the American Psychological Association. --Pudeo (talk) 08:31, 24 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

This article reeks of pro-fringe bias, with overwhelmingly positive treatment of and undue coverage of the POV of writers who dispute the scientific consensus that there is no evidence for genetic supremacy or inferiority of one race compared to another. Before there were 38 citations of Jensen and 21 citations of Rushton, and now two editors are edit-warring to put in yet another positive reference to their views, along with a positive reference to another writer (Gottfredson) who's supported by the white-supremacist Pioneer Fund. I reverted that, but I'm under no allusion that anything short of a successful AfD will fix the problems with this article, which has been cited as an example of racism on Wikipedia by the Southern Poverty Law Center. NightHeron (talk) 13:10, 24 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with the UNDUE concern, which goes hand-in-hand with using Jenson and Rushton as primary sources for their own attributed opinions. Looking at the sentence "Jensen and Rushton argued that the existence of biological group differences does not rule out, but raises questions about the worthiness of policies such as affirmative action or placing a premium on diversity", we would need other sources to establish this view on affirmative action as a "significant viewpoint". –dlthewave ☎ 13:27, 24 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Peregrine Fisher You reverted with the edit summary "I think this should be included. Let's talk about it." but I don't see where you've actually made an argument for inclusion other than WP:ILIKEIT. Could you explain why you think this content should be kept? –dlthewave ☎ 13:16, 24 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Above NightHeron wrote, "now two editors are edit-warring to put in yet another positive reference to their views, along with a positive reference to another writer (Gottfredson) who's supported by the white-supremacist Pioneer Fund" You've completely misunderstood this situation. This material had been in the article for years, until Dlthewave removed it a few hours ago. For comparison, here is the same section of the article five years ago, which is nearly identical to what the section looked like until today. This is yet another example of the pattern of editors making bold changes and demanding a consensus before their changes can be undone. For the reasons I explained here, it is especially ironic for Grayfell to be doing this.
Dlthewave said that we would need other sources establishing Jensen's and Gottfredson's view as a significant one. A fairly uncontroversial source that discusses several perspectives about how group differences relate to policy relevance, including Jensen's and Gottfredson's views, is Hunt and Carlson 2007. The Hunt and Carlson paper also makes several other comments about policy relevance that would be worth including in the article.
It's also completely unreasonable to exclude the Flynn source. James Flynn is one of the most prominent scholars to have ever written on this topic, and his comments were published in one of the most prominent journals (Nature). Can anyone provide a reason why a viewpoint from James Flynn, published in Nature, is NOT important enough to include? 2600:1004:B104:B4AD:24A2:6DE8:211:3475 (talk) 15:31, 24 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
This article has a long history of problematic editing, including violations of WP:FRINGE, WP:UNDUE, and WP:FALSEBALANCE. The article title has apparently attracted editors who are partial to Jensenism, and that has been reflected in the content. So the fact that a certain version has been there for much of the article's history or coincides with a version of 5 years ago is not a strong argument for inclusion. NightHeron (talk) 16:22, 24 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
These should not be removed. The general approach here is for editors who dislike hereditarianism to remove all hereditarian sources based on any possible and often false policies. That edit is a typical example of this. It seems that the price to pay for keeping a summary of the field is having to constantly have revert discussions about every deletion that NightHeron, Dlthewave, Grayfell will try. This is a counterproductive way to edit Wikipedia. As before, I suggest that the page is permanently locked, and every change is proposed on the talk page before made real. This is the only way to stop the low-intensity edit warring. Just my 2 cents! AndewNguyen (talk) 20:18, 24 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@AndewNguyen: Why shouldn't the content be removed? –dlthewave ☎ 20:29, 24 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I see no reason to remove it. The policy given was clearly in error. This topic is not covered by WP:MEDRS, and in any case, these are not primary sources, and if they were, primary sources are sometimes fine. I don't know what to say. I generally oppose removing content, and definitely oppose removing well-sourced content (whether hereditarian friendly or not, I am happy to include mentions of stuff critics think is important to achieve balance). AndewNguyen (talk) 20:46, 24 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Our WP:ALLPRIMARY supplement goes into detail about what is and isn't a primary source, even within a published piece. In this case the views of Rushton, Jensen and Gottfredson go beyond secondary analysis/commentary and stray into novel ideas about public policy points such as research ethics and affirmative action. Since there seems to be some confusion, our policies make it clear that content published in peer-reviewed journals can be considered primary source. –dlthewave ☎ 21:17, 24 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

You've completely misunderstood this situation. This material had been in the article for years, until Dlthewave removed it a few hours ago. And it is for reasons like this that the article was identified as a POV fork of scientific racism. If AfD passes as an excuse that it doesn't replace fixing the article, the article must indeed be fixed. —PaleoNeonate – 01:16, 25 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

If we're going to say that section should not be citing primary sources, then we ought to be consistent about it. If the removed sources all are primary sources, then the Rose, Nisbett, and Olness sources are primary sources also. As I previously described in my comment here, Nisbett's book actually is a quite controversial source, and I generally don't approve of removing the Rushton/Jensen material without removing Nisbett as well.
However, I don't think removing the primary sources on both sides is the correct solution in this case. When discussing specific lines of research about factors that might contribute to the IQ gaps, it's reasonable that the article should be mostly based on textbooks that provide neutral summaries of the research data, but in this case there doesn't seem to be any actual research data to summarize. The section is instead presenting the views about policy and ethics from various scholars, and prominent scholars on one side of the debate shouldn't be excluded from that.
The removal of the Flynn source stands out as demonstrating the POV nature of this removal, both because Flynn is a widely respected critic of the hereditarian view, and the Flynn source was published in the journal Nature, one of the most prominent publications to have ever covered this topic. No one has presented any explanation for why this particular source was removed. It seems to have been removed entirely because Flynn agrees with the hereditarians that race and intelligence is a worthwhile subject to study. 2600:1004:B15E:1A2E:64AB:BEF6:701B:39AA (talk) 01:34, 25 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
There's no policy based reason to remove it. Or rather it's all IAR which seems to be the main policy guiding this article. Peregrine Fisher (talk) 03:18, 25 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@Peregrine Fisher: Could you explain your objections to the policy-based reasons that have been cited in this discussion? –dlthewave ☎ 03:44, 25 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Let's take a look at the first one. It's from the peer reviewed journal Perspectives on Psychological Science. Peer reviewed journals are our gold standard. What's one awesome way to know if an opinion is worthy of inclusion in Wikipedia? When it's published in a peer reviewed journal. Peregrine Fisher (talk) 04:04, 25 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
One person's opinion is still one person's opinion regardless of who they are or where it's been published. Simply appearing in a peer-reviewed journal is not sufficient for inclusion here, the content would also need to meet our WP:WEIGHT requirement. Using your Gottfredson example, has her self-cited opinion on ethics been discussed in other sources? –dlthewave ☎ 04:18, 25 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Her opinion became OK to include when it was in the peer reviewed article. Do you deny this? Peregrine Fisher (talk) 04:22, 25 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, I do deny that. As stated previously, simply being published in a peer-reviewed article does not make a viewpoint fit for inclusion on Wikipedia. That is not the standard. –dlthewave ☎ 04:25, 25 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
You know, it isn't very difficult to determine the answer to this question with Google scholar. Here are two sources that discuss the Gottfredson paper: Hunt and Carlson 2007b, Frisby 2018. I've verified that both of these sources include a detailed discussion about Gottfredson's paper, and do not merely cite it in passing.
Gottfredson's paper apparently was part of an exchange between Hunt and Carlson and herself. The first Hunt and Carlson paper included a commentary on an earlier paper Gottfredson had written in 2005. The 2007 Gottfredson paper was written as a response to Hunt and Carlson, and Hunt and Carlson followed the paper with a second response (Hunt and Carlson 2007b). Gottfredson and H&C agree more than they disagree, so this was more a cordial exchange of viewpoints than an actual debate. So, yes, it has definitely been discussed in other sources.
Is it accomplishing anything to point this out? Is it irrelevant that this paper was part of a scholarly exchange in Perspectives on Psychological Science, because most editors think that any paper written by Linda Gottfredson cannot be added back once it's removed, regardless of the details (and this apparently goes for James Flynn as well)? 2600:1004:B15E:1A2E:64AB:BEF6:701B:39AA (talk) 04:50, 25 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
By the way, regarding this edit, I was not intending to actually suggest the entire section should be removed. I thought I made this clear in my comment above: "I don't think removing the primary sources on both sides is the correct solution in this case." My point was only that a double standard was being applied. 2600:1004:B15E:1A2E:64AB:BEF6:701B:39AA (talk) 04:57, 25 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
This is more of the same "he said, she said" back-and-forth between primary sources, and simply presenting both viewpoints without analysis is not an acceptable way to write an encyclopedia article. We would need an independent secondary source to summarize the "debate" and present the mainstream view. If it has not been covered by independent sources, it should not be included. –dlthewave ☎ 05:58, 25 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Why is it that your solution to every problem with this article (if these really are problems) is blanking content? Why don't you ever take a less heavy-handed approach, for example by adding other sources to replace those you're removing?
I have a theory about the answer. My theory is that you and the other editors taking this approach are taking it because you don't know enough about the academic literature on this topic to add any new content. If that is indeed the reason, I think you should seriously consider whether you're the right person to try to fix the problems with this article. As an analogy, if there were problems on the Betelgeuse or Andromeda Galaxy article, would the best person to fix those problems be someone who knows next to nothing of the academic literature about astronomy, and who therefore is only able to address those problems by removing content? 2600:1004:B15C:6BC8:E5F7:F7F0:8799:1BFD (talk) 12:34, 25 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Your theory is a convenient thing for you to believe, but it's wrong. When an article has low-quality fringe sources, the solution is to remove them, not to provide a FALSEBALANCE by matching them with other sources. For example, the writings on race and intelligence of authors who are well known to hold racial supremacist views are fringe, and the ones who are financed by the Pioneer Fund have a clear COI as well (since their continued funding depends on their making claims that support the racist agenda of the Pioneer Fund). This applies to Jensen, Rushton, Lynn, Piffer, and Gottfredson. Their writings must be treated on Wikipedia the way other fringe sources are if they're going to be included at all.
Your theory that editors who disagree with you are just too dumb to know how to search for sources is incorrect. NightHeron (talk) 13:40, 25 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Your assertion about these authors was recently discussed at the RS noticeboard. [4] The discussion there was primarily about whether works by authors such as Hunt and Rindermann satisfy WP:RS, but the claim that they're "fringe" was discussed there as well. The conclusion of that discussion was that works by these authors are reliable sources when published by reputable publishers such as Cambridge University Press, and that the authors are appropriate experts in the area of human intelligence. Unlike the previous discussion on this topic in December, the recent discussion reached a clear consensus, and was closed earlier today by an experienced admin. (My description here is a paraphrase of the closure summary.) In light of that conclusion, the course of action you're suggesting is no longer appropriate.
I deliberately did not post a link to that discussion while it was underway, because I wanted this question to be evaluated by the wider Wikipedia community, rather than simply being a rehash of local consensus on this talk page. If you object to having not had the opportunity to participate in that discussion, bear in mind that editors active on this page who disagree with you such as Peregrine Fisher, AndewNguyen and Toomim did not have that opportunity either.
If this article survives its AFD, we should create an article FAQ documenting points like these that have received a clear resolution, so that we don't have to debate them endlessly anymore. That will be the first step towards restoring long-term stability to the article. 2600:1004:B146:326B:ECD8:B0F4:F440:4BE1 (talk) 21:15, 25 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I have warned you about this on your talk page, well one of your hundreds of talk pages. Please don't insult your fellow editors. Horse Eye Jack (talk) 17:15, 25 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
(response to IP-editor's 1st sentence) You're misrepresenting what that discussion was about. It did not concern any of the authors in my list (Jensen, Rushton, Lynn, Gottfredson, Piffer), all of whom are fringe racial supremacists. The first three of them are cited, generally in a positive way (as if they weren't fringe), a total of 69 times in the text and references of this article -- a clear indication of the influence of the alt-right POV on the content of the article. NightHeron (talk) 22:48, 25 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
The broader conclusion reached by both the recent RSN discussion and the one in December is that when determining whether a source is reliable, the most important criterion is the reputation of the publisher, not of the author. Thus, this article should not be citing papers published in Mankind Quarterly or OpenPsych regardless of who the authors are, but publications from Cambridge University Press or journals published by the American Psychological Association (which includes the journal Psychology, Public Policy and Law) are generally acceptable.
When I posted the recent RSN thread, I focused on Hunt and Rindermann because they were the two authors for whom it had been most recently claimed that all publications from them are unreliable. If you think we need yet another RSN discussion about individual authors who weren't explicitly mentioned in either the recent discussion or the one in December, that isn't reasonable. Even if there are ten or twenty RSN discussions about this general question of RS policy, it will never be possible to answer every imaginable formulation of the question. Both of these RSN discussions reached the same conclusion about this general principle of sourcing, and I'm asking you to please acknowledge the general principle. 2600:1004:B146:326B:ECD8:B0F4:F440:4BE1 (talk) 23:56, 25 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
The publisher’s reliability being more important doesn’t mean the author’s reliability is entirely irrelevant which is what you appear to be arguing. In the unlikely scenario that an article by an unreliable author is published in the most reliable source in the world that article could still be ruled unreliable, in fact it almost certainly would be. Horse Eye Jack (talk) 00:08, 26 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

(response to IP-editor) If you read WP:RS thoroughly, rather than trying to pick snippets out of context, you'll see that Wikipedia policy is that what RS means depends on the context. Some reputable presses might in certain fields publish material that has not been vetted by the scholarly community. Some sources might be reliable on certain topics and not on others. I realize that a half-century ago Jensen was able to get his POV published in the Harvard Educational Review. That doesn't make it RS. The scientific consensus is that there is no evidence that one race is mentally superior or inferior to another race. Authors such as Jensen, Rushton, Lynn, Piffer, and Gottfredson have rejected that scientific consensus in their efforts, supported by the Pioneer Fund, to give credence to race supremacy. No amount of wikilawyering or bludgeoning on your part will change those facts. NightHeron (talk) 01:18, 26 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

You are repeating the exact same argument that Onetwothreeip made in both discussions at the RS noticeboard. See his post here here, and compare them to your own post above. In both discussions, this argument was rejected by the broader Wikipedia community.
Do you not see anything disruptive about continuing the exact same argument that community consensus has rejected on two separate occasions? 2600:1004:B146:326B:ECD8:B0F4:F440:4BE1 (talk) 01:55, 26 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
You are once again distorting what was said in earlier discussions. No, different editors are making different points. We are not repeating the "exact same argument." You must be blinded by your own ideology if you can't even pay attention to the points being made by editors who disagree with you. The community has emphatically not rejected the argument that claims of race superiority are fringe. NightHeron (talk) 02:33, 26 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Reliable sources can still be fringe. This principle is supported by the RSN discussion (permalink) which closed on 25 February: "... we can give the views of Rindermann and Hunt, sourced to their books published by the Cambridge University Press, but take care not to promote their views as widely accepted unless/until sources can be found which indicate their views are widely accepted." We need to be careful about how we present this point of view here. –dlthewave ☎ 13:20, 1 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Coffman spoke the truth for you guys. There are no policy reasons to remove a secondary source, but you don't like the authors. Peregrine Fisher (talk) 04:34, 25 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
WP:NPOV is a policy, and WP:UNDUE is its component. --K.e.coffman (talk) 04:43, 25 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@Peregrine Fisher: You’ve been given ample policy based reasons for removal, its hard to interpret your refusal to acknowledge that as anything other than tendentious. Horse Eye Jack (talk) 17:09, 25 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I'm seeing people calling secondary sources primary sources. And I'm seeing people saying primary sources need to be removed, which is also not true. If you think I should feel chagrined, I don't. Peregrine Fisher (talk) 03:18, 26 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

AfD

Is this page up for AfD? People keep saying it is[5] but there is no notice at the top of the page. Horse Eye Jack (talk) 22:26, 25 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The AfD closed with a delete that was appealed, and the DRV has just reversed the closure and essentially appointed a committee of admins to reexamine how the AfD should be closed. So it's unclear right now what will happen. NightHeron (talk) 22:44, 25 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the clarification! This is my first time encountering an article thats fallen into that sort of administrative black hole.Horse Eye Jack (talk) 23:23, 25 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Policy relevance and ethics section

I support the removal here: [6]. If there's a debate than the article should use sources that discuss the debate rather than quoting individuals. --K.e.coffman (talk) 02:11, 26 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I reverted, again. Do you like it? Do you not like it?

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Race_and_intelligence&diff=942698394&oldid=942674047

Seems the same as the last 10 times. Arguing particular policies and guidelines doesn't seem to have any postive effect. Peregrine Fisher (talk) 08:10, 26 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

It does seem off topic though, this page is about Race and intelligence... Global variation of IQ scores is only tangentially related and isn't part of the core topic at all. Horse Eye Jack (talk) 08:24, 26 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
This came up earlier with great arguments for why it is applicable. I think it was just a few days ago. Basically that's one way that reliable sources look at things.
You think it's tangentially related. I think it's completely unrelated. But realiable sources think it is related. Shoot! I guess they win. Peregrine Fisher (talk) 08:40, 26 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
If you self reverted, that would be awesome. Peregrine Fisher (talk) 08:42, 26 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
That discussion is still open, no consensus has been reached. Why restore the disputed content *before* consensus is reached? Horse Eye Jack (talk) 09:09, 26 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
The edit summary for Dlthewave's removal was "see talk page", but it's unclear what talk page discussion he means.
This section was last discussed on the talk page about ten days ago. In that discussion I mentioned that the books by Hunt, Mackintosh and Rindermann all make a connection between racial IQ gaps and international differences, and Onetwothreeip replied that the removal was justified because Hunt and Rindermann's books are not reliable sources. The justification for the removal depends on that argument being correct. In response to that argument, I raised the question at the RS noticeboard, and the discussion there reached a conclusion that Hunt's and Rindermann's books do, in fact, satisfy the requirements of RS policy. Thus, based on the conclusion of the RSN discussion, the argument for removing this section seems to no longer be supported. 2600:1004:B112:19F4:748E:E57B:DD2C:7DF9 (talk) 08:45, 26 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
The discussion is "Global variation of IQ scores" further up on this page. I've written a summary of the arguments presented there and explained why I removed the section. Chief among my concerns is the fact that the section doesn't discuss race-nationality connection. The existence of sources that mention it is not sufficient for inclusion; the section would need to be rewritten to include it and nobody seems interested in doing so. Please discuss this in the existing talk page section. –dlthewave ☎ 14:46, 26 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Dlthewave, I asked in my comment here what it was exactly that you think needs to be changed about that section, given that the section already mentions "patterns of difference between continental populations similar to those associated with race". I asked whether the problem is that that sentence isn't specific enough. This question was never answered directly, except to say that the section must be removed because the sources I was suggesting (Hunt's and Rindermann's books) were not reliable. The discussion at RSN then concluded that these sources are in fact reliable, and that was the end of the discussion about this section, until you went ahead and removed it three days ago.
You have been frustratingly vague about what the actual problem is with the section's existing discussion about the relation between IQ gaps between ethnic groups and between nations. If you think the section must be rewritten before it can be restored, could you please answer my question directly? 2600:1004:B146:7C71:C16E:37FA:6C52:4ACF (talk) 19:22, 29 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
You appear to be mischaracterizing the discussion on this talk page. You also mischaracterize the RSN consensus which concludes "The remaining concern was that the views of Rindermann and Hunt may be Fringe. The discussion indicated that there is a lack of sources supporting or opposing the notion that the views in these books are fringe, though when a viewpoint does not have wide support, we do treat it as fringe, and do not give it undue weight. That is, we can give the views of Rindermann and Hunt, sourced to their books published by the Cambridge University Press, but take care not to promote their views as widely accepted unless/until sources can be found which indicate their views are widely accepted.” Having an entire section rather than a simple mention suggests that such views are widely accepted. Horse Eye Jack (talk) 09:09, 26 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
How many sources do I have to provide showing that this section is relevant before you'll allow it to be restored? I've already provided three, two of which are major textbooks. A fourth source that makes the connection, which was just published a few days ago, is Winegard et al. 2020. I can probably find others, but it seems like you might be applying an impossibly high standard. 2600:1004:B112:19F4:748E:E57B:DD2C:7DF9 (talk) 09:27, 26 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I don’t see that argument being made explicitly in Winegard et al. 2020, can you pull the quotes? Horse Eye Jack (talk) 09:34, 26 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
There is a section of the paper titled, "Global distribution of IQ". The section is too long to quote the entire thing, but it starts on the paper's sixth page. 2600:1004:B112:19F4:748E:E57B:DD2C:7DF9 (talk) 09:41, 26 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Yes I’ve read that section, its only three paragraphs and is implicit rather than explicit. The limited space Winegard et al. dedicate to the section (and make no mistake Winegard et al. are outside of the mainstream) suggest to me that we are giving it undue prominence here, no? Also note the point of the paper "we attempt to make the philosophical and theoretical case that hereditarianism—the view that a substantial proportion (20% or more) of differences in psychological traits within and among human popu-lations is caused by genes—is more fruitful, parsimonious, and pro-ductive than is environmentalism—the view that almost all of the dif-ferences in psychological traits either within or among humanpopulations is caused by environmental forces.” Horse Eye Jack (talk) 09:56, 26 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I’d be more comfortable with a source or two that wasn’t pushing a strong POV. Keep in mind that you are a WP:SPA and "single purpose accounts and editors who hold a strong personal viewpoint on a particular topic covered within Wikipedia are expected to contribute neutrally instead of following their own agenda and, in particular, should take care to avoid creating the impression that their focus on one topic is non-neutral, which could strongly suggest that their editing is not compatible with the goals of this project.” Horse Eye Jack (talk) 10:03, 26 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
The section of the Winegard paper is around 500 words in a paper that's around 10,000 words long, so it's about five percent of the paper's total length. Percentage wise, that's actually more than the amount of space this topic was given in the Wikipedia article, where it was around 580K of text in an article that's around 150,000K long. In any case, I'm not trying to base my argument entirely on that single paper. I was just giving it as an example because it's the most recent paper to be published on this article's topic.
Have you looked at the Hunt and Mackintosh textbooks? Hunt is basically agnostic about the cause of the gaps (he thinks some genetic contribution to racial IQ gaps is likely, but that there is insufficient data to know its size, and the genetic contribution might be minuscule), while Mackintosh is agnostic but thinks a 100% environmental cause is more likely than a partially genetic one. And both textbooks bring up international IQ differences in the context of discussions about race and intelligence. 2600:1004:B112:19F4:748E:E57B:DD2C:7DF9 (talk) 10:36, 26 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
By the way, in addition to the Hunt, Mackintosh, Rindermann, and Winegard et al. sources, a fifth source that discusses international IQ differences in this context is Flynn's 2012 book Are We Getting Smarter?. James Flynn is firmly in the "environmental" camp with respect to the cause of IQ variance between ethnic groups, but he also is one of the more moderate voices on that side, so his book is not really "pushing a strong POV". 2600:1004:B107:64A3:ED2C:F2BD:D1B5:7B42 (talk) 01:11, 27 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Horse Eye Jack, are you going to respond to my comments here? I've made several attempts to discuss the specifics of what needs to be changed about this section or sources that support its relevance, but in each case the editors removing the section have either dodged the question, or have dropped out of the discussion as soon as it began making progress towards resolving the dispute. 2600:1004:B10C:DF3:D9A6:8155:B0C0:A846 (talk) 05:59, 3 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Duplicate discussion

The subject was already discussed at #Global_variation_of_IQ_scores. It's unclear why a separate discussion was needed. --K.e.coffman (talk) 04:44, 27 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

You're probably right. I can't barely tell anymore. Are we arguing about a paragraph(s) that got removed 5 days ago, or 3 days ago, or just today. Do that enough and I'll add something I meant to remove, or remove something I meant to add. Good strategy! Peregrine Fisher (talk) 10:32, 28 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

AE Notice

Editors who are active here may be interested in an Arbitration Enforcement request related to this topic. A Consensus Required restriction is under consideration. Discussion can be found at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement#Peregrine_Fisher. –dlthewave ☎ 21:13, 29 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

AfD Reclosure

A panel close of the last AfD has been implemented. You may read it at the AfD page. Barkeep49 (talk) 22:00, 29 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Well, that's one issue resolved. Now we just need to figure out what to do about the huge removals of content that keep happening.
The two most recent examples of that are in this diff and this one, and the content hasn't yet been restored in either of those cases. The justification for the first removal was that the removed content was allegedly cited to primary sources, but the prevailing view among editors commenting at AE was that this assertion about the sources is incorrect. With respect to the second removal, I asked here for a clear explanation of what needs to be changed about this section, but haven't yet received an answer. Now that it's decided the article isn't going to be deleted, it needs more attention from people who are able to recognize when these removals are being justified with vague or dubious reasons. 2600:1004:B146:7C71:C16E:37FA:6C52:4ACF (talk) 23:01, 29 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Both of those removals are currently under discussion above, feel free to join. Editors have provided policy-based reasons for both examples, feel free to explain why you do not feel that we are applying policy correctly. I explained what should be changed in the Global variation of IQ scores discussion above.
Keep in mind that "prevailing views" and "consensus" need to be based on our policies and guidelines, not the number of editors supporting each side. –dlthewave ☎ 01:39, 1 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
the solution to that is for people to stop keep putting it in. Guy (help!) 14:08, 2 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Move request?

Thanks everyone for your input. I have posted a move request, below. Levivich [dubious – discuss] 04:09, 4 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.


Is it worth starting a move request proposing some/all of above titles (or any other titles)? Levivich (talk) 07:02, 1 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The AfD had plenty of people arguing that "History of the Race and Intelligence Controversy" was the sub page of this one. By that argument, the most logical title of this page, which also addresses the concerns (I think) that the current title is itself POV, would be "Race and Intelligence Controversy". -- Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 07:57, 1 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@Sirfurboy: Thanks, I added "...controversy" to the list above. Levivich (talk) 08:01, 1 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
History of the race and intelligence controversy should perhaps be renamed to "Race and intelligence controversy". This article should not be renamed to anything including "controversy" because this point of this article is to summarize the investigation into, evidence of, and proposed causes of any relationships between race and intelligence. I would support a renaming of this article to Race, ethnicity, and intelligence or something of that sort, as some of the investigation here examines differences between sub-racial or ethnic groups, which dovetails into things like Ashkenazi Jewish intelligence. Jweiss11 (talk) 08:48, 1 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
A title of "Race, ethnicity, and intelligence" would be okay with me as well. Many sources note that race and ethnicity are often mixed together, and the present page covers both race and ethnicity, but only one is mentioned in the title. --AndewNguyen (talk) 10:15, 1 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

“Controversy” implies that there’s two legitimate views here. There’s not. It’s like having an article on the “9/11 Hoax controversy” or something. “Fallacy” is inaccurate (a fallacy is a logical mistake, this here is just a fringe, empirically unsupported view) but at least gets closer to the crux of the problem. “Debate” has same issue as “controversy”. Volunteer Marek 09:07, 1 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Okay so the question of what the best title should be is never going to be an easy one, but let's first consider the reason for changing: as has been demonstrated, there are very many editors who agree that the current title has an inherent POV bias. It implies that "race and intelligence" is a thing - which some people think it is, and others do not. The implication of the title is clearly POV and there are examples in the AfD of people saying the article should be kept but that a change of title to deal with this issue is appropriate. Thus the title should be changed (although - once we decide on a title, no doubt we will need to test the consensus on that point). Before we do, we must agree a new title, and it is essential that the new title not have the same POV bias issue. Thus "Race, ethnicity, and intelligence" is no good. It just adds in a new nebulous term of ethnicity into the mix. That one cannot stand. However, I don't think putting "fallacy", "myth" or anything else like that into the title is any good either, because that then implies that race and intelligence is not a thing. It says up front that there is no link between race and intelligence. That may well be true, but it is still undeniably POV. That is why I propose controversy as the neutral term. It is undeniable that there is a controversy, and so putting that in the title is not POV. In describing the controversy you describe the science. You don't need to focus on the history, because there is an article on that. Instead this article concentrates on the current controversy. If another neutral title is available that is not already used then we can consider that. If not, I commend adding "controversy" as the title that is most likely to reach general consensus, because (despite any imperfections we feel) it is the most neutral available. -- Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 10:46, 1 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I don't have a strong opinion about this, but I should note that the title "race and intelligence" is consistent with the titles of a lot of other "X and intelligence" articles. Here are a few examples:
I don't interpret these titles as saying one variable is necessarily causing the other, but only that researchers have investigated the relation between the two variables. In any case, when we consider renaming this article, we ought to consider this policy: Wikipedia:Consistency in article titles. 2600:1004:B14C:ABF6:78E5:CE46:DA06:2061 (talk) 11:15, 1 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

As happens repeatedly on this talk page, we're getting away from the basic fact that, according to scientific consensus, there's no evidence that one race is inferior or superior to others in intelligence: first of all, because the tendency to divide people into races is not based on biology but on social and political exigencies; second, because intelligence is a complicated concept that goes far beyond whatever is measured by IQ tests; third, because heritability research measures individual variation, not differences between races; fourth, because whatever measures one wants to use to measure mental skills are hugely influenced by socioeconomic factors, quality of schools, etc. The unsupported claim of a connection between race and intelligence has a long history of being used by racists to justify policies that have caused immense suffering and death. For example, because of the draconian anti-immigrant policies enacted in the US in the 1920s (justified by the belief, supposedly supported by early IQ testing, that people coming from southern and eastern Europe were genetically inferior to those from other parts of Europe) many thousands of Jews were unable to escape the Holocaust by coming to the US.

The first two of the proposed titles, Race and intelligence myth/fallacy, reflect this reality. The other two do not. NightHeron (talk) 13:19, 1 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

You just post a long list of claims with no sources. These are the same claims you have been making for months. It doesn't look good when the other editors can easily point to any number of high quality academic sources, and you just keep repeating. Mainstream textbooks and researcher surveys are all in disagreement of the exact opposite claim than what you are making. I don't know what to say. AndewNguyen (talk) 06:11, 2 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
There are plenty of references in the article Scientific racism and other related articles, as well as earlier in this talk page. There's no need to give references every time an editor points out that WP:FALSEBALANCE or favorable coverage of fringe views such as climate change denial, Holocaust denial, white supremacy, etc. are contrary to policy here. NightHeron (talk) 13:02, 2 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
AndewNguyen, the sources are in the article. And beware: scientific racism is still racism. Guy (help!) 14:06, 2 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

It seems unlikely that myth will get a strong consensus. Is there some middle ground that could be found? How about Race and intelligence hypothesis? Consistency fans should be happy, as we already have titles like Aquatic ape hypothesis, Gaia hypothesis, etc. - MrOllie (talk) 15:16, 2 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

"Hypothesis" has the same problem that "controversy" and "debate" as, per Volunteer Marek above. It's a middle ground only in the sense of FALSEBALANCE. NightHeron (talk) 15:39, 2 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The word denialist is used for fringe views that deny the consensus: Holocaust denialism, climate change denialism, etc. It is you, not us, who are denying the scientific consensus that there is no evidence that some races are inferior to other races, and it is you who are calling for a FALSEBALANCE between a fringe white supremacist POV and the scientific consensus. NightHeron (talk) 03:18, 4 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not arguing that any races are "inferior" to any others. The "denialism" I'm invoking is a sort of blank slate denialism. Do you want to argue that Steven Pinker is a fringe white supremacist? Jweiss11 (talk) 03:25, 4 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
No, but Jensen, Rushton, Lynn, Piffer, Gottfredson & the Pioneer Fund certainly are. Your accusation of denialism against editors who don't want the article to give a FALSEBALANCE between the Pioneer Fund and the scientific consensus is a strange use of the word. NightHeron (talk) 03:44, 4 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Sourcing requirement

Please note that I have made formal as a discretionary sanction the requirement that only high quality sources may be used, specifically peer-reviewed scholarly journals and academically focused books by reputable publishers. English-language sources are preferred over non-English ones when available and of equal quality and relevance. Barkeep49 (talk) 03:48, 3 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

That wording suggests that no journalistic sources, no matter how high quality they are, can be used in any way. Is that so? Horse Eye Jack (talk) 04:32, 3 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Correct. This wording has been used, somewhat successfully from what I can tell, in at least one other arbitration enforcement topic area (Poland/Holocaust) and seems a proportionate restriction given what I've read and observed. Barkeep49 (talk) 04:37, 3 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the clarification! Horse Eye Jack (talk) 04:52, 3 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@Barkeep49: I think this restriction will be helpful, but do you have any solution the issue of instability and edit warring on this article? With Peregrine Fisher gone this problem is likely to get worse, because he was one of the main people who opposed the undiscussed section blanking that keeps happening. 2600:1004:B10C:DF3:D9A6:8155:B0C0:A846 (talk) 04:42, 3 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
2600:1004, I don't have a solution for that at the moment beyond our normal content dispute mechanisms. I continue to pay attention to what's going on here and do what I can as an uninvolved administrator. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 04:53, 3 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not sure what is meant by "undiscussed" section blanking; the content in question is being discussed in the sections above at the moment, and there is no requirement to discuss prior to removal. It's also unclear why removal of large amounts of long-standing content is seen as undesirable; this seems to be an appropriate solution to an article that has historically contained large amounts of non-NPOV or off-topic content. –dlthewave ☎ 13:47, 3 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I think the underlying problem on this article currently is that it's being dominated mostly by a group of editors who were recruited to participate here in a non-neutral way, as I described in the discussion here. Based on the views expressed by uninvolved editors in the arbitration enforcement thread, it's very clear that the group currently active on this article is in no way representative of the views of the wider Wikipedia community. Part of the solution is that the article needs to receive wider attention.

The following five editors commented in the AE report but have had (as far as I know) no past involvement in this article: @Mr rnddude:, @SMcCandlish:, @Paul Siebert:, @Springee:, @DoubleCross:. Note that I'm pinging ALL of the completely uninvolved editors who commented at AE, without any regard for the views they've expressed.

Would any of you be willing to participate in this article, and to help make it more stable? Of particular relevance at the moment is this discussion, about the removal of the "Global variation of IQ scores" section. 2600:1004:B105:F5A1:A997:5864:C95E:CEE5 (talk) 21:40, 3 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

This is not a topic area I'm interested in editing. Perhaps an AN discussion would be helpful if editors are shown to be ignoring CON, BRD etc. Springee (talk) 23:50, 3 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I don't know why the anon things I've had no past participation here. I've had little input into the exact article wording, but I've spent quite a bit of time, at various stages, in dealing with trolling and sockpuppets on the talk page trying to get that content changed. This article is necessarily protected from direct editing by anons and brand new accounts, so much of the shaping of the page will take place on the talk page, not in WP:REVTALK going on between direct edits.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  12:34, 4 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@SMcCandlish: I've spent a little while looking through the article history and talk page archives, and I didn't see your name anywhere. But I didn't look really thoroughly, so it is possible that I missed your name, especially if you edited the article a long time ago.
Based on your comment in the proposed merge below, you seem like a person who has some familiarity with the academic literature on this article's subject, so I hope you'll stick around. This article needs more attention from people who are familiar with its source literature. As I said here, some of the editors who are most active on this article seem to be making guesses about what's relevant or NPOV without actually looking at any of the sources, which makes discussions extremely difficult. 2600:1004:B165:30CA:C564:EA41:44BC:DC1 (talk) 15:02, 4 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Requested move 4 March 2020

Race and intelligence → Race and intelligence myth – More accurate title, less likely to confuse the reader. Levivich [dubious – discuss] 04:05, 4 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Sources and quotes (bold emphasis added, italics in original)
  • The consensus of reliable sources is that race and intelligence (as in, a genetic-based IQ) are myths, and the connection between race and intelligence is a myth. Some examples:
    • Jefferson Fish, Race and Intelligence: Separating Science from Myth, Routledge 2011 2001
      • p. 138: The Myth of Race: Implications ... This is why race is a myth and why races as conceived by Americans (and others) do not exist ... Although it is logically conceivable that a group of people large ears and small feet might differ on a test of visual memory from a group of people with small ears and large feet, it would be absurd to conduct such a study, and even more misguided, if differences were found by some bizarre happenstance, to seek a biological explanation for them.
      • p. 173: Otto Klineberg (1935) in a major study of the claims of proponents of IQ tests, demonstrated the bias in such tests ... he gave a devastating refutation of IQ tests as a measure of innate racial intelligence (see Chase, 1980). With the rise of Hitler and Nazism in the 1930s and 1940s ... Nazi practices revealed the extremes to which the myth of race differences could be taken.
      • p. 174: The very phrase "mixed race" conjures up the idea that pure races once existed, a myth that has long been contradicted by modern science.
    • Robert Sternberg, "Intelligence, race, and genetics", American Psychologist 2005 (PDF) (admittedly, the article uses the word "folk" instead of "myth", but the meaning is the same: it's not "real"; see the abstract, which I quoted in a comment further down the page)
      • pp. 49-50: Where does race fit into the genetic pattern? Actually, it fits nowhere. Race is a socially constructed concept, not a biological one ... One could pick any of a number of traits correlated with geographic patterns and find correlations with other related traits. It would be foolhardy, however, to view anyone of these traits as causative of the others. That is what people have done who have viewed differences in so-called races as somehow causative of differences in IQ. It also would be foolhardy to group fairly arbitrary sets of traits and constructs that one then reifies as being natural, some-how God-given categories. One will find a distribution of traits in any of these groups, with only slightly more differentiation in comparisons involving individuals from different groups than in comparisons involving individuals from the same group (K. K. Kidd et al., 2004).
      • p. 56: Thus, because most medical and psychological research on racial differences is based on self-defined racial or ethnic categories and there is substantial evidence questioning the accuracy of these self-classifications, the validity of racial and ethnic differences as commonly investigated is questionable.
    • Joel Myerson, "Race and General Cognitive Ability: The Myth of Diminishing Returns to Education", Psychological Science 1998 (PDF)
      • Abstract: These findings contradict the hypothesis that racial differences in intelligence are relatively immutable, in part because of the diminishing returns from increases in education.
      • p.139: With respect to education and racial differences, Herrnstein and Murray [ed: authors of The Bell Curve] argued that the relationship between education and intelligence is negatively accelerated, and therefore efforts to improve educational quality or increase the amount of education beyond 12 years will pay increasingly diminishing returns in terms of raising intelligence or reducing racial differences. However, this claim is based on assumptions that go well beyond current knowledge, and the data cited by Herrnstein and Murray are open to quite different interpretations (e.g., Fischer et al., 1996; Hauser, 1995) ... Thus, their analyses shed no light either on the nature of the effect of education on intelligence or on whether there are racial differences in this regard.
    • Ashley Montagu, Man's Most Dangerous Myth: The Fallacy of Race, Rowman & Littlefield 1942, 1997 (6th ed.)
      • p. 41: The idea of 'race' represents one of the most dangerous myths of our time, and one of the most tragic. ... It is the contemporary myth, humankind's most dangerous myth, America's Original Sin.
      • p. 155: Old myths never die. Nor do they fade away. Not, certainly, if they are related to 'race' and its boon companion 'IQ.' For millions of people the terms 'race' and 'IQ' seemingly possess a clear and well-defined meaning. This common usage implies the users' belief in a reality beyond question. When, on occasion, the suggestion is made that these terms constitute an amalgam of erroneous and stultifying ideas of the most damaging kind, the suggestion is apt to received with blank incredulity or derision. Despite the fact that 'race' and 'IQ' correspond to no verifiable reality whatever, they have been made the basis for social and political agendas of the most heinous kind.
    • Ashley Montagu (ed.), Race & IQ, Oxford University Press 1975, 1999, which has essays on the topic written by S.E. Luria, Jerome Kagan, Edmund W. Gordon, Urie Bronfenbrenner, Stephen Jay Gould, C. Loring Brace, Frank B. Livingstone, Richard Lewontin, David Layzer, W.F. Bodmer, Alan Ryan, Leon Kamin, Ned Block, and more. One example quoted:
      • Leonard Lieberman, et al. p. 48: Having helped persuade many that races are not unequal, some anthropologists then began to argue that races do not exist. They argued that race is a fiction or a myth which must be exorcised like ghosts, the humors, instincts, and phlogiston. The ultimate phase in the debate has been underway among physical anthropologists for three decades beginning in the 1940s. The affirmative position states that races exist, the negative that race is a myth. Their discourse was the most recent in a tournament lasting over two centuries.
        • pp. 70–73: Splitters believe ... the idea of the existence of many overlapping races ... The lumpers accept the unity of the human species and argue against race as our 'most dangerous myth' (141). Each side believed the data supported its point of view. In 1968 when a version of this paper was first published, splitting was the dominant mode of thought. It appeared as if lumping would remain a lesser viewpoint or even fade and be forgotten. In the decades that have followed lumping has in fact flourished and support for the race concept has declined. In the next section I discuss the change that has occurred in beliefs about the existence of race among anthropologists since the debate described above. ... 'Finally, the concept of race itself was shown to be devoid of biological justification ... Consequently, the whole enterprise of racial classification once at the core of professional physical anthropology, was deprived of its scientific credibility and basically ceased to exist. The social scientist, cognizant of the inequalities and injustices perpetuated in the name of "race," could well cry "good riddance" (Brace and Hunt 1990. 342).' ... a majority of anthropologists no longer agree among themselves that there are biological races in the species Homo sapiens ... We believe that the concept of race was assumed by most anthropologists to be central to the discipline, especially to physical anthropologists, until the debate of the 1960s. We present evidence in the years following that debate the race concept lost the supporting consensus that is expected of a concept which occupies a central role in the discipline.
        • pp. 74-75: The word is out, the earth is no longer the center of this universe. The word is spreading, the human species is not divided into discrete races. A revolution is occurring in scientific thinking ... [survey of literature] ... Aside from Brues's chapters on human races, the trend in scholarly books and monographs on race is clearly away from the use of the concept in anthropology. No major work in biology or anthropology published since 1975 has taken a traditional approach to biological race among humans, except the 1982 Racial Adaptations by Carleton Coon.
        • pp. 79–81: We conclude that the concept of race has fallen to a very low acceptance level and may have lost more than consensus; that is, it may be on the way to losing legitimacy ... What Montagu had begun in 1942 has reached the public's attention through his book Man's Most Dangerous Myth and again fifty years later in the 1990s through newspapers and magazines. – Levivich [dubious – discuss] 04:07, 4 March 2020 (UTC) Updated with quotes. Levivich [dubious – discuss] 04:20, 6 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose as this would invoke a denialist effort to subvert neutral presentation of facts with an ideological point of view. Jweiss11 (talk) 04:08, 4 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support based on sources and arguments above. Ratatosk Jones (talk) 05:01, 4 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose Sources from the past 20 years usually do not use the term "myth" in relation to this topic. Let's examine the sources listed here one at a time:
    • Jefferson Fish's book uses the term "myth" in relation to this topic, but contrary to Levivich's summary above it was published in 2001, not in 2011. (See Google books.)
    • The Robert Sternberg paper does not use the word "myth". Sternberg argues that the hereditarian hypothesis with respect to race and intelligence is incorrect, but that is not the same as calling it a myth.
    • The Myerson source uses the word "myth", but not to describe to this article's topic. While the paper does discuss race and intelligence, it is using the term "myth" in relation to a separate hypothesis, that education provides diminishing benefits to intelligence beyond a certain point.
    • The first Montagu source uses the term "myth" in relation to race, and includes a chapter on race and intelligence. It is a book from 78 years ago, that has been periodically updated until the final edition was published in 1997.
    • The second Montagu source was published in 1975, with an updated edition published in 1999. The updated edition includes four new chapters and a new introduction, but the only place the book refers to race as a "myth" is in one of the original chapters that was part of the book's 1975 edition (which is, incidentally, quoting Montagu's earlier book from 1942).
When we exclude the Sternberg and Myerson sources, whose contents are being misrepresented to support this request, there are three sources that support the new title: one from 2001 (not 2011), one from 1942 whose last edition was published in 1997, and one in which the only content that supports the new title has been unchanged since 1975. In order for "race and intelligence myth" to be an appropriate title, this would have to be the term used by a majority of recent sources, and the sources listed here are insufficient to demonstrate that. 2600:1004:B105:F5A1:A997:5864:C95E:CEE5 (talk) 05:52, 4 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. This request is premature. The proposer asked less than 3 days ago whether there is interest in changing the title of the article and has suddenly closed that discussion rather than letting it run its course. (In the recent AfD I suggested renaming the article "Group differences in psychometry", so am not against a move per se.) 73.149.246.232 (talk) 07:25, 4 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    Nice try, but that would fail WP:COMMONNAME, WP:RECOGNIZABLE, and even WP:PRECISE ("group" has no clear definition here; do we mean "differences between police officers, nuns, and teenage video-gamers"? Those are groups. So are people with good versus bad eyesight, or thick hair versus pattern baldness, or people who like/hate mayonnaise.)  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  11:00, 4 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    COMMONNAME and RECOGNIZABLE can be handled by redirecting common phrasings like "race and intelligence" and "race and IQ" to the renamed article. It might be good to have an omnibus article that includes other types of group comparisons, such as IQ by sex or wealth, and the state of the nature/nurture debate for those, as far as the types of evidence and analysis are similar. If the article sticks to heredity-based groups only, then I see no objection to further precision like "racial", "ancestry" or "hereditary" in front of the word "group", with redirects covering the most common synonymous phrases. 73.149.246.232 (talk) 16:25, 4 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    Except not. Please familiarize yourself better with WP:AT policy and WP:RM norms. WP does not move articles to unhelpful titles and then redirect from clearer ones. We do exactly the opposite, even at the cost of various definitional nit-picks and even at the cost of some people's perceptions of socio-political neutrality/propriety. Whatever is the most commonly-sought term/phrase is what we should use. Even in choosing between "race and intelligence" vs. "intelligence and race" we can see that high-end source favor the former phrase by nearly a 4:1 ratio [7][8].  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  12:52, 5 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I am happy to defer to your WP expertise. In the case of a vague label such as "race and intelligence" there isn't necessarily a single most-commonly-sought thing people are looking for when they type that. So I also don't see the problem with a page under the current title that consists of links to several more specific titles with a short description of each, analogous to what one would find when looking for a topic in the index to an encyclopedia rather than the main text. 73.149.246.232 (talk) 21:56, 5 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose, since sources do not call this a "myth" (WP:OR), and because that's advancing a simultaneous claim that the science is certain and it is entirely against the idea (also OR, plus WP:POV). The proposed title doesn't actually make sense. There might be an incorrect presumption (a "myth") of proven connections between "race" (which isn't objectively definable) and "intelligence" (which isn't either, nor measurable with precision – we can only measure specific things that we like to cluster under the "intelligence" umbrella). But that's not what the article is about; it is about the entire subject of the question and related questions, and all the research into them. To the extent that research leans toward suggesting that attempts to prove such a connection are faulty (are "mythmaking", if you like), we can cover that, and the article will be adequately informative without brow-beating the reader with civil rights advocacy messaging. And the science is not clear or certain. There is and has been a lot of academic debate about these matters, including about the ethics of investigating the question in the first place, and alternative explanations for initial research claims pertaining to things like certain ethnic groups in the US doing less well on IQ tests, another group accounting for an unusually large percentage of science awards, and so on, and most of these explanations are cultural. So we also have here a conflict between scientific disciplines like psychology, statistics, sociology, physical anthropology, cultural anthropology, and so on.

    I could maybe support Race and intelligence controversy. [Changed my mind, per Toomim's comments below.] The proper way to write an encyclopedia is to lay out the what the high-quality secondary sources are saying, with WP:DUE weight as to their reputability, and let the reader naturally come to the same conclusions as real-world consensus among experts. On a topic like this one, that's going to be a moving target; we are not going to write this article once and have it be stable forever. Where an article seems to be arm-twisting the reader in a "don't you dare think X" manner, we know we are not properly writing an encyclopedia article, and that starts from the title on downward. See also Historicity of Jesus, and many other controversial topics of this sort. How many of them have "myth" in the title? Speaking of which, I also object because this is a misuse of the term myth, which properly refers to a culturally important story with strong connections to religion. While people in everyday vernacular English just adore hyperbolic abuse of this word, the encyclopedia doing so is a terrible idea, and interferes with our ability to use it more precisely when we mean the proper meaning of the term. If readers get the idea that when WP says "myth" it means "commonly believed falsehood", then this has serious implications for reader understanding of WP articles on actual myths and legends. Remember that WP is not not social media and not news, nor written like either. We use a much more precise and formal register of English.

    The more pressing matter is that we need to merge the History of the race and intelligence controversy content-fork back into Race and intelligence (perhaps with content leaning more toward the former than the latter), and fix any lingering "He said, then she said, then he said" DUE problems, along with any over-reliance on primary source material. We shouldn't be citing any primary sources except as backup citations for expert readers, after we have already cited secondary ones, which on a topic like this probably mostly need to be literature reviews, especially systematic reviews, and some recent (under 10 years) academic-press books on the topic. By its nature, this topic veers into WP:MEDRS territory, at least in some aspects, and our usual broad-sense "secondary sources" like newspapers are magazines are absolute crap when it comes to a topic like this, other that where they are reporting on and being cited for social aspects (e.g. the nature and effects of the controversy); they are not reliable sources on the science. But neither is a primary-research paper; a new one on this topic will come out next week, and the week after, and the week after. It is not our job to parrot claims made by researchers who managed to get past a peer-review committee to get their material opened to the scrutiny of other scientists via a journal. That isn't science yet. The results after years of such scrutiny, as analyzed in systematic reviews, is science.
     — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  11:00, 4 March 2020 (UTC); revised 12:45, 5 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

  • Oppose - the current simple title is more NPOV and inclusive of broad aspects of the topic. The proposed name is just as bad as trying to name it "race and intelligence evidence", for example. -- Netoholic @ 11:26, 4 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support - the notion that some races are inferior to others in intelligence is a fringe view and is central to the alt-right white supremacist POV; the current title wrongly suggests that there's a connection between someone's race and their intelligence. The term myth in common usage does mean any invented story, idea, or concept: His account of the event is pure myth (dictionary.com, meaning 3). NightHeron (talk) 13:13, 4 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    I have to ask you to separate your distaste for some of the conclusions some have tried to draw from bad data and poorly interpreted data, from the question of what the article title should be. The proposed title is simply senseless, and does not match the material in the article even if it made better sense. See Crossroads' comment below for perhaps clearer detail on that than I provided. PS: The fact that a weakened, vague, vernacular sense exists of a word with a specific meaning doesn't magically make the specific meaning go away, and it is problematic in a work in which we frequently have need of the original, specific meaning. I've already been over this. No one needs to be informed that the term can be used the way you like to use it (much less get a dictionary quoted at them as if they deny that the usage exists at all even after talking of its existence, as I did). It's just not encyclopedic writing.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  23:00, 4 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Weak support I don't mind the current title, but also am sympathetic to highlighting the WP:FRINGE nature of the subject matter, and accentuating that is a Good Thing. Might have a greater preference for an alternative title, but this one is OK too. --Jayron32 17:29, 4 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Weak support Like Jayron32 I think we need to highlight the WP:FRINGE nature of the subject matter, but I’m not super convinced that "Race and intelligence myth” is the best of all possible titles. Horse Eye Jack (talk) 19:12, 4 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose per SMcCandlish.  Spy-cicle💥  Talk? 19:42, 4 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support per nom/Levivich and NightHeron. warshy (¥¥) 20:16, 4 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose per SMcCandlish. Loksmythe (talk) 20:20, 4 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose per SMcCandlish, because the proposed title is incoherent, and because the existing title is already NPOV. Calling "race and intelligence" a myth makes no sense. It's like calling "Earth and its shape" or "Species and their origin" a myth. Any myth (to use the term in the casual sense) lies in certain proposed connections between the two concepts, not merely in mentioning the two in a phrase. As for the idea that the existing title is POV, or that the topic is fringe, that makes no sense. Even if the topic were fringe, our articles on fringe topics do not generally call them a myth, pseudoscience, or whatever right in the title. Aside from that, the article is (supposed to be) about what top-quality sources (the kind SMcCandlish talked about) have to say on the topic. Such sources clearly exist, many of them being in the article already, and are about the topic as titled. Calling the topic fringe means you are also calling fringe those sources that show that any test score differences between so-called racial categories arise from differences in their environments. That such differences are not inborn is something we absolutely should be covering. I get that people wish this topic did not exist, but it does, and we should not concede discussion of it to the alt-right. If instead of sinking time into huge discussions to delete or retitle the article, people put the same effort into establishing a high standard of sourcing, then purging what does not meet that criteria, we'd all be better off. Crossroads -talk- 20:33, 4 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
More recent sources (bold emphasis added, italics in original)
  • OK, more recent sources supporting "myth":
    • Ruth Benedict & Margaret Mead, Race: Science and Politics, University of Georgia Press, 1940, 2019 – The 2019 edition includes a new forward in which Judith Schachter writes, Then she turns to the science of genetics further to disabuse her readers of the myth of 'racial heredity', quoting the following line from pp. 55–56 in the original 1940 edition: ... racial heredity in Western civilization is a myth which sets up, in place of true heredity in family lines, an absurd picture of heredity from a race.
    • Sally Tomlinson (Honorary Fellow, Oxford), A Sociology of Special and Inclusive Education, Routledge, 2017, Chapter 4: IQ, Ability and Eugenics: ... even Socrates called this myth of the metals a 'noble lie'. It was a political legitimation for an inequitable society ... It is a myth still resonating in schools and classrooms today, that children are born with the potential to be very able, less able, unable or disabled ... the myth of some kind of fixed ability, defect or disability.
    • David Gillborn, "Softly, softly: genetics, intelligence and the hidden racism of the new geneism", Journal of Education Policy 2016 (PDF) the difference between the mythic and real meaning of heritability ... I begin by examining the gulf between the technical meaning of heritability as a concept in research and the mythic understandings that feature in press coverage and the grand claims made by certain authors ... For the sake of clarity, Table 1 summarizes the differences between the mythic presentations of heritability (in popular media and political debate) and the reality (as hidden in the technical small-print) ... Once again, the evidence contradicts the hereditarian rhetoric and popular mythology by highlighting the constructed nature of IQ tests and scores ... Gardner sets out to de-bunk the various myths and leaps of imagination that the book presents as if they were matters of scientific fact ... I have examined key examples of the popular presentation of genetics and intelligence and identified the numerous myths and misunderstandings that frequently lie at the heart of contemporary debate .... Table 1 is on page 49 and has one column labeled "Myth" and the other "Reality".
    • Jacqueline Jones, A Dreadful Deceit: The Myth of Race from the Colonial Era to Obama's America, Hachette Book Group 2013, 2015 (p. xiv: By the time of the Civil War, myths of race had hardened to presume a large underclass of dark-skinned menial laborers, men and women 'naturally' inferior to white in intelligence and moral sensibility.)
    • Robert Sussman, The Myth of Race: The Troubling and Persistence of an Unscientific Idea, Harvard University Press 2014
      • p. 1: In 1950, UNESCO issued a statement asserting that all humans belong to the same species and that 'race' is not a biological reality but a myth ... [p. 2 Section heading] The Myth of Human Racism[:] Unfortunately, along with the belief in the reality of biologically based human races, racism still abounds in the United States and Western Europe. How can this be when there is so much scientific evidence against it? ... It seems that the belief in human races, carrying along with it the prejudice and hatred of 'racism,' is so embedded in our culture and has been an integral part of our worldview for so long that many of us assume that it just must be true. ... We have been told that there are very specific things that relate to race, such as intelligence, ... What many people do not realize is that this racial structure is not based on reality. Anthropologists have shown for many years now that there is no biological reality to human race. There are no major complex behavior that directly correlate with what might be considered human 'racial' characteristics. There is no inherent relationship between intelligence, ... and race, just as there is no relationship between nose size, height, blood group, or skin color and any set of complex human behaviors. However, over the past 500 years, we have been taught by an informal, mutually reinforcing consortium of intellectuals, politicians, statesmen, business and economic leaders, and their books that human racial biology is real and that certain races are biologically better than others. ... In this book I am not going to dwell upon all the scientific information that has been gathered by anthropologists, biologists, geneticists, and other scientists concerning the fact that there are no such things as human biological races. This has been done by many people over the past fifty or so years. What I am going to do is describe the history of our myth of race and racism ... I hope to clarify why this myth still exists and remains widespread in the United States and throughout Western Europe ...
    • Sheldon Krimsky and Kathleen Sloan (eds.), Race and the Genetic Revolution: Science, Myth, and Culture, Columbia University Press, 2011
      • pp. 1–2: The CRG assembled a multidisciplinary group of scholars and community activists to contribute papers that discussed the history of the concept of 'race' and how the new field of genomics informs scientific, medical, and public understanding of 'race' in new areas like ... intelligence testing. Other papers were contributed to this volume after the conferences were held. It has been the intention of the Council for Responsible Genetics and the editors of this volume to draw attention to myths about 'race' and bring public awareness to the impacts such myths and scientific misunderstandings can have in the pursuit of social equality for all people ... Historically, the concept of 'race' has been steeped in paradox, embraced by ideology, adopted and rejected by science, but nevertheless remains an indisputable part of public discourse. The term 'race' is merely a shadow of what it once represented in science. Simply put, race is a scientific myth and a social reality.
      • p. 3: The idea that there were fixed, unalterable human morphological or genetic qualities of certain population groups, transmitted from generation to generation, was in disfavor by most scientists in the late nineteenth century. ... In 1942, Ashley Montagu published Man's Most Dangerous Myth: The Fallacy of Race. Expressing what he asserted was the consensus among scientists, Montagu wrote: "Most authorities of the present entertain no doubts as to the meaninglessness of the older anthropological conception of 'race.' They do not consider that any of the existing concepts of 'race' correspond to any reality whatever." Nearly sixty years later, Michael Omi reaffirmed the consensus: "Biologists, geneticists, and physical anthropologists among others, long ago reached a common understanding that race is not a 'scientific' concept rooted in discernible biological differences." By the end of the twentieth century, race had been defined in the Unabridged Random House Dictionary as "an arbitrary classification of modern humans, sometimes, esp. formerly, based on any or a combination of various physical characteristics, as skin color, facial form, or eye shape." Thus, 'race' is a social construction.
      • p. 4: Another source of paradox can be found in how 'race' is currently used in the social sciences. In many areas of social science research, 'race' is a variable. These include studies in ... intelligence, and crime statistics to name a few. But since there are no biological or genetic markers for 'race,' it is operationally defined by self-identification ... People sort themselves out as part of a survey according to what 'race' they self-identify. But how a person self-identifies with a socially constructed idea of 'race' depends on social and cultural norms. The same person may self-identify with on 'race' in one country and another 'race' in another country. OR a person may change his or her self-identification when the options before them have changed ... The social construction of 'race' and its operational definition as 'self-identity' means that resulting outcomes of the research will also be built on this social construction and not grounded in objective biological and social realities.
      • p. 6: Of what value can racial categories, which are recognized as unscientific, arbitrary, socially constructed ideal types, have? ... Science can play a role in seeking to understand why this sorting and the consequences that derive from it takes place. But drawing generalizable conclusions in psychology, education, or medicine from these ideal types is baseless. The concept of race is a vestigial cultural artifact that persists in people's minds and public policies. The American Association of Physical Anthropology issued a consensus statement on race in 1996 that dismisses the idea of an average 'racial type': '... This fact renders untenable the idea of discrete races made up chiefly of typical representatives ... There is no national, religious, linguistic or cultural group or economic class that constitutes a race.'
      • p. 7: In part 5, 'Intelligence and Race,' Pilar Ossorio critically examines hereditarian theories of intelligence and discusses the implications of the view that IQ testing by 'race' tells us anything about how innate intelligence is distributed among population groups. Sternberg, Grigorenko, Kidd, and Stemler provide a comprehensive review and analysis of the scientific literature on intelligence, race, and genetics. They explore and evaluate claims made about the alleged relationships between race and intelligence throughout the lens of genetics.
      • Includes the article: Pilar Ossorio, "Myth and Mystification: The Science of Race and IQ"
        • p. 181: Scholars who study race generally agree on a few themes regarding how notions of race operate in society. One point of agreement is that race is a second-order construct – a belief about beliefs, behaviors, and traits. A person's racial self-identification, and her ascription of race to other people, is based on her beliefs about skin color, head shape, hair texture, religion, ancestry, language spoken, nationality, dress, political philosophy, and many other factors ... Because a person's race is not reducible to her genetically encoded traits, one could know everything about a person's genome and still not know her race. Another point of agreement among race scholars is that race is a very malleable concept ... One well-known example of this malleability is that every decennial census since the early twentieth century has defined race differently than the previous census. Thus, a person who was white in one census might have been Mexican or black in another. Another example is that some people have a different race on their birth certificate and their death certificate. The malleability of the concept of race means that one must be very careful in comparing different studies in which race is correlated with some other feature, such as income or IQ. ... These correlated factors may confound the results of studies by making it appear that race explains or 'causes' between-group differences in IQ test results when some other racially correlated factor, such as diet, parental income, neighborhood environment, etc., actually explains the differences.
        • pp. 182–183: [Section heading] Race and Intelligence[:] Just as there is no unitary definition of race, there is no agreed-upon or single definition of intelligence. One aphorism holds that intelligence is what intelligence tests measure ... Later psychologists, particularly those in the United States, ... were willing to embrace the view that intelligence was an inborn and fixed attribute of a person. We can cal this view the hereditarian theory of IQ ... Hereditarians view racial gaps in test scores, from IQ to the SAT, as evidence of inherent and immutable racial or ethnic differences in underlying cognitive capacity. Many claims of contemporary hereditarians have been critiques and debunked ...
        • pp. 185–186: Many scholars question the entire enterprise of treating heritability statistics as though genes and environment are actually separable influences on IQ or any other trait ... Correlation does not prove a causal relationship between environmental variables and IQ any more than it proves a causal relationship between race and IQ, but the presence of many strong environmental correlates with IQ raises doubts about racial or genetic explanations. Research also undermines the hereditarian claim that IQ is the primary determinant of achievement. Many environmental variables predict achievement as well as or better than IQ, except for people whose IQ scores are at the abnormally low end of the scale ... In sum, racial groups differ with respect to so many environmental factors that it is entirely plausible that environmental differences explain current racial gaps in mean IQ scores.
      • Also includes the Sternberg article posted above
    • Emanuele Felice & Ferdinando Giugliano, "Myth and reality: A response to Lynn on the determinants of Italy's North–South imbalances", Intelligence 2011 – rebutting Richard Lynn (Abstract: there is no evidence that the alleged differences in IQ are persistent in time and, therefore, attributable to genetic factors.)
    • Ian Tattersall & Rob DeSalle, Race?: Debunking a Scientific Myth, Texas A&M University Press 2011
      • p. xiii The result is that, whatever those entities may actually be that w habitually describe in the United States as "blacks" and "whites", they lie in the realm of sociocultural constructs rather than in that of biologically coherent groups.
      • p. xv This book is, then, mainly about the limits of what biology can usefully say about the nature and existence of human races. New techniques and new approaches can and will tell us an enormous amount about the biological history of our species, but they also teach us that this history was a very complex one that is very inaccurately–indeed, distortingly–summed up by any attempt to classify human variety on the basis of discrete races While we can acknowledge that our ideas of race do in some sense reflect a historical reality, and that human variety does indeed have biological underpinnings, it is important to realize that those biological foundations are both transitory and epiphenomenal. Despite cultural barriers that uniquely help slow the process down in our species, the reintegration of Homo sapiens is proceeding apace. And this places the notion of "races" as anything other than sociocultural constructs ever more at odds with reality. Increasingly, it seems, we are simply who we think we are.
      • p. 157 And despite many claims made over the years, in complex societies such as ours, stratified in a thousand different ways–mostly economic and cultural, but including subtle influences like exposure to toxic substances–nobody has yet been able to figure out a satisfactory way of separating out potential heritable from environmental effects on any measure of cognitive ability ... whatever the essence of 'intelligence' may be, it makes most sense to view any variations we observe in it as 'noise': simply the inevitable scatter around the mean that you'd expect to find in a species as biologically variable as ours.
    • Not a journal but a good, recent explanation of just how fringe this is considered to be: Jon Wiener (not to be confused with Jon Weiner), "Why Did Harvard Give a PhD for a Discredited Approach to Race and IQ?", The Nation 2013
      • The problems with all the work purporting to link 'race' and 'intelligence' have been well-known for decades. First, the concept of "race": There is no "Hispanic race." It’s a census category, not a biological one. What we call "Hispanics" in the United States includes Indian peasants from Yucatan and doctors from Mexico City (and Madrid). Second problem: the concept of "IQ." The inventors of the IQ test claimed it measured "innate intelligence." But of course what the test really measures is test-taking ability. – Levivich [dubious – discuss] 04:11, 5 March 2020 (UTC) Updated with quotes. Levivich [dubious – discuss] 04:20, 6 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
WP:CHERRYPICKING. Do you now expect someone to list out all the sources which fail to use the term "myth" in this way? This decision isn't a winner-take-all where the name of the article is determined by what 51% of sources say... its about naming the article to allow all the viewpoints relevant to the topic to be included. -- Netoholic @ 05:13, 5 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Per WP:WEIGHT, we do not allow all viewpoints to be included. –dlthewave ☎ 05:27, 5 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
These are just sources using the word "myth" about race generally, or saying that certain claims about race and intelligence are myths. None of them say "race and intelligence" is a myth because the topic is not a myth, as evidenced by the fact that sources like this exist. And again, calling the topic fringe means calling these sources fringe, which is surely not your intention. Crossroads -talk- 05:55, 5 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Crossroads, here's the abstract to Sternberg 2005 in American Psychologist, the official journal of the APA: "In this article, the authors argue that the overwhelming portion of the literature on intelligence, race, and genetics is based on folk taxonomies rather than scientific analysis. They suggest that because theorists of intelligence disagree as to what it is, any consideration of its relationships to other constructs must be tentative at best. They further argue that race is a social construction with no scientific definition. Thus, studies of the relationship between race and other constructs may serve social ends but cannot serve scientific ends. No gene has yet been conclusively linked to intelligence, so attempts to provide a compelling genetic link of race to intelligence are not feasible at this time. The authors also show that heritability, a behaviorgenetic concept, is inadequate in regard to providing such a link." Now, you still want to say that this paper does not say that the connection between race and intelligence is a myth? How about the book chapter entitled "Myth and Mystification: The Science of Race and IQ", which has a section called "Race and Intelligence"? Or the book, "Race and Intelligence: Separating Science from Myth"? You're saying none of these say that race and intelligence is a myth? They all say that. That's why I posted them. It's like two dozen different scientists all saying the same thing. You can't just waive it away. Bring two dozen countervailing scientists or concede the point, at long last. Race is a myth. IQ is a myth. The connection between race and IQ is a myth. Levivich [dubious – discuss] 06:47, 5 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
The idea that race (such as self-reported race categories in an IQ study) and intelligence/IQ are myths (i.e., so vague or defective as concepts that they cannot be meaningfully related to anything, including each other, in social science research) is itself a FRINGE view. Most of your sources are either non-experts, or are using the word "myth" for something other than the items at issue, or do apply it to race and intelligence but only as a statement of IDONTLIKEIT. Demanding precision on "race" and "intelligence" far beyond what is accepted everywhere else in social science is a political stance, not evidence that there is anything logically wrong with using such concepts for the usual purposes of research: measurement, correlation, prediction, and unraveling of causation. Your sources and others like them do not object to studies of income inequality by "race" on the grounds that "black people" is an imaginary social construct and therefore the differences are meaningless and cannot be traced to some underlying cause (such as discrimination along the imaginary "race" categories, obviously that must also be a figment of our imagination and not a legitimate topic of study). It is all special pleading when the topic happens to be a controversial thing related to race. 73.149.246.232 (talk) 09:28, 5 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Levivich: Now, you still want to say that this paper does not say that the connection between race and intelligence is a myth? The topic (not "connection", whatever that means) of race and intelligence is not a myth, as proven by the existence of these very sources. And accordingly, none of these sources say 'race and intelligence is a myth', because again, that phrase is nonsensical. All my previous points still apply. As a particularly clear example of the problem with your analysis, the book titles you pointed to, "Myth and Mystification: The Science of Race and IQ" and "Race and Intelligence: Separating Science from Myth", by your reasoning, could be used to argue that "race and intelligence science" is a viable title. It is not, obviously. They just say that there are myths related to the topic. As for Race is a myth. IQ is a myth. The connection between race and IQ is a myth. - that is WP:SYNTH. Also, race is a socially constructed categorization that does not meaningfully reflect actual biology, but does have social meaning and therefore social and consequences, hence is studied by social scientists like any manner of socially constructed identities and things. There is some debate over the meaning of IQ, but it is associated with various life outcomes. Take a look at our articles and sources therein on the subjects. A simplistic myth! label is not helpful. But as for the idea that race is a natural biological taxonomy, or that differences in test scores amongst social groups are due to innate immutable genetic differences, I agree that these are myths. We're on the same side in that sense. I just believe that it is important that we present this topic with care. Crossroads -talk- 13:58, 5 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
The fact that WP:CHERRYPICKING can be used to dig up a handful more instances of the word "myth" being used (in sources of variable quality, though mostly pretty good) does nothing to establish that there's a real-world consensus among experts on the matter. It's likely that one will emerge over time, but we are not there yet.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  13:00, 5 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support, per WP:NOTCENSORED. Couching the nature of the concept in an innocuous-sounding title is not helpful to the reader. A step in the right direction. --K.e.coffman (talk) 05:09, 5 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    That's self-contradictory. NOTCENSORED is a primary reason to not try to ghettoize the topic under a PoV-pushing and "Wikipedia determines Truth when its editors want to make a socio-political point at all costs" title that virtually no one would actually look for and which does not actually agree with the bare fact of real-world controversies about the subject. I don't think I've ever seen NOTCENSORED cited before as an excuse to censor. It simply does not support what you want to do.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  12:57, 5 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose WP does not decide scientific questions. Calling a relationship between race and inteligence a myth is making a judgment about its validity, and we have no authority to do that. The very meaning of saying there might be a relationship is unclear, and the nature and even the existence of the the relationship much disputed, both by persons interested primarily in the political aspects and those interested ins the scientific; it is possible there is no relationship, or that there is, and if there is, it is clear in what direction of with what qualifications. Many of us have a opinion of what the true connection is, but it would be more accurate to say that many of us have an opinion of what the true connection ought to be. None of us actually knows in any real sense what the ultimate scientific conclusion would be--how can we? I doubt if any of the people here actually understand the scientific arguments involved and the nature and interpretation of the data in all its aspects--I rather doubt that anyone in the world does. I make no claim to know myself, or to be able to judge, even though I have had a postdoctoral fellowship in population genetics. I don't even know what I think it ought to be--all I can realistically hope is that we will someday understand it better. Given the nature of science, we probably will, as long as we do not stifle scientific inquiry by jumping to a convenient answer. Certainly we can not decide by finding quotes in peer reviewed journals that happen to suit our preferences. Cherry-picking is not argument., and the argument from authority is the weakest of all arguments except the arguments from force, or from censorship. NOT CENSORED means something very different from the way the previous contributor uses the term. DGG ( talk ) 07:10, 5 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose SMcCandlish has made most of my points for me, but let me add that appending any qualifier to the title "Race and Intelligence", whether it is "Myth" or "Controversy", could reduce this article to a WP:POVFORK that excludes content from POVs other than the "Myth" or "Controversy" view. For instance, the topic "Race and Intelligence Controversy" would inherently exclude non-controversial aspects of Race and Intelligence, such as the raw data on population differences that has reached scientific consensus. Likewise, an article about the "myths" of race and intelligence would exclude the truths. To achieve a neutral POV, we must represent all the significant views that have been published by reliable sources on the topic. This means including discussion of the significant controversies, myths, and the scientific truths.
Thus, in response to the editors citing sources on myths -- the existence of sources about myths is not a justification to restrict this article to only discussing myths. --Toomim (talk) 09:45, 5 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
The listing of sources that use the term myth was in response to SMcCandlish's statement Oppose, since sources do not call this a "myth". Your other points have been refuted many times. By the way, it is a violation of Wikipedia policy to label an edit as a minor edit (m) if it is not, per WP:MINOR. NightHeron (talk) 10:41, 5 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
"Race and Intelligence Controversy" would inherently exclude non-controversial aspects of Race and Intelligence, such as the raw data on population differences that has reached scientific consensus.' - the fact that you feel that is not a controversial thing to put in an article about race is, IMHO, worrying. -- Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 10:51, 5 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Toomim is basically correct that the existence of group differences in average test scores isn't controversial. What's controversial is how these results should be interpreted. I'll quote the summary of research in this area from Intelligence: Knowns and Unknowns, a report published by the American Psychological Association in the 1990s:
African-American IQ scores have long averaged about 15 points below those of Whites, with correspondingly lower scores on academic achievement tests. In recent years the achievement-test gap has narrowed appreciably. It is possible that the IQ-score differential is narrowing as well, but this has not been clearly established. The cause of that differential is not known; it is apparently not due to any simple form of bias in the content or administration of the tests themselves. The Flynn effect shows that environmental factors can produce differences of at least this magnitude, but that effect is mysterious in its own right. Several culturally based explanations of the Black/ White IQ differential have been proposed; some are plausible, but so far none has been conclusively supported. There is even less empirical support for a genetic interpretation. In short, no adequate explanation of the differential between the IQ means of Blacks and Whites is presently available.
That's the consensus view. It apparently is controversial among some Wikipedia editors, but the APA report shows what conclusions are widely-accepted among professionals in the relevant fields. (In fact, showing what conclusions are or are not widely accepted is the entire reason for the APA report's existence.) 2600:1004:B114:998F:FCCA:1F19:F350:4F83 (talk) 11:41, 5 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks. I am aware of those findings, and I think you are also aware of why it is not uncontroversial to equate those results with race, and with intelligence. -- Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 11:53, 5 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Actually, I am not sure why it's controversial to equate the categories "Black" and "White", which are the terms used in the APA report, with racial categories. Are those terms sometimes considered to not be racial categories? 2600:1004:B114:998F:FCCA:1F19:F350:4F83 (talk) 12:28, 5 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Come on over to my talk page. Better to not derail this discussion with this. -- Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 12:32, 5 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the invitation, but I'm not sure this point really needs to be discussed, since it doesn't directly have any bearing on the proposed move. 2600:1004:B114:998F:FCCA:1F19:F350:4F83 (talk) 12:42, 5 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
See WP:Race and ethnicity. The short version: While "race", and more importantly racialism and racism, are important sociological factors, "race" is simply an illusion, biologically speaking. Neighboring ethnic groups in Africa actually have more genetic diversity between them than the Finns and the Maori. What we call "race" is a human propensity to seek patterns and to assign meaning to them, rubbing up against environmental pressures and the effects they have on specific gene selection, and on top of this a dose of reality-denialism, of choosing not to see what doesn't fit preconceived expectations of a pattern one has selected to perceive as real and uniform and meaningful. In biological reality, the same environmental pressure will produce comparable results in populations who are not closely related (e.g. darker skin near the equator), and a change in environmental pressure can lead to a genetic change sweeping through a largely endogamous population in only a few generations (e.g. a specific malarial resistance). There is no "genetic package" tied to any particular "race", just mostly independently operating genes floating around within, and transferring between, haplogroups.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  13:32, 5 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose per SMcCandlish and Crossroads, scientific meta analysis sources do not refer to this as 'myth', or, at least, derailing this article to be only about the myth would contextually exclude discussion of legitimate scientific data on the differences between populations. The drive to do so seems to be a desire to push a specific narrative on the reader. There are differences in average intelligence between groups, the second sentence of the lede mentions that, whether they are due to environmental, socioeconomic, or genetic factors is irrelevant. I understand the desire to fight back against specific groups that claim innate racial superiority (this is the 'myth' aspect that is trying to be fought against here). POV with a nice face is still POV. — Insertcleverphrasehere (or here)(click me!) 20:00, 5 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support Per nom. Will focus article and will help prevent WP:FRINGE from being introduced.   // Timothy :: talk  20:02, 5 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose. As others have noted, this would be like creating an article called Earth's shape myth. Race & Intelligence is a perfectly valid topic; if the editor wants to include material backing the contention that there's no real statistical correlation, that's fine and a valid result. In the same way, saying the Earth is round is not a myth. The fact that some people said the Earth is flat doesn't make the topic itself invalid, it just means those people are wrong. SnowFire (talk) 20:35, 5 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Procedural note. Note that the nominator posted a link to this RM on some unrelated noticeboards. Nominator, if you do that in the future, please announce so in the discussion itself as well per WP:CANVAS; "It is good practice to leave a note at the discussion itself about notifications which have been made." SnowFire (talk) 20:39, 5 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose. Proposed move presupposes a POV. Xxanthippe (talk) 21:31, 5 March 2020 (UTC).[reply]
  • Oppose per the thoughtful considerations of SMcCandlish, Toomim, and others. This topic is already enough of a hot potato, and if we attached a POV label like "myth" to the article's name, then we're doing nothing to facilitate any meaningful academic research or debate. As has been pointed out by the likes of Bret Weinstein and others, although the outdated notions of race are biologically untenable and indefensible, it's almost certain that genetically-driven traits like average intelligence will vary at least slightly between certain populations or lineages, in the same way that certain populations have different genetically-determined height, hair type, etc. This in no way implies that members of certain populations are inherently superior to others, just like how the admission that the Nilotic peoples excel at long-distance running in no way implies that the Nilotes should be the master race, or anything of the kind. Obviously, the history of Scientific racism culminating in the Nazi exterminations informs how these kinds of ideas, if they get wrapped up in violent nationalism, can end up precipitating a nightmare scenario; it's important that we keep that in mind. However, Wikipedia is not censored, so with topics like this, we should be doing our best to present the topic without any POV. Is it really best to frame the idea that intelligence can vary between populations as entirely mythical, by naming this article on race and intelligence as entirely mythical? Doesn't this just give ammunition to the extremists who will say that they're being oppressed by a conspiracy to deny something which, ultimately, may have some kernel of truth to it? BirdValiant (talk) 22:44, 5 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose. We are not here to right great wrongs. We should not subvert the purpose of the article title to counter the idea held by some that some "races" are more "intelligent" than other "races". Nobody believes crap along the lines of "races" being more "intelligent" or less "intelligent" than other "races" but racists spout this as a form of trash talk. We should not use article titles as billboards to advance ideas however accurate those ideas might be. That is called advocacy. We should use article titles solely to identify the subject matter being addressed in the article. Bus stop (talk) 00:10, 6 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
WP:RGW does not say that fringe views should not be identified as such in article titles. Your "nobody believes" statement is, unfortunately, incorrect. It's bizarre to say that racists spout this but don't believe it. Presumably racists do believe it. NightHeron (talk) 10:25, 6 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

AE Notice

I've opened an Arbitration Enforcement request related to this article. The discussion can be found at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement#Jweiss11. –dlthewave ☎ 19:37, 4 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

In closing this I remind all editors here that Arbitration Enforcement is not meant to be a forum to gain an advantage in a content dispute. Barkeep49 (talk) 20:53, 5 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Circumstantial Evidence

Made my first edit to this page. For those unhappy I removed the wording about circumstantial evidence, here is page 447 of Hunt (2010). Worth reading that with a running start and to the end of the chapter. Hunt is not saying what we said he was saying. In removing one ref to Hunt, I did first check and we do cite that exact section elsewhere, so no refs were lost.

I will also add that paragraph 1 of the lead already describes what Hunt means by circumstantial evidence, so there is no need to say it again. -- Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 22:55, 5 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Here are the relevant paragraphs from Hunt's book:
(p. 434-435) "Rushton and Jensen (and Lynn) are correct in saying that the 100% environmental hypothesis cannot be maintained. Nisbett's extreme statement [that the racial IQ gaps are 100% environmental] has virtually no chance of being true. However, the 100% environmental hypothesis is something of a stalking horse. Many researchers who are primarily interested in environmental differences associated with racial and ethnic differences in intelligence would not be at all perturbed by an ironclad demonstration that, say, 3% the gap is due to genetics. The real debate is over the identity and size of genetic and environmental influences on group differences in intelligence, not the existence of either one."
(p. 436) "Plausible cases can be made for both genetic and environmental contributions to differences in intelligence. The evidence required to quantify the the relative sizes of these contributions to group differences is lacking. The relative sizes of environmental and genetic influences will vary over time and place. Some of these influences may be amenable to change, while others will be resistant to change. The relevant questions can be studied. Denials or overly precise statements on either the pro-genetic or pro-environmental site do not move the debate forward. They generate heat rather than light."
(p. 447) "It could be that there are genetic constraints that make inequality of cognition across groups inevitable. This hypothesis can never be ruled out, for doing so would require proving the null hypothesis and, as any good statistics instructor will tell you, that is a logical impossibility. It is worth remembering that no genes related to the difference in cognitive skills across the various racial and ethnic groups have ever been discovered. The argument for genetic differences has been carried forward largely by circumstantial evidence. Of course, tomorrow afternoon genetic mechanisms producing racial and ethnic differences in intelligence might be discovered, but there have been a lot of investigations, and tomorrow has not come for quite some time now."
Taking these three quotes together, the new wording does not accurately reflect Hunt's opinion. The current lead of the article states, "At present, there is no evidence that these differences in test scores have a genetic component." And later on, the article states, "Currently there is no evidence that the test score gap has a genetic component." However, it is clear from the first quote (the one on pages 434-435) that Hunt does think there is sufficient evidence to conclude the gap is not 100% environmental, but there is insufficient evidence to know the size of the genetic contribution, and it might be very small. Can you modify your edit to more accurately reflect Hunt's overall opinion, including the quote from pages 434-435? 2600:1004:B14B:BF17:DD28:947E:9154:ADCF (talk) 23:36, 5 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
(Edit conflict) Incidentally, the new wording slightly misrepresents the Mackintosh and Nisbett et al. sources as well. Here is what page 358 of Mackintosh's book says:
"In spite of claims to the contrary, there is remarkably little evidence that the difference is genetic in origin"
And here is the relevant quote from Nisbett et al:
"About the Black–White difference in IQ, which at the time was about 15 points, the Neisser et al. (1996) article stated, 'There is not much direct evidence on this point, but what there is fails to support a genetic hypothesis.' That conclusion stands today: There has been no new direct evidence on the question."
Secondary sources that argue for an environmental cause typically include these qualifications, saying there is "very little evidence" or "no direct evidence" for a genetic contribution. They virtually never state outright that there is no evidence, which is what the article currently states. It is not an accurate reflection of these sources for the article to use a wording that's stronger than the sources it's citing. 2600:1004:B14B:BF17:DD28:947E:9154:ADCF (talk) 00:11, 6 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]


Thank you for bringing this up for discussion and providing a reference, but that source does not seem to justify your edit— in fact, I believe it says the opposite. The Hunt source you provided says The argument for genetic differences has been carried forward largely by circumstantial evidence. In other words, there is evidence for genetic differences, albeit circumstantial. However, your edits (here, and here) now say that there is no evidence. That conflicts with the source. Can we please bring the text back in line with the source? Or perhaps I'm missing something. If so, can you please explain how the source justifies the edit? Thank you.
Furthermore, now that we are editing the lede paragraph, I see some obvious ways that it could be improved. First, we could use language much closer to Hunt and remove the double-negative: how about we say "At present, the evidence for genetic differences is only circumstantial." And second, we should definitely include a summary of the environmental position as well as this hereditarian position, to maintain WP:DUE NPOV. Perhaps we could say "It is also possible that environmental factors explain most of the IQ gap." But I think we could say something more specific. Could someone help summarize the environmental position for the lede?
Finally, I recall that we all agreed not to make any edits to the lede without first discussing them on the talk page, so I suggest we revert this lede paragraph edit until we find consensus on the improvement. (On second thought, I'm not concerned about this.)
Thanks again for bringing this up! --Toomim (talk) 00:02, 6 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]


Can someone tell me if the following is an accurate description of what people mean by "circumstantial"?
Define the three variables: R, I, and G for self-reported Race, IQ score, and Genes.
  • Data show a statistical correlation between R and I
  • Data show G has a causal effect on I
  • Data show G has a causal effect on R (ie. one's self-reported race correlates with their 23andme)
This evidence leads some people to infer that the correlation between R and I is probably caused by a common effect of G. However, nobody has actually observed a gene that determines both the race that someone calls themselves, and also their IQ score. It is possible that completely different genes impact I from those that impact R. So, although the "circumstances" are consistent with a theory where the same genes are causing both I and R, we haven't actually observed a particular gene directly affecting both.
Is that what people mean? Toomim (talk) 08:03, 6 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
IP: Thanks for quoting these. I have no problem with finding wording that correctly supports the status of the science. but what we have in the lead now is "... whether and to what extent these differences reflect environmental factors as opposed to genetic ones, as well as what the definitions of "race" and "intelligence" are, and whether they can be objectively defined, is the subject of much debate. At present, there is no evidence that these differences in test scores have a genetic component." (emphasis mine). I think this adequately summarises Hunt's position. The reader can see that this is at present and does not need a qualification "but one day it may be different".
Toomin, I was not aware of any decision not to change the lead, but I understand that editors tend to gravitate to the lead and ignore the greater article, and this can be unproductive. However, if you check my edits, I changed the main first and then simply updated the lead to match. The reason is that the lead must summarise the article. If it is not summarising the article it needs changing. It should not be changed in a way that does not summarise the article. I am sure the lead can further be improved, and as long as it is an accurate summary of the main, and that it remains a summary, that should not be controversial (although I am willing to bet it will be ;) ) Thanks.-- Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 08:20, 6 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Sirfurboy, you aren't really addressing my point. The quote from pages 434-435 makes it clear that Hunt does think that there is some (indirect) evidence for a genetic component. If Hunt did not think that, he would not have concluded that "the 100% environmental hypothesis cannot be maintained", and that "(t)he real debate is over the identity and size of genetic and environmental influences on group differences in intelligence, not the existence of either one." If Hunt thought there were no evidence at all for a genetic component, why would he have concluded that environmental factors cannot explain the entire gap?
Hunt presents this conclusion in the context of summarizing Rushton and Jensen's argument for a genetic component, so the obvious meaning of this paragraph is that he considers some of the indirect evidence presented by Rushton and Jensen to be valid. He is clear about this in the previous paragraph as well: "In general, I find their arguments not so much wrong as vastly overstated. But overstatement does not mean that there is no point to them."
The other two sources (Mackintosh and Nisbett et al.) also do not support the statement that there is no evidence for a genetic component. These sources only say that there is very little evidence for it, and no direct evidence for it.
The wording was a more accurate reflection of these sources before your edit. Since Toomim is concerned about the double negative of "no non-circumstantial" evidence, I would support saying "no direct evidence" in both the body and the lead, which is the wording used in the Nisbett et al. paper. 2600:1004:B104:18E8:5017:B34A:213B:7FF (talk) 09:12, 6 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
source: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Race_and_intelligence&oldid=944203103

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