Talk:Race, Evolution and Behavior

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Contents 1 copy edits lost 2 editions 3 Professional opinions, etc 4 Critiques such as Flynn and Race 5 Terminology 6 methodology of aggregation 7 Removed NPOV warning on Validity of Race section

[edit] copy edits lost

a lot of the copy editing i did seems to have been lost in the shuffling. --Rikurzhen 01:42, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

I was under the impression you just did some copy paste - and it looked like you picked up some older versions of what was on the Rushton article before the massive purge. I've added back in sections you seemed to have missed. --JereKrischel 02:48, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] editions

what's up with the various editions? need some accounting of that. --Rikurzhen 01:42, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

added in the edition information. --JereKrischel 03:48, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Professional opinions, etc

I think the opinions section is important, and shouldn't be removed. Insofar as criticism that is directed towards Rushton v. towards RE&B, I think we need to be very careful in removing anything without making a strong case that it is not related to RE&B. --JereKrischel 02:47, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Critiques such as Flynn and Race

These critiques are directly related to the claims made in Race, Evolution and Behavior. Removing them seems inappropriate. --JereKrischel 03:00, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

Be careful that the material is not OR. The threshold for violating NOR is very low. Also, be careful about what you take to be mainstream opinion. For example, writing the the NY Review of Books, Biology Prof. H. Allen Orr writes:[1]

We all know that much evil has been committed in the name of various crackpot theories of race. But it does not follow that racial differences do not exist or that science can say nothing sensible about them.

conclusions that are broadly accepted by human geneticists ... human races are real and they correspond reasonably well to our folk distinctions between peoples from different continents.

it would be miraculous if these [racial] differences did not exist

[the existence of race differences] should come as no surprise

The Flynn effect is important to R&I, but not obviously related to this book; etc... --Rikurzhen 03:09, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

Just found the material in question. Both sections have to go as they are right now. Gil White is not a mainstream voice and there's simply no citations to back up the inclusion of any discussion of the Flynn Effect. --Rikurzhen 03:17, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

Gil-White may be as controversial a figure as Rushton, but you can't discount his relevance to the book and criticism of it. --JereKrischel 03:33, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

I happen to like Gil-White, however he has never criticised Rushton, and probably hasn't even heard of Rushton, so what in the world is he doing in this article? Criticising the concept of race is not the same as criticising Rushton's theory. Minorcorrections 03:45, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

Actually, Gil-White specifically mentions Rushton in his "Ressurecting Racism". See chapter 10 for the bulk of his discussion regarding Rushton and Race, Evolution and Behavior. --JereKrischel 03:51, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

The Flynn and Native American sections have no citations. They cannot be kept if they aren't verifiable. The race section does not present a balanced discussion of Rushton's view on race or of the mainstream view of scientists on race. A reference-based rewrite or simply a removal is needed. --Rikurzhen 04:55, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

Added citations as requested. The race section represents a significant, mainstream critique to Rushton's book - with the understanding that there is great controversy on the subject. --JereKrischel 08:03, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

The citations do not appear to support the text they are footnoting. The race section appears to focus on Cavalli-Sforza and his opinions about race. Luca's work is great, but making him the focus of the section is anachronistic. --Rikurzhen 08:33, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

Let me see if I can introduce some direct quotes from the citations to make the link clearer - I agree that the connection isn't well demonstrated, but I think that's an artifact of the shortness of the text. I'll try and do a pass at a tighter integration later tonight. Thanks Rik! --JereKrischel 18:09, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Terminology

I think either we go with REB's terminology (Mongoloid, Caucasoid, Negroid), or we go with the latest 2004 MeSH terminology. Since this is simply about Rushton's book, whatever terminology he favors in recent articles shouldn't enter into the equation. --JereKrischel 03:35, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

The MeSH terminology isn't used in papers that I've seen. the REB terminology is fine, so long as it's defined early on. REB 2nd pp. 42-43 gives Rushton's definitions which I think we echo here. alternatively, we can use the US English standard labels of White, Black and Asian, which would be easier on our readers. --Rikurzhen 04:56, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

Changed to the REB terminology - best not to assume that there are any standard "White", "Black" and "Asian" labels in US English, and use the terms in the book instead. --JereKrischel 07:42, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

It's not much of an assumption for U.S. English speakers: Race (United States Census). --Rikurzhen 08:39, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

I think you can see from the standard Census definitions, that 1) it doesn't appropriately map to Rushton's -oids, and can't be used interchangeably, and b) it is simply self-identification. --JereKrischel 17:24, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] methodology of aggregation

/2006-11-01 Archive

Sorry, this discussion is very interesting, but probably more appropriate for another venue - we jumped ship on improving the article and just started talking about our own personal interpretations and theories. Archived. --JereKrischel 07:58, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Removed NPOV warning on Validity of Race section

After adding information on Lewontin's Fallacy, I feel that this section does a good job of presenting both sides of the issue as well as promoting further investigation. I removed the the NPOV warning. Let me know if you disagree. Terry 21:03, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

Made some additional edits, I think you're moving in the right direction though. Hopefully they are to your satisfaction. --JereKrischel 00:02, 13 December 2006 (UTC)