Talk:Race and intelligence/Archive 9 (inherent language bias)

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Core discussions (restore deleted talk page discussions)

Can someone explain why the following discussions were deleted from this talk page earlier today without archiving? I suspect that is against wikipedia policy. I've restored most of the completely deleted discussion and much of the partially blanked or edited discussions.

POV title

This article's title concludes something that is still very much disputed. The points of nutrition, environmental factors, language and education etc seem to be completely discounted? Isn't one tenet of allegedly free society that everyone is treated as an individual? What about the point that SAT and IQ tests are biased? Hasn't the "No Child Left Behind Act" been disredited as actually making the situation worse in many cases? I suggest Bell curve theory or IQ discrepancy theories as more neutral replacement titles (though I think we can do even better than that and this article is still inherently POV). zen master T 19:58, 13 Jun 2005 (UTC)

How does (a) the cause of the relationship between race and intelligence (e.g., "environmental factors, language and education etc") affect (b) naming of the article, which recognizes only the existence of such a relationship? The existence of a relationship is the consensus POV of psychologists, regardless of the cause. Perhaps you are mistaking the meaning of "intelligence", which would be reason for more exposition in the article about what it means, but I think it's pretty clear from the intro. --Rikurzhen 20:17, Jun 13, 2005 (UTC)
You argue that the title merely points out IQ discrepancy allegations but you also seem to conclude or hint, as does this article, that race is the cause rather than environmental factors can have effects? That is racist. Needlessly commingling cause and effect is a technique generally only used by subtle POV pushers. The title of this article could just as easily be Socio-economics and intelligence or Nutrition and intelligence, why do you want to emphasize "race" when it is only one possible way of describing this alleged discrepancy? Now that I think about this even more, this racism is especially obvious and profoundly insidious after one realizes that this article haphazardly DESCRIBES the alleged discrepancy ONLY in racial terms FOR THE PURPOSE of implying cause. Using "race" in the title and emphasizing it can not possibly present the existence of this alleged discrepancy neutrally, and it's even more suspiciously non neutral because using that method of description hopelessly combines cause and effect. The concepts and descriptions of cause and effect should be disassociated to a much much greater degree. If this alleged IQ discrepancy is due to environmental factors then it would be inaccurate (or intentionally misdirective) for you or the title to mention race at all? Has the possibility of direct or indirect IQ sabotage been considered? Did all or most of the "conservative" POV pushers on wikipedia attend the same subtle uses of language skunkworks propaganda factory/university? zen master T 01:10, 14 Jun 2005 (UTC)
I VOTE NO -- AGAIN You've got it completely backwards. The fundamental question people are conerened about here is why do races differ in measured intelligence? (Please don't make me find a list of psychology textbooks to back up this asertion.) Thus the title of the article is race and intelligence. It would be inappropriate to put an answer to that question into the title, such as a rename to Socio-economics and intelligence or Nutrition and intelligence. Based on your criticisms, I don't believe you have read this article closely. There are myriad interpretations given in this article. Some are as strightforward and accidently tied to race as socio-economics or nutrition, but others are more subtle and tied directly to race like racism or test bias or genetics. If racism or test bias or genetics were the cause of the IQ gap then race really would be the fundamental feature here. If the cause were merely socioeconomics or nutrition, then race would be an accidently feature. Regardless, the question people want answered is why do races differ in measured intelligence? The closest thing to a consesus among researchers is we don't know yet. Please read the article carefully before making such demands and please avoid personal attacks. --Rikurzhen 01:25, Jun 14, 2005 (UTC)
Putting "race" in the title and emphasizing it in the article is unscientifically presumptive as to the cause of the alleged discrepancy and clearly not neutral. Asking the question the way you do implies the answer you want. The article does indeed offhandedly mention a "myriad" of other "interpretations" but always the alleged discrepancy is described in terms of "race" which needlessly combines cause and effect. If the root cause of this alleged discrepancy is wealth then race is not a factor other than proving minorities are less wealthy? The effects of a phenomenon have to be presented with pristine neutrality before any cause can be determined accurately/scientifically. I have read and understand the article very clearly (after thinking about it for an hour). Your repetition and emphasis of the same language misuse exposes your motivation. zen master T 01:47, 14 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Accusing me of having an ill motivation will not win you an argument. If you're read this article then you will know that the consensus POV is that socioeconomic factors (or any of a large number of other factors) cannot account for the different average IQs of people of different races. The question I presented is the one found in all of the literature on this subject. Your opinions, and mine as well, are irrelevant. The question in psychology text books, in research articles, and in the news media is why do races differ in measured intelligence? Thus, the long-standing title of this article. --Rikurzhen 02:07, Jun 14, 2005 (UTC)
I think we could get a better title. If the text books, research articles, etc., really use the word "races", I hope they are using it "advisedly" and explaining somewhere that it is a quick and dirty substitute for some long-winded phrase that ties to an adequate definition, and that they specify what they mean by intelligence and how they measure it. The problem is that people who are fairly well educated in this field will understand one thing by "race," and members of the general public will understand something else.
You say above that "the consensus POV is that socioeconomic factors (or any of a large number of other factors) cannot account for the different average IQs of people of different races." Does that equate to saying that the racial identies qua racial identities of people do account for their different average IQs? P0M 02:32, 14 Jun 2005 (UTC)
I'm afraid that's difficult to tease apart, because racial identity is generally treated as a reliable marker of whatever race is supposed to be fundamentally (a mix of social, cultural, and biological factors). Depending on exactly what you mean by the question, examination of test bias or stereotype threat might be an example of studying the impact of racial identity. Some research with mixed race children who were thought to be white also gets at that, but its one small part of a small study. But of course all of this is covered in the text of the article... immediately following the title. First we explain what the relationship in question is (i.e., different population averages, not typological differences), then we explain loosely what meanings of race and intelligence are under discussion. Then we present a few prominent (but minority) objections to this entire line of work. Then we present some historical background. Then we present the data in more detail. Then we present the various prominent interpretations. We close with a discussion of practical/political significance and a summary. ... But in the end ... there's no short phrase other than "race and intelligence" that captures the underlying researh project better (more completely and with fewer assumptions) than what we have now. This is the best we can do. --Rikurzhen 02:51, Jun 14, 2005 (UTC)

Responding to Rikurzhen above, I am not directly accusing you, I merely point out that racism is the most plausible explanation/motivation for your actions (or being blinded by someone else's language propaganda misuse). There is no consensus to present the issue in terms of race. How can the environmental and/or nutritional explanations be presented fair and neutrally as the cause of the alleged discrepancy if the effect of the issue is presented only in racial terms? You are quite literally trying to trick people into assuming race is the cause of the alleged discrepancy by repetitively and exclusively framing the effect in terms of race. The fact that many psychology text books and literature also misuse language and/or needlessly commingle cause and effect is not evidence for anything (although that is profoundly suspicious additionally). zen master T 02:55, 14 Jun 2005 (UTC)

This will be my last response unless you have a citation to back up your claims. Please consider that you are claiming a mass conspiricy of academics (i.e., notoriously liberal) has allowed a massive confusion to be expounded throughout the psychology literature about whether races differ in average measured intelligence and whether this difference isn't merely explained away easily. The current title reflects the content of the article, which in turn reflects the scientific literature. That's the best and only way to write an article and give it a title. --Rikurzhen 03:01, Jun 14, 2005 (UTC)
Language and logic clarity don't need citations but you certainly can chose to ignore or misdirect away from them if you like. "notoriously liberal" is yet more repetition of language misuse designed to illustrate a propaganda point. If there are theories X, Y, and Z that possibly explain the cause of a discrepancy then why do you, this article and "psychology textbooks" frame the effects of the issue exclusively and repeatedly in terms of Z (race)? You have tainted any conclusion of Z as the cause by unobjectively and unscientifically describing the effects of the issue only in terms of Z. The effects of an alleged discrepancy have to be presented with pristine neutrality before a determination of cause can begin. zen master T 03:28, 14 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Dude, I'm getting a headache just trying to figure out what's the exact problem here. All I can gather is that Zen Master thinks that the article is biased for presenting only X-causes-Y theory. (Question 1:Am I reading this right?) Second question, a rephrase of the 1st: Do you mean to say that intelligence affects race as opposed to race affecting intelligence? (I'm trying to understand your cause and effect argument above.) So, I have a question (and forgive me if it was answered in the past, but I'm not going to search a month of archives). THIRD (and main) QUESTION: Zen Master, what is your proposed SOLUTION to the problem you espouse? (I mean, specifically, what changes do you feel need to be made and why?) Thank you. I shall "watch" this page for like a day or so to wait for an answer from someone, anyone.--GordonWattsDotCom 09:40, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)
The issue is one of language bias. The cause and effect argument is that the abstract disparity has many ways of being described, "race" vs "IQ" is just one possible way. Note how the article and some users on this talk page always describe everything in terms of "race" vs "IQ" even when describing alternative causes, but isn't that misleading, if the root cause of the disparity is because of "wealthy" vs "nutrition" then why is "race" repeatedly implicated as a cause? Since there is no scientific consensus on a cause for the abstract disparity why does this article hint at cause by repeatedly emphasizing "race"? Repeated emphasis and framing of the issue in "race" vs "IQ" terms wears down the mind into thinking about the issue only in racial terms, which is wrong, the disparity is abstract so the article should convey that fact. To put it even more simply, the word "race" is both a way of describing the unexplained disparity and also a possible conclusion for that disparity which is at best needlessly ambiguous and at worst POV, an article must present the issue using neutral language first. zen master T 09:54, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Wait...... The only way I can interpret your question is that you think psychologists who study this are dumb and they don't realize that race is associated with a wide array of factors. Clearly they do. Why else would they go to such lengths to try to tease this relationship apart? All of this is in the article. --Rikurzhen 03:53, Jun 14, 2005 (UTC)

Here's the question: why do races differ in average measured intelligence (IQ, brain size, school achievement, etc)? The answer is not any obvious social or cultural factors. Merely controlling for income or education eliminates only 1/3 of the gap (ignoring that you haven't controlled for genetic effects on income). So the article cannot be about how those factors affect IQ and ignore race. The reason it has to be about race and intelligence is that there is no consensus about why those two are related -- but its clearly there's a connection somehow. So it's an open question. One of social and political importance. It cannot be explained away easily... so the article has to start with the question. And then the various suggested answers can be described. I don't know how else to explain this. --Rikurzhen 03:47, Jun 14, 2005 (UTC)

You keep repeatedly presuming the answer to your question by the manner in which you ask it. Your question just as easily could be phrased as "why do people from different wealth levels differ in average measured intelligence?" You do frame "alternative explanations" offhandedly as a possible alternative cause but you consistently and repeatedly frame the effects of issue solely in terms of race (for the purpose of tricking people into thinking that is the cause). Cause and effect need to be decoupled and disassociated before anyone can prove anything. zen master T 04:00, 14 Jun 2005 (UTC)
NO! "why do people from different wealth levels differ in average measured intelligence?" could or could not be a completely different question, depending on whether race differences in IQ are due to differnces in wealth. then you go look at this and the consensus is that this isn't the cause. all the studies in this paper are trying to decouple and dissociate cause and effect. none succeed enough to be called a concensus answer, so we are left showing the whole thing from the ground up. starting from wealth is unhelpful to describing the research on this question. you'd have to break this article up into a hundred pieces to address every little theory that's be proposed to explain the IQ gap. the particular question addressed in this article is a major research topic and based on the available data it cannot be rephrased or dissolved. --Rikurzhen 04:08, Jun 14, 2005 (UTC)

If racial identies qua racial identities of people do account for some part of their different average IQs, how would we establish that conclusion? First, we have to have samples of some group that we can be sure of. Eventually, we would want to check genetically, but to get started we might start with Icelanders (who have well-recorded family histories if I recall correctly), and we might choose Japanese as our second group. Possibly we could get several generations of geneological information there too. Unless we had incredibly bad luck with coincidences, we should measure some differences in average intelligence. The next thing we would have to do would be to control for contingent factors such as family income, educational system, etc., etc. If we believed that 5 other factors could muddy our results and controlled for all 5 factors, then if there were still a gap between the average IQ scores of the two groups, we would claim that the evidence supports the hypothesis that some genetic factors shared among most members of a population determined differences in measurable intelligence.

On the way toward substantially complete control of ancillary factors we might find that our answers jumped back and forth between numbers on two sides of some value, and we could see as we refined our results that the final answer was likely to be, e.g., 5%. On the other hand, we might find that the numbers were jumping closer and closer to zero. When we got down to what seemed to be a likely stopping point, we would have to look at the size of the difference in average IQs and determine whether the difference was statistically significant. Have I got it right so far? P0M 04:24, 14 Jun 2005 (UTC)

An ideal research project to answer your question is outlined in this paper. But it's unlikely to ever be done. --Rikurzhen 04:35, Jun 14, 2005 (UTC)

Ħ I've read most of that article and have yet to come to the research project, but I have noticed the point the authors make regarding the ethical questions involved when one group investigates the IQs of other groups and publishes results that might be interpreted by some to serve ideological goals of a negative kind.

Ħ So far, the article seems to me to be right in line with what I've outlined above, and the general possibility that once all the dust has settled out of the air the differences in psychometric intelligence among population groups (I note that they can mostly avoid the use of the word "race") may well sink below the level of statistical significance. P0M 19:27, 14 Jun 2005 (UTC)

My point is you and others repeatedly frame the issue (the alleged discrepancy) exclusively in racial terms apprently because you want to intentionally confuse cause and effect. That is racist. You need to describe the effects of the alleged discrepancy in non racial terms before you can consider race as a cause (if you want to remain scientific but you are way past that). zen master T 02:00, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Cause and Effect in Language

I consider it subtly yet profoundly racist to frame the effects of the alleged discrepancy repeatedly and exclusively in racial terms with the apparent goal being to confuse effect with cause. There are a myriad of different ways of describing the alleged discrepancy's effects, but that does not prove cause. To be neutral this acticle and subject should describe the alleged discrepancy's effects in terms that aren't also possible causes (or use all such terms equally), we need to decouple/disassociate cause and effect at a language usage level. I am the only one that finds this repeated use of subtle yet profound language propaganda on wikipedia and elsewhere to be very suspicious? It is a master key that potentially unlocks everything. zen master T 19:09, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Dude. We've had this conversation. That's a conspiracy theory. We present what's in the published literature; not what we think up ourselves. --Rikurzhen 19:51, Jun 15, 2005 (UTC)
Then why above did you simply repeat the same misuse of language (effect implying cause) when I pointed it out? You seem to be completely ignoring and deflecting away from this point? You have already given yourself away in the manner in which you respond. Even if we dubiously assume race is a factor for this alleged discrepancy to be neutral shouldn't we present the effects in non racial terms? The goal seems to be to use endless repetition and emphasis on race in describing the discrepancy's effects for the purpose of wearing people down into assuming effect is cause. That is the most racist thing I've ever heard of. "conspiracy theory" itself is another separate language misuse repetition. Either this article and many "published literature" sources have cause and effect needlessly associated through a misuse of language or they do not. zen master T 20:12, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC)
But of course they don't confuse cause and effect because they are people trained all their lives to figure out such problem and they are applying the methods of science to do just that on the question of why there are statistical differences in the distrubtion of IQ scores between races. The entire section 4 of this article is dedicated to determining cause and effect. I know of no other way to explain this better than I have already tried. It's plain and clear to me. Can anyone else help explain this? --Rikurzhen 20:15, Jun 15, 2005 (UTC)
You just did it again, you presented the discrepancy exclusively in racial terms when it just as easily could have been presented in economic, nutritional, or environmental terms. You fail to note there are statistical differences with all those other ways of looking at the effects of this discrepancy too. Why do you repeatedly present the effects of this discrepancy exclusively in racial terms? zen master T 20:33, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Sorry -- typo -- section 3 Culture-only or partially-genetic explanation? -- is the section which examines these possibilities. Doesn't that make sense? They are examined (sections 3.1-3.8), compared (3.9), miscellaeous extra theories are mentioned (3.10) and overall none are found sufficient to be called a consensus explantion (section 3.11). --Rikurzhen 21:11, Jun 15, 2005 (UTC)

Rikurzhen, you keep playing psychological language games. You and the article do present alternative causes for the discrepancy but they are always presented as causes, you never describe the discrepancy's effects using terms from any alternative cause/interpretation. Instead, you repeatedly, to the point of propagandizing, describe the discrepancy's effects only in racial terms for the apparent purpose of wearing people down into errantly assuming that effect equals cause. How many people have attended this psychological misuse of language propaganda skunkworks factory/university? it must be quite few? What is your motivation for doing what you do? It seems infinitely evil to me. zen master T 22:39, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC)

All of us! Everyone with a PhD is secretly conspiring to use propaganda to obfuscate this issue. From textbook writers to IQ researchers to the staunchest critics of IQ researchers. And my motivation? PURE EVIL!!! I work on Wikipedia for the love of EVIL and obfuscation; that's why I meticulously add citations when I write and spend lots of time consulting sources -- so no one can verify my work -- propaganda!! obfuscate!!! EVIL!!!! ... enough of this ... someone else will have to answer your questions --Rikurzhen 22:54, Jun 15, 2005 (UTC)
Zen Master, Rikurzhen is a model of neutrality and politeness, working on a complex article. I think it's beyond politeness to make accusations of propagandizing and of having evil motivations. This article is a model Wikipedia article that is impeccably referenced, and in the recent VFD was only opposed by about 4 of the 40 or so voters. --Nectarflowed T 22:57, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC)
He is a model of propaganda and misdirection as far as this article is concerned at least. Why won't either of you two comment on or try to refute the fact that it's not neutral to present this alleged IQ discrepancy's effects exclusively in racial terms? You always just respond to that point with a question that again frames the discrepancy's effects in terms of race, why? You are obviously trying to perpetuate psychologically damaging language by needlessly commingling cause and effect. zen master T 01:51, 16 Jun 2005 (UTC)
my answer ... again ... written ... very ... slowly: --Rikurzhen 02:50, Jun 16, 2005 (UTC)
  • the fundamental reason: It would be illogical ... to have written about this topic ... starting from the question of ... how intelligence is related to a factor ... other than race ... because there is no consensus among scholars ... as seen from numerous sources ... about why races differ in average IQ. The published consensus is ... that no simple obvious factors ... account for racial differences in IQ. Thus ... starting with some factor ... other than race ... would have not lead to a meaningful discussion ... on this socially significant topic.
  • the proximal reason: As Wikipedia edtiors ... our job is to act like reporters ... describing what exists in the world. a debate about race and intelligence ... specifcally about race and intelligence ... exists in the world. Scholars in the world ... approaches the topic ... from the question of race and intelligence. Thus ... we are duty bound ... to neutrally present this article ... in a way ... that represents what exists in the world ... to present race and intelligence.
You are a master at psychological language games I now see judging from these two paragraphs (nice use of ellipses), also your buddies sure know how to fill in space below. If there is "no consensus amongst scholars" (your words) then this article should not frame the discrepancy factor in terms of race. You yet again tried to confuse cause and effect (factor = effect), the obviousness of your repetition gives you away. Repeatedly presenting this issue in the manner you do using psychological word game trickery propaganda is obviously racist, just admit the truth. zen master T 06:13, 16 Jun 2005 (UTC)
If I am the "buddy" who fills in space, all I can tell you is that I have tried to make as clear to you as I can the way I think about these issues. I was trying to be helpful to you. You are not obligated to read what I have written, and the space is free. If you have objections to what I have said and can express yourself clearly enough for me to understand you may even succeed in educating me. P0M 06:40, 16 Jun 2005 (UTC)
The way you think/present this issue is racist. You are intentionally or unintentionally confusing cause and effect. Because "race" is a possible cause that word should not be used to describe the discrepancy's effects. Why has everyone in this thread and the thread above responded to my points with just more and more repetition that frames the issue as a "racial" discrepancy? zen master T 23:26, 16 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Look at my recent posting. Particularly look my postings for 3 May, 17 May, 9 June, and 14 June. I don't even ***believe*** in [race] or [races]. And I have been arguing that even if people in the general population started thinking about the problem addressed in this article because during World War II (or whenever it was when they started doing lots of IQ testing on troops) and observed a significant disparity between Black recruits and White recruits, the more the results are refined the smaller the measured difference between [races] has become. It remains to be seen whether I am right and the difference eventually drops below the level of statistical significance or whether others are guessing right and there turns out to be a genetic component (e.g., it might turn out that Chinese have more of the smartness gene or Whites have more of the stupidity gene, so to speak). I could go on, but I'll end up citing all my own postings, which would not be very helpful.
You assert that I confuse cause and effect. I'm not sure what you mean. I assume that you think I believe that race causes intelligence. But if to say that is to reverse cause and effect then the right idea would be that "intelligence causes race." I think that you surely can't mean what you seem to be saying.
Genetically, you and I are different from my horse. I am pretty sure that the reason I am smarter than she is mostly depends on the difference in our genetics, just as I'm sure that no matter how hard I train I'd never beat her in a mile race. I'm willing to assume, for the sake of argument, that all human beings have exactly the same genetic intelligence. Then the question becomes, why is Moran not another Einstein? There are a large number of known factors that could have reduced my intelligence. My mother could have been indulging in lots of drugs during my gestation, the oxygen supply to my brain could have been cut off for a while during delivery, I could have been dropped on my head, I could have been systematically abused by toxic parents, or, I could have been systematically deprived by a society that denied me equal nutrition, equal educational opportunities, equal self image, etc., etc.
So maybe your idea is that "treating someone as a [white Race] person is supposed to be treated causes the person to become a dull [white Race] person, but people think that being a [white Race] person causes the person to be dull and deserve to be treated accordingly," and that "If you treated a [white race] person entirely as if he were a [Chinese race] person, that would cause him/her to be bright."
The funny thing is that the position outlined immediately above is my position -- with one additional caveat required. I personally do not make any claim to know anything about the innate intelligence of human beings. My favorite teacher thought everyone has exactly the same intellectual potential. Some people disagree with her, assuming that there is a normal distribution curve with lots of people of moderate intelligence in the middle, Newton and Einstein and a few others on the high end and Beavis on the low end. Some people think the whole Newton family was brighter than every member of the Moran family. Some people think the average intelligence of the [English race] is higher than the average intelligence of the [Irish race]. (Well, with Newton weighing in, they might have a big advantage.) But I don't know, and I don't pretend to know. All I know is that it is possible to really mess up a person's intellectual capabilities by doing a whole catalog full of negative things -- from starting the kid out as a crack baby to traumatizing the kid as a college student put in a calculus class taught by a heartless nerd. Now tell me what I've got wrong. P0M 02:23, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)

My "cause and effect" point was about a misuse of language in the presentation of this subject. Every time this alleged discrepancy is mentioned in the article its effects are described in racial terms, never in nutritional or environmental terms. Such alternative explanations (nutrition etc) are mentioned in the artcle as possible alternative causes (then pretty much discounted but that is a separate issue). The way this subtle language propaganda works is repeatedly and exclusively describing the issue in racial terms for the purpose of tricking the brain into thinking about the issue only in racial terms when there are numerous other/better ways of thinking about the exact same alleged discrepancy. The confusion exists because the word "race" in this context is both a way of describing the alleged discrepancy and also a possible cause for it, which is needlessly ambiguous. To remain scientific an article should present a subject neutrally before concluding anything about that subject (which means don't use ambiguous language or descriptive language that is also a possible conclusion). When someone asks what about nutrition as a possible cause the propagandist would repeatedly respond with something like "but studies show nutrition only explains part of the racial discrepancy". Do you see it now? Why is the word "race" the only adjective used in the article to describe this alleged discrepancy when there are many possibilities (even when describing other causes)? To flip my point around, why doesn't this article ever have a sentence that looks something like "race may not be a factor in the nutritional discrepancy"? The alleged discrepancy is the same regardless of the different ways of thinking about the issue and the words chosen to present it, wikipedia however is required to use neutral unambiguous words. zen master T 06:12, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)

first, don't break people's text. second, substitute sex for race and height for intelligence and ask yourself whether you think your argument still makes any sense. sex is not the effect of sex differences in height. race is not the effect of race differences intelligence. sex is a prima facia cause of sex differences in height. also, sex hormones are a prima facia cause of sex differences in height. likewise, "race" (or racism) is a prima facia cause of race differences in intelligence. before experiments were done, many other factors were prima facia possible causes of race differences in intelligence. ... so to complete the analogy. sex is a significant independent factor in the matrix of associations with human height. race is a significant independent factor in the matrix of associations with human intelligence. we could have any number of articles that begin with some factor and describe its connection with height or intelligence. but to ignore race's connection with intelligence (or sex's influence with height) is impermissible given the huge literature built around the topic and the obvious significance of racial or gender stratrification on each variable. --Rikurzhen 07:11, Jun 17, 2005 (UTC)
To put what Rikurzhen said in another way, suppose you were looking at the levels of intelligence of all the people in Australia (for instance). You note that some people are less intelligent than others, and you want to understand why so you can prevent people from having problems in life. You look at pre-natal challenges (mother on drugs, etc.), birthing problems, post-natal nutrition, etc., etc. Would you, on an a priori basis, exclude consideration of the possibility that intelligence levels run in families, i.e., that there is an inherited component to intelligence? And would you, on an a priori basis, forbid yourself and everybody else from looking at the possibility that intelligence runs in clans or in even larger groups of people with some degree of shared inheritance? A parallel example would be an investigation of malnutrition in school children. You might examine the children for parasites, you might examine them for lactose intolerance, and in fact you might end up with a whole list of possible causes of malnutrition. But would it be responsible to rule out, from the very beginning, the possibility that parents were failing to feed these kids an adequate diet? You might find that every parent did provide a very adequate diet, that the contribution value of deliberate underfeeding is 0. But you wouldn't know that unless you realized it was a possibility and then checked it out. If you are responsible for curing malnutrition, you can't just say, "Oh, no, the parents of our fair country would never be too stingy or too poor to fail to provide their children with an adequate diet. Malnutrition must be caused by some of these other factors." You cannot rule out a factor unless you study it. P0M 07:15, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Responding to Rikurzhen above, breaking text is a must when people are unnecessarily long winded, I was responding directly to Patrick's statement about not understanding my "cause and effect" point. Race is not a "prima facia" cause of difference in intelligence, it can't be given at least partial alternative explanations and the fact that it changes over time, and even if it were an encyclopedia should still present the issue neutrally which means not jumping to conclusions and avoiding ambiguous and potentially confusing language. Conclusions should be based on fact rather than on subtle yet profoundly ambiguous psychologically confusing language. You have curiously avoided this point of mine, about the need to present this issue using neutral language no matter what, even if we dubiously assume for the sake of argument your conclusion is the correct one. All your rhetoric seems to be repetition in support of maintaining this profound misuse of confusing language (you keep digging a bigger, more obvious hole). In the article there is research that in every culture worldwide less "dominant" people have lower intelligence than the "dominant" people which disproves the entire premise of a causation between race and intelligence, especially considering the same "dominant" or more intelligence "race" in one country is a less "dominant" "race" in another country. The fact that nutrition has more to do with height than gender should tell you something about genetic differences. zen master T 07:21, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)

you seem unwilling to accept our explanation for why, fundamentally, research has happened as it has. but you have no choice but to recognize the proximal matter that your personal opinions don't constitute a source for changing this article... copied from above: --Rikurzhen 07:39, Jun 17, 2005 (UTC)
the proximal reason: As Wikipedia edtiors our job is to act like reporters describing what exists in the world. a debate about race and intelligence specifcally about race and intelligence exists in the world. Scholars in the world approaches the topic from the question of race and intelligence. Thus we are duty bound to neutrally present this article in a way that represents what exists in the world to present race and intelligence.

put another way, WP:NOR ... that should mark the end of this --Rikurzhen 07:43, Jun 17, 2005 (UTC)

Huh? You are using circular logic. A debate about "race and intelligence" does indeed exist in the world, but it also exists under different names such as "nutrition and intelligence", "economics and intelligence". Scholars most certainly do not uniformly present the issue in "race and intelligence" terms and they certainly don't use repetition to confuse effect with cause. Research has "happened" but as wikipedia editors our job is to present that research neutrally which means avoiding ambiguous and confusing language. Just because one "race" tests worse than another is not proof of causality, you have to describe this discrepancy using neutral adjectives before you can begin arriving at a conclusion scientifically. All conclusions formed on top of a foundation of ambiguous and subtly confusing language are tainted. I repeat, why should we use non neutral language to present this subject even if we assume (dubiously) your conclusion is the correct one? You seem to be deflecting away from an analysis on the (lack of) clarity and neutrality of language? zen master T 08:16, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)
This article is about the connections between race and intelligence, which is not synonymous with "nutrition and intelligence." Let me complete a sentence you wrote above: "When someone asks what about nutrition as a possible cause [of the racial discrepancy], the propagandist would repeatedly respond with something like "but studies show nutrition only explains part of the racial discrepancy". The subject of discussion is the racial discrepancy.--Nectarflowed T 08:27, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)

An unexplained disparity does exist, "race" is just one way of looking at it (usage of the word "discrepancy" in this context is also not appropriate now that I think about it). Just because this "discrepancy" can be literally described in racial terms is not evidence for any conclusion (you have intentionally confused effect with cause). If nutrition is the biggest/only factor then this "discrepancy" is instead best known as a "nutrition distribution disparity". Within a "nutrition distribution disparity" some "races" are going to test worse than others, cause and effect. But you assume/hint the cause of the "discrepancy" when you are describing its effect (the word for both is the same: "race"). Just because the title does literally describe one way of looking at the "discrepancy" doesn't make it neutral, especially considering you like to combine language confusion with repetition. zen master T 08:49, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)

your comments are completely unsupported by the facts/opinions found in published sources acceptable for use in wikipedia. you're wholly ignoring both our explanations and the material already found in the article. nothing productive is going on here. --Rikurzhen 08:59, Jun 17, 2005 (UTC)
How can that be true when I am simply analyzing your and the article's use of language? "acceptable for use" does not mean let's perpetuate a misuse of language. Neutrality is the prime directive of wikipedia. zen master T 09:07, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Let me reply to your previous comment. The discrepancy under discussion is the discrepancy between racial groups. "An unexplained disparity does exist [between racial groups], "race" is just one way of looking at it." In order to divide the population according to race, you divide it according to race. Dividing by "nutrition distribution," on the otherhand, would have members of the races spread throughout the divisions --something which does not occur when you divide the population according to race.
The advantage here of dividing the population according to race is that it lets us compare them and try to identify the factors creating the discrepancy between them. It is uncontroversial that there is an IQ gap between the races; that is supported by overwhelming amounts of data. Race and intelligence research wants to know why that gap is there. --Nectarflowed T

Dividing the population by race is just one way of dividing the population, nutrition distribution is another. The unexplained disparity is the same regardless of the numerous ways the issue can be framed (the disparity is abstract, outside of the adjectives used to describe it). Some of that data you mention is just one way of describing the effect of the disparity, it does not prove cause. Why do you keep repeating provably errant language? There is numerous data that indicates "race" is a non factor in intelligence. Can you comment on my point about studies that show a disparity worldwide between the "dominant" "race" of one country vs other "races" within that country? You don't seem to be familiar with or support the scientific method, shouldn't we follow that here? Shouldn't Wikipedia strive for a higher neutrality where possible? If we assume, dubiously, that your conclusion of cause is the correct one why don't you want people to truly understand and believe it because facts were presented, rather than pressume it merely because confusing and misdirecting language was used? The only plausible answer I can come up with to that question is that you are a racist propagandist (please correct me if I am wrong). zen master T 18:27, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)

please correct me if I am wrong YOU'RE WRONG... about most of the facts you just claimed. The unexplained disparity is the same regardless of the numerous ways the issue can be framed instead, the disparty is very different depending on how the issue is framed. There is numerous data that indicates "race" is a non factor in intelligence that's the opposite of the scientific consensus which existed as long ago as 1994. an argument predicated on false propositions may be logically valid, but it's not true. the reason your POV is not seen in the research literature is that it has little connection to available evidence. neither IQ researchers nor their critics are confused in the way that you seem to be. your opinions thus constitute original research of the worst kind. --Rikurzhen 18:39, Jun 17, 2005 (UTC)
Point me to info on scientific studies that show race is the cause of the disparity? There is not even consensus that the IQ tests are an accurate or objective measure of intelligence. There are numerous studies on a disparity of pre natal care between people of different socio-economic backgrounds (lack of universal health care) so how can "race" be the only factor? There can't be a consensus or else no one would have valid arguments for at least partial alternative explanations. Just because the language propaganda started in 1994 doesn't prove cause. You failed again to respond to my other points, why? What about presenting this issue neutrally no matter what? Every thing you are saying relates to protecting a status quo conclusion and use of mentally misdirecting language that you must like. How can I be POV when I have assumed for the sake of argument, dubiously, that your conclusion is the correct one but we should still present the subject neutrally and use the scientific method? You have curiously not commented on the need to present the issue neutrally first, then work towards finding a conclusion. Don't use language that jumps to conclusions, in this case doing so would be racist. zen master T 19:08, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)
I've decided to not waste time on this discussion thread any longer. Re-read the article or read a few review papers to better famaliarize yourself with this topic. --Rikurzhen 19:22, Jun 17, 2005 (UTC)
That is your choice. My main point is not this "topic" itself, it is the neutrality of language used in any presentation but you keep repeatedly misdirecting away from any sort of language analysis. zen master T 19:30, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)
As long as you don't violate WP:NOR by trying to bring your novel POV into the article, then write whatever you'd like on this talk page. --Rikurzhen 19:46, Jun 17, 2005 (UTC)

Could you explain exactly what "original research" I am trying to present? Seems like more propaganda and repetition on your part to try to misframe the issue to third parties. Though I agree striving for language neutrality is indeed a novel idea, hopefully it spreads. zen master T 23:17, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I'll try my best to comment on what I think you're saying. First, the IQ gap between ethnic groups is scientifically well established, not merely "alleged." What is controversial is whether the cause is only environmental, such as lower education levels, or partially genetic. This article is on the topic of the IQ gap between these groups (races), so it does continually refer to possible causes of the gap in terms of the groups under discussion (races). The article isn't on, for example, the IQ gap between socioeconomic groups, which is a topic that would refer to the gap in terms of socioeconomic groups, not races.
When you talk of effects and causes, are you talking about the IQ gap being an effect of a non-genetic cause, such as education level of the parent? Doesn't the article cover these possible socioeconomic causes? Can you give specific examples of what we're doing wrong, and how that could be fixed?--Nectarflowed T 02:39, 16 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Let me jam this in here. I'm responding to Zen, but got behind in the queue. I don't think that it is fair to make accusations that attack Rikurzhen's motivation. We should stick with the issues.

Before I write more, let me state that when I put a word in square brackets I mean by that, "I am not at all sure that this word/concept is a valid one." For instance, I might write, "The [flying saucers] were observed flying figure 8s over Los Vegas." That means that people reported seeing something flying over Los Vegas, and they categorized the things they saw as "flying saucers," but who knows what that really means.

I'm not positive, historically, how this [race] and [intelligence] question came about, nor am I aware of who started this article or what their motivation was. The fact remains that some people have made IQ tests on large numbers of people of various [races], and they have found that when they categorize people in a certain way and when they conduct IQ tests in a certain way they can average the results and find differences among them. My personal take on this situation is that Chinese people test better than Anglo-type Americans because the Chinese culture has made education a "value" since sometime around 700 BC if not earlier, and they have a culture that is, relatively speaking, extremely good at avoiding the production of dysfunctional people. My own culture, at least as I experienced it growing up, is more than a little anti-intellectual, hinders the development of the intellect with many dysfunctional cultural "features" (as the software guys say, "That's not a bug, that's a feature."), creates an attitude of entitlement rather than the expectation that one will have to work to get something, and compounds that "feature" with the additional feature that it is good at specifying desired results without being able to guide people effectively toward achieving those results. That's my point of view. Now let's look at how I react to the difference between the relatively low IQ average of my group and the relatively high IQ average of the Chinese group.

Some people could argue that the Chinese group is genetically superior to the White group in the field of IQ-test-taking. That kind of opinion could hurt my feelings, but opposing it would neither raise nor lower my own personal IQ score, nor would it raise or lower the scores of others in my group. If I were being objective about things, I would not care. What I care about is whether I and the members of my group are hindered is some way from the successful pursuit of true happiness. So this IQ result should be of interest to me. First I will want to assure myself that the test is a good predictor of whether people will do well in school, whether they will do well in their chosen way of life, etc. So I find out that people who don't test well usually have a devil of a time in the school system, and people who do test well usually have a much easier time. Then the question becomes, why is my group not doing as well as the Chinese. If I can figure out why, then it may be possible to improve the success rate of the members of my group.

Like it or not, the deck has been stacked in one way. The very nature of the discovery of a group of people who underperforms involved segregation by [race]. So a very easy hypothesis to make is going to be membership in the [White race] causes people to be of lower intelligence than people in the [Chinese race]. That idea may actually be based on a misapprehension. Perhaps the causal factor is actually lactose tolerance (which dumbs down the brain cells) vs. lactose intolerance (which brightens up the individual as soon as s/he gets weaned), and all the other traits that make somebody a member of the [White race] are irrelevant. It just happens that dairy farming is adaptive in only certain places around the globe, and most of the dairy farming land is in Europe where the [White race] got started. Maybe all we have to do is to really wean our children. But the way the question, "What is going on with these less intelligent [White race] folks?" was formed, people may miss out on the truth for a long time.

As somebody who has an interest in this less than stellarly intelligent group's welfare, I will not want to deny the test results. I will not want to deny the fact that something is holding my group back vis-a-vis the other groups being tested. As a civilized human being I should not hope to find something that would give my group a boost without the possibility of helping any member of any other group as well. If lactose tolerance is the problem, there are some Chinese that share that risk factor too.

But I will want not to blindly assume that there is a simple correlation between my being a member of the [White race] and my intelligence, either. I will want to ask, for instance, whether dependency needs of my group are not being met to the standard that they are met in other groups -- and, indeed, whether my group might not leap-frog other groups if the actual dependency needs were fully understood. It is known, for instance, that infants deprived of affection do not thrive, and that in some cases they die. There's a limit case: without any care at all, infants surely die. You can do without affection and survive after (perhaps) the age of three, but before that the earlier and the more severely deprivation is experienced the higher the mortality. So what does that say about the general ability to succeed in life of individuals who have enough of their needs met to survive but not enough to thrive? If the issue is nutrition, it is clear that early deprivation can lead to deficits that cannot be repaired later in life. As a member of the [White race], I would want to know whether there were unmet dependency needs that influence the lifelong intellectual capabilities of my group. (And a bunch of other stuff as well, of course.)

Does that much sound o.k. so far? If it does, then we can go on to ask how we can discuss the situation in which we find ourselves with regard to the IQ tests of members of the [White race] and members of the [Chinese race] without being hurtful to anyone. P0M 03:29, 16 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Isn't it fundamentally fallacious to assume that differences in test scores = differences in IQ (or in g)? To begin with, in terms of measuring IQ, an IQ test provides an estimator of IQ (whatever IQ may be). It doesn't measure true IQ. Like any form of communication, it only communicates effectively with those who are schooled in the dominant idiom. I remember trying an online test, seeing some question for the first time and puzzling over it. Once I got it right, I had no problem with other questions of that type - it went from incredibly difficult to fairly intuitive once I figured it out once. Any test is coachable. Schools teach how to take standardised tests. Think Kaplan and the GREs. Does the achievement gap between White Americans and African Americans remain when they are both given tests designed for non-Americans? I doubt those tests have been done, but until they have been done, repeatedly, you cannot begin to control for the cultural bias of the tests. Guettarda 04:17, 16 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Section 3.1 --Rikurzhen 04:41, Jun 16, 2005 (UTC)

I'm highly suspicious of anything by Rushton, especially when he is citing The Bell Curve? The truth may be in there, but how can you tell when it comes from sources like that? Rushton says: Many critics claim that Western-developed IQ tests are not valid for groups as culturally different as sub-Saharan Africans (e.g., Nell, 2000). The main evidence to support a claim of external bias would be if the test failed to predict performance for Africans. Even if tests only underpredicted performance for Africans compared with non-Africans, it would suggest that their test scores underestimated their “true” IQ scores. However, a review by Kendall, Verster, and von Mollendorf (1988) showed that test scores for Africans have about equal predictive validity as those for non-Africans (e.g., 0.20 to 0.50 for students' school grades and for employees' job performance) - this has the same problem of circularity - especially in South Africa, where these studies were published less than a decade after apartheid. As for my question, Rushton says: In an intervention study with 1st-year psychology students at the University of the Witwatersrand, Skuy et al. (2002) increased Raven's test scores in both Africans and non-Africans after intervention training. Both experimental groups improved over the baseline compared with their respective control groups, with significantly greater improvement for the African group (IQ score gains of 83 to 97 in Africans; 103 to 107 in non-Africans). The question remains, however, whether such intervention procedures only increase performance through mastery of subject-specific knowledge or whether they increase g-like problem-solving ability that generalizes to other tests as well (te Nijenhuis, Voskuijl, & Schijve, 2001). Increases in coaching increase IQ scores. This seems to be an excellent piece of evidence in favour of the argument that IQ tests are culturally biased (since coaching brings you closer to the "norm"). But he just dismisses it.

In the following paragraph, the paper says that the hypothesis that Africans are less interested, more anxious is rejected because he found that Africans worked very diligently, typically staying longer than Whites to recheck their answers. And then he goes into reaction times. I may misunderstand reaction times, but it would seem that people who are "more diligent" would score worse. I don't have time to dig through all the rest and all the refs...most of them are self-ref anyway. I think even less of Rushton after reading this than I did before (since I was simply amused at his apparent misunderstanding of r and K). But my fundamental question remains unanswered - do these people lack an understanding of the experimental method? Hypotheses and correlational data are all well and good, but no matter how much correlational data you amass, you are still assuming that cultural biases don't matter if you don't turn the whole thing on its head and use non-Western tests on Westerners.

After reading this, I'd actually be thrilled with a simple path analysis. :) But anyway, I realise that there is no point to carrying this any further WP:NOR. Guettarda 05:26, 16 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I'm sorry. Where is that quoted from? Not Section 3.1? --Rikurzhen 05:37, Jun 16, 2005 (UTC)
See work by Rowe in Section 3.8.3 for structural equation modeling results. --Rikurzhen 05:53, Jun 16, 2005 (UTC)
I think I've said the same thing, in other words of course, above. You're measuring an outcome, for one thing. And you're assuming that the outcome gives you a good indication of the "stuff in the black box." The outcome you are measuring is typically based on layers of other outcomes that go all the way back, maybe even to prenatal things. (Chinese tradition includes "fœtal education", believe it or not.) That being said, if I am going to be going to college with [Chinese race] kids and I'm testing low on some kind of test that is designed to indicate how well you can do the kind of stuff you need to do when you get into college, then that is an indication that something is not ideal. Somebody may say that I test badly because I am a [White race] person competing with [Chinese race] people. From the standpoint of my own self interest, my reaction is, "So what?" If my IQ is 120 and the average of [Chinese race] people competing with me is 140, I may not even get in to the college. What I want to know is, "What can I do to bring my competency up to the point where I test 140 too?" It might turn out that there is no genetic component involved at all. Maybe it is because learning a non-alphabetical writing system gives them some kind of weird advantage. Maybe it is because every time they say a big number they phrase it as, e.g., 9*10,000 + 3*1000 + 4*100 + 0*10 + 7, and forming numbers that way in their minds cuts out so much crap in math learning that they get a big jump ahead plus less learned disability, frustration, etc.
Of course you are right about correcting for cultural bias in intelligence tests -- if you are interested in the question of the average intelligence of races. I think I would have to get an advanced degree in psychometry or something like that to even begin to see how to do that.
But you also ought to correct for other factors, not only for the sake of accuracy but also because of the insight you might get into what changes in nurture might improve outcomes.
Going back to the article for a moment, the question, "What is the relationship between race and intelligence?" has been out there in society for a long time now. The article attempts to deal with that fact. I would prefer a title for the article that would make it clear that it does not propose to answer that question but to discuss the debate. My sense of the field is that the first crude measures taken suggested that there must be major differences in innate abilities, but that as studies have been refined (and as immigrant and other "outsider" groups have been more fully enculturated to wherever the tests are being given) the amount of difference that could be attributed to genetic differences have been steadily whittled away. There are two possibilities, maybe more: (1) The genetic contribution turns out to be 0, or (2) The genetic contribution turns out to be positive but less than the crude measures originally suggested. That's basically the way I would outline the article if I had the wherewithall to write it. P0M 05:26, 16 Jun 2005 (UTC)
I'm sorry, nothing personal against anybody here, but as person educated in Sciences I have to admit that this article lacks scientific method. I'm really critic about the way this article has been written and is being maintained. Please consider that you are making statements about races, not about social groups. You are, starting with the title, stablishing a reason and a way on how differences can be explained. You mention others, but the title is still the same. Even more, for the average person that reaches the article they will get the title and the BIG graphic you show on top. From a genetic point of view even the distinction made about races is stupid and US centered. But even considering only the US the distinction is stupid. A genetic distinction cannot be stablished scientifically until the genes that determine intelligence have been found. Period. Given that point races could be scientifically examined to search for those genes, and make scientific statements. Science is based on real facts, measurable, repeatable, and that give good future predictions. Not on could-be's while there could-be others. This whole article is a whole POV. I could write tomorrow a paper that stablishes a relationship between IQ and the amount fish, lettuce, or m&m's somebody has eaten during his life. Even more if I make four categories like "A lot, some, not so much, and none", that neither have any scientifical value. A big statement should be written at beginning of this article stating the poor scientific methods that can be applied to such a subject because of the unknown genetics involved on it. It is sad that an open tool like this wikipedia is being use for racist propaganda. Following the logic of the article, one could say that as Chinese are more intelligent than white people, communism is a more intelligent aproach than capitalism. Assertions that could be made using the logic of the article is one of the many ways of proving it's level of truth. This whole article only leads to POV's that can not be proved with real measures. Also there is little feedback from real researchers on both sides of the spectrum. -- Jorge Daza
Jorge, have some modesty/courtesy. It seems you're either claming to have single-handedly outwitted an entire research community or you're claiming that we've fabricated this entire article. --Rikurzhen 03:47, Jun 19, 2005 (UTC)
Rikurzhen, do a simple google search for race and intelligence and you'll find answers to your questions. Of course, if you are willing to read a bit, because it even seems you haven't even read the papers you are basing your article on. Modesty/courtesy for those who deserve it. You have even deleted all my previous comments, not allowing other people to have another point of view. So have some modesty/courtesy yourself for worldwide readers. -- Jorge Daza
I have no idea what you're talking about. --Rikurzhen 06:46, Jun 20, 2005 (UTC)
Jorge, I'm interested in one of your ideas. Suppose that somebody noticed that people who eat a certain amount of fish every week seem on the average to be more intelligent than others. So she gets a research grant, and computes the average IQs of 2000 people selected at random from all over the world, the only thing that makes them a group is that they eat fish as a regular part of their diets, and another 2000 people who absolutely avoid eating fish. She measures all their IQs in some way that separates knowledge of their diet from computation of their IQ scores, and the result is that the average score of the fish group is 10% higher than the non-fish group. I am not saying that such a result would prove that eating fish improves one's IQ. But would you find those results interesting enough to favor doing some further work on the subject to try to find out whether the result was some kind of fluke or whether there was some explanation for the connection between higher IQ and a fish-rich diet? I'm thinking that maybe a teaspoon of cod liver oil per week for every human could make us enough smarter as a species that we could end poverty and warfare -- or maybe not. But I'd want to know. How about you?P0M 06:08, 19 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Sure, but think a bit on it. It could be a thousand other reasons that make that people eat fish (proximity to the sea, culture...) and all of them could have the same effect on measured intelligence and so we could be missing the real point and focusing on fish instead, and think about the damage you can make when people start asking you in a job interview if you regularly eat fish. Stating such things about races, it's not only stupid but dangerous. Doing so in an open project like the wikipedia is insulting. The scientific method is based on separating different changes for different experiments, so making experiments on groups that vary greatly on so many important aspects can't lead to scientific results. I don't know if I've made my point clear, but education on exact sciences gives you a clearer point of view regarding asumptions like these. This article needs lots of explanations and warnings before showing that graphic about IQ's that can incredible easily mislead non-critic people. -- Jorge Daza
A gentle reminder ... Ours is not to reason why; Ours is just to report and verify ... WP:NOR --Rikurzhen 06:53, Jun 20, 2005 (UTC)
Actually, Jorge, I did think about it. I zaid, "I am not saying that such a result would prove that eating fish improves one's IQ." The fact that one event follows another does not prove that the first event causes the second event. The fact that the neighbor's dog barks every time the lady turns her light out does not prove that the light going out angers the dog. But it may alert the lady to the fact that a snoopy neighbor heads over toward her house to peek in the window when he thinks she is going to undress to go to bed, and so he passes the watchdog on his way to her house and that makes the dog bark. Personally my guess is that the connection that has been noticed between [racial] identity and [intelligence] is not only already tending downward as people notice things mentioned in the article like the Flynn effect, but that it will probably go to zero. But the phenomenon is like the barking dog. Something is going on, and we should figure out what it is. One possibility (that I think is highly likely) is that the brain grows new connections at a terrific rate in the first three years or so of life, and if the kid is living in an intellectually poverished environment it may be analogous to malnutrition. Even if the individual can make up for early deficiencies in later life, theoretically, it may be that kids are so discouraged and feel so defeated by the time they can start taking charge of their own lives a little that they just never can catch up. (I had kids that I taught in disciplinary school that were high IQ and very low competency. I brought one of them from 4th grade reading level to 8th grade level (where he belonged) over a few weeks in the summer. But he definitely needed some external motivation to get the job done.) It may be that if you treat a person badly from birth you inevitably reduce his/her measured intelligence by some whopping factor. But we would never discover that unless we noticed that this whole group of people measured lower in IQ than other groups. Being given a real disadvantage in life is more important (to me at least) than having somebody point a finger at me and yell, "Moron!" (It does happen from time to time.;-) But these causal ideas are only guesses on my part. Not only have I not done the research myself, I'm only a little familiar with a small part of the relevant research that has already been done.
The fact is that people have noticed a correlation between [race] and [intelligence] and have made a big deal of it. (Personally I hate reading The Bell Curve because its language is soaked with special pleading and other affective components that tell me that the authors really want the reader to accept their ideology, but the book has still been a big deal and so have books written in opposition to it.) There is a controversy about both the findings and about what, if anything, they mean. So people are going to want information. "What is the deal about the connection between [race] and [intelligence]." (Except they won't put those two concepts in phenomenological epoche, they'll just take them at face value.) If we're going to try to answer that question we've got to say, "Here are the results of IQ tests. Here is what people who have spent a lifetime trying to figure out how to make accurate tests of intelligence say about the validity of the test results. Here is what people who have solid careers in trying to figure out the genetic connections among members of populations or of alleged [races] have to say about the genetic coherence of the groups being compared. Here is what the gap was 50 years ago when they made the first studies of this kind. Here is how things look after a couple of generations of social and other kinds of changes. Etc., etc.
Personally, I don't think our job is done if we just "report and verify", and that is because anything that is reported is like the way a photographer can focus in on the flower in the sewage plant or the dead bluebird in the flower show. Just reporting assertions is not enough because we could end up reporting assertions made by people who ought not to have any standing in a rational discussion of an issue. (The lady in the dried botanicals store with a little crystal on a pendulum may have an opinion on my skin cancer, but I think I'd better listen to a trained M.D.) We also need to try for balance and make sure that we are not overlooking important aspects of a problem just because they haven't made it into the mass media.
You say, "This article needs lots of explanations and warnings..." I agree with that statement. I made some remarks very much like yours on the basis of what I remembered when I read the article a year or so ago, and then I discovered that many of the things that I thought needed to be said had already been said. So let's concentrate on what remains to be highlighted, contextualized, warned against or qualified, etc. P0M 08:29, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Hello Patrick, [1] I just copied the first link from the Notes section. That has to be said at the very beginning of the article. Before showing any graphic. It has to be said too that the article has no scientific base. And BTW I'm unable to find the paper where that study about IQ's was made. Also I'm unable to find those "many studies" that are mentioned at the beginning of the article. Please, state the sources. Sorry, but that was not to you. I'm a scientist and this article mentions lots of things without scientific base. I really think that the writer lacks real research experience. This article, as has been written and as it is shown, is real food for racists. Don't feed them, and BTW they're 10 points below average IQ ;)
All of that is in the article (as you must have noticed). But we cannot give a demonstrably minority POV, like that of R. Sternberg, veto power over the intro figure. We've quoted a big block of him in the background section immediately following the intro (as you must have noticed) and his POV does get described in the intro in the same summary style as every thing else: These results have sparked public debates concerning not only the reliability of the studies and the motives of their authors, but also the validity and fairness of intelligence tests in general. The role of the intro is to summarize the article. If anything, this intro is too light on the majority POV. --Rikurzhen 16:33, Jun 20, 2005 (UTC)
See "brass tacks" below for my response. P0M 17:38, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)

1

I broke out my copy of Behavioral Genetics in the Postgenomic Era and it seems that some existing research may help explain this. Apparently, the correlation between g and school performance is mediated entirely by genetic effects, whereas discrepencies between g and school performance are mediated entirely by environmental effects. --Rikurzhen 07:13, Jun 21, 2005 (UTC)

You will know them by their words. zen master T 07:42, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Don't hate the player, hate the game. ;) --Rikurzhen 08:12, Jun 21, 2005 (UTC)
Psychological word games is not science. You will know them by their excessive lack of, or misdirecting, context wikilinking. zen master T 09:18, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Zen-master, I asked for information, not diatribes. Ad hominem attacks are not acceptable to me, and it is my impression that they are unacceptable to the general Wikipedia community. If you have citations regarding changes in the measured gaps among populations that would allow construction of a 3D graph, please provide them. Otherwise it is all empty oil drums to me. P0M 15:10, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)
The information can not possibly be presented neutrally if psychologically damaging language is utilized. Describing the issue solely in terms of "race" is detrimental toward understanding the abstract nature of the disparity. zen master T 17:56, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)
The disparity is between races. Therefore, the disparity between races is discussed in terms of race.--Nectarflowed T 21:49, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)
"Races" is just one way of describing the effects of the unexplained disparity and just one way of dividing the population. Why do you and others keep repeating the same misuse of language over and over again? zen master T 23:41, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)
If the disparity under investigation is not between racial groups, what is it between? Also, you're posts would be shorter if you didn't include accusations ;) --Nectarflowed T 23:51, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)
I don't think anyone now believes, nor does the article say, that the IQ disparities are caused by racial differences in and of itself. Rather, it's clearly something associated with race, whether only environmental or also genetic, that is the cause. --Rikurzhen 00:15, Jun 22, 2005 (UTC)

This article should not be about "beliefs", instead the scientific method should be utilized which requires using neutral language which does not needlessly commingle cause and effect. You say, "it's clearly something associated with race" but that is NOT a scientific conclusion. Only a Nazi would repeatedly frame the issue the way you do. Was my "accusation" accurate at least? What other plausible explanation is there for the psychologically misdirecting way you frame this issue? zen master T 01:18, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)

That's enoug ad hominem attack. P0M 01:28, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)
What other plausible explanation is there for using psychologically tricking language to misframe this issue? zen master T 01:36, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)
I don't mean any of our beliefs, I mean the beliefs of researchers about which is this article is written. We don't get to decide what's true, only to report what major POVs exist and whether they are consensus or not. How many ways can I say it: WP:NOR!!! --Rikurzhen 01:22, Jun 22, 2005 (UTC)
Can you please explain how framing the issue objectively or requiring neutral language no matter what is original research? Wikipedia, as an encyclopedia, is bound by the scientific method in its quest of neutrality. We should indeed report the "major POVs" as you call them but that does not mean we should simply regurgitate psychologically tricking language, doing so would be unscientific at the very least. Most people accused of being a nazi would deny it... zen master T 01:36, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Start by absorbing the article on ad_hominem arguments. And besides, A -> B may be true, but that does not make B -> A true. You are smearing somebody as a Nazi. Are you aware of that?P0M 01:44, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Either this article lacks proper language neutrality or it does not. If my criticism of the way this article misuses language (needlessly commingling cause and effect) is valid then there are very few plausible theories that explain your motivations. Endless repetition used in support of a misuse of language adds to the plausibility of my theory. The sooner you explain how language neutrality is original research the sooner you diminish the plausibility of my theory that you are a nazi. If someone was just a random interested researcher of this subject (even if they dubiously concluded race is a cause) I don't believe they would defend and deflect away from the current misuse of language to the degree you have. zen master T 02:00, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)
So now I am being accused of being a Nazi too? Let's be clear about what you are saying. P0M 02:16, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)

You two do seem to be working together to misdirect third parties away from doing any sort of mental analysis on the neutrality of language used in the article. So yes, I am accusing you both of being neo-nazis based on your posts on this talk page and based on the way you repeatedly defend or ignore the misuse of language. I will withdraw my accusations after you explain how striving for language neutrality is original research and/or after you explain how needlessly commingling cause and effect is scientific? zen master T 02:30, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)

zen, you misunderstand the meanings of WP:NPOV and WP:NOR, and I don't have time to explain it to you. No one should waste time answering your questions. P0M, feel free to delete his insults if they bother you (Wikipedia:Remove personal attacks). --Rikurzhen 02:19, Jun 22, 2005 (UTC)

I repeat, I will withdraw my accusations after you explain how striving for language neutrality is original research and/or after you explain how needlessly commingling cause and effect is scientific? zen master T 02:30, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Agreed (although I'd prefer "populations" to "races"). And we've explained this reasoning a number of times in a number of ways, but the explanations continue to be ignored. P0M 22:19, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)
They are populations, but they are also "races" as the term is understood in U.S. culture. The best distinction I've seen is that a "race" is a type of population that is related by ancient ancestry, rather than current geography or ethnic affliation. --Rikurzhen 22:46, Jun 21, 2005 (UTC)

Analysis of racist and/or intentionally misleading language

This article and subject misframes the unexplained disparity exclusively in terms of "race" with the apparent attempt to confuse cause with descriptions of an effect on an abstract level. I am still waiting for a logical explanation by posters on this talk page on why they went to such lengths of repetition to deflect away from any sort of analysis on the neutrality and appropriateness of language used in this article. Posters on this talk page also cited "scientific studies" to justify certain conclusions yet them seem unfamiliar with or unwilling to apply the scientific method to present this article and subject. That does not make sense. Why needlessly intertwine cause and effect unless there is a purpose in mind? A word that is a dubious cause for a disparity ("race") should not be used to describe that disparity. Since neutrality is the prime directive of wikipedia every article should present a subject neutrally before concluding anything about that subject. zen master T 21:06, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)

We've (ALL) been endlessly patient in (1) tolerating your insults, (2) explaining that your suggestions violate WP policy, and (3) explaining that your suggestions don't acutally make any sense. That's enough! No one has the time to deal with you. --Rikurzhen 21:21, Jun 22, 2005 (UTC)
How can you possibly have been "endlessly patient" explaining how my "suggestions" violate WP policy when you haven't done that once? A seemingly random wikilink to a WP policy does not count as evidence for a point, contextually speaking. Either I have valid criticisms of the language used in this article or I do not, until you choose to debate the core of this issue I will assume my criticisms are valid. That assumption leads to many other plausible theories. zen master T 21:28, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)
You've paid no attention to anything any of us have written. Have you? Your opinions are novel and/or represent a small minority view that I've never encountered in the literature. Thus, they violate WP:NOR -- no original research. While you talk about neutrality, your views have nothing to do with WP:NPOV. Neutrality means no bias for or against the various points of view that exist in the world -- it's about how the material is presented by the editors -- not trying to present some kind of objective point of view from no-where. Your personal opinion that this issue is nonsense when seen from your POV is irrelevant; only the unbaised presentation of content from reputable published sources matters. You're acutally calling for the introduction of bias!!! --Rikurzhen 22:00, Jun 22, 2005 (UTC)
What is more biased than presenting an abstract disparity exclusively in terms of "race"? Either my "novel view" is accurate or it is not, why do you keep deflecting away from an analysis of the core of the issue, the provably non neutral language? If there are "various" points of view in the world why does this article only present the disparity one way? Can you please respond to the point that we should present this issue neutrally no matter what? Even if we assume "race" is a cause shouldn't the article convey it with facts rather than trick readers into assuming it through misleading language? zen master T 22:16, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)

All of the above seems more to the point, Zen-master. Thank you for adhering to Wikipedia:Avoid personal remarks. -- Uncle Ed (talk) 22:21, Jun 22, 2005 (UTC)

Exactly. No amount of persuasive argumentation can permit a violation of WP policy. Zen master, without citations to support your claims, no one can do what you're asking. I had to do a lot of reading for this article and I've never encountered the POV you're pushing. --Rikurzhen 22:45, Jun 22, 2005 (UTC)

You mean to say no amount of logical argumentation on my part will stop you from randomly citing WP policy to misdirect away the core of the issue? Can you please explain how neutrality violates WP policy, you've consistently left that question unanswered? Why do you and others repeat the same misuse of language so fervently, you misdirect away from the core of the issue which is whether an abstract disparity should be presented just one way, exclusively in terms of "race". Every possible alternative cause is an equally valid way of describing the effect of the unexplained disparity, but you and the article only allow describing it in terms of "race", why? zen master T 23:40, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Dude, this is an excellent example of why unpublished opinions don't get put into wikipedia. I don't have time to convince you that you're factually wrong, but thankfully right/wrong is irrelevant when it comes to the unpublished opinions of editors. --Rikurzhen 00:20, Jun 23, 2005 (UTC)
If you truly cared about presenting this subject neutrally you would not discount my arguments in the manner you are. The only theory I can come up with is you desire to present this subject non neutrally. zen master T 01:44, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)
I see no possible interpretation of your claims, as they relate to article content/struture, that we can use without violating WP policy. Would you care to make specific recommendations and show how they don't violate WP:NOR and/or WP:NPOV? Your POV seems to have empircal entailments that are a very minority POV. Citations would help your case. --Rikurzhen 02:01, Jun 23, 2005 (UTC)

My specific recommendation is apply the scientific method and WP's policy of neutrality to the language used to present any subject or article. Labeling and framing this abstract disparity exclusively as race and intelligence needlessly confuses cause and effect. To avoid this needless confusion we should re-title and re-write the entire article to present the disparity in an abstract manner with the goal being to disassociate cause and effect. Each cause should be considered as a possibility logically without using pejorative language against that possible cause. This means every cause must be given equal weight when the article describes the abstract disparity (that is if we can't come up with a neutral way of describing what is a completely abstract disparity). Every sentence that hints at or offers a conclusion should not also describe the abstract disparity (to ensure cause and effect are not confused within the same sentence at least). What this article and talk page shows is that we have a neutrality of language clarity disparity, not a racial disparity.

What you are effectively saying is that if a scientist decides to slice an apple pie a certain way, and one side turns out to be "better" then that side must have been inherently "better" to begin with regardless of the ingredients and baking method. The language you choose to use seems to be an attempt at discouraging people from considering alternative possibilities such as: your method of "slicing" itself is the cause of the "apple pie slice quality disparity". If you only ever divide by "race" then that is a very convenient way of only ever ending up with a "race disparity". zen master T 02:31, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)

You're essentially voting for deletion. Attempted and failed. You're also arguing that we find some neutral point of view from which to describe this debate. That's not possible, nor is it allowed -- WP:NPOV. We have to describe the debate in the terms that are used in the published literature; we cannot re-write this article to match your opinions of the subject. --Rikurzhen 02:40, Jun 23, 2005 (UTC)
Let me elaborate with an example. Although I'd like to, I can't go in and rewrite the intelligent design article so that it confirms to my opinions and represents only science as I understand it. That would be original research. I have to present all major POVs in their own terms as they would present themselves. Not as I prefer to understand them. If that's what I wanted to do, I'd have to find another venue. Likewise, in writing this article, we are limited to writing about the scholarly debate only it in the terms that we find it in, not as we would prefer it to be. We cannot apply our own analysis to an issue and write from that POV -- which is exactly what you're proposing. --Rikurzhen 02:48, Jun 23, 2005 (UTC)
Nope, I am proposing a re-write of the title and content to conform to neutrality. Many published sources are quite literally unfair and unscientific. WP rejects dubious sources all the time, any source that uses apparently intentionally misdirecting language should be discounted. If it can be shown that a "researcher" did not use the scientific method then that source should be discounted also. Plus, there are countless other published literature sources that do not present the issue exclusively in terms of "race", but random joe wikipedia user would not know that from reading this article. zen master T 02:54, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)
OPPOSE Ridiculous. It's not up to you (or any of us) to say that a certain researcher's published work is no good and that it should be excluded. Again, you've worked up to the point of saying that the entire research community that studies this topic is an engine of propaganda. That's literally a conspiracy theory! We couldn't let conspiracy theory rule the Apollo 11 article, nor can we let it rule here. Your suggestions cannot be acted upon because they violate WP:NOR and WP:NPOV policy. This is now 100% clear to me as it should be to everyone else watching this mess unfold. --Rikurzhen 03:08, Jun 23, 2005 (UTC)
Neutrality is the prime directive of wikipedia policies. I am not "saying" some published researchers' work is no good, I am saying I can prove the language they use is not neutral, which should be a red flag. "Conspiracy theory" has already been logically determined to be language propaganda (another misuse of language), interesting that you use that phrase in this situation, as do many others, repeatedly. zen master T 03:15, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)
The language used by a research community doesn't need to be neutral with respect to your opinion of them. That's not what NPOV means. In fact, it means the opposite. But your suggestion that you can prove X, so we should do X, despite there being to published support for X does violate WP:NOR --Rikurzhen 03:18, Jun 23, 2005 (UTC)

What we do to the article is separate from the fact that repeated, historic, profound language propaganda is nazi-esque. zen master T 03:36, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)

So you don't really care about the article. You're more interested in making personal attacks. Well then, I'm done talking to you. The changes you'd like to see are not going to be made to this article. --Rikurzhen 03:50, Jun 23, 2005 (UTC)
Once enough people wake up to importance of the neutrality of language the article will be changed. You still need to explain why an obvious misuse of language should be perpetuated. zen master T 04:02, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)
No, I need to do no such thing. Like I've said a dozen times before, your opinion about this research area doesn't matter to WP. --Rikurzhen 04:16, Jun 23, 2005 (UTC)

So you've never determined even a "mainstream" source to be dubious before? Don't sources get discounted everyday on WP? Are you interested in people concluding things because scientific facts were presented neutrally or do you want people to assume conclusions because of propaganda language? What if most published literature sources passes off the same language propaganda as science? Are you saying we should just accept these language propaganda sources? Only a racist would want to present or hint conclusions about a subject using needlessly confused cause and effect. Given this article's and historic subject's extensive use of language propaganda I consider it evidence against any claim that "race" is the cause of any abstract disparity however you frame it. You know there is a "race" vs "IQ test author" disparity too... zen master T 04:53, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)

The disparity is abstract and WP should not use misleading language

Some folks seem not to realize or admit that "race" vs "IQ" or "wealth" vs "nutrition" may describe the exact same abstract disparity. Have you considered this possibility? Many scientists have, but, random joe wikipedia user would not know that after reading this article. Given this scientific fact that the disparity is larger and more abstract than just "race" vs "IQ" why do some people and this article repeatedly only focus on just one pair method of description? An abstract disparity does exist but words used to describe it have to be neutral and certainly shouldn't hint at unscientific conclusions by only framing an abstract issue one way. There is no scientific or otherwise consensus to present this abstract disparity exclusively in terms of "race" and "IQ". Why did someone hurriedly create redirects from Nutrition and intelligence to Race and intelligence when I offhandedly suggested it above? zen master T 05:58, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I wish you could communicate your position more clearly. All the concerns you express appear to be addressed in the article, and at great well-written length. Even issues about the validity of race as used in these studies are addressed. Hopefully, we have progressed beyond studies of this association, and on to the issues of identifying genes that explain some of the individual variation in intelligence. Hopefully, any variations in gene frequency between the races will speed discovery in this science that promises such benefits. I wouldn't be surprised if the wealth and nutrition influences you are curious about, to the extent they are also genetically influenced, have explanatory value for part of the genetic component of intelligence. Would you be surprised if there are genetic variations in the handling of nutrients, in risk taking or courage, in avariciousness? I wouldn't, the suprise instead would be if there weren't variations, not just between individuals, but between races or populations. For facts about such variations to be more than mere curiousities, they should contribute to the discovery and elucidation of the mechanisms of the relevant genes.--Silverback 08:50, Jun 23, 2005 (UTC)

I would love to read Nutrition and intelligence, and I assume most of the other editors on this page would, too. Zen, you seem to assume that the editors on this page focus on Race and intelligence out of malice. I'm not sure that is so (in any case, it's not a helpful position). There are a ton of related articles that I would love to read. Some are still in their infancy, others don't exist: Sex and intelligence, Genes and intelligence, Nutrition and intelligence, Nurture and intelligence (including Playing Mozart to your unborn child and intelligence) and whatnot. Oh for Education and intelligence! For some of these issues, there is quite a lot of scientific data, others are just hunches. Some of the articles will be as strong as the present one, others will be speculation. But by all means research them, write them; I am confident the editors from this page will help. And if you (or anybody else) is up to the task of writing a comprehensive overview of all factors that may correlate with (or even cause) intelligence, I will rejoice.

But this page is about Race and intelligence. There is a lot to be said, and a lot to be learned about it. It's important. And it's extremely well presented in this article. Arbor 07:11, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Why did someone create Nutrition and intelligence as a redirect to here? How can this article be "well presented" given the misuse of language? There is no scientific method here. zen master T 07:41, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)
(Let me cut in here:) To answer your question: the redirect was made by User:gracefool, I don't know why. He vote keep on the VfD, but thought this article is very POV. Arbor 08:43, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)
I'm glad you mentioned scientific method, ZM, let's focus on that for a while. Can we have a discussion on that topic without your going off on what you feel are the demerits of this article? If you can't then I'll go back to working on my book. P0M 08:15, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Ok, so let's focus on applying the scientific method to language neutrality. Do you see the potential for confusing cause and effect by describing a diparity only in X, Y terms when Y also happens to be a cause? Do you acknowledge the abstract nature of the disparity? zen master T 08:33, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)
I think that is going off on what you think are the demerits of the article. What I had in mind was finding out whether it is your understanding that a theory can be proven. P0M 08:41, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)

New title proposal "IQ test controversy"

Since the root of the controversy over this subject is whether IQ tests are an objective measure of intelligence we should rename this article and then massively clean it up. It is completely secondary and even tangential whether data warehouse type information gathered from the test taker such as "wealth level", "education level", "nutrition level", "race", "age", "gender", etc can produce a single conclusive correlation with IQ given the lack of consensus on the quality of the tests. See above for a discussion on the appropriateness of choosing just one bit of data warehouse-esque information, "race", to attempt to correlate with "IQ" -- why does this article and subject historically only focus on interpreting the results by just one bit of other information? What do people think about IQ test controversy, anyone have anything better? zen master T 19:53, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)

root of the controversy over this subject is whether IQ tests are an objective measure of intelligence that's not at all the root of the controversy. the current controversy is now very explicitly summarized in this section. I'm going on a rather long vacation soon... I hope that someone other than me is watching for this kind of unsubstantiated change to this article. My full opinion is here. --Rikurzhen 20:03, Jun 24, 2005 (UTC)
You actually have to present a logical argument why cleaning up neutrality violates "no original research", just wikilinking to the policy doesn't mean anything. An analysis that indicates a subject is being presented incorrectly is not original research, the burden of proof is on you to logically justify how the current presentation method is neutral? There is no consensus that IQ is an objective measure of intelligence. There is also no consensus that one among many bits of data warehouse type information from the test taker ("race") should be the only way dubious test results are interpreted by. How can "race" ever be disproven as the cause when the issue is exclusively framed only in terms of "race"? zen master T 20:36, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)
That's exactly the way to disprove it. If somebody says, "Swans are genetically predestined to be white," you find them a swan that is naturally some other color. Black swans exist in Australia, but only First Nation people knew that before arrival of explorers from abroad. P0M 18:45, 25 Jun 2005 (UTC)
We've been thru this a dozen times. You make assertions that are false and give no citations to back up your claims. I have three paramount citations that all say the same thing and they all disgree with you. --Rikurzhen 22:33, Jun 24, 2005 (UTC)
Let me cut you off before you dig out a newpaper article from the 1980s to try to prove your point. The three references I identified as paramount are (two) signed consensus statements by experts and (one) opinion survey of experts. Only material of this importance can possibly be used to justify the kinds of claims your making. But all three contradict your opinions. All the other editors seem to recognize this. I can't understand why you persist. --Rikurzhen 23:09, Jun 24, 2005 (UTC)

titles: the long option

The questions of titles seems very unimportant to me; titles predominantly serve to help me find articles with the search feature. thus, i tend to prefer something written in simple and unambiguous terms. but many are looking for a more precise title. unfortunately, when you unleash the tiger of word precision, it's difficult to keep it in under control. a precise title for this article would probably have a to run to a great length. for example, Distributional differences in measures of intelligence and related factors among racial and ethnic groups. Seriously, I'm not try to be facetious. Something like that is the logical conclusion of an expansion of Race and intelligence to a good level of precision for both main terms. If we absolutely need a long title, that's actually the one I would vote for. --Rikurzhen 23:23, Jun 24, 2005 (UTC)

Clearly that's too long. As you say, there has to be a limit somewhere; consensus will decide. Please continue at #Rename "Race and measures of intelligence" or similar. ··gracefool |☺ 28 June 2005 08:02 (UTC)

Language propaganda

You did the language propaganda misdirection thing again on multiple levels with your title suggestion, there is no evidence or consensus that "race" is a "factor" or the cause and you still chose to describe the entire issue exclusively in terms of "race". Those alternative "related factors" are actually other valid ways of describing the exact same abstract issue but for some reason you only want to describe this subject in terms of "race", why? Remember, don't confuse effects with cause (where effects means correlating dubious IQ test results with only one bit of other information about the testers). IQ test controversy is the most generic and neutral title that I can think of so far. zen master T 07:46, 25 Jun 2005 (UTC)
How do they get the heart medicine that works better than the old stuff did for Afro-Americans?[2]
How about Distributional differences in measures of intelligence and related factors among racial and ethnic groups or lack thereof, then? - Nat Krause 09:26, 25 Jun 2005 (UTC)
I've got like a ton of material on why he's not right written above. He's literally making things up. Ask him to provide a citation. --Rikurzhen 15:09, Jun 25, 2005 (UTC)

Nope, the title and article should not even hint that the only way to present the issue is in terms of "racial groups" and also shouldn't state that IQ is an objective measure of intelligence given the fact that there is no scientific consensus. You want citations? ok.

Ħ:Good. Now we are getting down to some brass tacks.
  • This URL shows there is no consensus to present the issue your way. [3]
Ħ:The article is about "Race and IQ Arguments Pro and Con", which is exactly what our article is about.
  • "Every offensive needs its ideological rationale. Racism is one of the main instruments of this new attack on the working class. The Bell Curve, the book authored by Richard Herrnstein and Charles Murray, is perfectly suited."
Ħ:I'm wondering whether this is a quotation from the above-mentioned article.
  • "The Bell Curve is not a solo sojourn into Nazi propaganda. It was accompanied last year by two other books: Race, Evolution, and Behavior by J. Phillipe Rushton, and, The Decline of Intelligence in America: A Strategy for National Renewal by Seymour Itzkoff. All three books were given a rave review by the New York Times Review of Books (Oct. 16, 1994), a review which was startling in its racist audacity" [emphasis mine] [4]
Ħ:I feel the same way about The Bell Curve -- just picking it up in the middle somewhere and starting to read gives me a sick feeling because the whole thing is saturated with an air of special pleading. But, that is only my emotional reaction to their emotional reactions to the data. The question is whether the data is accurate, and whether it is being twisted in some way in its use in support of the conclusions the authors support.
  • Review of The Bell Curve as "Academic Naziism" [5]
  • "Chomsky went on to assert that if the research has little scientific merit per se, then 'the zeal and intensity with which some pursue or welcome it cannot be reasonably attributed to a dispassionate desire to advance science'" [6]
Ħ:This is an interesting comment on the psychology of those who find certain research appealing. Unfortunately you've picked a passage that contains a loophole created by the use of an "if...then..." construction. Maybe it is just bad English and the writer paraphrasing Chomsky should have said "because the research has little scientific meter." As it stands, however, you are left wondering what Chomsky's conclusion would be in the research should happen to turn out to have scientific merit. Bottom line, we need to go back to Chomsky and see what he actually was trying to say.
  • "The science behind The Bell Curve has been denounced by both the American Psychological Association and the Human Genome Project. Its authors were unqualified to speak on either genetics or intelligence, since their expertise lay in other fields. Their project did not rise through the usual system of academic publishing, and in fact the authors ducked the process of peer review. The Bell Curve was ultimately funded by the wealthy, far-right Bradley Foundation, which used its media connections to launch a massive national publicity campaign. And The Bell Curve relies heavily on studies that were financed by the Pioneer Fund, a neo-Nazi organization that promotes eugenicist research." [emphasis mine]
Ħ:This paragraph is good, hard-hitting secondary source material. Unfortunately it is not clear who you are quoting. If it is a continuation of something you've already cited, then say so. Otherwise people can discount it. (Looking back at this stuff out of edit mode, it seems that maybe you intended to double-indent everything that pertains to one source, then single-indent and introduce a new source, double-indent to report on what it has to say, and so forth.)
Ħ:That being said, the best reason to read anybody's book on any academic topic is to get their footnotes, i.e., to get their evidence. Then you go back and check out the purported evidence. That is presumably what the authors the the above passage have claimed to have done for us, and I have no problem with that. If nothing else, their remarks will pull my shirt tails when I look at the real data.
  • "Another problem the task force found was the authors' handling of the "Flynn Effect," a world-wide phenomenon which is raising average IQs about three points per decade. That is much too fast to be genetic; therefore, social factors must play a large role in raising IQs."
Ħ:This is very good stuff, or at the very least it is very good stuff for me. But to evaluate it (and to decide whether to dig here first or go with more reliable commentators) I need to know who said this. Who is "the task force"?
  • "The American Psychological Association is not the only expert organization that has denounced The Bell Curve. The Human Genome Project has weighed in as well. In a letter written to Science magazine, its members wrote: 'As geneticists and ethicists associated with the Human Genome Project, we deplore The Bell Curve's misrepresentation of the state of genetic knowledge in this area and the misuse of genetics to inform social policy.'" [7]
Ħ:This is a good example of the useful way to quote and cite. There is enough to go on, enough to get back to the letter to read it for myself. The only thing missing is which issue of the magazine it was in, but providing that would just be a sop to my laziness. :-)
  • "Charles Murray and Richard Herrnstein's book The Bell Curve (1994) is the most alarming recent example of this trend. The authors assert that the government should reduce the number of children born to poor "low IQ" mothers by eliminating welfare and tightening immigration. Otherwise, they say, it will have to set up a "virulently racist custodial state" to control urban "high tech Indian reservations." That's some choice: eugenics or fascism!" [emphasis mine] [8]
Ħ:I think there is an article in Wikipedia on The Bell Curve. I looked at it and decided I didn't have the expertise to be helpful there. But a look purely at the ideology implicit in that book, and the public policies that they advocate, could be very helpful. The other thing you really need to do in a case like this is to trace the quotation back to its source. People have been known to fabricate evidence, which lessens the trust of the general population in arguments based on secondary sources. However, if you can give book title and page number then scoffers have nothing to say. I'm not surprised to see the attitude displayed above. It's a little more virulent than stuff that I remember, on the other hand I couldn't force myself through the whole book either.
  • "In other words, black Americans' test score results in 1995 would have given them an average IQ just over 100 in 1945. Only the repeated renorming of IQ tests upward created the illusion that blacks had made no progress..." [9] zen master T 16:37, 25 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Ħ:Personally, to me, this is potentially the most penetrating analysis you've presented yet. That is because somebody has a hypothesis: "Race determines intelligence." Then they brought in evidence to try to confirm that hypothesis, IQ tests and other such measures. They can keep finding confirmatory evidence for all of time, or at least for as long as something in the mix is keeping the measures of black intelligence down. But if the [race] changes (let's suppose that interracial marriage becomes entirely normal for 100 years) and the [intelligence] doesn't change, then that proves that [race] couldn't be the determining factor. Or if the [race] stays the same and the [intelligence] does change (which is what your source is claiming to be the case), then that proves that [race] couldn't be the determining factor. In practice, as your quotation makes explicit, measuring things accurately can get difficult when the [race] is changing, and when the [intelligence]-measuring instruments are changing, and when environmental factors like nutrition, amount of tearing down that is directed against children, etc., etc. are all changing. But in principal the measurements can be done.
Ħ:In principal, you only need one good piece of evidence to put a mistaken hypothesis down. If somebody says, "All stones will sink in water," they can bring out the whole core of the earth, piece by piece, as evidence. But they should have said, "Most stones will sink in water," because I only need to bring as evidence a single piece of stone that will float, and they are proven wrong. In practice, when contrary evidence is found it takes a while to sort out whether the evidence is really good or whether there is some hidden factor that is messing things up. But truth will out. Just look at the history of the discovery of prions. P0M 18:19, 25 Jun 2005 (UTC)
The nazis were real and worked very hard at being evil. It might not be fair to just call anyone a nazi.--Nectarflowed T 18:45, 25 Jun 2005 (UTC)
True. Well, actually, it is not fair to "just call" someone a nazi. You would need to dig into person's actual motivations, and although people are not always up-front about their real motivations, they are not always what one might assume either. P0M 19:03, 25 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Don't we mean racist, not neo nazi or fascist (as used above)? (If Asians and Jews are considered to have high average IQs, it isn't nazism, right?) --Nectarflowed T 20:29, 25 Jun 2005 (UTC)
I'm a bit lost. Actually I was already lost and should have shut up. We don't call people racists, neo-nazis, or fascists unless we get the goods on them. P0M 20:36, 25 Jun 2005 (UTC)

So there is no consensus to present this issue exclusively in terms of race, will you guys respond to this point please? All the above quotations were from the next listed citation (I quoted from the same source more than once). The point is there is numerous information that the "bell curve movement" has racist underpinnings. But even more importantly the way this article is written is non neutral on just a language usage level. Descriptive words should not hint at unscientific/non consensus conclusions or misdirect away from the core of the issue. zen master T 19:47, 25 Jun 2005 (UTC)

"This issue"? The hypothesis that must be dealt with is: "Race is a causal factor in determining intelligence." It won't die by itself. It only gets killed if we find the green swan. Even the people who think this hypothesis is a good bet will not deny that additional factors (nutrition, etc.) are also causal factors. Their argument is that even after you correct for differences in nutrition, differences in uterine environment, differences in number and kinds of stimuli present in the infant's environment, etc., etc., there will still be differences in group intelligence. The only way find evidence to contradict that hypothesis is to raise a generation of black children that don't show those differences in intelligence. That's the green swan. Short of doing that you've got to do something creative by trying to find out where white children get followed around every store they wander into, where their school system is as miserable as the one in Chester, Pennsylvania, where their parents have a family rule: "The gas tank never goes more than half empty. Ever!" --- I think you get the picture. I wonder if anyone has compared the children of blacks in Chicago to the children of white Catholics in Northern Ireland. P0M 20:36, 25 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Huh? That does not present the issue neutrally and does not examine the issue using the scientific method. Do you want your POV to "win" or do you want true scientific consensus to be achieved? Only a racist/nazi would repeatedly focus on presenting this issue exclusively in terms of "race". zen master T 20:47, 25 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Well, you're right about not presenting the issue neutrally, I guess. My POV... No, I won't diss my own intelligence that way. I think it's more than just a point of view. My considered opinion is that the hypothesis is wrong. My considered opinion is that it does damage to people to even raise it, unless it is handled extremely carefully and contextualized by taking kind of a medical approach. When I went to the doctor with a lump on my testicle he decided to eliminate the possibility that it was cancer. We should eliminate the possibility that there is a genetic component, I guess. But it is my considered opinion that you should deal with kids with an IQ of 100 the same way, regardless of what they look like on the outside, and the same goes for those with an IQ of 140. So what do we gain if we find a genetic component? I suppose it might be something where a child with a certain genetic trait needs to be protected from some dietary component. (That's why there is a warning on Nutrasweet, by the way.) Otherwise, we still have to deal with finding the best way of educating each child. Meanwhile, the hypothesis is still out there. You can't ignore it. You have to examine it with the scientific method.
The scientific method considers hypotheses. Most hypotheses get set up because there is some kind of evidence that people are already looking at and trying to find a reason for. Some get dumped right away because there is hardly any evidence for them. But the decisive part of the process occurs when somebody finds a single good piece of negative evidence. "This stone floats." "This cohort of black children has the same measured IQ as a similar cohort of white children." Believe me, the bigots do not want to see that evidence, and they would start trying to explain it away.
You've been asked this question many, many times. You always ignore it. You said above: "Only a racist/nazi would repeatedly focus on presenting this issue exclusively in terms of 'race'." What issue? P0M 21:15, 25 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I am not advocating we "ignore" the hypothesis, the key is for other hypotheses to be able to be presented fairly rather than be forced to be presented within the "race" vs "IQ" hypothesis. THAT is the scientific method, there is more than one hypothesis that explains the causes for the same abstract issue. I agree with you that we have to be caerful, but how the issue is framed/described is how the brain will think about it, for the most part. Framing the issue as a "race disparity" combined with misdirecting language repetition causes the brain to assume race is the cause which is wrong, one way of looking at data is not the cause that explains that data. The issue is abstract, basically until there is scientific consensus for a cause it can't be described neutrally (unless we work harder to find a way). The most neutral way to describe and present this subject that I can think of would be "IQ test controversy" because test results correlated with "race" are meaningless if the IQ test is not an objective measure of intelligence (for which there is no consensus on). zen master T 22:43, 25 Jun 2005 (UTC)


Possibilities include: "abstract" or "nutrition" (if the cause). The confusion exists because the propagandists have almost hopelessly confused the issue with errant framing. They've described the abstract issue in terms of race for so long most everyone is errantly assuming (but not deeply thinking) that race is the cause. When you describe something only one way it becomes too easy for the language propagandist to turn description into the explanation. For example, when you see the phrase "race disparity" you may read it neutrally as just a description of the issue, but when the language propagandist counters a question you ask with "but nutrition can't explain the race disparity" they've ceased describing the issue and have moved on to psychologically implying cause through nothing but tricky language. Do you see it now? We have to be conscious of language. zen master T 23:19, 25 Jun 2005 (UTC)

just checking in

I'm out of town, with limited internet access. But I wanted to drop a few stones into the middle of this party. --Rikurzhen 23:26, Jun 25, 2005 (UTC)

  1. The Bell Curve is not one of three three fundamental sources for this article (which capture the views of 10-1000 researchers); but it is a good 2nd-tier source w/ 2 authors. picking on Murray and Hernstein is not a counter-argument to the consensus views expressed in the three 1st-tier sources.
Personally, I think The Bell Curve is so ideologically tainted that I would not trust anything the authors say. They may have cited useful stuff, however. I'm too turned off by the book to even want to dig it out of the middens. I think refering to it at all is waving a fluorescent red cape at the bull. P0M 23:47, 25 Jun 2005 (UTC)
I think the policy proposals section of this article puts The Bell Curve properly in its place; the authors reach the conclusions they do because of their political philosophy. Science doesn't dictate values, at least according to the philiosophers of note. But my point was that The Bell Curve is a straw man. Attack it tells us little about the actual content of this article, because this article is predicated on better sources. --Rikurzhen 00:00, Jun 26, 2005 (UTC)
  1. the point of WP is not to create a community-edited review article; review articles sell the author's POV on a subject; wikipedia merely reports the range of (a) majority and (b) moderate minority opinions of people in the world, not those of the editors -- but by all means, please do write a review article on your own time and have it published so those views can someday be put into the article

p.s. but lots of good stuff for The Bell Curve article or the IQ test controversy article. --Rikurzhen 23:32, Jun 25, 2005 (UTC)

You do realize there is a bell curve image at the very top of this article don't you? My point is not about presenting an author's "POV", the issue is whether this article is scientifically and neutrally structured. To structure and describe the issue only in terms of "race" eventually leads to "race" being errantly implicated as the cause for the abstract disparity. My point is not to create a "community-edited review article", the sources I listed above is merely evidence this article is currently being presented in a manner that is against consensus and neutrality. To put it simply: there is no consensus to present or describe this issue only in terms of "race". zen master T 23:42, 25 Jun 2005 (UTC)
The presence of a bell curve indicates the approximate normal (Gaussian) distribution of cognitive ability (IQ in particular). The book The Bell Curve has no monopoly on the normal distribution, nor does the presence of a bell curve indicate an acceptance of the authors' conclusions. --DAD 21:49, 26 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I'm a bit confused. Are you saying that this article, which explores the relationship betweer "race" and "intelligence", should also discuss other "factors" that relate to intelligence? (I mean, that's what I'm hearing you say, and it actually makes sense to me as an editor - but am I hearing you correctly?) -- Uncle Ed (talk) 23:49, Jun 25, 2005 (UTC)

If that were all ZM had in mind, I would say that we were all in total agreement and that if we'd missed anything it should be added. I read his criticisms as being that we cannot even call this 'race' and 'intelligence' because he's not satisified that doing so doesn't beg the question of a relationship between them. My primary reply is that it's not up to us to make that kind of judgement because the majority of researchers seem to be doing it and it's been written into all the major sources, into encyclopedia britannica, and into lots of textbooks. So this article cannot be so fundamentally altered, but a broader article on about the IQ test controversy is certainly worthwhile, because such a controvery certainly does (did) exist -- just not in the level/scope of scholarly debate that this article covers (but I believe it did in the past). --Rikurzhen 00:11, Jun 26, 2005 (UTC)
Ed, I was just going to ask once more what "the issue" is supposed to mean. Above, Zen-master suggested "nutrition". I can't see how one can describe nutrition in terms of race. But one can describe educational outcomes in terms of nutrition.
It may be helpful to zoom out. The problem that I am intuiting in all this stuff is that "Race and Intelligence" is an issue that has been plucked out of its social context. Let's look at this from the top down for a moment. If your goal is to improve educational outcomes, then what you do is to start a list of the factors that may be involved, start checking out whether they really do make a difference, and meanwhile keep your eyes open for additional factors that you hadn't thought of. Zen-master has suggested a bunch of things that might be relevant factors. Do we have any a priori grounds for excluding from study anything that someone thinks might be relevant? P0M 00:29, 26 Jun 2005 (UTC)
We have neither grounds nor need to exclude anything from study. That's not what we do here. Nor are we about goals, with one exception: treating the subject of "Race and intelligence" properly given the enormous amount of content that has been generated by scholars on the subject. This article is not about "What makes people more intelligent than others?" or "What is intelligence?" It's about the well-established differences in measured cognitive ability between racial groups. Other studies which explain these differences specifically through factors such as nutrition, education, SES, and so on, belong in this article. I emphasize specifically because a finding that nutrition influences IQ, with no stated conclusion regarding race, is off-topic.
I read much of the debate here as an attempt to change the subject. To me, this is just not possible. The broad question: 'To what degree, and why, do racial groups differ in intelligence?' was not asked by us, but by others (see References). We cannot un-ask the question, nor can we pass judgment on it (though we can, and do, report such judgments from the literature). This article reports on why such a question exists, and what has been done (by others) to try to answer it. --DAD 22:57, 26 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Articles are about subjects, just deciding to focus on one correlation "race" vs "IQ" does not mean we have to title the article that way, in fact, doing so (repeatedly focusing on framing the issue in terms of "race") is in fact racist. "race" vs "IQ" is a non neutral presentation of this subject. zen master T 03:01, 26 Jun 2005 (UTC)

What do you believe the subject of this article is? --DAD 22:57, 26 Jun 2005 (UTC)
I think I've distracted you from answering Ed's question. P0M 03:50, 26 Jun 2005 (UTC)
This article is an unscientific unneutral presentation of a subject, why do you want to continue presenting it that way? Wikipedia's prime directive is neutrality, racist or nazi-esque presentations of subjects should be disallowed. I am not in favor of excluding anything, I am just advocating presenting this subject so that all theories and hypothesis can be presented fairly, to do otherwise would be unscientific at the very least. zen master T 04:30, 26 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Before calling people nazis, you should probably note that a pre-condition to being a neo-nazi is believing in white-supremacy and anti-semitism. If Asians and Jews are considered to have higher average IQs than Whites, it isn't nazism.--Nectarflowed T 05:14, 26 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Global warming should be our model

Check out the global warming article. It covers the scientific consensus and the major contrarian view. Notice also the existence of many related articles. This set provides a practical example that supports our treatment of this and related articles. To draw the parallels:

It would be inappropriate to rename Global warming to accomodate the solar-activity POV, because it is not the majority scientific POV. It would also be inappropriate to try to rewrite the global warming article for the sake of "neutrality" in such a way that the scientific consensus about human impact on global warming is obscured. I'm hoping this example will help people to view this topic objectively. --Rikurzhen 14:46, Jun 26, 2005 (UTC)

Your analogy is invalid. The title Global warming does not in any way hint as to the cause of the issue. Unlike this article, within global warming each cause is presented using its own descriptive language, rather than being forced within one framework even considering there is a scientific consensus there that it is "man-made" though the exact causes or mechanics of how it works are still unknown. Perhaps you mean you analogy, truthfully, as in the "race vs IQ disparity" is man-made? More telling is the fact that there is no scientific consensus on this issue, the citations I provided above prove that. Countless scientists and scholars have effectively rendered any and all conclusions or inferred conclusions about "race" and "IQ" to be invalid scientifically, repeated harping on a correlation between results from dubious IQ tests and one bit of information about the test taker is not evidence for anything. The fact that this subject/article resorts to language propaganda/misdirection taints any and all conclusions on its own. zen master T 23:42, 26 Jun 2005 (UTC)

An attempt to restate what Zen-master has said. (It's supposed to be helpful.)

Structuring a set of articles

Before I start my attempt to lay Zen-master's understanding out more systematically than he has thusfar done, let me explain how I would structure a set of articles.

  • Factors claimed to be causes of differences in measured intelligence:
    • childhood environment
    • educational opportunities
    • genetic factors
      • population-genetics factors
    • health care
    • infancy environment
    • nutrition
      • nutrition limits the expression of genotype
    • prenatal care
    • prenatal environment
    • social dominance of other [races]
    • socio-economics
    • wealth disparities
    • Results claimed to follow from the differences in measured intelligence:
    • economic
    • political
    • self esteem
    • social
    • etc. (I haven't really thought of a good list yet.)

Zen-master's basic concern, as P0M interprets it

We have an article (that I would put in my "population-genetics factors" slot). We don't have any of the other articles as far as I know. That fact gives undue prominence to the article we are discussing here. So I support Zen-master's basic concern, but I think he has not presented it clearly enough. Writers have a duty to themselves not to make their readers guess about what they might mean. There are many places in Zen-master's presentation that could be rewritten to better represent what I guess to be his position. (My apologies if I have read between the lines unsuccessfully.)

For instance, let's start with a minor point:

Why do you feverently support a unscientific presentation of this subject? 26 June
That question assumes the truth of what Zen-master is arguing for, the belief that the presentation of this subject is unscientific. It's a "When did you stop beating your wife?" question.

Zen Master frequently uses the verbal equivalent of an algebraic X without telling us what X represents. For instance:

An article must present the issue in neutral language first. 23 June

I would agree that any rational discussion should avoid using loaded vocabulary, but I'm left wondering exactly which "issue" is intended here? Is Zen-master only echoing what I've said countless times, that [race] and [intelligence] are problematical connotatively and/or denotatively? Since he's never said, "Yes, that's exactly what I'm talking about when I bring these things up," I'm inclined to believe that he must have something more in mind, but I haven't a clue.

Here's another algebraic X.

This article's title concludes something that is still very much disputed.13 June

"Race and Intelligence" doesn't conclude anything. It implies or suggests some things, and unfortunately it hits different people different ways. But it would serve Zen-master's purposes better if he would tell us explicitly what he thinks that is. I think I know what he thinks, but the reality is that I am not telepathic.

Sometimes we get statements without express reasoning behind them. Remember "evidence and analysis?" For instance:

The title of this article could just as easily be Socio-economics and intelligence or Nutrition and intelligence, 14 June

I think I disagree with him here, if I understand him correctly, and that these would be two of the other articles in my list above.

Now let's try to sort out his main gripes:

Just because one "race" tests worse than another is not proof of causality, (Zen-master should have a period here, no?) An unexplained disparity does exist, "race" is just one way of looking at it (usage of the word "discrepancy" in this context is also not appropriate now that I think about it). 17 June

Based on the above passage, the words "this discrepancy" and "this disparity" are short for "the differences in average test results across the [racial] divides." I'm going to use this equation below. If I'm wrong, I'm sorry, but remember that I am not a telepath.

The 17 June passage is still structurally unclear. I think he is trying to say that while it is true that some groups defined in terms of American ideas of [race] have average IQ scores on standard tests that are lower than other groups, the cause of the higher and lower scores in not necessarily [race].

Possible alternate (not-[race]) causes Zen-master mentions:

nutrition
prenatal care
health care
educational opportunities
childhood environment
wealth disparities
socio-economics
social dominance of other [races]
nutrition limits the expression of genotype

Then he makes an interesting qualification:

Within a "nutrition distribution disparity" [i.e., when grouping of individuals is done by adequacy of nutrition and then IQ tests are compared?] some "races" are going to test worse than others, cause and effect. 17 June.

For Zen-master, if you're still with me: Please list the factors that would possibly cause members in the same economic situation but belonging to different [races] "to test worse than others"?

I think I follow what he says here, assuming I've substituted for "discrepancy" correctly:

The confusion exists because the word "race" in this context is both a way of describing the alleged (discrepancy =) differences in average test results across the [racial] divides and also a possible cause for it, which is needlessly ambiguous. 17 June

In short, if somebody says, "Racial differences emerge when large numbers of people are given IQ tests and the test results are averaged," then people are apt to conclude that the results are due to the [races] of the people involved when, in fact, unaccounted for confounding factors may be responsible.

Is this elaboration/interpretation correct?

Why do you want to emphasize "race" when it is only one possible way of describing this alleged (discrepancy =) differences in average test results across the [racial] divides ?

14 June The problem here is that Zen-master himself is fusing together the two ways that the idea of race could enter into this argument. He assumes that [race] is being used in an explanatory or causal way, rather than being used as a way of dividing the national population into subgroups to see how each subgroup is faring.

The above question doesn't make sense when the word "discrepancy" is disambiguated. But it does make sense if it is reworded slightly:

Why do you want to emphasize "race" when it is only one possible way of explaining this alleged differences in average test results across the [racial] divides?

My emendation seems to be borne out by the following:

This article haphazardly DESCRIBES the alleged (discrepancy =) differences in average test results across the [racial] divides ONLY in racial terms FOR THE PURPOSE of implying cause.

14 June

If the root cause of this alleged (discrepancy =) differences in average test results across the [racial] divides is wealth then race is not a factor other than proving minorities are less wealthy, 14 June
If there are theories X, Y, and Z that possibly explain the cause of (a discrepancy =) differences in average test results across the [racial] divides then why do you, this article and "psychology textbooks" frame the effects of the issue exclusively and repeatedly in terms of Z (race)? 14 June

and

Why do you repeatedly present the effects of this (discrepancy =) differences in average test results across the [racial] divides exclusively in racial terms? 15 June
(= Why do you explain differences in average test results across the [racial] divide in terms of theories of [race]?)
The word "race" is both a way of describing the unexplained (disparity =) differences in average test results across the [racial] divides and also a possible conclusion for [the causes of?] that disparity which is at best needlessly ambiguous and at worst POV. 23 June
Your question just as easily could be phrased as "why do people from different wealth levels differ in average measured intelligence? 14 June(And that question would require an article called "Wealth and Intelligence" or something like that.)

It would appear that my conjectures regarding what Zen-master has been saying are correct since he has not clarified my clarifications. P0M 28 June 2005 15:44 (UTC)

Well, P0M, it appears that you are correct in saying that zen master T "has not clarified [your] clarifications," because with only one exception, he never proposed any solutions fix the problems has claims. The exception would be that he suggests that "[t]he title should convey where the lack of consensus begins, which is exactly IQ test controversy," in his 09:51, 28 June 2005 diff here. As I've also stated, I am busy with other projects, and like Rikurzhen says below, it is highly likely that "I [too] won't be available to make additional replies." In conclusion, I am very disappointed that Zen-Master did not make any suggestions for change other than this one, but I shall comment on his one change, and like you apparently did, try to read his mind.--GordonWattsDotCom 28 June 2005 16:50 (UTC)
(New Paragraph for clarity) Anyhow, as to Zen-Master's suggested change, I think it would be impossible to change the title of this article substantially, because it is reporting on an existing debate. There is almost no other title that can be used here; however, if he thinks that other alleged links need reporting, then I support his inclusion of them. (I am an inclusionist.)--GordonWattsDotCom 28 June 2005 16:50 (UTC)

Another problem

Another problem: There is no consensus to present the issue (=??) in terms of race. 14 June

Does that mean: "There is no consensus to explain differences in average test results across the [racial] divide in terms of race"?

As you imply, P0M, this is a red herring. The "issue" is why racial groups differ in measured intelligence. Presentation without invoking race is impossible, even if race turns out to play no explanatory role. --DAD 04:03, 27 Jun 2005 (UTC)

"Cause and Effect" means...

I was responding directly to Patrick's statement about not understanding my "cause and effect" point. Race is not a "prima facia" cause of difference in intelligence, 17 June

O.K. Here we have a fairly clear instance for what Zen-master means by his "cause and effect" riffs.

And in no place does the article say that race is a cause of differences in intelligence. It could be, if it were shown that a genetic factor produces both a racial phenotype and an intelligence difference (since the latter is certainly not recognized as a racial phenotype, thank goodness). But even genetic factors do not indicate a causal relationship: we may also entertain informative non-causal hypotheses, e.g. that some intelligence-influencing factors, genetic or otherwise, may have segregated with race-related features. Regardless, I'd emphasize that nothing is a "prima facie" cause of differences in intelligence. The statement is virtually content-free. --DAD 03:37, 27 Jun 2005 (UTC)

A left-over challenge

How can "race" ever be disproven as the cause [of differences in average test results across the [racial] divides] when the issue is exclusively framed only in terms of "race"? zen master T 20:36, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)

That's easy. When you systematically eliminate all the confounding factors listed above, test kids, and find they all average out with the same score.

Or, even better, when you determine the cause(s) of intelligence differences, and demonstrate their independence from racial determinants. Or when race ceases to be a meaningful concept due to expansion of our knowledge. Or when other factors whittle down putative racial effects to where they become uninteresting to researchers. A standard deviation between some racial groups is simply too big to ignore, particularly given its societal importance, no matter what theory you subscribe to.
ZM's comments in general reflect a sense that psychometrics is obsessed with race. I can find no evidence for that. Certainly I welcome ZM's count of race-related articles in Intelligence or some other measure. Paradigms influence scientists, but the literature on intelligence differences shows no apparent preoccupation with race, and it is surprising (scientifically, not societally) how few people work on the problem given its effect size. In fact, the scientific debate on racial differences in intelligence is often squashed (see Gottfredson's writing) and/or laced with the kind of antiscientific scorn the likes of which I haven't seen since, well, school board meetings in Kansas. --DAD 03:51, 27 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Conspiracy Theory or Malign Neglect?

Has the possibility of direct or indirect IQ sabotage been considered? 14 June

As an explanation for why Blacks' test averages are worse than Whites' test averages? I guess I should add it to my outline above. When some people in power can cause great harm by merely being negligent, it's hard to prove that they are engaging in sabotage. Do you know the history of the Saturday School that was carried on in East Palo Alto, beginning in 1966 I think it was? A black member of the community named Robert Hoover was elected to the county school board in 1967 or 1968 as the result of a spirited campaign, and the Saturday Schools may have been phased out as the regular schools came under a more enlightened administration. P0M 02:24, 27 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Yes, sabotage has been considered, and demonstrated in one case: see Gottfredson, 2005, p.172-. It's an example, only a decade ago, of professionals tampering with test content in order to eliminate disparate impact (lower performance by some racial groups on tests of cognitive ability), to their financial gain. I'm not aware of recent examples. Given the profligate racism of earlier eras, I wouldn't be surprised to find historical examples, but I would be very surprised to find any tampering, either way, in the literature. Other examples welcome. --DAD 03:58, 27 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Possible compromise?

Perhaps we can eliminate all references to blacks or africans from the article, and focus strictly on the European, Asian and Jewish evidence? Would this satisfy all parties? I know if I identified with a race, I would want my race included in any research, the more one can learn about ones gene pool the better, short of getting ones own genome sequenced.--Silverback June 28, 2005 08:52 (UTC)

(I am putting back here my paragraph that Zen-master just deleted and replaced by his own, below) That's what I do when I discuss the matter in private. (Indeed, I focus in the gentile-Ashkenazim gap, because it is a strong argument against white supremacism and nazism, and because I am a gentile.) But I don't think that's the WP approach. Seriously: would you think the suppression of the Black–White gap (which as by far the best data, no other topic comes even close) would serve this article or the debate in any other way than by not offending some people? I can think of lots of Wikipedia principles that we would violate by that approach. Arbor 28 June 2005 09:23 (UTC)
That misses the point that it is unscientific to frame the issue exclusively in terms of "race" or "genetics" even if you only mention a subset of "races". The issue is abstract, only a racist would want to frame the issue in terms of race and use different types of repetition to trick people into only thinking about the issue in terms of "race". In addition to a title change and short of being totally re-written the article needs giant caveats all over the place that say something to the effect of "race, heredity, or genes may not be a cause at all" or something like "nutrition and poorly designed IQ tests may explain lower IQ scores in minorities worldwide". It should also be noted, that genome scientists have come out publically against the findings of "race and IQ" researchers... zen master T 28 June 2005 09:05 (UTC)
ZM, per usual, please provide citations; we cannot judge content recommendations without them. Which genome scientists? What did they exactly say, and where did they say it? --DAD 28 June 2005 17:34 (UTC)
I also note that your purpose has finally become a bit less murky: you have explicitly destructive goals with respect to the article on race and intelligence ("totally rewritten" + "title change" + "giant caveats" = change in subject). Your aims contradict the vast published literature on the subject, which is what we, as encyclopedists, are charged with reporting. I suggest you start a new article discussing whatever subject you're interested in; your continuing attempts to bury an entire field of inquiry with hearsay is like trying to make water flow uphill, and it's becoming exhausting. Kindly cite some literature. --DAD 28 June 2005 17:34 (UTC)
I agree, if genome scientists have come out against the findings of race and IQ, it should be noted in the article, if it isn't already. I will support a referenced and attributed addition to this effect. It would be difficult to define the issue in terms that would make race a cause, so I don't think you need to worry about that. There are caveats all over the place in the article already, perhaps you need to define "giant". I agree with your statements about racists. Hopefully the scientists involved in this research are not investigating the discrepency because they "want to frame the issue in terms of race". But it would be very surprising if different gene pools as indicated by racial markers were statistically equal in terms of just about any statistical measure in which there is individual variation that might be influenced by genes. Since there isn't much individual variation in the number of arms for instance, I suspect the average to be nearly equal across populations, despite the strong genetic influence.--Silverback June 28, 2005 09:34 (UTC)
The fundamental problem here is that the statement "X group average normalized test score > Y group average normalized test score by Z standard deviations" is actually understood (on both sides of the argument) to mean "Y group is inferior wrt X group", which is an emotive and political statement, not a scientific one. Once you see it in that way, it becomes possible to understand why people on either side of the argument are unable to consider this issue rationally.
My point of view: this article really should be called "Race" and "intelligence", since its current title starts off by implying that both of these concepts are meaningful, easily defined and measured, before even considering whether they are a useful way of considering group statistics about test results. My POV: "race" is a very blurry concept at best, meaningless at worst. "Intelligence" is also blurry and hard to define. I know many academics and computer scientists who earn a fraction of what a good plumber earns: many people would regard them as "stupid" in comparison to the plumber, for not taking up the opportunity to earn a better living. I rather suspect that the fact that academics score very well on IQ tests is a result of IQ tests being designed by academics; if the tests had been designed by plumbers, I'm sure plumbers would score top marks, particularly on highly-weighted factors such as "pipio-bendial ability" and "grommet recognition" -- The Anome June 28, 2005 09:35 (UTC)
If we start down that road, soon there will be a lot of articles in scare quotes. We can start with "global warming" and "racism". - Nat Krause 29 June 2005 04:35 (UTC)
Personal theories holding that a sentence that says "On average, US blacks have a lower measured cognitive ability than US whites" is "actually understood" to mean "blacks are inferior to whites" should be addressed by explicitly pointing out the fallacy, or at least the independence, of the latter statement. The former statement is scientific, while the latter is a value judgment and thus outside science. I encourage you to make this explicit in the article; personally, I believe our responsibility is to write as clearly as possible and not attempt to correct for all possible reader errors.
Your suspicion about test design, generally that cognitive ability tests measure specific skills rather than a generalized mental ability, has long ago been put to bed; most simply, the results of all cognitive tests of specific cognitive abilities are positively correlated, and a single general factor (the g factor) consistently explains these correlations and most of the predictive power of cognitive ability tests; see Jensen 1998. --DAD 28 June 2005 16:32 (UTC)
Ah, but where's the factor in g for "having the nous to become a plumber, and be able to afford to have lots of children in a great big house, instead of being an academic, and, er, not?" -- The Anome June 28, 2005 18:04 (UTC)
Funny, but of unclear significance. Income and IQ (which is mostly g) have been treated extensively. As you imply, income isn't the only measure of success; academic positions are both strongly loaded on g and among the highest-prestige jobs in present-day society (part of a general correlation between g and job prestige; see Gottfredson 1998), regardless of their earning power. --DAD 28 June 2005 18:43 (UTC)
The title should convey where the lack of consensus begins, which is exactly IQ test controversy. zen master T 28 June 2005 09:51 (UTC)
I could support either name change, although Race and Intelligence should be maintained as a redirect. What is important is that readers interested in an encyclopedic article on this, should be able to find it.--Silverback June 28, 2005 10:06 (UTC)

Compromise? Forgive the pun, but ... We cannot compromise the presentation of facts or the presentation of major opinions; that would violate WP:NPOV. We cannot write an article based on our own opinions. That should be an unambiguous reading of WP:NOR. But suggestions to make substantial structural or content changes to this article would have to do that; unless the other editors and I have missed a major body of literature that supports such changes. (see here ... I won't be available to make additional replies. --Rikurzhen June 28, 2005 14:40 (UTC)

The problems won't go away if we write it out of the article. The problems include:

(1) the fact that some groups of people are at a disadvantage that is connected somehow -- even if it's only that they are systematically mistreated -- with what people in the U.S. call "race." (Race may be a myth, but racism is real.)
(2) the web of emotional reactions that wind around and obscure the issues of fact and causation.
(3) how to give all groups the best chance at success in life.

Most people who come to the article will do so because they have become aware of the controversy and want to get for themselves the best understanding of all aspects of the problem. P0M 28 June 2005 16:45 (UTC)

Are those 3 things mentioned in the article? You'd think they would be in the introduction, where they couldn't possibly be missed. I certainly didn't see them on the to-do list for this talk page.
Let's not limit the scope of this article to the attempts of social scientists to prove or disprove a link between race and intelligence. Let's add some POV to it: not the opinions of each of us contributors, of course, but public opinion.
Are there people like Jensen (or the bell curve authors) who recommend changes in American social policy, based on the conclusions they draw from research? Well, that's certainly a notable Wikipedia:POV (q.v.) and should be mentioned in the article. Like this, maybe:
  • The authors of The Bell Curve say that morons should be sterilized, brutalized and ostracized.
  • Civil rights leaders, especially those with skin colors J and K, responded by wishing that the book authors should be placed in a bell jar and all the air evacuated.
Okay, it's a silly example, but if there are people out there with strong feelings on the topic, I think we should air some of them. -- Uncle Ed (talk) June 28, 2005 17:57 (UTC)
Ed: you have it spot-on. The politics and the science (or "science", depending on your view) cannot be separated from one another. That doesn't mean we shouldn't have a go: but anyone who thinks they are neutral on this is in denial about the fact that they have a POV, but consider it to be "neutral" or "scientific". This is why NPOV is so useful here. Just to be clear: I don't deny that different groups sorted by "race" have significantly different scores on tests which claim to measure "intelligence". It's also clear that both genetic and environmental factors correlate with IQ scores. But what this means in terms of conclusions to be drawn and actions to take is a matter of political, rather than rational, debate, on both sides: and should be reported as such. -- The Anome June 28, 2005 18:22 (UTC)
Ed, your example is senselessly inflammatory, particularly since many people appear to believe that the authors of The Bell Curve actually said such things (they did not). I would have preferred a more accurate rendering of both sides.
Anome, your statement that politics and science cannot be separated is overgeneral. It's true that scientific inquiry and interpretations come freighted with the biases of the investigators, the funding organizations, the reviewers, and so on. However, it does not follow that science is a battle of opinions, as your scare-quotes imply. Research on cognitive ability (independent of race) is notably quantitative, repeatable by multiple investigators, and predictive of real-world outcomes. Opinions, in general, have none of these properties. The corpus of intelligence research cannot be discarded as opinion any more than economics can. In general, primary research articles on cognitive ability are free of politically charged interpretations, and it would be a grave disservice to our readers to merge the two. --DAD 28 June 2005 19:05 (UTC)
Huh? How can what you are saying be true "DAD" given the fact that IQ tests are considered dubious at best by most mainstream scientists? All/most of the criticisms of IQ tests are quite specific to those who would try to draw correlations between "IQ" and "race". Also, this politics vs science discussion ignores the fact that language psychology should not be used to present any subject, if the issue is abstract it should be described abstractly and not framed only one way. zen master T 28 June 2005 19:25 (UTC)
"IQ tests are considered dubious at best by most mainstream scientists" -- Citations, ZM? For contradictions of this profligate hearsay, see the article The Wall Street Journal: Mainstream Science on IntelligencePDF and the 1996 APA report. We're still waiting for a reputable source for these wild assertions. What I'm saying can be true (is true) because your "given fact" is diametrically opposed to reality. --DAD 28 June 2005 20:52 (UTC)
That is not an article, that is a paid advertisement. Big difference. -Willmcw June 29, 2005 01:50 (UTC)
Really. Who was paid? And how much? Wait -- those are rhetorical questions. No one was paid: not the author, not the signers. And the signers of that statement are practically a who's-who of intelligence researchers. Willmcw, care to cite your source? And presumably someone paid off the APA committee, as well? Find me a primary literature citation, anybody, because all I can find are study after study (a favorite of mine is Hunter and Hunter's 1984 metanalysis on job performance, with a sample size north of 30,000) that find that cognitive ability tests are better than virtually anything for predicting major social outcomes (in Hunter and Hunter's case, job performance). --DAD 29 June 2005 02:51 (UTC)
The Wall Street Journal was paid for running the ad. -Willmcw June 29, 2005 02:55 (UTC)
As for who paid the scientists, many of whom were the sources for The Bell Curve, half had received grants from the Pioneer Fund.[10] -Willmcw June 29, 2005 03:45 (UTC)
The WSJ article, which was an unpaid editorial, was later published in the journal Intelligence. Citations should be in the reference section. Unsubstantiated conspiracy theories about devious researchers are not credible sources for writing WP articles. --Rikurzhen June 29, 2005 05:27 (UTC)
The involvement of the Pioneer Fund in funding research into intelligence and race is not an uunsubstantiated theory. -Willmcw June 29, 2005 21:15 (UTC)
I hope you are wrong, if all the criticisms of IQ tests are specific to the IQ and race issue, then that is not claiming that IQ tests are considered dubious, in fact it calls the criticisms into question. If they were considered dubious, then it would be independent of any involvement with race. Besides, criticisms in science are not that significant without peer reviewed research to back up the criticisms. Has there been research that calls into question the reproducability of IQ test results? The tests are usually validated before they are released.--Silverback June 28, 2005 20:14 (UTC)
They are emphasizing that IQ tests are dubious precisely because of the fact of what "race" and "IQ" "researchers" are trying to do with them politically, basically they specifically disagree with the way this subject is being presented. Though, as you quite rightly point out the criticisms of the IQ tests are valid outside of the "race" issue. This is not a basic "criticisms in science" issue, the criticisms, from scientists, are saying that the "race" vs "IQ" "researchers" are not being scientific (a different level of criticism that taints all conclusions and method of presentation). Do you see it now? zen master T 28 June 2005 20:26 (UTC)
I see it as a non-scientific criticism, because it isn't testable. It is a mere assertion. so if there is a "taint", it is not a scientific taint, it probably is a social or political taint. How can this claim of the critics be tested?--Silverback June 28, 2005 20:47 (UTC)

The burden of proof is on the "IQ researchers" to prove the scientific worthiness of "race" vs "IQ" research. Real scientists are the ones pointing out the illogic of "IQ research". zen master T 28 June 2005 21:11 (UTC)

they have published in peer reviewed journals, exposing their methods and results open scrutiny and possible refutation. What more is needed?--Silverback June 28, 2005 21:31 (UTC)
The results have been scrutinized by actual scientists. What is more credible than genome scientists debunking the "genetic" myth of "race" vs "IQ" "research"? What is more obvious than repeated repetition designed to exploit language/framing confusion? What more is needed is having the issue stand up to scrutiny after being presented neutrally. The issue isn't merely what they are saying but also how they are saying it (unscientific and non neutral). zen master T 29 June 2005 01:39 (UTC)j
"What is more credible than genome scientists debunking..." Well, one cited source would do it. Care to cite any sources? Not sure what language must be used to get a single citation, here. Maybe it would help to make it official: cite your sources --DAD 29 June 2005 02:39 (UTC)
Here is the paragraph with citation I posted above a couple of days ago since you apparently missed it:
  • "The American Psychological Association is not the only expert organization that has denounced The Bell Curve. The Human Genome Project has weighed in as well. In a letter written to Science magazine, its members wrote: 'As geneticists and ethicists associated with the Human Genome Project, we deplore The Bell Curve's misrepresentation of the state of genetic knowledge in this area and the misuse of genetics to inform social policy.'" [11] zen master T 29 June 2005 03:15 (UTC)
It's instructive to look at the first part of that quotation. Turns out the APA never denounced The Bell Curve. The page you cite, however, is not a primary source, but a tertiary source quoting a secondary source. The page itself is a mouth-watering cornucopia of lies. Let's have some fun, shall we? Take the first line: "'The scientific basis of The Bell Curve is fraudulent.' (1) With those words, the American Psychological Association denounced The Bell Curve..." 1) The APA's report said no such thing. 2) The person to whom the statement is attributed, Halford Fairchild, was not an author of the APA report nor a member of the task force. I could go on, but any interested party should just read a full debunking of this wonderful page. At least we finally got a cited source! I'd be happier about the genome scientists if they critiqued the primary literature rather than a right-wing policy book and included specifics. --DAD 29 June 2005 03:40 (UTC)
I'm probably the closest thing you'll find to a genome scientist around here. No way they could have made a statement in 1994 about race with any real certainty, and if they did the field is aboslutely completely different now than then so such conclusions could not be taken as representative -- we've got at least 2^11 times more sequence data now than then. But all of that is incorporated in the race article, which is prominently linked in the background section of the article for further discussion. --Rikurzhen June 29, 2005 05:27 (UTC)
except DAD ;) --Rikurzhen June 29, 2005 06:05 (UTC)
Here are more citations. The repetition of confusion and lack of clarity by framing the issue only in terms of "race" gives you away. Only a racist would want to perpetuate an unscientific method of presentation, in my opinion. If you have another explanation I am still waiting to hear it.
  • Here is article that goes into some detail about my similar point that the issue is framed entirely in terms of race so everyone is constantly thinking about it exclusively in terms of race, which is exactly how a racist would want us to think. "The new 'race scientists' want us to view everything in terms of... 'race'" [12]
  • Above from a larger series of articles with tons of info "The current attack on black people using phony science" [13]
  • "Intellectual tricks can always fool those receptive to racism" [14]
  • "Bad Science makes for Bad Conclusions" [15]
  • "How Media Let The Bell Curve's Pseudo-Science Define the Agenda on Race" [16]

Re:The Anome "My POV: "race" is a very blurry concept at best, meaningless at worst."

Yes, the concept of race has limitations, but have you seen the 2005 study "Genetic structure, self-identified race/ethnicity, and confounding in case-control association studies," published in the American Journal of Human Genetics? "Of 3,636 subjects of varying race/ethnicity, only 5 (0.14%) showed genetic cluster membership different from their self-identified race/ethnicity. [...] Thus ancient geographic ancestry, which is highly correlated with self-identified race/ ethnicity [...] is the major determinant of genetic structure in the U.S. population."[17]

Jason Malloy at the genetics blog Gene Expression adds that "Race is not a trait, it’s ancestry, and ancestry has wide-ranging genetic implications."[18] Malloy's article is a good one that refutes a number of popular conceptions of race that get brought up in race and intelligence debates.--Nectarflowed T 29 June 2005 00:46 (UTC)

Personal story... I was in a talk today where an eminent scientist stood up and told a post doc that her data was total BS and no one should believe it. Let me be as blunt. ZM's claims are not supported by citations, are directly contradicted by the best sources, and seem to add no value to this article. Little progress has been made towards improving the article since this mess on the talk page has started. It must end. We must move on. We've all got better things to do with our time. --Rikurzhen June 29, 2005 06:05 (UTC)

Agreed.--Nectarflowed T 29 June 2005 06:24 (UTC)

Rename "Race and measures of intelligence" or similar

This is continued from Archive 6 (my last commented was ignored). Surely something like "Race and measures of intelligence" would be a more accurate title? ··gracefool |☺ 07:16, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)

My opinion is here: if it's good enough for Britannica... --Rikurzhen 07:36, Jun 24, 2005 (UTC)

I like the proposed change. P0M 14:27, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I cannot imagine a principle that when applied consistently across all WP articles, would require adding measured to this title, without also requiring changes to a great many other articles. For example, Age of the Earth would seem to have to become Measured age of the Earth or Estimated age of the Earth. My guess is that there are thousands of such articles about science topics where adding measured would be required. However, you don't need to read very far into this (and other articles) to find that clarification. So, I can understand why terms like measured have been left out of most titles -- for brevity and ease of title searching. --Rikurzhen 16:43, Jun 24, 2005 (UTC)
How about this:
(I made that into a redirect.) -- Uncle Ed (talk) 17:01, Jun 24, 2005 (UTC)
Again, I can quickly imagine examples where you wouldn't want to apply that principle. For example, what is now Intelligent Design would become Controversy over intelligent design; and I hate to imagine Evolution --> Controversy over evolution. Then all controversial topics would need to be changed, such that Eugenics would need to become Controversy over eugenic... and so on. Not that there isn't a controversy in all these topics. And more broadly... not to say that intelligence isn't being measured/approximated rather than directly observed. Likewise, not to say that race is a precisely defined term for which a discrete reductionist definition can be offered. Only that I think the all these caveats need prominent mention, but together they'd drown out the race and intelligence parts of the title -- the bits that are most comprehensible to the least-educated reader. That's why I'm conservative about the article title, even if it does undersell the intricacy content. --Rikurzhen 17:24, Jun 24, 2005 (UTC)
FYI, [[Category:Race and intelligence controversy]] exists... --Rikurzhen 17:30, Jun 24, 2005 (UTC)
I would also be concerned about respecting the kind of distinction that exists between Global warming and Global warming controversy. Seemingly, there could be an article called Race and intelligence controversy that took material from the Background section of this article and built a historical account of the actual controversy, while this article focused on the science. --Rikurzhen 17:44, Jun 24, 2005 (UTC)
  • Firstly, just because Brittanica has a title doesn't mean Wikipedia should. Wikipedia is written by consensus; Brittanica is not. Although it is interesting that Brittanica uses quotes, surely showing that some recognition of the problem is valid. Secondly, your counterexamples are inapplicable - there is no inconsistency because the controversy here is over the wording of the title; this is not the case in evolution, global warming, etc. As for titles like Age of the Earth - using "measured" there would be redundant because few argue that it is impossible to measure the age of the earth. Whereas the controversy here is over the very idea that intelligence can be accurately quantized. ··gracefool |☺ 28 June 2005 07:57 (UTC)


Gracefool, the EB article was used to document that Race and intelligence is an uncontroversial title; EB is not the only publication about the subject. (It is what scholarly publications use, and also what many popular science books use, on both sides of the debate. See the references.) The only candidate for a title that is possibly even more conventional is Race and IQ, but that doesn't fit this article very well. (This may be worth emphasizing: this article presents data for many measures of intelligence, not only IQ, for the exact reason that some people see difficulties in quantizing intelligence, or even agreeing on the term's semantics in the first place.) A number of more recent books and articles use Race, genetics, and intelligence or some permutation of these words, but that would put more emphasis on the genetic hypothesis than the current article warrants.

As to your age analogy, I don't think I agree. A large part of the public would certainly disagree with the validity of measurements of the age of the Earth. For instance, there is a huge controversy in the US, a scientifically literate society. See Young Earth creationism. It is only among scientists that there is a strong consensus about how old Earth is, and how one can measure such things. Similarly, psychologists agree on how to quantize intelligence, see Mainstream science on intelligence. (Or find me a trustworthy reference that disputes these claims.) Do psychologists agree on all details? Certainly not. But that line of inquiry is a "creationist trick"; scientists don't agree on how old Earth is either, or how it should be measured, so creationists can always point to disputes or very carefully guarded statements within the scientific community. This doesn't prevent us from having an article called Age of the Earth.

Anyway, all these things are laid out much better in Intelligence quotient and IQ test controversy. Arbor 28 June 2005 08:44 (UTC)

Unanswered questions on apparent racist method of presentation

Why did someone archive discussions that were active as of a few hours ago? The archiving is rather surprising considering some people kept repeating that I never provide citations but when I do they archive, damage the quality of the text or misdirect away in a myriad of different ways. Anyway, here are some unanswered questions and citations that prove there is no consensus to frame this issue exclusively in terms of race.

  • The following article goes into some detail about my similar point that the issue is framed entirely in terms of race so everyone is constantly thinking about it exclusively in terms of race, which is exactly how a racist would want us to think. "The new 'race scientists' want us to view everything in terms of... 'race'" [19]
  • The above URL is from a larger series of articles with tons of info "The current attack on black people using phony science" [20]
  • "Intellectual tricks can always fool those receptive to racism" [21]
  • "Bad Science makes for Bad Conclusions" [22]
  • "How Media Let The Bell Curve's Pseudo-Science Define the Agenda on Race" [23] zen master T 29 June 2005 18:42 (UTC)

Zenmaster, I did the archiving. It was a pretty large task, but I am sorry if I missed something that was still "live". Thank you for bringing back your considerations; I will try to be more careful in the future.Arbor 29 June 2005 19:45 (UTC)

To actually answer your questions, thank you so much for providing this material. On the face of it, these things seem to be (as Rik put it) tertiary sources that discuss secondary sources (for example, The Bell Curve). Note that the latter work is not the cornerstone of our little article here, in fact very few citations use material from Hernstein and Murray. Instead, most of the material in the article is based on primary sources, i.e., studies that appeared in peer-reviewed journals. It would be apt if your counterpoints exhibited a similar degree of reliability. But I will be happy to go through all of them in detail, maybe there is an observation or two that we can put in the introductory section. (You can do that yourself, if you want.) Arbor 29 June 2005 19:45 (UTC)

Your point about "peer reviewed journals" ignores criticisms of the method of presentation and the media's complicity in errantly framing this issue. The first two URLs are from 2004 and cover the entire "race" vs "IQ" scheme so your point about it only being applicable against the bell curve or "secondary sources" is also invalid. The first thing this article needs is a title change, to IQ test controversy or something better. zen master T 29 June 2005 19:52 (UTC)
The sources ZM has provided are all media sources. I cannot find a single study among them. Moreover, the sources are rather shrill and suffer from their own factual deficits. As just one example, the page referenced by ZM's first bullet point, in criticizing a genetic argument, says,
"First of all, it is false that 'evolution has turned out Ashkenazi Jews with a genetic predisposition to Tay Sachs.'"
The author's argument is that Tay Sachs is deleterious, thus it couldn't have evolved. The author clearly hasn't the first clue about genetics. Heterozygosity for a particular gene confers malaria resistance, but homozygosity causes sickle-cell anemia; the gene persists because of its heterozygous benefit. The analogy to Tay Sachs is essentially perfect, as Tay Sachs also involves a homozygous-lethal allele whose heterozygous form has recently (and quite topically) been implicated in Ashkenazim IQ advantages (Cochran 2005).
The above simply underscores the importance of reliance on peer-reviewed science rather than credulous online media screeds. Kindly provide some peer-reviewed science comparable to the material already in the article. I'd be impressed even by some factual online media screeds, at this point. --DAD 29 June 2005 20:34 (UTC)


I created IQ test controversy a couple of days ago. Please expand it. -- Uncle Ed (talk) June 29, 2005 20:30 (UTC)
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