Talk:J. Philippe Rushton/Talk Archive 2006-06-20

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Contents 1 J. Philippe Rushton or Philippe Rushton? 2 Nice article 3 WHAT ABOUT SOUTH AFRICA? 4 This article is not neutral 5 link 6 Off Topic: Why Hasn't This Man Been Sued? 7 J. Philippe Rushton - Controversial But Commendable 8 Professionalism 9 Truce on tit-for-tat edits, let's talk organization 10 Edit of professional opinions 11 Detail his argument? 12 that many African-American youth have adopted a culture of anti-intellectualism 13 American Renaissance 14 race valid concept?

[edit] J. Philippe Rushton or Philippe Rushton?

I've changed the name of the page from J. Philippe Rushton to Philippe Rushton since that is how I've usually seen his name written (in the Canadian press, anyway). --Saforrest 18:29, May 5, 2005 (UTC)

His official faculty page gives J. Philippe Rushton; so do his books, I believe. Dd2 23:41, 18 May 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Nice article

I thought it was really well written, good job all. ¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸ 03:37, 29 July 2005 (UTC)

[edit] WHAT ABOUT SOUTH AFRICA?

I find it humorous that u chose to ommit his boyhood days in apartheid era south africa,. I find it more suspicious that u copied his bio word for word except his time for his time in south africa .Check the link people youll see what i mean @www.Rushton rushton@uwo.ca maybe theres more to this "serious scholar" than meets the eye.And dont try and say oh! that wasnt intentional! DPJ (p.s. sorry im new to this site havent learned to use the link option yet,dont let that dicourage u type it in your browser lazy!)

Hi DPJ, if that's true it should be included in the article. Remember to assume good faith ;) --Nectar ^T 20:57, 14 August 2005 (UTC)

A few minutes ago I watched a tape of that infamous debate between Rushton & Suzuki and the first thing Suzuki did when he spoke was thank the audience for maintaining their peacefulness, stating that he could tell by the politeness in the room that he was "in Canada, instead of South Africa". He then went on the, rather than point by point denoucing Ruston's theories, simply denouce Rushton himself for promoting unscientific work, and then criticizing the University of Western Ontario "for not having a single Professor willing to debate this man", - pointing out that aa psychologist should debate another psychologist, and that its people like Rushton who are the reason that psychology has a bad reputation in academic circles. He also said that Rushton shouldn't be able to hide behind academic freedom for unscientific work and cricized the media frenzy surounding him which has allowed him to gain this status. Dowew 23:21, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] This article is not neutral

Like in the cases of Lynn(even worst in Rushtons cases), the controversial nature of his stdies and his character is not given as much spaces as it is given in the Academia. Rushtons theories like correlations between penile sizes and intelligence, from the years he has actually asked vollonteers to measures their peniles.

Here, a bit of the controversy.

Here, more, the meta-analysis results published in the abstracts titled: "Lack of racial differences in behavior: A quantitative replication of Rushton's (1988) review and an independent meta-analysis." Kevin M. Goreya, and Arthur G. Crynsb

a School of Social Work, University of Windsor, 401 Sunset Avenue, Windsor, Ontario, Canada N9B 3P4 b School of Social Work, State University of New York at Buffalo, 359 Baldy Hall P.O. Box 601050, Buffalo, NY 14260-1050, U.S.A.

Rushton r/K selection theory application on human was rejected by a very serious Cross-cultural evaluation research. Cross-cultural evaluation of predicted associations between race and behavior

Peter N. Peregrinea, , , Carol R. Emberb and Melvin Emberb

a Department of Anthropology, Lawrence University, 515 E. College Avenue, Appleton, WI 54911, USA b Human Relations Area Files, New Haven, CT, USA

I have the study in question, if anyone want it, I will email it.

Another abstract, while a critic of Lynn unscientific simplifcation, cover Rushtons "methodology" Are there racial and ethnic differences in psychopathic personality? A critique of Lynn's (2002) racial and ethnic differences in psychopathic personality

Marvin Zuckerman,

Department of Psychology, University of Delaware, Newark, DE 19716, USA

I also, can email the full abstract for those that want it.

Tha fact of the matter is that every bit of Rushton simplistic analysis have been answered by serious critics, even the methodology of measuring brain size used were questioned. But when someone read the article, it is as if the critics are averages for someone advanturing in a controversial subject, when it is a lot more than this. And in my opinion, for this article to be neutral this should be clear when someone read, that the controversy around the man and his research is just more than caused by the controversial nature of the subject he treats. Fadix 02:10, 27 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] link

Found an article originally published in the UWO student paper The Gazette [1]

[edit] Off Topic: Why Hasn't This Man Been Sued?

It seems to me that his assertions, based on pseudo-science, that some ethnic groups have, on average, a lower genetic IQ than others, is damaging to the lifetime earning potential of members of those groups which are low in the league table (but personally financially rewarding to himself). Since hard-science doesn't support the notion that average IQ differences are mainly caused by nature, not nurture, there must be scope for a class-action law-suit against this man.--New Thought 14:41, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

I think the difficulty might come in demonstrating that earning potential is actually damaged by his work. Unless there's an employer out there who explicitly bases employee pay/prospects on Rushton's "work", I think it would be difficult to demonstrate any harm (which is not to say that there aren't people out there who cement their backward views with his pseudoscience). The idea of a class action is a very interesting one though. Cheers, --Plumbago 15:01, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

Based on the damage to his career he's experienced and the death threats he receives, he might disagree with you that he's chosen a personally rewarding field. If you'd like to see expert opinion on the subject of nature, nurture, and IQ variation among ethnic groups, the race and intelligence article is a comprehensive review.--Nectar 15:14, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] J. Philippe Rushton - Controversial But Commendable

Although his studies are highly controversial, it is accurate and supported by mainstream science.

No. If he was doing science, he would have to admit that a high proportion of his doctrine is unproven--New Thought 13:35, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps being more specific. Exactly which conclusion are you stating is unproven?

1. Whites and Blacks having different median levels of testosterone? http://cebp.aacrjournals.org/cgi/content/full/11/10/1041

2. Whites, Blacks, East Asians having different IQ levels? http://www.mugu.com/cgi-bin/Upstream/Issues/bell-curve/support-bell-curve.html

"The Bell Curve" has been thoroughly discredited. In this book, Richard Herrnstein and Charles Murray advocate that a "cognitive elite" will and should "run a custodial state" for an "underclass" of people with lower intelligence that is "disproportionately black." They advocate that because "people in the underclass are in that condition through no fault of their own but because of inherent shortcomings about which little can be done...." and "a significant part of the population must be made permanent wards of the state." To me, it looks like social engineering thinly disguised as science--New Thought 21:37, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

If you're going to quote someone, it's kosher to actually name the source.

"The first reactions to The Bell Curve were expressions of public outrage. In the second round of reaction, some commentators suggested that Herrnstein and Murray were merely bringing up facts that were well known in the scientific community, but perhaps best not discussed in public. A Papua New Guinea language has a term for this, Mokita. It means 'truth that we all know, but agree not to talk about.'---Professor Earl Hunt MuseBell10 02:06, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

3. Different races having different median cranial sizes? http://www.harbornet.com/folks/theedrich/JP_Rushton/Chart_02.jpg

4. Link between cranial size and intelligence? http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2005/12/051223123116.htm

5. Fact that IQ is primarily genetic? http://www.loni.ucla.edu/~thompson/MEDIA/NN/ns.html MuseBell10 20:18, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

The above links come nowhere near to demonstrating the claims that you're making for them--New Thought 21:37, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

Oh is that right? Check following post then. MuseBell10 02:06, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

(spam article removed): <polite request>MuseBell - intelligent people like to be allowed to make up their own mind about things - not have just one side of an argument enforced upon them (attempting, in this case, to silence the other side by drowning them out). Please remember that this page is for discussion about an encyclopedia article - it's not a debating forum. In order to enable us to collectively produce the most informative article possible, it would be helpful if you could show respect towards other users of this resource.</polite request>--Peter Heyes 06:33, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

His comparison of cranial size gaps between races is reported in the peer review journal of Intelligence. Likewise studies involving the link between cranial size and intelligence of a .40 pearson correlation is widely held among psychologists and reported in the journal Intelligence. His work is affirmed by other highly prominent psychologists such as Arthur Jensen, Richard Lynn, Richard Herrnstein, Charles Murray, etc. Those who attack the facts drawn, rarely seem to go after the science but tout the "it's racist. it's racist" line. Never able to come up with any peer reviewed studies that results in different conclusions.

"Mark Snyderman and Stanley Rothman, a psychologist and a political scientist, respectively, sent a questionnaire to a broad sample of 1,020 scholars, mostly academicians, whose specialties give them reason to be knowledgeable about IQ.

Among the other questions, they asked "Which of the following best characterizes your opinion of the heritability of the black-white difference in IQ?" This survey showed that the majority of academics believe the White-Black IQ gap is caused in part by genetics. In fact there was a 3 to 1 ratio among academics who felt the White-Black IQ gap is caused by genetics compared to those who felt the difference was entirely environmental.

Human races have been separated for 110,000 years in drastically different environments? Are we to believe that this will cause no differences mentally, physically, and in behavior in our genes? If such is so, that would certainly be a strong case against the existence of evolution.

Science should never adher to political correctness but strive for scientific accuracy. Those who try to silence thse findings, while their intentions are good, do a complete disservice to science. MuseBell10 09:30, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

In the interest of accuracy, with respect to your 4th assertion, that cranial size is linked with intelligence, the reference you offer is a study of the size (volume) of different regions of the brain. Not cranial size. The two are not necessariliy one in the same and the cuasal direction of the size/IQ link is by no means clear. Further, I question the statement that the link between cranial size and intelligence is "widly held by psychologists". While a substantail portion of the field suggests that IQ has some genetic basis, this is quit different from making the assertion that psychologists support that notion that IQ can be predicted by cranial size, which IMO is supported by very few psychologists. Arglebargle 9:56-April 8, 2006

You might be interested in these studies:

Andreasen, N. C., Flaum, M., Swayze, V., Oleary, D. S., Alliger, R., Cohen, G., Ehrhardt, J. and Yuh, W. T. C. (Jan 1993). "Intelligence and Brain Structure in Normal Individuals". American Journal of Psychiatry 150 (1): 130-134. PMID 8417555.  Template:Journal reference Template:Journal reference Template:Journal reference

Dd2 18:37, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Professionalism

JereKrisheil, I don't have time to debate these edits, but please take it easy. Statements such as "Fatally prejudging the data, Rushton argues that..." are POV-pushing, aren't they? If nobody cleans up the many bad edits that have been made to this page, those POV tags will be needed for a very long time.--Nectar 22:13, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

My apologies. Both User:72.1.195.4 and I have behaved very poorly, I will endeavor to write from his/her perspective, and hopefully they can give a shot at writing from mine.

Simply put, I think it is unfair to sugar coat the problems with Rushton's methods, conclusions, and simplistic assertions. It is especially weasely when statements made by him, or his supporters, are presented as truth - this continues to happen in several specific places, where you'll have an "Although,..." statement.

What I would like to see, and have help in, is giving a fair representation of what Rushton believes, a fair representation of the significant criticism to his work and conclusions, and perhaps most difficult of all, a clear indication of the extreme minority status of the POV he represents.

This has been spilling into Blasian, where the idea of "genetic averaging" has reared its head for a while. Whatever you may believe about Rushton, his work is not generally accepted by scientists around the world (specific allies, of varying degrees of prominence, notwithstanding). This needs to be made clear, in a respectful way. That is to say, even though the world is generally completely against him, he has a right to his opinions.

I think what is happening is the article is becoming a personal defense and promotion of Rushton, rather than an encyclopedic overview. Perhaps we should be pruning great sections instead of tit-for-tatting? --JereKrischel 22:23, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. It seems hard to make definitive statements about how these topics are viewed by the expert community, as it's long been claimed that race and intelligence research in general has been refuted or discredited, but the most recent survey of experts seems to show the opposite.[2] At any rate, the defense of Rushton by some of the biggest names in evolutionary biology, like E. O. Wilson and William Hamilton,[3] seems to indicate a neutral article will need to calmly regard him as a scientist, albeit one who has instigated large controversy.

(I'm not sure where the Baartman caricature image came from, but including it is about as POV as it gets on Wikipedia.)--Nectar 00:35, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

"...the most recent survey of experts seems to show the opposite..." Uhh... No. Read that section again. A slim majority think that there's some link between genetics and intelligence. There's nothing in that survey about race.

[edit] Truce on tit-for-tat edits, let's talk organization

If User:72.1.195.4 (and others from canada - perhaps Rushton himself?) would care to humor me for a moment, I'd like to discuss organization and concentrate on that rather than tit-for-tat citations for a moment. We can get into that later, but right now it seems that too many similar arguments are happening in the same places.

I guess I'm thinking right now that so many of Rushton's hypothesis are controversial, it is difficult to discuss criticism completely separately - that is to say, maybe we can have sub-sections to each specific "theory" section, and put criticism and defense there. For example:

• Early Life
• Genetic Similarity Theory
  • Criticism
• Race Theory
  • Criticism
    • Accusations of racism/new "eugenics"
    • Disputes with the biological basis of race
    • Disputes with the "aggregation" methodology
• Social Class Theory
  • Criticism
• Controversy quotes
  • Supporters
  • Detractors
• Notes
• See also
• References
• External links
  • Supporters
  • Detractors

I think we should probably save the lengthy quotes for their own section (maybe use references instead?), but we can thrash that out later.

Ideas? Comments? Rushton, if you're out there editing this yourself without identifying yourself, do you have a particular perspective you'd like to share on the organization of the article? --JereKrischel 08:32, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

I very much like the outline you propose. I think this article does need a lot more criticism, however if wikipedia is to remain a credible source, all criticism and praise should be attributed to specific individuals. Also, a wikipedia article should not take sides by making assertions.

Looks good. With almost as many end material main sections as content main sections, I think a single End material section as the article has now makes sense.--Nectar 20:02, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

I'm willing to take a first pass on it, but I'd like to partner with a rushton supporter during the process. We can work on it at User:JereKrischel/Rushton draft, if you'd like...if other editors would please observe a short moratorium on changes, I'm sure we could have something to present in just a few days or so. --JereKrischel 20:03, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

I'm happy to participate if it helps. I think most of the time I have for Wikipedia tends to be spent debating with Ultramarine, but I'll stop by when I can.--Nectar 23:08, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

Well it seems pretty easy to make the changes. Mostly a matter of creating new headlines and moving text to the corresponding section. Certain sections like Genetic Similarity Theory don't appear controversial enough to require a criticism section, but if criticism can be cited or intelligently argued, than a criticism section can emerge there too. You might as well just make the changes as quickly as possible. I don't think the Rushton supporters will object to the new organizational structure, but they may make edits to the actual content. If I have time I too might go to the draft section to speed the process.

Actually, I think it's much more complex than that - there are series of argument chains that need to be taken apart, consolidated, and ordered. I'll try working on a first draft soon. --JereKrischel 00:19, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

I'm happy help, but most of what time I have for Wikipedia is currently spent debating Ultramarine.--Nectar 23:08, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Edit of professional opinions

I changed the description of Arthur Jensen from "Rushton supporter" to "Psychologist" since this is more accurate and follows the pattern of the description of Psychologist David P. Barash and biologist E.O. Wilson mentioned prior to Mr. Jensen

Good edit. Thanks! --JereKrischel 18:57, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Detail his argument?

The different measurements Rushton looks at are central to his work. It's one thing to not discuss his discussion of each one, but not even mentioning them doesn't seem like a good option, and seems to give less detail to his work than we give to the criticism of his work.--Nectar 04:31, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Doesn't the large table mention enough of them? Listing them out in text seems inappropriate...would you rather lose the table, and put it just in the text? --JereKrischel 05:09, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] that many African-American youth have adopted a culture of anti-intellectualism

text says He asserts for example, "that many African-American youth have adopted a culture of anti-intellectualism", implying that their decisions about culture are based on their race.

Is that really what Rushton thinks this implies? --Rikurzhen 04:46, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

I think that's what he's saying, if he's stating that socio-economic and cultural factors are a product of genetic differences. There was a lot of "Although Rushton acknowledges <blah>..." sections, that kind of editorialized before giving a quote. It would be nice to have a cite on that quote, and maybe see it in context. --JereKrischel 05:08, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

That quotation doesn't appear in Google, but I'm also not sure that the phrasing makes sense. --Rikurzhen 05:16, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] American Renaissance

No mention of American Renaissance (magazine)? --Rikurzhen 04:47, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] race valid concept?

where did the blue and green bag of coins example come from?

here's actual data on the pattern of world-wide genetic variation:

Caption: Human population structure can be inferred from multilocus DNA sequence data. In this figure, 1048 individuals from 52 populations were examined at 993 DNA markers.^[1] This data was used to partitioned individuals into K = 2, 3, 4, 5 or 6 clusters. In this figure, the average fractional membership of individuals from each population is represented by horizontal bars partitioned into K colored segments. 2 cluster analysis separated Africa and Eurasia from East Asia, Oceania, and America, 3 clusters separated Africa and Eurasia, 4 clusters separated America, 5 clusters separated Oceania (green), and 6 clusters subdivided native Americans.

--Rikurzhen 04:50, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

blue bag/green bag example just a degenerate mathematical illustration of what "means" are. Couldn't find an NPOV way of saying, "Arthur Jensen is full of crap - different groupings can be distinguished with different means", so I thought the example was a better way of making the point. Not sure if the observation of arithmetic means counts as OR - maybe there is a better way of highlighting Jensen's error? --JereKrischel 05:17, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Jensen's error? Lewontin's error? --Rikurzhen 05:20, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

perhaps this is a simpler example of how multivariate clustering is able to distinguish groups when single variables fail (because the variables are correlated). --Rikurzhen 05:30, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, i think this applies to multivariate clustering as well - when 85% of the differences between humans are within "race" groups, you'll get a multivariate graph that overlaps as well - of course, pick peculiar variables that aren't really correlated (but serve as an artificial discriminator), and you can get whatever you want. --JereKrischel 05:56, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Maybe you're not getting it. Consider first the graph above. It uses 993 markers from throughout the genome to classify individuals. These markers were probably selected because they're polymorphic within populations, but they turn out to divide populations geographically too. Second, consider what the 85% number translates into in terms of a biallelic SNP. Denote the alleles + and - ... the allele frequencies that correspond to an average of 85% of total variance within populations is (approximately) 30% +, 70% - in popuation 1 and 70% +, 30% - in population 2. If all alleles were equally as informative as this, then the chance of missclassification is 30% for SNP, but approaches 0% when a hundred such SNPs are taken into consideration. --Rikurzhen 06:04, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

No, I'm not arguing that you can't define biogeographic clusters - I'm asserting that if you continued using more than 993 markers, those biogeographic clusters would be highly specific (most likely down to the family level), and that the difference between two clusters in the same "racial" category would be greater than the difference between two clusters in a different "racial" category. Certainly you aren't suggesting that 993 markers is sufficient to map all genetic diversity across biogeographic areas, are you? --JereKrischel 06:24, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

the difference between two clusters in the same "racial" category would be greater than the difference between two clusters in a different "racial" category -- that doesn't seem to be holding true as they increase K in this example, nor does that make intuitive sense to me. at K=6, there's definitely more variation between two populations of different "colors" than between two population of the same color (over the entire set of markers). now, for any single marker, this need not be the case. --Rikurzhen 06:52, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Certainly you aren't suggesting that 993 markers is sufficient to map all genetic diversity across biogeographic areas, are you -- all? no. the top tier outlines? yes. 500k SNPs can capture most common variation. so 1k (microsatellites?) certainly can't describe a whole genome, but it's also certainly going to be a case of diminishing returns as you increase the number of SNPs. --Rikurzhen 06:52, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

What do you mean by "diminishing returns"? Given the order of magnitude difference betwee 1k and 500k SNPs, and equally weighting differences (which is how you get "K", right?), wouldn't the addition of let's say, 10k more SNPs to your analysis, reveal even more clusters? (K=1...60?) What you're trying to say, I think, is that 1k SNPs serve as a reasonable proxy for another 499k of common variation - I guess in order to understand this further, I'd compare an analysis of any arbitrary 10 SNPs out of the 993 between each other, then an analysis of any arbitrary 100, to get an idea of how the data refines as more SNPs are used - is that discussed in any of your sources? --JereKrischel 07:15, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

see figure 3 of the paper where the graphic came from [4] they look at a range of # of loci from 10 up. returns diminish for clusteredness, but surely 500k is better than 1k, just not 500x better. --Rikurzhen 07:24, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Reading over the study, it looks like K is something they predefined - that is to say, they could have run their algorithm on K=60, and gotten 60 clusters...they also specifically said, Our evidence for clustering should not be taken as evidence of our support of any particular concept of “biological race.”. Reading over their study, it seems as if they wanted to demonstrate that geographically, you will see both clines, and discontinuities, based primarily on geography. At the very least it blows Rushton away on his idea that there is a single "evolution" of race from Negroid to Caucasoid to Mongloid (the data from the study show multiple clines and discontinuities, and probably would have shown more if they had increased K, their data set, and the loci observed). Very interesting study, thank you for pointing it out! --JereKrischel 17:14, 20 June 2006 (UTC)